Neighborhood History

A remembrance by Penelope Boxmeyer Jones (September 2006)

Following the American dream of home ownership, Dr. and Mrs. Roy Boxmeyer and their 10-year-old daughter, Penelope, crossed the state line into Kansas. This was 1935 if my memory is true. On

Mission Road

, they found

67th Street

and turned west at Prairie Grade School. As they continued west, they passed Nall and what was then the Miller farm on the north and a small farm with cows on the south. These farms were just before passing Lamar, a gravel road at that time.

As they drove on to Metcalf, there was a nursery on the south, no longer in business. On the north were lovely meadows filled with wild white daisies all the way to Metcalf.  West of the nursery on the south was a white house with a full front porch (6621 W. 67th).  Across Glenwood was the beautiful southern mansion still standing. The remaining land to Metcalf on the south side of

67th Street

was empty except for a basement foundation where the Myron Green family lived. They owned a big cafeteria in downtown Kansas City and in later years also operated a cafeteria in Mission.

Metcalf was a brick surfaced road. Imagine! The fine brick house on the northeast corner of 67th and Metcalf (6633 Metcalf) belonged to Ed and Marie Walmer. The Walmers owned the meadow, which had been the Walmer family farm. 

On returning east, the Boxmeyers saw a house foundation about midway between Lamar and Metcalf (6620 W. 67th). They decided to buy the lot next door (6610 W. 67th) with hopes that the people would complete the house.  Thus, the Roland Trotters and the Roy Boxmeyers became neighbors and friends.  The Trotters had two daughters named Jody and Barbara who were several years younger than Penelope.

The houses were on stone foundations. They were heated by coal furnaces and had no sanitary sewers. Each house had a septic tank and sump pump. The lots were 325 feet deep with the houses setting well back from the roadway. The Boxmeyer lot was 200 feet wide. The owner of the nursery across the street gave his new neighbors permission to take any planting they were able to move. This was a grand gift, for the meadows had no shrubs or trees. 

We girls started at Hickory Grove grade school, a rock schoolhouse on the southwest corner of Lamar and

Johnson Drive

(now the site of Horizons high school). Just south of the school, about where the fire station is now, was the Walmer farmhouse. This was home to Ed Walmer’s younger brother, his wife and two daughters.

On the east side of Lamar was the Miller farm, owned by bachelor brothers Amie and Percy Miller. The Miller boys, as they were called, were gentlemen from Kentucky (and weren’t boys). Amie was seen repairing the roof of the farmhouse at age 80, and Percy married a lovely lady at 70 years. They often built fires and visited with the children ice-skating on their pond, which today would be in the middle of

Shawnee Mission Parkway

. The old Miller farm has given way to the Milhaven development. The

Kennett Place

town homes stand where their home tract once was.

At some point, Ed Walmer sold the Miller brothers a tract of the Walmer farm west of Lamar.  It is my understanding that the Miller brothers sold that tract to TWA, which built a stewardess training center on the site. (The TWA dormitories and classrooms later were converted to office space, much of it occupied by Waddell & Reed.)  Ed Walmer also once owned the land where the Cloverleaf office park now sits, as well as what is now 65th Terrace and 66th Street between Glenwood and Metcalf.

Back in the growing Walmer area, Sam and Tillie Odgers built to the east of the Boxmeyers, at 6600 W. 67th.  They had no children, so I gained an aunt and uncle. The Springers, who had a young daughter, built east across Glenwood at 6700 W. 67th, and

Glenwood Street

was extended north. So the first four houses occupied the high ground in the area and were the beginning of the Walmer area.

Soon following, the Mabes built behind the Trotters at 6611 Glenwood. Later, 6621 Glenwood was built on Mrs. Mabes’ rose garden. Three lots facing south were built as 66th Terrace was opened to Metcalf  -- 6700, 6710 and 6720 W. 66th Terrace.  The J. Berry Hanns lived in one of these houses. Mr. Hann was very active in the Walmer Homes Association. Bob Mabes and Charlie Hann were classmates of Penelope Boxmeyer at Shawnee Mission Rural High School.  The brick house east of the Odgers (6510 W. 67th) was built, I believe, by the Martins. He traveled for a living and she had poor health.

Bob and Eva Dean’s house (6626 Walmer) was built about 1940 facing a new street called Walmer. The son and his wife of the Dickinson Theater people built the house north of the Deans at 6612 Walmer. They owned the theater, which still stands on

Johnson Drive

in Mission. The house at 6626 Riggs, the first on that street, was built by Mrs. Armstrong in the 1940s.

There was no fire department, but Sam Odgers was an active member of the volunteer service. Sam never missed a fire. Street lights, curbs or sidewalks were not available.  There were no restrictions on animals, so my father brought home a goat, the idea being we would drink goat’s milk for better health. You saw an occasional meadowlark, and I remember hearing the “Bob White” song of quail in our backyard. Everyone planted more than one tree, for there were none in the farm area. You caught a bus on Metcalf to go to the Country Club Plaza and transferred to another bus to downtown Kansas City.          

The Odgers built a one-story retirement home (6631 Riggs) on the back part of their property. They sold their house at 6600 W. 67th and lived in their retirement home until moving into a nursing home. The Boxmeyers would have built a similar retirement home, but there was no road access to the back half of their property.

World War II brought a stop in building. The Boxmeyers bought the lot at 6311 W. 65th Terrace, where they intended to build a single-story retirement home. But they had to wait to build the house until 1949. The house was built by Mr. Dilley, who had also built the Boxmeyers’ house on

67th Street

. Other houses were built in the area after 1945. 

In 1948 or 1949 Ed and Zona Hogan built the house at 6301 W. 65th Terrace.  They built, sold and built again, at 6317 W. 65th Terrace and 6417 W. 65th Terrace.

At this point, I got married, changed my name to Penelope B. Jones and moved from the neighborhood. The Boxmeyers continued to live in their retirement house on 65th Terrace until their deaths. Dr. Roy Boxmeyer died in 1961. When Mrs. Elizabeth Boxmeyer became ill, my husband, Bob, and I moved in to care for her until her death in 1986. We purchased the house and have continued to live there for the past 20 years of our retirement.