From the Alvin and Rosalie Sara Check studio.

PBS Kansas presents Hatteberg's People.

Another half hour of Hatteberg's People is ready to roll.

And here's what's coming up.

I feel that, God has placed me in this place, to to be a kind of a tool for what he needs to have done.

A noble pursuit that never ends.

Helping the poor was a way of life for Gary Winger.

See how he sacrificed his own wealth to serve the less fortunate.

Also just homestyle here.

They just help their self and they get what they want.

It makes it easier on me.

Hi class and fancy it was not.

But if you didn't mind the informal surroundings, you discover that surely Coleman could swing harsh with the best of them.

We'll travel back to 2001 to visit her humble little restaurant.

Also, you can't raise butterflies and have any doubt in your mind about God.

So fascinated by their metamorphosis, Marion Gold raised caterpillars in her living room.

Discover where she got this love of nature that consumed her life.

And we'll have this.

In a way, I get to enjoy all the courage because I get to visit them when they're in their best state.

Torrey Brinkley loved visiting new car showrooms, but had no desire to ever buy a new car.

Why?

Well, you'll just have to hang around to watch this story from 1977.

Hello, I'm Susan Peters, and I'm Larry Hatteberg.

Those are just some of the stories you'll see on this journey through time.

To revisit more of Hatteberg's People.

These stories are like old friends.

Their lives radiate from the screen like prophets of the past.

They were teachers, but not in a classroom.

Instead, they taught about life to those around them who cared to listen.

And I was their student.

Helping the poor has always been a noble yet never ending pursuit, fueled by faith and compassion for others.

Gary Wing had worked tirelessly to help provide food and essential services to Wichita's poor.

In 1998, he explained just how dedicated he was to that mission.

At times you just need to come here.

I think the poor are more invisible, in Wichita than in most communities.

They often our next door neighbor, two quiet voices hoping to be heard over the din of a robust economy where money flows, yet old problems remain.

I feel that, God has placed me in this place, to to be a kind of a tool for what he needs to have done.

No problem.

Gary Winget oversees the United Methodist Urban Ministries food, clothing and health care to the poor.

He's a man who lives his work.

I made a commitment to my board, and it was a struggle for them that I wouldn't take any more pay raises.

These are pictures of hunger.

We've seen a thousand times yet in Wichita.

Hunger and the need is hidden.

Yet every day.

Every moment.

This place feeds hundreds.

The problem, unseen by most of us, is here a daily issue.

Then when my husband got laid off, we needed to know.

We have people here that can't wait till they get home to dig into that food bag or food box to eat.

I felt low.

I felt, I felt as if.

People would look at me funny.

We're blessed by having about 450 volunteers.

They're real nice here.

They don't look at you wrong.

Every year, $2 million worth of food goes through this ministry and thousands benefit.

Yes.

The man who runs it once had the power to kill millions.

As an Air force officer at an Atlas missile silo.

Later, he exchanged the missiles for the minister.

Booster engine shut down.

So it opened Chicago with the lead.

I guess I feel a negativity about people that get paid millions of dollars to play a game like baseball or basketball.

You know that.

That's an example of of a huge amount of money going for, not much of a purpose.

Just the next time somebody offers you a pay raise, you say, well, I don't believe I need that.

I can't be free and whole as long as there are people hurting as bad as there are in Wichita.

Gary retired from the United Methodist Urban Ministry the following year, and he soon went back to work, though this time and drug and alcohol prevention.

He retired from that job after 12 years.

But Gary wasn't on the sidelines for very long.

Now, at age 88, he serves as pastor of the Fernley United Methodist Church.

He cannot stop helping, not stop giving serving people.

Oh, we are so glad.

Oh, go pastor Winget.

Yay!

There are needs to be more people like him, don't we?

Yeah.

Don't.

We needs to be a flood of people like I.

We may be too enthusiastic about it, but I don't think so I don't think.

I don't think we're too enthusiastic about people like that.

I don't think so.

All right.

There are all kinds of restaurants out there catering to all kinds of people.

In 2001, Larry came across a little eatery in south Wichita that was anything but exclusive or fancy.

Yeah, but that was part of its charm.

Shirley Coleman was the owner and the chef.

Well, it's pretty primitive.

Give us an old filling station.

And it was moved in here when k 15 was.

Martin.

Just what I understand.

At 61st Street South and hydraulic.

Shirley Coleman runs this little place.

It was sand pits and peach orchards and just a small neighborhood.

When I first came here, that was 30 years ago.

Now there's burgers, burgers, burgers, mustard and ketchup, large and small.

And those fried onions.

Hello, ladies.

You just get it like you were at home.

That is, if at home, you eat a three quarter pound of hamburger.

That takes 20 minutes.

You can see why it takes 20 minutes to cook our sandwiches.

Oh, yeah.

These are big burgers now.

It's not fancy.

This is the only sign you'll see along the road.

There's no jack.

It's not even a mom and pop operation.

Just mom.

No pop.

That's the way it looks.

No paint on the wall, a concrete floor.

Some call it just a hole in the wall place.

Yes, it did irritate me.

And then I, I stopped and thought, well, that's actually what it is.

You know, we don't think I know that because we've been here forever.

You know, just homestyle here.

They just took their cell phone.

They get what they want.

It makes it easier on me.

Ever notice how sometimes we try to romanticize a place like this?

Well, Shirley really doesn't.

I don't know that I ever enjoyed it, but I guess I did, because it's not every day that I call it more survival.

It's just day.

You have something you have to do every day, and you just have to do it.

Shirley has severe and diabetes, but it's this place, though that keeps her going.

Well, you just have to keep plugging away.

Just every day you have to get up and go.

You have to keep active.

For if I wouldn't be here today if I wasn't doing something.

In the corporate world, little places like these have no place for it.

But for one woman on this little Kansas corner, it is her entire life until the last dog dies.

I'm here.

Shirley kept her restaurant going for many years up until her death in 2020 at age 82.

Now, her daughter ran it for a while, but now the place is permanently closed.

These are little moments in time that occur in cities where you have a restaurant run by one person.

It opens up, exists for a period of time, and then is gone.

What she made was excellent.

The hamburgers, all that stuff.

It was great.

But, you know, it's not it's not like the modern ones that, you know, the McDonald's, the Hardee's, all all of those.

It's not anything like that.

It was just a place that you would stop at and almost be transported back in time.

Back in time.

I think it's a testament to how good it was.

It lasted until 2020.

Yeah, a long time.

I mean, that's 19 years.

That's a long time.

Exactly.

And and and meeting her, you know, at the same time as she's working down there, she was great.

And I really enjoyed my time there.

And again, the burgers were great.

I thought they were, bugs in the living room.

Most of us would call an exterminator, but not Marion Gall.

No.

Marion had them in her living room on purpose.

She loved nature and appreciated the beauty that comes from humble origins.

There's a cardinal, baby.

Yeah, I like nature.

I like nature very much.

They're friends, you know.

They come to dinner every day.

Breakfast, lunch.

Bring their children.

Sometimes they.

I think they're something only a mother could love, you know, because they are great big worms to a lot of people.

When you look at them with a unprejudiced eye, they're like jewels.

Almost.

At her Mission Hills home in Kansas City, Marion Gold raises caterpillars taught by her mother to be a naturalist.

Marion's living room is alive with these crawly creatures.

When you're a caterpillar and you're that size, you don't move fast.

It's almost, slow motion once in a while.

I'll come up with 2 or 3 butterflies flying through the living room, and that's not all bad either, you know?

And the first question is why?

Because usually people, when you are talking about caterpillars, they say, what does a baby butterfly look like?

And you say, well, it's a caterpillar is what it really is.

And this is where disbelief really sets in.

These are red heads, the bodies green, but the head is a reddish color.

They're all endangered.

They're on the the rare list come spring after the caterpillars of wintered in their cocoons and undergone a metamorphosis.

These big green ones will become these winged beauties with a 3 to 5 inch wing spread.

And it's the metamorphosis that Marian finds almost a miracle.

You can't raise butterflies and have any doubt in your mind about God, really.

Nor, she says, can you be cynical around butterflies?

No I can't.

No, neither could you.

No.

Nobody could.

Outside, nature prepares for winter inside Marion's house.

Spring is just a cocoon away.

He's minding his own business.

And he's.

He doesn't know what he's going to be.

He doesn't know that he's going to be anything at all.

And he's in for a lovely surprise.

Omarion lived another 12 years until she was 72.

And really, that's all at this point.

Unfortunately, we know about her, but I will never forget Marion because she had a great house, lived in a very nice area of Kansas City.

Yeah.

And you walk in the living room and here are these caterpillars and flying around are these beautiful, beautiful butterflies, you know, monarchs and all of that.

It was very different.

But it was also very special.

She loved that.

And to walk into a house like that where she was very different than I would be.

Yeah, yeah.

You good.

But she had the caterpillars there, Larry.

Monarch butterflies flying all around.

It's great.

I love you, man.

Ugly Larry, you know, was great.

I'm sure it was wonderful.

I was she was a special woman.

Only Larry would find that person.

But I'm so glad you did.

But we shared it with everybody for you.

Yeah.

None of us likes to think about it, but half of us who are married are going to have to someday face the death of our spouse.

Leroy Spence of Hutchinson was devastated when he lost his wife, but he was able to turn his life around when he started concentrating on others, just as his late wife would have wanted.

She is here today.

You sure look sharp.

Thank you.

I wish you were always sharp.

Extra special.

Sharp.

Today, Leroy Spence is making his twice weekly trip to bring treats and smiles.

Okay.

How's it going for you?

Pretty good.

Good.

His visits bring him to the Hutchinson Medical Center, where many of those he sees are in the oncology.

Yeah, I'm here.

I just don't leave.

Do I move?

Oh, I get oh, look at your treats today.

Leroy calls this his mission.

Would you put it in between these?

But it doesn't happen easily.

His daughter, Susan Balding of McPherson explains, after mom passed away, dad really felt like there was no purpose in life anymore.

They've been married 64 years and so he had lost a big part of himself.

Leroy's wife, Darlene, had bladder cancer and took treatments at the center.

She was always friendly and outgoing, and she too brought treats to others in the unit.

They were close, Leroy and Darlene, but the cancer eventually won and Leroy was lost.

And so I kept saying, dad, you're here because there's a purpose.

God has you here.

So he must have a purpose in mind.

And so one day, someone came up to him and said, how about you helping out those treats at the medical center and passing out those treats?

My mom used to do that when she was taking chemo.

And so dad took her place first once a week, then twice a week.

Through that simple effort, he found his mission.

And the hugs began to find him here.

You ties are only so wonderful.

I just love it.

I just enjoy all the people.

They seem to enjoy every kind.

He's my sugar daddy.

He comes around, brings me sugar all the time.

Why?

The girls live around here, right?

Yeah.

I guess I saw you Sunday.

One of the girls here.

Well, it's just, it just gives you a good feeling.

Everybody's waiting on you.

And get there.

Working now with victory in the Valley, he spends hours getting the treats ready at his home, knowing what each person likes.

Eats well, just like checking the chips and chocolates with Caleb, I have this one.

He's doing exactly what his wife Darlene, would have wanted him to do.

I like your tie.

Yeah, you got her sweet for the day.

Yeah.

Close.

I can keep going now.

I'm going to stay with it.

You.

Well, that was in 2008.

Leroy lived another six years to be 92, and I would guess that he lived that long because he was doing something very important to help other people.

And it would also probably have been his wife's wishes.

Absolutely.

And he got satisfaction out of helping other people.

And there's not much more you could want on a life.

No, no, I'm very happy he was able to do that for so long and so were other little moments.

Thank you.

Leroy.

One day in 1978, Larry loaded up his camera with film and drove down to his hometown of Winfield to do a story on John at one.

This was a long time ago.

John was a skilled artist who crafted intricate pictures instead of brushes and paint.

He used a tiny saw and would.

This is an example of marquetry, an art that traces its history to the 15th century.

The picture is formed by wood, only 1/28 of an inch thick, and it's cut with precision so that each piece fits perfectly with the next.

John Wood of Winfield has been involved with the art of marquetry since 1940, but only recently, because of his retirement, has it become a full time hobby.

In the art, the grains and textures of the woods are placed so that they represent certain visual elements that heighten the reality of the picture.

Last year at wood completed 56 pictures.

It is a slow and exacting process and requires infinite patience when you're working in small with small pieces.

Of course, it takes considerable patience and and, but when you like to do something, I guess patience doesn't really make any difference.

Working from a drawing, each tiny piece is painstakingly matched to form the picture.

Many people dread retirement, but not John Edward.

Oh no, I sure don't.

I'm having the time of my life back.

I don't know how in the world I'm going to live long enough to make everything that I want to make, really, I, I really don't, and it's just great.

I have a lot of fun and I spend a lot of time out here, like the wife has to call me in sometimes in this picture, 17 different woods are used.

Some of the more prominent woods are prime of era, which the sky is mostly made up of.

And this is, white ash.

The water and this foreground here is is made of, of Carpathian and elm burl.

I really enjoy it.

I don't know how to say it other than it's just a lot of fun.

Marquetry, the art that requires expertise, years of experience and patience, but yet remains fun for people like John Edward.

This is Laurie had a bird that John died in 1996.

He was 87 years old.

He was also the father of Charles Atwood, who was, in my class in high school way.

Yeah.

And that's how I learned about, Charles, his father.

Yeah.

And it's tough to do.

It's called, as you saw on the film, it's called the Art of marquetry.

Not a lot of people do it, because it's so intricate.

But it's beautiful when it's done, right.

I'd never heard of it.

But, you know, interesting and gorgeous.

Marketed marquetry.

Oh, that's right.

A lot of people, especially guys, are car nuts.

Well, Torrey Brinkley was one of them, but with a different every year.

Torrey admired craftsmanship and the beauty of the new models when they came out, but it was a waste of time for any salesman to try to sell him one.

Here's a story from 1977.

For the last 24 years, the new model automobiles have not escaped the interested eyes of Pastor Torrey Brinkley of the First Mennonite Brethren Church.

His first love is serving God and the needs of his congregation.

But like the rest of us, he has to have a hobby.

His is the automobile.

Now, it's not what you might think he feels the car is little more than a method of transportation.

Brinkley says automobiles would be perfect if they weren't invented by man, built by man, and then driven by man.

God Brinkley says, is the only one who has ever been able to create something perfect.

But he always visits the new car showrooms year after year.

And to top it off, he's never owned a new car in his life.

Well, it's not really a priority of my life to want to buy something like a car.

I can enjoy them and you know where I get to enjoy all the cars because I get to visit them when they're in their best state.

This is the reason he visits the showrooms year after year, to get a brochure that tells about the new cars.

He has thousands of brochures with over 3000 separate entries in his car catalog collection.

They describe over 85 makes of cars from not only this country, but from many foreign ones as well.

Brinkley began collecting car brochures in 1953 when his father took him to the Chicago Automobile Show.

Everything from a 57 Mercury to the Excalibur is represented.

So why does he collect the brochures?

It helps those people who are restoring older automobiles or, keeping up with anti-caa shows to make their cars more salable and interesting to show because they can tell the people what exactly it was like when it was brand new.

And in what manner it was, distributed.

This brochure is the 1961 Fossil Vega, one of the luxury cars produced in France.

This gorgeous car for a Frenchman, interestingly, had an American Chrysler engine under the hood.

Probably a brochure like this today would sell for no less than 15 to $20.

So car salesmen don't spend a lot of time trying to sell this man a new car.

Remember, he's just interested in the brochures, which, unfortunately don't carry a very large sales commission.

This is Larry, a.

Now, a year later, Torrey moved to Spain, where he served as a missionary for 12 years.

Then he returned to the US and went to work for a car dealership in Boulder, Colorado.

Now, Terry has also continued to collect car brochures and has become well known as an automotive historian.

He now divides his time between volunteering at the Foreign Transportation Museum in Denver and doing church work.

Torrey went to the same church I did, and that's how I got to know him.

What was was through the church very, very nice, quiet guy.

And you would never know that he had all of this stuff going on with this car.

You know, it wasn't the thing that you would think about.

But anyway, and he's so involved, he volunteers for the Transportation Museum.

That's it, I love that.

Great.

I love that he's happy.

Okay, Larry, I just got to say, the ones from 77, 78, 84, they're my favorite ones.

They're total escapes.

They are escapes from reality.

And we all need a little bit of that this day and age.

That's right.

And that's why I shot them.

Because when I was shooting them, I was escaping from.

Right.

Yeah.

You're right, you're right.

You know, I'm so glad you saved them.

They're they've got another go around somewhere in life.

Some somewhere.

You know what a gift to Kansas.

What a gift.

Great history.

That's it for this week.

Hey, why don't you send us an email?

The address is how of works people at Cape Dawg.

Thank you.

So much for watching.

I'm Susan Peters and I'm Larry Bird.

Great to have you with us today.

We'll see you again soon.