celebration of the life of Junius "Potato King" Groves, died Aug. 17, 1925
Hoodude
By Jesse Truesdale, Reporter
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
http://www.bonnersprings.com/section/frontpagelead/story/10933
A celebration in Edwardsville last week drew more than 130 people to
hear 80 minutes of speeches about a "king" who lived and prospered in
the area.
The celebration of the life of Junius "Potato King" Groves drew crowds
who endured the muggy heat to hear different perspectives on his life
from local and state dignitaries. The first Junius Groves Days
celebration, under the shade of trees in front of Pleasant Hill
Baptist Church, 2010 S. 98th St., featured speeches by state and local
dignitaries and attracted at least four media outlets to cover it.
The site was an appropriate one, as Groves built the first Pleasant
Hill church in 1886, drawing up the plans, directing the construction
and paying for it all.
The event was organized by the Edwardsville Junius Groves Day
Committee, and the Votaw Colonies Museum of Coffeyville.
Groves was a successful agriculturist who became known as the "Potato
King of the World" after moving to the Edwardsville area, joining many
other ex-slaves who left the South after the Civil War for the free
state of Kansas.
As members of the audience fanned themselves with programs of the
event, Mary Kimbrough, a great-niece of Groves and president of the
NAACP Bonner Springs branch, gave a short summary of Groves' life and
accomplishments. She culled the information from Kansas Historical
Society research plus a short biography of Groves in Booker T.
Washington's "The Negro in Business."
Born April 12, 1859, Groves arrived in the Edwardsville area in 1879
with less than a dollar in his pocket, and entered into sharecropping
under Jake Williamson, who hired him for 40 cents a day. After three
months he was making 75 cents a day.
Soon Groves was receiving one third of the crops farmed on
Williamson's nine acres.
In his first year of sharecropping Groves made $125, which he then
used to buy land of his own, a milk cow, and other investments toward
his next crop. He married Matilda Stewart, who would work side by side
her husband in the field.
After his second year, Groves had 20 acres, and in his third year
Groves landed 10 more acres and a cabin, across from Lake of the
Forest. That same year he bought 80 acres from a Native American for $500.
Subsequent acquisitions included a sawmill, and five adjoining farms,
making for total holdings of more than 760 acres. Besides potatoes he
had apple, peach and pear orchards and a vineyard.
In 1902, Groves was named by the U.S. Department of Agriculture the
"Potato King of the World," for beating his closest competitor on the
planet by 11,500 bushels.
Groves suffered financial setbacks in the 1920s, including a loss of
around $90,000 in a cattle venture.
Groves built three mansions, and all of them burned down
"mysteriously," Kimbrough said, the last in 1968. The last home, a
22-room brick mansion was finished in 1912 and built on the hill to
the west of Pleasant Hill Baptist Church, Kimbrough said later.
Groves also was part owner of the Kansas City Casket and Embalming
Company, director of the Afro-American Businessmen's Twin Cities
Association and a member of the National Negro Education Congress in 1910.
The area around South 98th Street became known as Groves center,
Kimbrough said, because "most of the residents were Groves, and he
owned most of the property."
"Junius Groves was well-known as a philanthropist," Kimbrough said,
and he gave a portion of his yearly crop to a local hospital and built
the first black golf course.
Groves died Aug. 17, 1925, and the funeral attracted 300 automobiles,
Kimbrough said.
The Kansas City Star noted Groves' passing with an obituary, which The
Chieftain reprinted on its last page.
The location of the stone marking Grove's grave is not known,
Kimbrough said.
The event ran about 80 minutes, and featured some memorable,
applause-drawing lines.
One of them was by A.J. Kotich, chief legal counsel for the Kansas
Department of Labor.
Kotich teaches business classes at Baker University.
"What he (Groves) did is what I teach," Kotich said, which the
textbooks call "strategic management."
The textbooks don't mention Groves, Kotich said, "but they probably
should. They probably stole it and call it ‘failing forward.' I can
assure you, in all my classes to come, his name will be common each
and every day I teach."
Before the presentation to Edwardsville Mayor Heinz Rodgers of a
portrait of Groves by Samuel Nevils, Chuck Adams, Edwardsville City
Council member and a co-organizer of the event, recalled sitting with
Nevils in a local restaurant with the portrait.
Two young men had come by the table and remarked that the picture was
"awesome."
"Do you know who that is?" Adams said he asked them.
They said no.
"That will change, because you need to know," Adams said.
Other speakers included Charles Armstrong, president of the
Edwardsville Historical Society, who promised that when the old City
Hall building at the corner of Fourth and Pacific streets there would
be a permanent display and memorial recognizing Junius Groves and his
wife, Matilda Groves.
Carol Jordan, director of rural research at the Kansas Department of
Agriculture, extolled Matlilda Groves for working "side by side with
Junius Groves," even as she bore him at least 11, and as many as 15
children.
Missouri State Rep. Craig Bland, Kansas City, Mo., who is a descendant
of Groves, said "it brings my heart a lot of joy to be a part of this
celebration."
Next came a re-enactment of the historic agreement between Groves ,
Edwardsville Mayor Heinz Rodgers as a representative of the Union
Pacific Railroad and Bland as Groves, to have a railroad spur built
connecting Groves' farm.
Kim Qualls, a spokesman for the Kansas Department of Transportation,
quoted a Topeka Plains-Dealer newspaper article from the day.
"He truly was a great man," Quall said. "He truly was an inspiration
for us all."
Steve Kelly, deputy secretary for business development for the Kansas
Department of Commerce, said Groves' achievements went beyond his
financial and business success.
"Beyond economics," Kelly said, "what he did for other people ... he
was obviously someone who cared about his community."
Kelly and other speaker cited Groves' building of the original
Pleasant Hill Baptist Church, and Kimbrough had listed his
philanthropic activities that included donating a portion of his crops
to a local hospital.
The event was attended by about 25 of Groves' descendants and
relatives, who posed for a picture after the ceremony.
Among them were Junius Groves IV and Junius Groves V, great- and
great-great-grandsons of Groves.
The elder Groves said he didn't know much about his great ancestor
until moving to Edwardsville from Los Angeles about 17 years ago.
"I think it's well-deserved," Groves said of the event honoring his
great-grandfather. "I wish I could have known him."
Junius Groves V said he learned about his great-great-grandfather from
his dad.
Also in attendance were siblings Leah and Joseph Cole, of Kansas City,
Kan., great-grandchildren of the potato magnate.
"I didn't know much before today" about him, Leah said.
She was impressed not only at Groves' life, but that so many people
turned out to pay tribute to him.
"It was beautiful," she said.
Joseph, a student at Washington High School, agreed.
"It was cool," he said.
He said he thought he might do a school project on Junius Grove's life
this year.
--
Ahh, gimme the crack of the doo-dad gew-gaw
- Professor Longhair