294 2009-07-21 Ae Birthplace, Solarium Cabinets

THE SOLARIUM’S DISPLAY CASES The Amelia Earhart Birthplace Museum Atchison, Kansas Ernst F. Tonsing, Ph.D. Thousand Oaks, California 21 July 2009 In passing through the solarium on the southwest corner of the ground floor of the Amelia Earhart Birthplace Museum in Atchison, once the home of the flyer’s grandparents, Judge Alfred and Amelia Otis, there is much to catch one’s eyes on the shelves on either side of the large step down to the former kitchen. However, the cases themselves are of interest. The native walnut cabinets have graceful arches in the glass doors, and the surrounding molding with the decorative pendants exhibit the style current when the room was added in the 1870’s or early 80’s. It is possible that the cases were installed in the sun-room by the Abernathy Brothers Company of Leavenworth, Kansas. Founded in 1856 by James L. Abernathy, with his brothers, William and John, the business manufactured bedroom furniture, dining suites, as well as other house furnishings in Kansas for nearly a century. During the Civil War (1861-65), James Abernathy served as Lieutenant Colonel in the Eighth Kansas Volunteer Infantry under Colonel John A. Martin (pioneer editor of the Atchison newspaper, Freedom’s Champion, and later Governor of Kansas). In 1871, when Martin built his home at 315 North Terrace just north of the Otis house for his new bride, Ida, the eldest daughter of Dr. William L. Challiss (whose house stood three doors south on Terrace), he installed bookcases made by Abernathy in his library to contain what was at Martin’s death in 1889, the largest collection of books, public or private, in the state.1 Alfred Otis, too, served under Martin in the Eighth Kansas Volunteers. It would be expected that the house of Judge Alfred and Amelia Otis would exhibit the refinement of taste that they had known while living in the East. Both of them were raised in comfort, but had chosen to settle in what was then a rough, frontier town. It is very likely that they contacted Abernathy, who then paid a call on his old Army friend, measured the room, designed, and then installed the cabinets.2 His handiwork delights the eyes even today.

1

Two of these bookcases measuring five feet wide and eight high, are in my home in California. One of these has the same features as those in the solarium in the Otis house, the arched glass doors and pendant decorations. The only other existing case from the Martin house that I am aware of is in “The Pink Barn Antiques & Lamps” across from Atchison at 17600 SW Old Highway Road, Rushville, Missouri, which measures about sixteen feet wide and eight high. The upper doors are missing, however. It was purchased in 1946 by David Kottman for his antique shop on Commercial in Atchison from Ruth Martin Tonsing. I suspect that the particularly spectacular case in the Governor’s Waiting Room in the State Capital in Topeka was also made by Abernathy, perhaps placed there during Governor Martin’s terms, 1885-89. 2 Because of the similarities of the staircase banisters of the Otis and Martin houses, I would imagine that they could have been installed by Abernathy as well.