The Warkentin House is a house in Newton, Kansas

Newton, Kansas

Newton is a city in and the county seat of Harvey County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 19,132. Newton is located north of Wichita and is included in the Wichita metropolitan statistical area...

, United States. The home of Bernhard Warkentin and Wilhelmina Eisenmayer Warkentin, it was built between 1886 and 1887. It is listed on the Kansas Register of Historic Places and National Register of Historic Places

National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

 as a splendid example of the Victorian period in American architecture and furnishings. The Victorian house offers a glimpse into the way the Warkentins lived, with 80 percent of the original furnishings remaining.

History

Bernhard Warkentin was born in the village of Altonau of the Molotschna

Molotschna

Molotschna Colony was a Russian Mennonite settlement in what is now Zaporizhia Oblast in Ukraine. Today is called Molochansk with a population of under 10,000. The settlement is named after the Molochna River which forms its western boundary. Today the land mostly falls within the Tokmatskyi and...

 Mennonite

Mennonite

The Mennonites are a group of Christian Anabaptist denominations named after the Frisian Menno Simons , who, through his writings, articulated and thereby formalized the teachings of earlier Swiss founders...

 settlement in the Ukraine

Ukraine

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

 on June 18, 1847. In 1872, he arrived in the United States to study the country's agricultural, economic and political climate.

Wilhelmina Eisenmayer was born November 1, 1852, in Horse Prairie, Illinois. She and Bernhard were married August 12, 1875. They had two children: Edna Wella, born September 24, 1876, and Carl Orlando, born January 3, 1880.

Realizing the benefit the Mennonite farmers would be to the development of the Great Plains states, American railroad companies touted the advantages of settling in the midwestern United States. Between 1874 and 1884, about 15,000 Mennonites immigrated to America. The majority settled in Kansas. Bernhard Warkentin encouraged the immigrants to bring with them Turkey Red hard winter wheat

Winter wheat

Winter wheat is a type of wheat that is planted from September to December in the Northern Hemisphere. Winter wheat sprouts before freezing occurs, then becomes dormant until the soil warms in the spring. Winter wheat needs a few weeks of cold before being able to flower, however persistent snow...

.

In 1873, Warkentin settled in Halstead, Kansas

Halstead, Kansas

Halstead is a city in Harvey County, Kansas, United States. Halstead was named in honor of Murat Halstead, a respected Civil War correspondent and newspaper editor. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 2,085.-History:...

, building Harvey County's

Harvey County, Kansas

Harvey County is a county located in South Central Kansas, in the Central United States. As of the 2010 census, the county population was 34,684. Its county seat and most populous city is Newton. The county is a part of the Wichita Metropolitan Statistical Area which also includes Butler,...

 first grist mill and his farmstead on the Little Arkansas River

Little Arkansas River

The Little Arkansas River is a river located in south-central Kansas. It rises in northern Rice County just north of Lyons and flows southeast past Buhler and Halstead to meet the Arkansas River in Wichita....

. In planning for his mill, Warkentin visited several milling operations throughout the Midwest; among them was Conrad Eisenmayer's mill in Summerfield, Illinois

Summerfield, Illinois

Summerfield is a village in St. Clair County, Illinois, United States. The population was 472 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Summerfield is located at ....

. It was there that he met Eisenmayer's daughter, Wilhelmina.

In the fall of 1874, the Kansas countryside was first sown with Turkey Red wheat, the hardy, high-yield variety that gave Kansas its enormous productivity and made the region the breadbasket of the world.

Warkentin owned mills and elevators in Newton and Halstead, Kansas, and Blackwell, Oklahoma

Blackwell, Oklahoma

Blackwell is a city in Kay County, Oklahoma, United States, located at the intersection of U.S. Highway 177 and State Highway 11 along Interstate 35. The population was 7,668 at the 2000 census. Blackwell was established following the September 16, 1893 Cherokee Outlet land run by A. J. Blackwell...

. He was instrumental in founding the Halstead State Bank, Kansas State Bank, Bethel Deaconess Hospital, and Bethel College

Bethel College (Kansas)

Bethel College is a private college affiliated with Mennonite Church USA. The college is located on the edge of the Flint Hills and the vast wheat fields of south central Kansas in the town of North Newton...

.

Warkentin died by accidental gunshot on a trip in the Holy Land in 1908. Wilhelmina Warkentin lived in their Newton home until her death in 1932.

Foyer

• The main entrance door displays a cut and etched glass panel imported from France.
• English carpenters crafted the fine woodwork evident in the main staircase and the ball-and-spindle fretwork
  Fretwork
  Fretwork is an interlaced decorative design that is either carved in low relief on a solid background, or cut out with a fretsaw, coping saw, jigsaw or scroll saw. Most fretwork patterns are geometric in design. The materials most commonly used are wood and metal. Fretwork is used to adorn...
  
   in the foyer.
• The lavatory near the front door allowed dusty travelers to freshen up using an English cabinet with teardrop pulls and Italian marble washbasin. The lion-head towel holder is English.
• Many small details exhibit the fine workmanship of the carpenters, and the leatherette wainscoting in the main foyer, lavatory, and stairwell is especially luxurious.

Parlor and music room

• The fireplace in the parlor has a cherry mantelpiece and Italian tiles.
• The rosewood/mahogany empire loveseat exhibits Chinese
  China
  Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
  
   influence in carved dog's heads and claw feet.
• The box sofa was made in England, and the cornice molding around the ceiling repeats the "gadrooning
  Gadrooning
  Gadrooning is any decorative motif consisting of convex curves in a series. In furniture and other interior accessories, the term is applied to, among other things an ornamental carved band of tapered, curving and alternating concave and convex sections, usually diverging obliquely either side of a...
  
  " (radiating lobes) design of the sofa.
• The woodwork in the other rooms continues the same themes begun in the foyer, but the woodwork in the parlor is cherry-finished walnut. The music room returns to oak woodwork, and the dining room is walnut. The sliding (pocket) doors between the music room and dining room were crafted of two woods, each side matching the appropriate room.
• The music room and parlor have crystal chandeliers from Czechoslovakia
  Czechoslovakia
  Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
  
  .
• The Steinway upright piano belonged to the Warkentins' daughter, Edna, and the floor in the music room is covered by one of many Anglo-Persian carpets in the house.
• The music room is spacious and well-lighted by windows on the east and south.

Dining room and kitchen

• The Italian tile in the dining room fireplace portrays the goddess of agriculture, Demeter
  Demeter
  In Greek mythology, Demeter is the goddess of the harvest, who presided over grains, the fertility of the earth, and the seasons . Her common surnames are Sito as the giver of food or corn/grain and Thesmophoros as a mark of the civilized existence of agricultural society...
  
   in Greek mythology
  Greek mythology
  Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...
  
   or Ceres in the Roman pantheon.
• The Warkentins entertained elegantly, and the china closet contains some of their original serving pieces; among the most striking is the chocolate pot.
• The jeweled and stained glass windows on either side of the fireplace pre-date the house and are believed to be of Russian origin.
• The large medallion in the wall covering echoes the emblem in the satin glass globes of the bronze chandelier and the wall sconces.
• Nineteenth-century luxury did not extend to the kitchen. Electricity replaced gas for lighting soon after the completion of the house, but the old wood/coal cookstove continued in use for many years.
• Indoor plumbing was installed two years after the completion of the house. A servant pumped water into a large, copper-lined reservoir in the third-floor attic at the beginning of each day. The three sinks in the kitchen are slate
  Slate
  Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. The result is a foliated rock in which the foliation may not correspond to the original sedimentary layering...
  
  .

Bedrooms

• The two-room master suite has a sitting room to the southwest. The birdseye maple
  Birdseye maple
  Bird's eye is a type of figure that occurs within several kinds of wood, most notably in hard maple. It has a distinctive pattern that resembles tiny, swirling eyes disrupting the smooth lines of grain. It is somewhat reminiscent of a burl, but it is quite different: the small knots that make the...
  
   suite is original to the house, but it was not located in the master bedroom.
• The brass double bed is now in the northwest bedroom and also belonged to the Warkentins. Much of the furniture in the bedrooms is not original to the house. The trunk at the foot of the bed was used by the Warkentins in their travels.
• The parquet flooring throughout the house consists of several different woods and is finely crafted. The most unusual floor covering is in the master suite, where bright red Russian rugs, originally in the music room, have been moved for preservation. Warkentin himself purchased them in Russia, and the thistle pattern displays the Russian national flower.

Library

• The most unusual fireplace is in the library. The tile is again Italian, but the hearth displays a most unusual diagonal band.
• Bernhard Warkentin's roll-top desk is no longer on the east wall of the library, but his wife's oak writing desk stands in that location. His favorite chair has striking lion's heads on the arms and claw feet. The design on the coal scuttle is similar to that on the etched glass of the front door. The walnut library case is one of the few furnishings native to Kansas. It was constructed in Leavenworth and contains family books.