It has been 44 years since Lois Hamilton really called these parts home.
But as she drives along the rutted roads that criss-cross the flat farm fields that are nestled between the Wakarusa and the Kaw north of Eudora, she still has a story for every piece of land.
Hamilton, 72, will point at a pickup truck in a driveway and tell a story about its owner. She’ll point at a plowed field and tell you who owns it. She’ll point at another and tell you about the banker who financed it.
But the story she lingers on the longest is about her father’s hand. She points at the 90-acre field that is now hers but once was her father’s. Fred Neis farmed about 3,000 acres in and around the Kansas River valley. He did it with a fourth-grade education, and with the help of Hamilton’s mother, who taught him how to read.
And he did it with a happy hand, so to speak.
“I remember how he would bring his deep plow over to help out a neighbor,” Hamilton said. “The neighbors would always come out and ask him how much they owed him. And he would just wave his hand and say, ‘Not a thing, not a thing.’ He always would just wave his hand.”
The 90-acre field is now dotted with nine blue well-pipes that stick a couple of feet above the fertile soil. Hamilton in 2003 began letting the city of Eudora drill water wells on the property. The city owns the few square feet that each well sits upon, and the water rights that go with each well.
Those nine wells pump 195 million gallons of water a year, and provide the residents of Eudora with all their drinking water. For this, Hamilton receives exactly nothing.
“She doesn’t charge us one cent,” City Administrator John Harrenstein said.
Hamilton said that won’t change in the future.
“I just feel like I’m helping Eudora every day, and I want to continue helping Eudora every day,” she said.
• • •
Harrenstein, who has been on the job in Eudora for less than two years, became acquainted with Hamilton when she called him and said she thought it was time for her to donate another well to the city.
“I guess I would describe it as surprising,” Harrenstein said. “At first you don’t really know what to think. In this job, it is kind of like getting a Monopoly card that says ‘Advance to Go.’”
City managers can spend a lot of time worrying about matters such as where a city will get its water in the future. Some cities out in Western Kansas have such concerns that they give their residents free rain barrels. In the eastern part of the state, scarcity isn’t yet such an issue, but the water is usually far from free. Cities and rural water districts often pay the state thousands upon thousands of dollars each year to access water rights in rivers like the Kaw or lakes like Clinton. If you try to get your water from private wells, that usually comes at a hefty price to purchase the resource-rich land.
“There is obviously a financial benefit,” Harrenstein said, although Eudora residents do pay a fee for water service since the city still has treatment and distribution costs to cover. “But the real benefit is we have somebody who really wants to work with us.
“Lois is just an example of a genuinely civic-minded individual who cares about the community. She grew up here, owned businesses here, got her start here, and went on to have a wildly successful career. But she never forgot where she is from, and she always has taken steps to ensure the city has what it needs.”
Hamilton, though, urges people not to make too much of it. Life is about lending and taking a helping hand from time to time. Hamilton has battled cancer three times, battled diabetes to the point that she once weighed 379 pounds (more than twice what she weighs today), and spent 21 days in a coma in 2005 after flipping a golf cart.
“God gave us the water,” Hamilton said. “I’m just giving them the rights to use it.”
• • •
Hamilton bought her first piece of farm ground when she was 19 years old. It was a little piece between Tonganoxie and Kansas City. She paid $125 an acre for it. Today, it has a NASCAR racetrack next to it.
“I won’t tell you what I sold it for,” she says with a laugh.
Hamilton left Eudora three weeks after her father died at the age of 59. She had just married a husband who was sick and would get sicker. She needed to make a living. She had taken classes at various business schools, and one of her former classmates was looking for a business partner.
Come to find out, Hamilton had a knack for understanding property. She would be part of many business ventures over the years — she was an owner of the Eudora lumberyard, took over struggling hardware stores, and for years bought and sold distressed hotel properties.
Even though she left Eudora at age 27, it is still the longest place she has ever lived.
“Most of my life I lived in a hotel room for a few weeks or a few months,” Hamilton said. “Eudora is still the main place in my heart.”
Now semi-retired, she lives in Hot Springs, Ark. Lately, though, she’s been spending more time in Eudora. Hamilton emerged as one of the chief opponents of a plan to build a sand plant operation on 196 acres across the road from her property and the city’s well field. She recently sent out more than 3,000 postcards to every Eudora household with a water account, urging them to oppose the plant over concerns that it could damage the city’s water supply.
The proposed operators of the plant have produced studies that disagree with such assertions, but Hamilton won a victory this week when the Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission recommended denial of the plant’s application. It now goes to the Douglas County Commission.
“Oh, I’ll fight it until the end,” Hamilton said. “I’m stubborn.”
But even more than that, she said, she’s determined to keep giving Eudora water. When she returns to the town she grew up in, it becomes harder to recognize. But that doesn’t sadden her. She wants Eudora to grow. Eventually, she would like to see it twice as large as it is today, so that it can have more of its own amenities.
“But if they’re going to grow, they’re going to need more water,” Hamilton said. “I’ve already told them, I’ll take care of that.”
With the wave of a hand.
Comments
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mongo55 (anonymous) says…
Ms. Hamilton, you rock!
my3girls (anonymous) replies…
Ditto!
Hong_Kong_Phooey (anonymous) says…
Water woman!
WiseOne (anonymous) says…
How unfortunate that for something so wonderful that this woman does for the city that they turn around and about kill us on the price for water??? Not only that but charge us dearly for the disposal based on the usage of the water as well. So if you water your yard in the summer which is a joke no one can afford to do that, you are charged a percentage of that because they assume you are flushing that water down the toilet. I am thinking of removing all the grass and putting in rock like they do in AZ. then I wouldn't have to water or have a brown yard. I am sure the neighbors would really complain then.
formerfarmer (anonymous) replies…
They figure your sewer rate during the winter months, not the summer months. They have always done that.
woodscolt (anonymous) replies…
ditto
riverat (Joe Hyde) says…
I wonder if any federal or state studies of groundwater migration have been conducted that would:
A) support or confirm Ms. Hamilton's fears, or, alternatively;
B) corroborate Kaw Valley Sand Company's claim that a pit mine at that location will not threaten the quality of water being pumped from this field of ground wells.
Seems to me the county commission should vote to approve or deny the application for this sand pit based on scientific information obtained by the best available studies. Surely the Corps of Engineers, or Kansas Water Office, or the state Geological Survey...somebody...has looked at this type of water safety question before, given that many floodplain water wells exist along the length of the Kaw River.
And if a sand pit operation is thought capable of polluting these privately-owned wells that serve as Eudora's sole water source, then let's also take into account the five decade history of herbicides and pesticides getting applied to the farm fields that sit directly above the wells -- farm chemicals that have been steadily percolating into the sandy soil. Will these contaminants eventually threaten the safety of Eudora's municipal water supply even more severely than what Kaw Valley's proposed pit mine might do?
I greatly admire Ms. Hamilton's altruistic nature. Providing free water to the town she grew up in, water for the folks she knows best, wow, it's incredible the generosity of spirit. However, I have yet to hear any objections to this sand pit proposal that are based on science. Without that supporting evidence the choice is not as simple as, "Pit mine bad; Continued farming good".
devobrun (anonymous) says…
riverat, actually the endeavor would be considered engineering. Percolation tests and other water migration tests would be run and water quality could be modeled, tested and stopped if it turned out to be wrong. Kaw Valley Sand would foot the bill. State water authorities would monitor the entire effort.
Properly done, the sand pit and the water wells would live together, or they would not, with the sand company loosing out.
And why is this process not trusted by the populace, including Ms. Hamilton? Because we live in a culture where liars aren't completely discredited. Lying is tolerated to a significant degree. People expect this and every operation done by business and government to be nefarious. Better to just say no to everything. It's a sad world we live in.
I'm sorry that Ms. Hamilton can't trust engineering studies. I'm' sorry that she can't trust state regulators. It is too bad that the world we now live in is so untrustworthy. My guess is that she has worked with so many thieves and nefarious characters in her years in business and real estate that she knows better than to trust anybody in business or government.
So where does the city of Eudora get its sand?
bangaranggerg (anonymous) says…
I just thought "imagine if oil barons would do the same" and then laughed for 5 minutes and cried for 10.
bgwmail (anonymous) says…
I think it is a wonderful, altruistic act that Ms. Hamilton is performing. However, as a Eudora resident, why is the charge for our water significantly higher than other surrounding communities? I can't imagine what they would try to charge us if they had to purchase those wells. I think the city of Eudora has some explaining to do.
imastinker (anonymous) replies…
It's more than just the water and sewer, which is high. Look at property taxes too. Eudora has a huge amount of infrastructure to keep up and a lot of employees to do it. The only reason the town has done so well is all the growth from a great location.
I'd encourage you to get involved and understand the issues. Go to a few meetings or run for city council maybe. It's the only way to make a difference!
kansasplains1 (Lawrence Morgan) says…
What a wonderful person. I wish there could be more like her, who take not only profit into consideration!
beatrice (anonymous) says…
Dang Socialists, always trying to spread the wealth and help others.
K_Verses_The_World (anonymous) says…
Your grass is turning black
There’s no water in your well
You spent your last lone dollar
On seven shotgun shells
from The Ballad Of Hollis Brown - couldn't resist...
Sigmund (anonymous) says…
beatrice (anonymous) says… "Dang Socialists, always trying to spread the wealth and help others."
Actually since she own the private property and can do so as she wishes, she is a capitalist supporting private property rights, not a socialist. hjowever I think the word you were looking for is philanthropist.
Number_1_Grandma (anonymous) says…
Very nice of Mrs Hamilton for the citizens of Eudora.
It also explains the taste of the water. You'd think with the money Eudora saves for not having to pay for the water, they could improve the quality, taste of it.
RJBurkhart3 (Bob-RJ Burkhart) says…
Lois Hamilton funded printing of fliers for 6:30pm 7-Dec-2011 Douglas County Commission Public Meeting at the Douglas County Courthouse (1100 Massachusetts Street) 2nd Level ...
RJBurkhart3 (Bob-RJ Burkhart) says…
Kansas Representative Tom Sloan's Lower Kaw Valley Water Quality Advocacy “call to action” at the recent JAS-Panel Program has a 7-Dec-2011 mobilization opportunity … Enviro-economics “after-action reviews” found persistent flaws in SCC and USACE hearings.
Inattention to Bioregion group decision support systems protocols enables plausible deniability attitudes It also compromises sustainable wellbeing (health/life, Safety/Liberty and environment/pursuit of happiness).
Kansas Supreme Court (KSC) Golden Case Ruling & maritime law’s General Prudential Rule should ensure that natural resource mining operations do NOT impair our Bioregion’s eroding community commons.
The Mystic Lake Declaration
reframes the new normal for effective EarthSea-Keeping
ALL-WinWin … NextSteps :: http://bit.ly/vlU7Cj
“prepared minds favor chance”