KOAM-TV EARLY DAYS IN PITTSBURG, KANSAS
by Bryce Martin

Programs didn’t necessarily conform to 30-minute and one-hour formats. That was obvious when KOAM sometimes used various shorts and clips to fill in airtime, much the same as the way newspapers fitted small fillers to eliminate white space on a page. A common method was to insert “visual records.” These were short pieces showcasing singers warbling ballads or folk or novelty songs. They were originally produced by the film world in Hollywood and later utilized as television cameos. An entertaining one was “You Get No Bread with (One Meat Ball).” It was performed by a dark-haired man who looked Italian and possessed a fat and expressive face. He was convincing as he sang about a down-on-his-luck oaf who enters a restaurant and after looking at the menu realizes he has just enough money for one meatball. That’s bad enough he groans but he really emotes when he finds that you get, well, no bread with one meatball.
Another was “The Little White Duck.” The singer was a younger Burl Ives. I recognized Ives from seeing him occasionally on live television. It was obvious this segment was done a few years back. It was a little corny: “there’s a little white duck sittin’ on the water/a little white duck doin’ what he oughter.” Then there was the obnoxious song, “The Cat Came Back.” The words -- about dumping off a cat and having it return “the very next day” – were not so bad. It was the creepy and deliberate way the guy sang the song that was grating. *

(*Between 1941 and 1947, more than 2000 “soundies” were produced by the Mills Novelty Company for coin-operated machines, mostly jazz and ballad shorts. Early TV stations later used them to fill airtime. In addition, between 1950 and 1952, some 700 similar film shorts were produced in the Hollywood studios of Louis Snader. The three mentioned above likely were done by Snader.)
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Cave Springs notes
by Bryce Martin

Lallah taught her first school at Cave Springs in 1917. She was 16 and lived nearby in Central City. Both locales were just over the state line in Missouri, a short distance from Galena, Kansas. On cold, blizzard mornings, she recalled rubbing the frozen feet of her pupils with kerosene for hours at a time. She had a student named Mamie, age 4, and Mamie had a brother, Dan, that first year. Lallah would meet both of them again in Picher, Okla., in 1935. Mamie, whose father was in prison for “picking” ore, by then had taken up with Gus, the owner of the infamous Bloody Knuckle dance hall in Picher. Lallah sought a comparison between the Blizzard Dance Hall she knew about in Central City and the Bloody Knuckle. She was told the one in Picher was much worse. “You could pick up eyeballs like shelled grapes all over the Bloody Knuckle,” she was told. A majority of the miners liked to wet their whistles at such places as the Bloody Knuckle while others preferred to join in on a square dance and work up what they called a “kitchen sweat.” Another pupil at the clapboard Cave Springs School, other than Mamie, was a red-haired Sam Miller. He was later killed during the miners’ riot, the Tri-State War. The following spring, Lallah had just one student at Cave Springs graduate. He was just a year younger than her, a Swedish boy named Lutie Lungren. The family had come to Cave Springs from Minnesota, their landing spot in America. Mr. Lungren was lured to the Tri-State area the same as most, by the jack and lead fields. Lutie had four younger brothers, Olaf, Axel, Peter and Elmer. She taught all of them, except for the youngest, Elmer. The Lungren family later moved to the Blue Mound area. Lutie, however, became active in supporting the striking miners later on. It nearly cost him his life. Lallah was still in Picher in 1935 when she joined a large group for a drive to the baptizin’ ground at Short Creek alongside her old stamping ground at Cave Springs School. Taking the old Tanyard Hollow abandoned dirt road (Tanyard Hollow was once a mining camp) she came to where the large congregation had gathered. Here, she ran into Jake Connor, another student of hers in ’17 at Cave Springs. He was now married with four children. Lallah, whom most all those present knew, had been gone long enough to nearly be a stranger. She had to explain to Jake why she was there. Times were tense, spies were around, and you were either on one side or the other. People wanted to know which side, and it better be the right one. Soon after Lallah returned to Picher, Lutie was beaten severely by the Hooded Klan. Lallah employed an Indian, Redfeather, to help get Lutie across the state line and into Galena to see Dr. Munson, Lutie’s doctor since birth. Dr. Munson had treated miners for silicosis for years and admired Lutie for his work in helping the “poor man,” even if it did cost him three teeth, some skin and much pain.

Dan died not long later, a victim of miner’s con (silicosis).

On April 11, 1937, all hell broke loose. The pickhandlers marched to the striking CIOers headquarters on Main Street in Galena. A deadly encounter followed, with pistol and rifle volleys filling the air. Three men, all strikers, were charged with murder. All three were former pupils of Lallah. Lutie went to Washington, D.C to find some perspective, came back and was jailed several times for his activities and started leaning toward becoming a Communist. After all, some said, it was the Communists and nobody else who were trying to keep the Galena boys out of jail. The accused murderers were offered a deal: let it go and we’ll drop all charges. It’s not fair, the Galena boys protested, since it was self-defense. Lallah was ready to go back to her life in New York and her husband who waited there. She was still a stranger because she had never told anyone where she stood. When there’s a disagreement, sides must be taken. That’s just the way it is. Just ask the Galena boys.
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