Dodge City's Enduring Voice: The Remarkable Life of Lola Mae Adams Crum

Story by Michael D. King

On a tranquil Sunday afternoon in April 1935, the soft sunlight streamed through the kitchen window of Lola Adams' family farm, casting gentle shadows on the scattered papers she tirelessly graded. Suddenly, tranquility shattered as the world outside was consumed by an ominous darkness. A colossal wall of dust, ominously dubbed a "black blizzard," surged across the Kansas sky with a ruthless swiftness that seemed almost supernatural. By the time Lola hastily traversed the room to illuminate a lamp, the air had thickened into an impenetrable haze; she could not even discern the matchbox resting just inches from her face. This harrowing phenomenon signified Black Sunday, the most ferocious tempest of the Dust Bowl, and in that heart-stopping moment, Lola found herself unceremoniously thrust into the very eye of nature's wrath.

For many, this apocalyptic event would become the defining story of their lives. For Lola Mae Adams Crum, however, it was just one chapter in a remarkable 96-year journey that transformed her from the daughter of pioneers into a dedicated teacher, a survivor of a national catastrophe, and ultimately, the indispensable historian and memory-keeper of Dodge City, Kansas.

Photo of Lola Mae Adams Crum provided by Dr. Joel Vinson of the Kansas Heritage Center

Born in 1908 in a modern home in Dodge City, Lola was a third-generation Kansan whose family had settled on the plains. Her education began in a one-room schoolhouse, an experience that shaped her resilient character. After graduating from Dodge City High School in 1926, she immediately entered the teaching profession, equipped with a "Normal Training" certificate that qualified her to teach in the rural schools she knew so well.

Her career soon placed her on the front lines of a segregated America. From 1930 to 1931, she taught at the Coronado School, situated south of the railroad tracks in an area referred to as the "Mexican Village." 

This school served the children of Mexican and Mexican-American railroad workers in a system designed to keep them separate. Yet, decades later, Lola's memories of her students transcended the prejudices of that era. "They had big brown eyes and big smiles that would go right through you," she recalled her affection for the children undiminished by time.

However, her teaching career in Kansas was cut short by a discriminatory policy known as the "marriage bar." She bluntly explained that in Kansas, "you couldn't teach school if you were married. You either had to be a widow or an old maid." In 1939, her marriage to Robert Carter meant the automatic loss of her teaching position. What was intended to be a barrier instead became a catalyst for change. Refusing to abandon her calling, Lola pursued a full bachelor's degree and moved west—first to Arizona and then to California—where, as she noted, "they didn't care if you were married, just so you had a degree." She would go on to teach in California for 19 years before retiring.

Lola's most harrowing experiences unfolded during her years of teaching in and around Dodge City in the 1930s, a time when the devastating effects of the Dust Bowl cast a shadow over everyday life. In her later years, she recounted her memories through oral histories, offering some of the most vivid and poignant firsthand accounts of this ecological catastrophe.

She vividly described her daily six-mile trek from the family farm to the schoolhouse, a perilous journey shrouded in swirling clouds of dust that transformed the landscape into an otherworldly scene. "Many days, I couldn't see more than one telephone post ahead of me," she recalled, her voice laden with the weight of nostalgia and hardship. "By the time I reached that post, I could barely discern the next one through the choking haze." Each step was a struggle against nature's fury, illustrating the resilience required to navigate a world consumed by the very dust that rose up to engulf it.

The dust storms were both an ecological and economic catastrophe. A combination of severe drought and farming practices that stripped the plains of their native grasses left the topsoil vulnerable to relentless winds. Lola witnessed financial ruin on her own family's farm when a promising barley crop was "parched" by hot winds, turning "white overnight" and becoming worthless except for animal feed.

Her vivid account of Black Sunday, April 14, 1935, serves as a haunting historical testament to a moment of nature's fury. She vividly recalled watching an ominous, swirling mass emerging on the horizon, resembling "the blackest cloud you ever saw." Panic surged through her as she and her father dashed into the safety of their home just as the storm unleashed its wrath. "That dirt came in so quickly and just engulfed you," she remembered, her voice tinged with the remnants of fear. "You couldn't see anything." Her recollections resonate eerily with official weather logs, which documented an eerie state of "almost total darkness" as a relentless wall of dust, traveling at an astonishing 60 miles per hour, descended upon Dodge City. This was no ordinary storm; it was a "terror" storm, unleashing millions of tons of topsoil that cascaded across the Great Plains like a suffocating shroud.

Photo of the April 14, 1935 Black Sunday provided by Dr. Joel Vinson of the Kansas Heritage Center

Photo of Lola Mae Adams Crum provided by Dr. Joel Vinson of the Kansas Heritage Center

In 1963, Lola retired from teaching and returned to Dodge City to care for her aging mother. This homecoming marked the beginning of her life's final and most significant chapter. She dedicated her energy to the Ford County Historical Society, serving as its president from 1964 to 1967 and later as its official historian.

Lola became the driving force behind the preservation of local history. When a fellow historian couldn't afford to publish a manuscript, Lola personally spearheaded a fundraising drive to get the book, *Early Ford County*, into print. She understood that history was not just about famous lawmen like Wyatt Earp but also about the pioneer families who built the community.

In 1986, she co-authored a detailed history of her own pioneer ancestors, A Century in Kansas. Then, at age 88, she chaired the committee that produced the definitive 376-page volume Dodge City and Ford County, Kansas 1870-1920: Pioneer Histories and Stories, personally writing many of the family biographies included in it.

Lola Mae Adams Crum passed away on November 20, 2004, at the age of 96. She died in the house at 803 Third Avenue, where she was born nearly a century earlier, bringing her incredible journey full circle. Her life spanned the closing of the frontier, the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, and the dawn of a new century. She was more than a witness to history; she was its devoted guardian, the enduring voice that ensured the stories of the Kansas plains would never be forgotten.