Kansas City, Kansas and Strawberry Hill - Kansas/Missouri Trip Trilogy Part 2

When my late husband and I were dating in 1960 and lived in Topeka after we married, we spent a lot of time in Kansas City, MO and only drove past Kansas City, KS. Yet I knew if I searched online I'd find something interesting. Sure 'nuf....I found this area that was settled by Slovenians, Serbians and Croatians.  I have a special place in my heart for Slovenia and it's people.....so I knew we would go...I could take a photo of the church built by the Slovenians and send to the manager of  Perpetuum Jazzile in Ljubljana. By the way, it is music from that group to which you are listening on my blog right now. 

Perpetuum Jazzile is an acapella group of about 45 and you watch them sing and make the instrument sounds on YouTube.  Much of their music is there....and when Judy and I went to Slovenia, it was to attend their annual concert in Ljubljana. We saw the song, which is linked above, performed ...and in the Hall shown in the video.

I digress......

Mar. 24th
Told Sweetie (we named the Google navigational voice) that we wanted to go to the area of  Strawberry Hill in Kansas City, KS.  There we found a quaint little area that was founded as  described above.   To see more images of that area than is in this blog, you can find it here...Google images of Strawberry Hill.

The older

homes and 

the new homes are

on the left 

and on the right 

a flowering hillside.

       

This is the Strawberry

Hill Museum.  They were

closed the day we were 

there....guess that will be

on another trip.   :)

       

We found the Slovenian church, which is Holy Family Church. We wanted

to go in but couldn't find a door that was open at the time we were there.  It was in the neighborhood of the older homes above.  It appears they have a Slovenefest every year, celebrating their culture....

They even have a Facebook page.

With our original mission accomplished, we drove around the area. There was one intersection of particular interest.....we were snapping the cameras on three of the corners:

On the Southwest corner we found the Wyandotte County Offices....actually it is the 'Unified Government of Wyandotte County".  So named because Kansas City and most of the small towns consolidated their governments.  The county only has about 160,000 population.

We really liked this building because it is the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial. The cornerstone was laid in 1924 and is on the National Registry of Historic Places. It is on the Southeast corner of the intersection,  is simply known as Memorial Hall,  and is used as a performance venue. Above the name of the Hall, in the middle, it reads "Dedicated to the heroes who fought and died for their Country"...on the left "Justice activated their heroism, Liberty inspired their courage"...and on the right "Let us resolve the these dead will not have died in vain".   

Lastly, directly across the street from Memorial Hall was St. Anthony's Catholic Church.  So I'll leave you with some photos there.....

 We wanted to find someone that could explain to us why,  just prior to Easter, the openings on the altar were hung with purple and pink cloth.                                              

 Tomorrow's blog will be Kansas City, Missouri...... :)