Ken Curtis – The Early Years
by Pam Allan
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Life wasn’t easy – no electricity, no powered farm machinery – everything was done by horse or mule or just pure tenaciousness by Dan. Their home was a sod house. Nellie washed clothes in the creek when the weather permitted. I’m not sure if she even had a wood stove at this point – I know eventually she did.
In 1916 the family added their third son Curtis Wain. They had no idea the impact this boy would make around the world. Curtis Wain would eventually use the name Ken Curtis for his professional name.
Curtis spent his early childhood on the ranch where the family raised hogs and lived on game in the area. In an interview with Ken, he remembers “….living in a sod house, milking cows in the morning when it was so cold you’d stick your fingers up between the udders to unfreeze ‘em.” (from the Manhattan Mercury – Manhatten Kansas 4/10/64)
Times were hard for so much of the country – between the financial crisis that kept hitting the country and weather related disasters, ranching just wasn’t providing a regular income to raise three young boys and take care of a wife. One particularly hard winter when a blizzard hit, Dan lost most, if not all of his herd of around 75 cattle. As the family was digging out carcasses of the lost cattle, one of the Curtis’ brothers trying to make the best of a bad situation, said “We can get rich off the hides.”
By 1926 times were getting so bad Dan made the decision to provide a more regular income for his family and moved to Las Animas, Colorado where he ran for sheriff of Bent County, CO. He won the election and the family moved into the jail and to what was probably a palace compared to the sod house They lived below the jail and Curtis helped his parents with the prisoners.
In an interview with the Oakland Tribune 6/17/73 Ken recalls “People used to get arrested just so they could stay in my Dad’s jail and eat my mother’s cooking. The prisoners ate the same as mother cooked for us, so it was mighty good. It was depression time and people weren’t eatin’ too good. My mother was a very plain, but a very good cook. I can never remember a morning we didn’t have hot biscuits for breakfast. She got up around 5 am and cooked on an old wood stove. She served the biscuits with plenty of the good fresh butter she churned. We milked four cows and had a little place over at the old livery stable to keep the cows. Breakfast was a really good meal – homemade jam or jelly, fried eggs, bacon or ham. We always had our big meal at noon and supper at night. I remember mother was allowed about a dollar a day to feed each prisoner. She was a really good manager.” Ken also said about his childhood, “I attribute that ability [to be easy going and roll with the punches] to my background. I’ve often said I wouldn’t take anything in the world for where I was born, when I was born and everything that happened to me during my childhood. It was all a great big plus for everything I’ve tried to do since.”
The Gates family was very musical and in a Ken Griffis interview with Ken Curtis on Nov. 1, 1968, Ken recalls his father being very musical “He played just about every string instrument. Couldn’t read [music], of course, but it was just a natural talent. And all of us sang to some extent.” Ken played the saxophone and clarinet but never played the guitar except for chords. His brother Chester (aka Dudley) played the banjo and accompanied his father. “In fact, my early childhood was with the old square dances back in Colorado. We used to have, you know, just the ranchers get together and have a Saturday night dance, of course, and Dad played the fiddle. Mom used to chord on the organ, the old pump organ, and Dud[ley] played banjo. And I used to sleep on the benches around the side of the room, you know.” When he wasn’t sleeping he would do clog dances.
Curtis’ earliest interest in music was around 6th or 7th grade in grammar school.
Curtis would be in the kitchen with his mother while she made biscuits, her hands covered in flour and she would start singing and he would join in – she would drift into a part and he would soon be singing her part instead of his, and she would thump him on the head. He recalls flour drifting down past his eyes.
When the family wasn’t singing and playing together they worked at the jail. Curtis at the age of 12 or so was a turnkey and would take the prisoners' food to them while his mother stood by with a shotgun.
The only escape during his dad’s tenure as sheriff happened when Ted the dog started barking. Curtis’ mom, thinking he was after the chickens, was running him off while the prisoners (who he was actually barking at) hit the road.
One memorable character from Curtis’ childhood was a man called Cedar Jack. He would cut down cedar trees for fence posts. After a few months he’d load up his supply of posts and bring them into town by mule- drawn wagon. He’d sell his posts and take the money and get roaring drunk. Occasionally he’d end up in jail and eventually he’d head back out to start the whole process again. This man was to have a huge influence on Curtis’ adult alter-ego, Ken Curtis. He based his character of Monk on Have Gun Will Travel after Cedar Jack and to some extent based certain mannerisms of Festus on him.
Curtis attended Bent County High School, where he played saxophone, played football, and helped found the school newspaper. He also entertained with a group called Dan [I don’t think this name is correct – I’ve seen two different names in reference to this group] Denny and his Dozen Diamonds. He must have been a good student because he earned a scholarship to attend Colorado College in Colorado Springs.
Before he left for college and while still in high school, he was instrumental in the founding of an annual celebration in Las Animas called Santa Fe Trail Day. He and friend wearing nothing but breech clothes (until they had some complaints and had to put on more respectable attire) rode in the first parade. Hank Dodson provided an article giving more information about that first year: The article is from the “Pueblo Chieftan,” titled "One of Las Animas' Favorite Sons Played a Key Role in Organizing the First Santa Fe Trail Day."
According to Teresa Garcia who presently coordinates the annual event, Curtis roused the crowd at the first event in his own happy-go-lucky way.
Through interviews Garcia has conducted with members of the class of 1934, she said that most recall the comical and outgoing Curtis and classmate Raymond Foster stealing the show during the parade by dressing as Native Americans and riding on horseback through town (probably bareback, my words).
People say that the two boys used cinnamon to color their skins and wore headbands and feathers. They got in trouble. Teachers said that they were dressed indecently because they were wearing nothing but breech-cloths. "This was not acceptable and they had to cover up more" Garcia said.
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| It's possible that Ken is the one on the left, not right. |
Garcia said legend has it that they covered up temporarily with some blankets until somewhere along the parade route they returned to just the breech-cloths. "I've been told that after the parade, at the evening dance, he (Curtis) was so severely sunburned that he couldn't even participate." Garcia said with a laugh.
A year after high school Curtis headed to college.
He entered intending to become a surgeon, and he attended three years of pre-med before dropping out. During that three years, he played football and participated in track events. I’ve got the three yearbooks from his college years and they only show him on the football team one year – he isn’t in any of the track pictures at all. He did mention he had to work a lot so it could be he wasn’t available for pictures. He was in a fraternity and one of his fraternity brothers and member of the glee club he sang with would be the first person in his hometown back east to die in World War II.
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| Curtis in football uniform |
Curtis had traveled to this friend’s home and worked the summer doing manual labor, I suppose to earn money, and he must have made a good impression on his parents. Years later, his parents would appear on “This is Your Life: Ken Curtis” and be reunited with their son’s close friend. He also wrote musicals for the college and sang in the glee club. Because his singing and song writing got such a positive feedback, he decided music would be his future and not medicine.
One interesting note is that sometime while Curtis was in college or shortly after he left, his mother became a widow and his father a widower! In 1935, Nellie is still listed as living in Las Animas, but by the 1940 census she is a “widow” living in Denver as a housekeeper. His father is a “widower” living in Las Animas raising stock. Apparently, divorce wasn’t looked upon well back then and they had to cover their tracks somehow.
Meanwhile back in Colorado Springs in 1938 or so, Curtis decided to head out to California to try is luck in the music field and that, friends, is another story I will write at a later day.
A young boy born on a ranch in southeastern Colorado would realize his dream of fame, although maybe not exactly how he planned it. What an impact he has made on thousands who love watching him act and listen to him sing. In an interview with The Daily Standard in Sikeston, MO, 8/8/68, Ken reflects: “It’s funny, I really wanted to be a doctor, but when you’re up before a crowd of 10,000 or so, and you see them laughing and enjoying themselves, it’s rewarding. I feel that’s pretty good medicine.”
Yep – Ken, you are good medicine to a world that needs to smile and laugh more – and you brought so much of that. And even though you are gone, you still make us smile and laugh. What a legacy from a humble man who loved his fans, family and country.
