In the quiet countryside of Olathe, Kan., stands a farmhouse built in the 1890s with an 80' antenna tower near the front door. The home, now called the Ensor Park and Museum, connected thousands through the emerging world of amateur radio in the early 1900s.
Most days, the only sound inside the museum is the echo of footsteps. But every so often, the old radio equipment crackles to life, carrying voices from hundreds — or even thousands — of miles away.
“This is November Zero Alpha Zulu,” calls out Howard Cripe, a manager at Ensor Park and Museum and an amateur radio operator who still fires up the equipment from time to time.
“What a scorcher,” a voice from Florida crackles through the speaker back to Cripe, who’s sitting at the old transmitter.
The nook Cripe uses to talk with operators around the country is the former home of siblings Marshall and Loretta Ensor, both early airwave pioneers.
“In his teens, [Marshall] took an interest in radio, a very new technology back then,” Cripe says.
Marshall was a Renaissance man. He was a self-taught engineer, farmer, teacher, military veteran and photographer whose curiosity made him one of amateur radio’s earliest innovators. He became the head of the industrial arts department at Olathe High School one year after his graduation.
A Dynamic Duo Teaching Radio by Radio
Marshall and Loretta both earned their amateur radio licenses in the 1920s. They were a dynamic duo, with call signs W9BSP and W9UA. Like any accomplished older brother, Marshall had his younger sister right on his heels.
“Pretty much everything he did, she wanted to follow along and do and became a part of it,” Cripe says.
Long before online learning or television instruction, the Ensors were effectively conducting distance education over the airwaves.
For years, starting each December and running through early February, the siblings taught a series of one-hour lessons over the air. Beginning in 1929, Marshall taught classes that covered Morse code, electronics, basic electronic theory and radio theory. He broadcast these lessons in the evening right above the AM radio band so people could listen on their home radios. When Marshall was busy, Loretta filled in and taught the classes.
“He called it teaching ‘radio by radio,’” Cripe says. “He eventually got his master’s degree. He used that as his thesis — ‘Teaching Radio by Radio.’”
By 1939, the Ensor Park and Museum estimates, he had taught 10,000 students remotely — all of them learning enough to earn their amateur radio licenses.
A National Honor and a Historic First
Those efforts eventually led to Marshall winning a national award from CBS: the William S. Paley Award. The annual award is given to ham radio operators for “having trained more radio amateurs than any other single individual.” The network flew Marshall and Loretta to New York City to receive the honor.
Although Loretta’s name wasn’t engraved on the award, she had her own moment in the spotlight. Cripe says Loretta became the first woman whose voice was transmitted across the Pacific by amateur radio after making contact with an operator in New Zealand.
A Legacy Beyond the Green Shutters
Whether it was the 1940s or today, Marshall and Loretta’s impact goes well beyond the farmhouse walls and the green shutters of the historic homestead. Marshall taught students at Olathe High School until 1965. His classes focused on mechanical things, welding, drafting and photography. He even took photos for the Olathe yearbook.
“Last weekend we had three of his former students out here doing tours and talking about some of the things they have made in the house here,” Cripe says. "[They shared] the impact that it had on their lives, just learning all these skills.”
The Ensor Park and Museum was recognized as a National Historic Place and a Kansas Historic Place in 2004. The museum is open every Saturday and Sunday, 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., in May, June, September and October.
