John Wayne Said Nothing When A Gold Star Father Lost His Farm In Kansas, 1955 — Then He Bid
#OldHollywood #VintageHollywood #ClassicHollywood April 1955. Pratt County, Kansas. A 280-acre winter wheat farm twelve miles south of Pratt, built by a man named Edwin Gentry in 1919 and passed down to his son Harold, who had worked the same ground for thirty-six years without missing a harvest. Harold Gentry is 61 years old. His son Robert enlisted three days after the North Koreans crossed the 38th parallel in 1950, told his father he'd be home by Christmas, and was killed on a hillside outside the Chosin Reservoir that November. The farm is the last thing Robert ever touched. By April of 1955, a broken combine bearing, a bad wheat price, and $4,200 in back mortgage have brought the county auction to Harold's own front lawn. A land buyer out of Wichita opens the bidding low enough to take the ground for nothing. Harold stands at the edge of his yard with his hands at his sides and his eyes on the barn. Not one neighbor raises a hand against him. Then a voice comes from the section road. A man in a tan Stetson, leaning on a dusty station wagon on the shoulder, bids the farm up to thirteen thousand dollars and pays it in cash on the auctioneer's tailgate, one hundred-dollar bill at a time. He has the deed drawn in Harold Gentry's name before he gets back in his car. He drives south toward Texas that same morning and never speaks of it to anyone. Harold farms the ground for nineteen more years. He drives to Leavenworth every first of November and stands at row fourteen for one hour. In the kitchen of the farmhouse, above the window that faces the south field, two frames still hang side by side on the wall. One holds the original deed. The other is empty, slightly crooked, made from a scrap of pine trim — his wife's work, kept exactly as she left it. The afternoon light crosses both of them every day. Then it moves on. This video is an original dramatic storytelling production. Historical events and dialogue are reconstructed for narrative purposes. #JohnWayne #TheDuke #ClassicHollywood #OldHollywood #VintageHollywood #AmericanLegend #GoldenAgeOfHollywood #JohnWayneStories #KoreanWar #GoldStarFamily #KansasHistory #AmericanFarmer
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