Hittin' the Bricks with Kathleen
A "brick-wall" DIY genealogy podcast that features your questions and Kathleen Brandt's answers. She wants your stories, questions, and “brick walls”. But be ready to add to your "to-do" list. As Kathleen always says, this is a Do it yourself (DIY) genealogy podcast. “I'll show you where the shovel is, but I'm not digging up your family.”
Maybe, you have no idea where to start searching for an ancestor. Or, perhaps you want to know more about your family folklore. Host Kathleen has 20 years in the industry and is the founder of a3genealogy. She's able to dispense genealogy research advice and encouragement in understandable terms that won't get you lost in genealogy jargon. Along with her husband and co-host, John, she helps you accomplish "do-it-yourself" research goals, learn some history, and have a bit of fun along the way. Light-hearted and full of detailed info, Hittin' the Bricks is your solution for your brick-wall research problems.
Hittin' the Bricks with Kathleen
Weston History: BAAC to the Future by Way of the Past
Listen in as we speak with Angela Hagenbach and Vincent Bell about keeping Weston MO, history alive.
FREE EVENT
The 5th Annual Juneteenth Heritage Jubilee will be held on June 14th at Weston Red Barn Farm
The BAAC sponsors projects including a Black Heritage mural, monuments, and the annual Juneteenth Heritage Jubilee
Founded by Angela Haggenbach, the Black Ancestors Awareness Campaign uncovers the rich and obscured African American history of Weston, Missouri.
Jazz KC Portraits by Dan White sponsored by the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum, May 22 - December 30, 2025
To learn more or get involved with the Black Ancestors Awareness Campaign, visit baacweston.org or email Vincent Bell at: info@baacweston.org.
Be sure to bookmark linktr.ee/hittinthebricks for your one stop access to Kathleen Brandt, the host of Hittin' the Bricks with Kathleen. And, visit us on YouTube: Off the Wall with Kathleen John and Chewey video recorded specials.
Hittin' the Bricks is produced through the not-for-profit, 501c3 TracingAncestors.org.
Ladies and gentlemen from the depths of flyover country in the heartland of America, the Kansas City on the other side of the Mighty Mo, welcome to Hittin' the Bricks with Kathleen, the do-it-yourself genealogy podcast, with your questions and her answers. I am John, your humble hubby host, and today we'll be talking to Angela Hagenbach and Vincent Bell of the Black Ancestors Awareness Campaign, located in the rolling hills of Weston, Missouri. There's a lot to cover, so let's start hitting the bricks. But first things first, Kathleen.
Kathleen:Yes, hey, baby, you're so silly.
John:So we have a full studio today. It's really packed and we're going to go around the room. One person sitting to my left is Kathleen the brick the brick hitter and then we have angela and vincent.
Angela Hagenbach:We're going to let Angela and Vincent tell you who Angela and Vincent are okay, well, my name is Angela Hagenbach and I'm the founder of the black ancestors awareness campaign of Weston, Missouri. I'm a fifth generation uh descended of black lineage. I discovered that my mother's people came into Missouri through by way of my great, great great grandmothers from Virginia and Kentucky, and in my search to find out more about them, I realized that there was this whole rich black history in Weston and that's why the Black Ancestors Awareness Campaign was founded.
John:Angela Hagenbach is the founder of the Black Ancestors Awareness Campaign, and we will, of course, get listeners their links and their info. Kathleen, did you have something? Okay, vincent.
Vincent Bell:Yes, okay, I'm Vincent Bell. I'm Angela's son. Yeah, so I'm a sixth generation descendant and I'm kind of a newcomer to back. I joined back as a tech support and a tech advisory position and have since become more and more ingrained in the Black Ancestors Awareness Campaign.
Kathleen:So John Vincent has a very interesting background. Vincent, tell us a little bit about your resume.
Vincent Bell:I guess you want to go to the way back machine. I had a small speaking role as a featured extra in a telefilm called Cross of Fire, which was which, in a roundabout way kind of I kind of come full circle, because the movie itself was about DC Stevenson, who was a grand dragon of the KKK back in the during Prohibition, and I was what? Seven years old when I was in that, and so, even though in schools they didn't really necessarily teach us much about that period of time, it was something that, because I'd been involved in it in some capacity as a child, that era of history and a little you know and before was something that was always'd been involved in it in some capacity as a child. That era of history and a little you know and before was something that was always fascinating to me. So that's another reason why that kind of you know roped me in, if you will.
Kathleen:Angela, can you tell us a little bit about your background?
Angela Hagenbach:Well, I started out on my professional career, if you will, as a fashion model. I was walking to work downtown Kansas City and I passed this brick building that had no description on the outside whatsoever and I passed it every day, Anyway. So this guy comes out and says, have you ever modeled? And I'm like no, you know, I'm 16 and silly. And he says, well, if you can come in and try on this outfit, I think you might have a career in your hand. And I'm like, okay, and you know, it was just really silly. I mean, no one told me, do not go into a building with strange people.
Angela Hagenbach:Don't go into a strange building when they're asking you to try on clothes, and his name was Mark Delich and the studio was called Zoom Studio and he said if your picture appears in the newspaper on Sunday, I can pay you. Well, there I was and he handed me a check for $60. Anyway, long story short, I was a regular fashion print model for all the stores in Kansas City and then I won a contest to go to New York to see some agents and I was picked up immediately and so I had about a 17-year career traveling around the world as a fashion model and along the way, I always loved to sing. I come from a musical family. I would sing in the back, like in the dressing rooms and stuff, and it turns out that I was singing in front of the right person at the Ritz-Carlton and I'm telling my age here because there's no Ritz Carlton here either but they had this room called the Top of the Ritz, which is on the top floor of the hotel. I got my first steady gig as a jazz artist with the likes of Russ Long, milt Abel and Tommy Ruskin, wednesday through Saturday.
Angela Hagenbach:For four years Now I was doing this. At the same time I was modeling. Eventually I phased out the modeling because it was interfering with, you know, my jazz career, which I loved, and then I became a jazz ambassador for the United States. I did two tours, toured all over the world and I took a sabbatical in 2018 because I wanted to find my ancestry and I said okay, and I wanted to write a book and all of this. So I took a sabbatical and then that was 2019. And then COVID hit and I kind of never went back, except I do do corporate events and fundraisers and things for for the black ancestors.
John:Awareness came in I think actually that is where, um, I think that's where I first heard of you. Where was it? Uh, jardines are that makes sense, jardines right around the corner, which is also no longer with, no longer there but there. But yeah, I think that was. And what about you, Kathleen?
Kathleen:Because you, I thought you went back further, oh actually I met her sister first, so when I started seeing them I just really enjoyed talking to them because of the Weston Missouri history and I think we should start there. Let's start with a little bit about Weston and its Black community and also what is the Black?
Angela Hagenbach:Hawk Street. So Weston, missouri, was established in 1836. It was Platt County itself. 2 million acres was purchased, called the Platt Purchase, and was added on to the state of Missouri In 1836, it was purchased. By 1837, weston was born and there was this huge basin like 30 feet wide, 30 feet deep, where all these ships and things could come in. It was a big gulch, and so the southerners, with this new land opening up, the people from Kentucky and Virginia and Tennessee came to build up Weston and they brought their households and their enslaved people with them. They wanted to make a new cotton planting system, which, of course, cotton didn't work but hemp did. And so in 1849, there were about 300 residents in Weston. By 1850, there were 5,000, and more than a fourth, more than a quarter of these people were black and primarily enslaved, including my ancestors. And of course, around 1850 was when the Fugitive Slave Act happened, and so there was all kinds of mayhem based on the way that the place that is where Weston is situated is right across the river, which no longer exists, by the way, from free soil, indian territory. It was just a fort, you know, fort Leavenworth. So there was some potential for lots of runaways and a lot of it did happen, anyway, these enslaved people.
Angela Hagenbach:Like one of my grandmothers, she was able to purchase her freedom. Her name was Dinah Wright Robinson and she purchased her freedom, the freedom of her husband His name was Thomas and their daughter, eliza Jane, which was my mother. And so well, she started buying property. For some reason, the men in my family weren't buying property in Weston, it was the women, and both sides of my family. These women bought all this property. So I'm going to tell you a little bit about my other ancestor, mariah Dayton Vaughn. Now she was also in Platt County and her husband, simon Dayton, lived in Clay County and they would go back and forth to court and they both came from the same county, kentucky, and so eventually they had an abroad marriage. But in 1861, they were married in 51 on the plantation. I have documentation of this. But 1861, he escaped and joined the Civil War to fight for the Union, and I have the post bill that they wanted 10,000 black men to serve in the war and for that they would get their own freedom, the freedom of their mother and their family, plus a wage, clothes and food. And so he took off. Unfortunately he didn't make it back. So both of my grandmothers got their freedom before the Civil War was ended and of course their children were educated at the Mary McLeod Bethune School. Well, actually it wasn't quite that yet. It was the Western School for Colored Children and by 1900, it became the Mary McLeod School.
Angela Hagenbach:And in that research I realized this is a partial story. I need to know about their neighbors, I need to learn who these people were. So to answer your question about Blackhawk Street, I'm not 100% certain why it was named such, but there was a leader of the Sauk and Fox American Natives and his name was Blackhawk. So but the street on Blackhawk, it ran through what is now the Weston City Ben Holiday Park and it tended to flood because in that park was this winding Mill Creek that ran west to the Missouri River. This area flooded a lot.
Angela Hagenbach:So after freedom, after the Civil War, that land was not very good land. You couldn't farm on it and everything. So it was more affordable, I think, for the newly emancipated to purchase land there. But this one part of the block that is a dead end was a man named JB Evans and he was justice of the peace, he was a marshal, he was. You know all these things, but he's also a friend to the black race so I find him in.
Angela Hagenbach:He's an affiant in Mariah's pension files paperwork to get her pension from her husband serving in the war and then later on in the 1870s she had to sue this person that she bought a home from, and JB Evans was the marshal at the time and he helped her with that. She was twice whittled by this time Also the current people that live there and I probably shouldn't say this, but it's excellent evidence that it was a station on the Underground Railroad because it's so beautifully restored now and they opened the floor and I went down and went out to Mill Creek, which went to the river. It's all concrete in now and so that's.
Kathleen:I've always been told that Weston had a part of the Underground Railroad. Of course I'm from my family's from Central Kansas but looking in Kansas City, kansas, where we moved to, we used to go through this one little tunnel area where we could get between Kansas City, kansas, and Park Park University.
Kathleen:Yes and we were told that there was also the route that often took the runaway enslaved people from Weston. I don't know if it's true. I have not seen it documented. But we're not going to find that kind of information documented unless we find a document amongst the enslavers, and that I haven't seen. So, Vince, where do you feel like you fall in this history?
Vincent Bell:Right now. I mean, I'm obviously a product of it, but as we keep digging deeper and learning more and more about things, it really it kind of feeds my need to know and to understand and to learn more. I suppose that if anything, I feel the need to bring it to the fore. You know, and I understand, there's not. It's not going to be easy and there's a lot of intentionally destroyed or missing documents and among many other things. So there's a lot of stuff we might not be able to find. But one of the things that I am doing to hopefully discover or rediscover the events and stories from our past is by I've kind of taken on a project as I have time. It's definitely a volunteer thing.
Vincent Bell:Where I go to, I've been going to the Weston City Hall and back has a book scanner. It's not like a flatbed scanner you have in your office. So what I've been doing is going through these century-old or sometimes some of them are. I think the oldest one that we discovered so far was about 136, 37 years old ledgers and all these other things from like mayor's dockets and stuff from way back. I'm scanning those in A to preserve them, because that's my first and foremost. I just want to get everything scanned in before I really go through and see what I've worked on, because they're deteriorating. So I think if we're going to find anything to bring some of that history out, it's going to be in there. I mean, at least that's a good place to start.
Kathleen:That is excellent, because we just talked about court records. Court records are the key to everyone because you're following the money Exactly and as long as you can follow the enslaver's money, you will get your answers. And that's with deeds, minute books, guardian books, probate and wills and any kind of county court records. So that is excellent. Now, angela, you started talking about Mr Evans, who was a advocate, was he?
Angela Hagenbach:an enslaver also his line. I'm not sure if he had slaves or not, it's very possible. But I do know that there was an organization called the Platt County Self-Defenses and their whole plan was to make sure they were pro-slavers. So he started an organization that was anti-slavery. There is this city document that he held this meeting. It was like 133, I believe. Western businessmen signed this document to help combat the slavers, the pro-slavers, because they were rushing people over to Kansas to vote for things and pretending that they lived there.
Angela Hagenbach:And all these things were going on right up the street here. You know, because I'm in a town called Kickapoo Township Missouri, which is unincorporated Parkville, and so I'm in Parkville. That's why I know the area so well. I don't know that he was an enslaver, but he was friends with Reverend Frederick Starr Thank you, reverend Frederick Starr who was accosted for teaching enslaved people to read and encouraging enslavers to first educate their enslaved and then set them free, and he was seen riding down Main Street with a black wench and things like that. So and these are documented Horrid, yeah, horrid story, yeah.
Angela Hagenbach:And so all of these people, including my other great-great-grandmothers in slavery, they were all part of this anti-slavery movement in Weston. So you know, I would imagine. I mean I'm not saying that he didn't own slaves, I haven't researched him that well, but Elijah Cody, for example, he was a slave owner. In fact he had a hemp office on Main Street, which is where our mural is going to be painted. He was also a member of this anti-slavery group and I know he had a slave or two and he had a hemp farm and a hemp business. So yeah, and hemp died. There's a storyboard of history five storyboards on the chamber wall outside where tourists like to stop and read, and it starts in 1836 and goes to 1950 or something, and the one line about black history is 1861 to 1865, the Civil War ends slavery but dooms hemp. And that's what really made me say, okay, I'm going to have to dig up these people. This obscured history cannot stand any longer. I feel compelled, I feel buoyed by the ancestors to tell their stories and find out about their lives.
Kathleen:So when I think of Weston, I think tobacco.
Angela Hagenbach:So when I think of Weston, I think tobacco, right. Well see, tobacco became king after hemp because hemp was so labor intensive, it was a year round crop and you had to plant it, you had to do all these things, you had to stack it and let it rot and then you had to pull all the fiber. It was a year long crop and no one wanted to do it after slavery was over, including the recently emancipated, and so tobacco was less labor intensive and so it became a big tobacco town after hemp.
Kathleen:That brings us to the importance of Juneteenth. The reason we invited Angela and Vincent to join us is because of the Weston area, sponsored by the BAAC. And do you call it back?
Angela Hagenbach:Back, like back to the future.
John:I saw that. I saw that and I thought that was really cute to do Back to the future by way of the past. Yeah.
Kathleen:So the whole idea, john, was to make sure that people know about not only Weston's history but African-American heritage, and history is American history, and we want to encourage and invite people to one of the events that Weston will be having. So, angela, can you tell us a little bit more about that?
Angela Hagenbach:Okay, we have year round events, but our signature event is Juneteenth, and that's how we started back in. This is our fifth annual. As a matter of fact, our first one lined up beautifully, with the 19th being on a Saturday and President Biden deemed it a federal holiday, which is different from a national holiday. Federal means that things like federal buildings can be closed and so on and so forth, and we'll hope that that will still stand, because a lot of things are being dismantled. So that was five years ago and this is our fifth one, and what we tend to do with the Juneteenth festivals in Weston is give all this Weston black history.
Angela Hagenbach:Now we do other events throughout the year and we incorporate other black history within I should say American history on a more broader spake, but typically our Juneteenth events is about Weston's black history and so that we can shore it up because we are a nonprofit and we are a member, we're the standing committee of the West Western Historical Museum, who is celebrating their 65th anniversary, and we're celebrating our fifth anniversary, and so we've got a lot to catch up on, and we have an initiative called Museum Without Walls.
Angela Hagenbach:For any other artifacts, documents or anything like that, we're finding other ways to elevate and tell the history of Weston's black people who were, you know, like most places, intentionally obscured. And so our Museum Without Walls, for example, we've got a mural coming up and it's kind of laced with controversy. We've got some naysayers, but we're managing, we're funded, we've got two grants to do it. We've talked to the planning and zoning historical preservation folks and we've got some people kind of pushing back. But for the most part everyone realizes that it's time to bring its black history out of this.
John:Yeah, well, past time, well past time.
Kathleen:So what is the African-American or black population in Weston now?
Angela Hagenbach:It goes up by 200 percent when Vincent and I go to town. Well, I mean so, but you know, the people there are so welcoming and I feel so welcomed every time I go there. We, you know, we walk the streets, we talk to the merchants and the community and we just, I'm happy to say, we get a lot of love, you know. And back to Blackhawk, by the way, we have a new monument that came up in 2023. That's in the park where I told you and my ancestors bought a lot of property within that park and unfortunately, I have no ancestral homes there. I mean, I do. There's a couple of them that's been on the homes tour and they've been refurbished, but they're not in our family any longer. So there's this beautiful monument telling that little bit of a story and it's a granite monument of a story and it's a granite monument.
Angela Hagenbach:And the sidewalk that winds through this park used to be a continuation of the street Blackhawk and we got that named Blackhawk Walk. That had happened three years ago and a continuation from that street on Blackhawk, which is also the first black church, which was the second missionary Baptist church established in 1865. It was raised. They raised $650. And by 1867, the building was built and right next door to that one of my grandmothers bought a house.
Angela Hagenbach:Next door to that and across the street from that there's this large corner lot, spring Street and Blackhawk, where Colonel James A Price, who was a union officer, lived on Spring Street but his property rounded Blackhawk and after the Civil War he was also a member of that organization that JB Evans started After the Civil War. He had transitional homes built on his property so that these newly emancipated people would have some place to go. I mean because freedom came in Weston on January 11th 1865 in the dead of winter. So I imagine that the transitional housing and the church was raised at the same time because they're literally across the road from each other.
Kathleen:So tell us about the event.
Angela Hagenbach:This year we have a theme every year and this year's theme is the neighbors of Black Hawk 1850 to 1920. And so through pre-Civil War to Jim Crow, it's sort of like a block party. We're going to tell JB Evans' story. We're going to tell the story of the Second Missionary Baptist Church. We've actually got a preacher in the scene for that vignette. You know we'll be going to the church because soon after 1890s they moved to a larger building. So while they're at their Black Hawk site, this is the scene that we're setting. And then also my great, great, great grandmother. You know Gina Bardwell, by chance.
Kathleen:I went to school with her and Jack and Jillos together.
Angela Hagenbach:So yes, so she is. She lives in New York, but she comes back often and she's going to portray my great, great, great great grandmother, mariah Dayton Vaughn, and tell that story. And and then, of course, phyllis Becker and myself and Gina, we we form a group called Filling the Gap, and the gap is Gina, angela and Phyllis, but the gap that we're filling is our ancestors. So it's feeling or filling, whatever you know, whichever suits.
John:And that was who we saw Kathleen at the Kansas Museum.
Kathleen:Yeah, she's the one I told you I knew as a child, and then she's a year older than I am, or maybe two in school, and we also went to the same college.
Angela Hagenbach:And her mother was my high school counselor.
Angela Hagenbach:And I remember her mother yes, geraldine. And then we have a segment called Did you Know? And this year's Did you Know? Is collard greens, and so we're going to tell the story of the history collard greens, how they came over from Africa and they were considered a weed and the enslaved people could forage for them. And we're getting these greens. It's going to be a tasting as well, because there's a free lunch, a free barbecue lunch put on by the Western Rotary, and so we're going to cook up a mess of greens, literally, and the Rotary will serve it with the barbecue luncheon.
Angela Hagenbach:But we're purchasing the greens from the Pearl Family Farm, which is a 135-year-old black farm, and the man that started this farm he was enslaved, he ran away and joined the Union Army and he made it back and he started this farm. And this farm is in Walter, missouri, which is between where I am and Weston, and it hasn't stopped production in 135 years, and so that's where we're getting our greens from. And we're going to have booths, like there'll be a farmer's market booth from the Pearl Family Farm. We've got some lost art booths that people can do after our Juneteenth event, like Old Fashioned Way of Making Lace, and all these booths are historical information as opposed to merchandise.
Angela Hagenbach:We do have merchandise booths as well, but back to Juneteenth, doors open at 1030 with a jazz band Roger Wilder, steve Ragazzi and Mike Warren and then at 11 o'clock we get a call to order from Baba Diallo, and he's an African dance and drum educator, anyway. So you call the room to order and then everything starts at 11 o'clock and there's going to be an intermission and then we finish up at about one o'clock. Then the lunch we've got a silent auction and all of our events are free. And when I say all of our events, we have a summer speaker series. We have If these Walls Could Talk, which is a commemoration of Martin Luther King and all the champions of change. We just have events throughout the year to help educate people and tell them about American history that's been obscured, and this year's speaker series is history along the Missouri borders or something. So we've got these three different speakers and funded by the Missouri Humanities.
John:If I'm interested in some of those other events. I don't want to detract from the upcoming Juneteenth, but if I'm interested in those other events, how do I find out about those? Is there a website or?
Angela Hagenbach:Yes, it's B-A-A-C-Westonorg, b-a-a-c-w-e-s-t-o-n. So, kathleen, if I may ask a question, I am very fascinated with your story about your childhood going through some tunnel to Parkville.
Kathleen:We did it as kids that's what I'm saying Out of Quindaro, yes, and now they have it barred up, so you can't do it, but as a little kid, I was probably under the age of 12. We were able to still get down to the water from KCK.
Kathleen:And you mean the river, missouri, river, the river the Missouri River where the enslaved people would escape and get on the Kansas side from Missouri. If you stand and park a university's property, you can see the path there is actually. You can see, and I think there might be a monument there now about how they used to do it.
Kathleen:I don't think so, we were on the other side of it and our parents dared us to even touch that water and they never knew that we to do it. We were on the other side of it and our parents dared us to even touch that water and they never knew that we were doing it. But we had some very bad boys in our neighborhood who taught us and showed us and we knew how all of us did it.
Angela Hagenbach:Well, I have an opposite story of that. I was older then because I already had my boys. I had Vincent and Aaron. And Vincent, you remember when we would go to the observatory at Park, about how old were you? I've been older than 10. Okay, and then his younger brothers, about three years younger. So there was this observatory you know like to look up to the sky and it was derelict because I guess it was slated to be torn down. And I was a black sky watcher for many, many, many years, and so that really fascinated me. I packed us a lunch and broke in because it was, you know, it was like do not enter. And so the boys and I we would go in there, and we went in there regularly and just to be in that moment, and I'd heard that right across from where this space was was right across the river to Quindaro, where slaves escaped.
Kathleen:Yeah, I always found that really fascinating and how they did it and if they could get on that. Kansas side we had the Massachusetts group who also helped them escape. Kansas side we had the Massachusetts group who also helped them escape. You know, they came from Massachusetts to settle Kansas, which really did not make Missouri happy, but they did. Most of them stayed in the Lawrence area, matter of fact. I mean, that's actual documented fact and my mother, being a quilter, used to tell us the story about the runaway, enslaved people from Missouri to Kansas. Now, vince, you've been a little too quiet for my comfort. I want you to tell me what is your experience in the last four years of the event, the Juneteenth event.
Vincent Bell:Well, to be honest, my first Juneteenth was last year. Yeah, I've been. I had a different job and stuff like that. And then I had a setback, pretty major one, where I uh, uh, shattered my tibial plateau, Well, two years ago, and I was obviously sidelined at my job because at the time I was still a manager at Walgreens and I could not work because I couldn't even stand on my leg. So in that time, as I was recovering and getting my strength back, that's when I was roped into joining back, you know again.
Angela Hagenbach:Roped into. I love that Roped into it.
John:Encouraged Okay.
Vincent Bell:And so again it was mostly it's like a tech support capacity at that time and I just learned more and more about different things and I also happened to have a really nice DSLR camera, which was good because you know I was able to take, you know, very high quality photos of various locations and monuments and things of that nature. So I was doing that Also, trying to I don't want to say revitalize, because it was not at the time very vital at all but get our social media going and kind of flesh that out like, namely, like YouTube and Instagram and things like that. So that's kind of where I started. And then I was enlisted to do at these walls Could Talk event where I was speaking about Frederick Douglass, and after that I started getting more and more responsibilities, moving into Zoom Team. I wasn't a presenter at that stage, but at the time I was kind of a co-volunteer coordinator and I was going around getting photos, videos of the crowd, of the presenters, basically year after year. Now I'll be doing more and more with different events.
Kathleen:Who's presenting this year? Will you be presenting?
Vincent Bell:I won't be presenting, but I will be co-emceeing the event, so I'll be the one introducing the presenters and delivering information with my co-emcee, leah Ricketts, who is Phyllis Becker's niece. It's a family affair. That's kind of how my involvement with Juneteenth has blossomed, if you will.
Angela Hagenbach:I have a comment about the Park Hill School District. We attended a groundbreaking engine just last weekend, an open house ribbon cutting for our brand new Park Hill School. It's called the Angeline Washington Elementary and it's about five minutes, 10 minutes from here. And Angeline Washington was Angeline Rucker, who married a guy named Willie Washington from Weston, and there's all this black history here in Parkville. Okay, they married and the Washington guy. He has a church called the Washington Chapel, and I'm not involved in this, I'm involved in the Western history, but so there's a Washington Chapel that's being revitalized. It was in, it was defunct for several decades, and now the school named for his wife, angeline washington elementary, it's yeah and uh, it's going to open in the fall.
Angela Hagenbach:So and I know the rucker family line you do I do, I need to write about them actually, yes and see, and I was going to write about the, the for, because I also write for the Museums Musings, which is a quarterly museum newsletter.
Kathleen:Part of my retirement transition is to really work closer with our community, at least the way I can, which is to write and expose other people.
Angela Hagenbach:So how do you know the Rucker family?
Kathleen:One of the Rucker people married a straighter. Matter of fact, and my maiden name is straighter. Oh my God, I am not sure if we're related. She couldn't tell me. I believe it was Ruth Rucker, she. She couldn't tell me, and there are very few African-American straighters from our exact line. Where exactly, angela, is this event going to be?
Angela Hagenbach:OK, so on on Saturday, june 14th will be our fifth annual Juneteenth Heritage Jubilee in Weston, at the Weston Red Barn Farm at 16300. What One. Six, three, zero300 Wilkerson Road, okay, right off of 273. And what's unique about this space is that it was a rolling hills where a guy named Wilkerson owned this land and he had lots of slaves. And there's so much history about this place that we can't even get into that right now because it would take too long to tell that story. It's across the street from the halfway house, which is a whole nother situation. Um, because, and it's called the halfway house because it was halfway between Platte City and Weston and of course, if you, if you could make it there, you could possibly make it to the river and possibly to freedom and so anyway. So that's a lot of history there and we're trying to preserve that. Yeah, I do want to mention that our Western Black Heritage mural is slated to start in July and hopefully the big reveal will be in October, and we interviewed six muralists out of the Kansas City area and selected Jose Faust, who's a wonderful poet and artist and many other things. It's going to be a black history mural and to kind of tell the story from slavery to freedom if you will.
Angela Hagenbach:And it's right off Main Street leading into the Western City Park, ben Holiday Park, but to get there you almost have to go through the Dinah Robinson Courtyard, which was a courtyard that my great-great-great grandmother Dinah purchased. Well, it was a lot when she purchased it and she lost it during the Civil War due to back taxes, and so she lost that property for $2.50. And I'm sure she was devastated. But anyway it's been returned to her.
Angela Hagenbach:The space is filled with antebellum bricks that was salvaged from a livery stable, a rinsed livery, and for some reason the wonderful city of Weston when they tore it down. It was built in 56. They salvaged the bricks and put them up on this hill where weeds and things grew, and we call it Snake Hill. But anyway they donated the bricks to the Black Ancestors Awareness Campaign and we had a Buy a Brick campaign, and so now these bricks are etched with sentiments and names of people that were buried in Laurel Hill Cemetery, without headstones and such or some of the buildings or businesses. And so she's surrounded by this community of people and well-wishers, and there's even a brick someone bought for John Brown and just things like that Herbita's signage and so on and so forth. So it's-.
John:Fantastic. Anything else like?
Angela Hagenbach:that Curbidous signage and so on and so forth. So it's fantastic. Anything else, I really appreciate the being guest on Hitting the Bricks with Kathleen. That's quite an honor and I hope that your viewers will come to Weston and take the free Weston Black Heritage Walking and Driving Tour, or if they want to have a group tour, you know they can email us at tell them the address again.
Vincent Bell:Info at backwestonorg is the email address that people should use. I check that regularly, several times a day.
Angela Hagenbach:Okay, so there's this new exhibit going up at the Truman Harry Truman Library and it's Dan White, this fabulous photographer who is oh gosh, she just won a Pulitzer Prize and it's all these jazz artists from the past and current, and I'm featured. So please go and check it out. Oh, wow, yeah, oh, for sure.
John:And that's Truman Library. Yes, so anyway, hey, thank you so much. Thank you, vincent. It was a pleasure meeting you, angela, great to see you again. Kathleen, hi, babe. Well, congratulations, you made it to the end of another episode. Thanks so much for staying. Thanks to Angela and Vincent for chatting with us. Thanks to Chewie Chewbacca Brandt for his unwavering lack of interest in anything we're doing. The theme song for Hittin' the Bricks was written and performed by Tony Fistknuckle, and the Blackhawks Watch for their next appearance at the Haunted Observatory in Parkville. Do you have a genealogical question for Kathleen? No-transcript.
