News

EARL WATT

   • Leader & Times

When the lost time capsule from 1972 was discovered two weeks ago on the Seward County Fairgrounds, there was excitement about what was inside.

The capsule was supposed to be unearthed two years ago, but it was forgotten, and since no marker was placed to remind the public of its location and its date, two years passed before curiosity led to a search, and that search led to the discovery of the capsule, a Wilbert Vault intended to house a casket.

But the euphoria quickly turned to disappointment when the capsule was opened, and it was discovered that water had penetrated the vault, damaging much of the contents that originally were placed in cardboard boxes.

But a couple of parcels weren’t placed in paper.

Miriam Chaffin and her husband Emery gathered their items and placed them in a tackle box instead of a shoe box, and that protected the items for the past 52 years.

Chaffin’s items were unique — a porcelain elephant from the Chaffin Gift Shop she and her husband operated that continued to expand in their lifetimes with the Chaffin Hardware Store located on South Kansas Avenue. A sticker on the elephant promoted Chaffin’s shop as “Liberal’s oldest Gift Shop.”

A toy was also in the packet along with a box of screw-in fuses. The style has long since been replaced, but according to Chaffin, they were cutting edge in 1972.

And there were also letters written to their children. While most other pieces of paper that came out of the time capsule were damaged beyond repair, Chaffin’s letters were neatly folded and dry in the tackle box.

“These fuses are obsolete now, but they were the going thing then,” Chaffin said as she sifted through belongings lost to time for 52 years. “We also put one of the toys inside, and these were letters to our two kids.”

Miriam gathered up the items in 1972, and Emery “did it all up”  according to Chaffin.

Emery passed away, but Miriam survived long enough to see the time capsule return to the surface.

“I never thought I would live this long,” she said. “My husband passed away in 2019. We didn’t think we would see it again.”

Miriam remembers a much different Liberal.

“The population of the city has changed,” she said. “I came here in 1960 and it was about 5,000 people and now it is 20,000.”

She also said that people used to eat at home a lot more than they do today.

“There’s a lot of fast food now,” she said. “People eat out more. Everybody has two or three cars in their drive. You were doing good to have one car back then.”

Miriam examined her packet of treasures from an era long gone, but she left the letters alone.

“My husband wrote them, and I don’t know what they say,” she said of the letters for her children. “I will read them after they read them.”

For decades, Miriam and Emery provided goods to those who shopped their store. She was confined to a wheelchair for the time capsule reveal, and the woman who opened the capsule was much different than the one who put the items in the tackle box in 1972.

“Fifty years is a long time,” she said.