My Favorite Motto

January 30, 2024

When we moved to Topeka in 1987, we left behind a wonderful neighborhood. It was a difficult move to make. As we pulled out of the driveway to leave Shawnee, Oklahoma, Laura, age four, said with tears: “We’re really moving, aren’t we?” But, within a week, she had a best friend who happened to live across the street, and we soon learned that this was an exceptional neighborhood. In 1999, when the Capital-Journal asked for articles about Topeka to herald the year 2000, I submitted an article about our neighborhood, and they published it. A friend stopped by on her way home from church to tell me her pastor had used my article as an illustration in his sermon.

There are many things I love about Topeka and about Kansas. Consider the famous Kansans Dwight D. Eisenhower, Amelia Earhart, Jim Ryan, and James Naismith, to name a few. It was because of the lawsuit of third grader Linda Brown’s parents that Brown vs. Board of Education came about as a decision by the Supreme Court in 1954 which struck down segregation across the country. We have bald eagles which I love watch when I make trips to Clinton Lake nearby. The Flint Hills are incredibly beautiful in east central Kansas, the only large unplowed tract of true prairie left in the United States. The Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center in Hutchinson has a collection of U.S. space program artifacts second only to those in the Smithsonian.

And I love the state flower—the sunflower. I wear this pin every January 29, the birthday of Kansas statehood, 1861. Laura made this for me in grade school so it’s a treasure.

The list could go on.

But one of the top things I love about Kansas is the state motto. The dictionary says a motto is “a short expression of a guiding principle.”

When Laura and Don moved to Northern Virginia, Rebecca and I had the opportunity to see and tour Washington, D.C. In the Rotunda of the Capitol, we saw the statue of John J. Ingalls, an early Kansas politician. Each state is given the opportunity to have two prominent citizens recognized in the U.S. Capital. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s statue is there, the work of a world-renowned sculptor from Lawrence, Kansas, Jim Brothers. John J. Ingalls is there, honored for coining the state’s motto, “Ad Astra Per Aspera,” which translates to “To the Stars, Through Difficulties.”

I learned that he was a second cousin of Charles Ingalls, whose daughter was Laura Ingalls Wilder, famous for her “Little House on the Prairie” series of children’s books.

Think of the significance of that motto in the lives of Kansans, and others as well. There was the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, and World War I and II. Imagine living in a sod house when the state was first established. There were few trees in the Great Plains suitable for building houses, so they found a use for the tough prairie sod. Some dug a house into a hillside, but there was the danger of cows falling through the roof. Imagine the close quarters in such a house and the snakes and mice that fell in from time to time from the sod roof or rain that came through the ceiling and left a muddy mess for the living quarters. Talk about difficulties!

This statue is on the grounds of our capitol dedicated to the pioneer women of Kansas. Here she sits as she guides her child as he reads while holding her baby with a dog at her feet and a rifle in her hand.

And think of the other part of the motto—to the stars. Amelia Earhart was the first woman to fly nonstop across the Atlantic Ocean! Eisenhower was the Supreme Commander of the allied Forces in Europe in World War II. Talk about reaching for the stars!

Glenn Cunningham early one morning in a small Kansas town was with his brother who started a fire in the schoolhouse to help the teacher out and it was kerosene that they mistakenly put on the fire. His legs were badly burned, and the doctors wanted to amputate them. His parents persuaded them not to. He had a long convalescence, but he never gave up. He became a famous runner and broke records nationally and internationally.

“It was in the early summer of 1919 when he first tried to walk again, roughly two years after the accident. He had a positive attitude as well as a strong religious faith. His favorite Bible verse was Isaiah 40:31: ‘But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.’ (from Wikipedia)

Here is someone whose life demonstrated the Kansas motto. Happy birthday Kansas!

Here is the Kansa Indian, Ad Astra, atop our state capitol with his arrow aiming for the heavens.