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around McPherson and Harvey Counties

Our regular, casual, fun, Afternoon Tea is a meal with sandwiches, scones, dessert and tea. Light Tea performances are served with one sandwich, scones, toppings and tea. Holiday Afternoon Tea serves up a festive tea menu, ambiance, and performance to remember. Consider this as an enriching afternoon with friends.
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First Person, Historical Performances

All performances are in authentic first person, in costume, Chautauqua style. Discussions can be held after the performance both in character and as a scholar out-of-character. Educational and valuable opportunity for corporate office programs, organizational meetings with discussions, public and private venues, educational facilities to experience and learn authentic historical persons.

Click here to view and download a PDF of our brochure spotlighting Personalities for Performances.

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  • Abigail Adams - Light Afternoon Tea & Personality - wife of John Adams and voice of women's rights through him at the organizing congress of the United States.
    Remember her admonition to her husband, John, during the Continental Congress... "Remember the Ladies."
    Seating is limited. Reserve you spot, bring a friend and consider a holiday gift certificate to round out a special afternoon experience for friendship and hospitality.

    		•  Abigail Adams - Light Afternoon Tea & Personality
  • Clara Barton - Founder of American Red Cross and "Angel on the Battlefield" from the Civil War era. There is a health aspect in her story of ageism, a prejudice that plagues our culture. Her humanitarian work in Europe during the Franco Prussian war and the Ottoman massacre was foundational in bring the U.S. Government into the Geneva Convention Treaty.

    		•  Clara Barton
  • Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell - first American woman to earn a medical degree. Promoted women in medicine, contributed to understanding of women's gynecology and health.

    		•  Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell
  • Mary Breckenridge - Light Afternoon TEA & Personality - Mary Breckenridge was born into southern traditions that fostered and supported female subservience. Women dutifully sought to avoid emasculating the Confederate soldiers who lost the War between the States.

    Mary rebelled at the manipulation and dishonesty of that sexist tradition. Her family was politically connected and her brothers received superior education. As a woman born to purpose and an intellect to serve the disadvantaged, she took up a challenge to right the disastrous wrongs of maternal and child health in the mountains around Leslie County, Kentucky.

    Educated as a Registered Nurse, she and her colleagues added Midwifery education with studies in England. On horseback, they rode into the mountains to turn the most dangerous area for childbirth in America to one of the safest, surpassing safety at the time in New York City.

    Breckenridge founded the Frontier Nursing Service (FNS) and the resulting, modern University and healthcare services that continue to be a beacon for Maternal-Child and Family Nurse Practitioner excellence.

    PLEASE NOTE: This September performance is a special performance only at Dyck Aboretum in Harvey County. Please CLICK HERE for more information about this special performance location.

    		•  Mary Breckenridge - Light Afternoon TEA & Personality
  • Catherine the Great of Russia - 18th century ruler in her own right who secured strategic alliances with European allies, facilitated Mennonite religious freedoms, and with a non-aggression treaty facilitated the colonists in the American Revolution, and brought Russia into modernity.


    		• Catherine the Great of Russia
  • Queen Christina of Sweden - Christina was the only legitimate heir to the Swedish throne when her father, King Gustav, was killed on the battlefield during the 30-years war. Her Mother, Eleanora was mentally unstable and abusive to Christina. King Gustaf had left guardianship and care to Axel Oxenstierna. Christina received a Princely education in military and political arts as well as in the classics.

    Christina demanded an end to the war and negotiated the Westphalia treaty to bring peace between the Protestants and Catholics of Northern Europe. She longed for Sweden to become the Athens of the North and brought classical learning, music, and arts to the region.

    Rene Descartes, French philosopher and scholar, came to Sweden to dialogue with her as she sought truth and asked, "What is love or hate?" Her subjects and the ruling elite could not understand or value a woman for her mind. They only wanted the Queen to marry and produce an heir.

    Her struggle for personal freedom, the passion for arts, her abdication from the throne and as head of the State Lutheran Church, a Catholic conversion from Lutheranism and flight to Rome under Pope Alexander VII, are part of her story.

    		• Queen Christina of Sweden
  • Mamie Eisenhower - the wife of United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and First Lady of the United States from 1953 to 1961. Mamie was born in Iowa into entrepreneurial wealth. Her Father retired at age 35 to San Antonio, Texas, where she met a lowly 2nd Lieutenant Army Officer. Mamie chose love over her debutant status. She trekked across the world with her husband and worked alongside of him as a rising, officer's wife. As First Lady, she entertained a wide range of foreign dignitaries with a confident style and dedication to charitable needs.

    		•  Mamie Eisenhower
  • Anna Freud - Anna Freud was the youngest daughter of Sigmund Freud. Anna defended Papa's theories to the world and cared for her dying father in exile after escaping the Nazi invasion of Vienna, Austria. Anna brought her compassion as a teacher and as a psychoanalyst to understanding children's trauma in the bombing blitz experiences in London. Children separated more easily than adults from their homes and possessions, but were traumatized by the loss of attachment and relationships. Anna provided understanding, discipline, refuge, and hope for the children.

    		•  Anna Freud
  • Karen Horney, MD - Dr. Horney was in the second medical school class in Germany that admitted women. She studied with Sigmund Freud and took issue with his male-centrist view of mental health and human development. Dr Horney escaped Germany just before the Nazis tried to destroy psychology as a profession and linked it with Jewish professionals such as Freud. Dr Horney was the original leader of feminism as gender equality that took over in the 1960s in American change.

    		• Karen Horney, MD
  • Full Afternoon Holiday Queen's Tea - Historical Echoes, Holiday Royale Afternoon Tea at the McPherson Opera House with Dolley Madison.
    A Holiday Full Queen's Tea. Plan now for your tickets to the December 2, 2018 Holiday Royale Tea with Personality.

    RoJean Louchs Guests will be treated to background harp music during teatime by RoJean Louckes. Full Afternoon Tea menu will be catered by Chef, Dan Gottneid.
    Seating is limited. Reserve you spot, bring a friend and consider a holiday gift certificate to round out a special afternoon experience for friendship and hospitality.

    		•  Full Afternoon Holiday Queen's Tea
  • Mary Todd Lincoln - a maligned, misunderstood, and unfairly demonized wife of President Abraham Lincoln. Mary was an outspoken, educated Victorian women who unintentionally threatened her husband's law associates and cabinet members, alike.

    Mary's personality was emotive, but after a carriage accident, intended as an assassination attempt on Abraham's life, she was thrown from a runaway carriage and sustained internal brain damage with life-long "necrotizing" headaches that contributed to her distress.

    Abe's law partner, Herndon, was named executor of the President's estate. Herndon was particularly threatened by Mary and he withheld the estate settlement and allowance money for Mary's living needs until she was forced to sell her home in Springfield, IL. She lived in boarding houses most of the rest of her life.

    Her only remaining son was manipulated by Herndon and associates to act as the Victorian protectorate of his Mother and to commit her to a mental institution for life-time care. Her escape and restitution is part of the story.

    		• Mary Todd Lincoln
  • Dolley Madison - the wife of James Madison, President of the United States from 1809 to 1817. She was noted for her social graces, which boosted her husbands popularity as President. She did much to define the role of the President's spouse, known only much later by the title First Lady.

    Dolley Madison also helped to furnish the newly constructed White House. When the British set fire to it in 1814, she was credited with saving the classic portrait of George Washington.


    		• Dolley Madison
  • Alice Paul - significant influence on the U.S. constitutional amendment for women's right to vote and have full citizenship.

    Dr. Paul was born into an egalitarian Quaker tradition. She struggled to understand the patriarchal dominant social view of the early 20th century. She studied Social Work in the US and in England. She studied Social Policies, and political strategies for righting the wrongs against women.

    Alice joined the women's movement of Susan B Anthony and Cady Stanton, but her energetic and demanding strategies caused a rift with a formation of a new organization for women's right to vote. Alice employed aggressive, non-violent strategies and used President Wilson's words of war against him.

    During WW I, Wilson told the Kaiser of Germany that they ignored the voice of half of their citizens. Alice had signs made of Wilson's words that the Silent Sentinels held outside the White House for almost two years to shame the President by the use of his own words to the Kaiser against him for denying voice and vote for women in America.

    Alice was unrelenting in using the women's voices of new states in the west who had granted women the right to vote with statehood. She and her workers suffered prison terms and physical and mental torture to bring about the final Congressional victory with ratification of the 19th Constitutional Amendment in 1920 giving women the right to vote.

    Alice continued her political studies with another PhD. She was the original author of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) that in addition to the right to vote, sought to bring women into Constitutional Equality with full citizenship. Alice dedicated her life to the struggle for equality.

    Women in America still do not have Constitutional equality. The ERA needs two more states to ratify the standing and full citizenship for women.

    		• Alice Paul
  • Eleanor Roosevelt - Eleanor was born of material privilege but with an indifferent Mother who reminded her she was an "ugly duckling" of the family. Orphaned at an early age, she was under the guardianship of her maternal-grandmother who adhered to strict protocol and limited displays of affection. Sent to a prestigious finishing school in the UK, she discovered a warm and encouraging mentor who saw feminism as the power of the future.

    Eleanor's life was lived first in timidity and fear, then in obligation and duty, and finally in the discovery of herself, powers, interests, and influences through the United Nations Human Rights Commission. Eventually, she feared no one and no challenge that could make rights of self-determination and personal sanctity realizable.

    		•  Eleanor Roosevelt
  • Suzanna (Dora) Salter - Dora Salter was the first woman in America to be elected as a town Mayor. She governed as Mayor for Argonia, Kansas during the unrest at a time of strong opposition to liquor and supported by the WCTU voters. During her political tenure in Algonia, she birthed and lost a child. She went on as a widow and successfully raised her children before old age. More will be said for this colorful, futuristic leader.

    		• Suzanna (Dora) Salter
  • Margaret Sanger - an important pioneer actively committed to providing scientific information to doctors, nurses and a healthy public regarding reproductive education and contraceptive discovery to eliminate abortion practices. For mature audience.

    Margaret Sanger Performance


    		• Margaret Sanger
  • Irena Sendler - Light Afternoon Tea & Personality - Christian Social Worker who took great risks to rescue 2,500 Jewish children away from the Warsaw ghetto under WW II Nazi death camp plans.

    A social worker/nurse in Warsaw, Poland during WW II. Irena Sendler was a forgotten WW II hero until recently. She was a young professional Social Worker in Warsaw when the Nazis invaded the country and their society. Nazi's brought hate and prejudice, and encouraged neighbors to hate neighbors. Finally, as a part of Hitler's "Last Solution" all Warsaw Jews were forced into an overcrowded, diseased ghetto before being taken to the death camp, Triblinka, northeast of Warsaw.

    Irena became a state sponsored "nurse" to check diseases in the ghetto. In reality, she was an underground courier who sneaked children out of the ghetto under the eyes and ears of the Nazi guards. She and her small group are credited with saving about 2500 children by various and ingenious means. She carried babies out in carpenter boxes under the tools, she trained her dog to bark at the gates with Nazi guards to cover any cries or noises from the children in morgue boxes.

    Irena was captured and sentenced to death. In prison she was tortured and all her limbs were broken, but her escape and return to her work are a part of the story.

    Irena Sendler and her story from WW II came to light through Kansas High School students history project research.

    		• Irena Sendler - Light Afternoon Tea & Personality
  • Helen (Nellie) Taft - dreamed of becoming first lady and actively helped her husband to the office. At inauguration, she challenged protocol of the times by joining her husband in the carriage ride to the ceremony.
    Two months after becoming First Lady, she had a debilitating stroke that limited her hospitality efforts while she recuperated. Nellie brought a genteel culture and her talents in music and music appreciation to Washington and the White House.
    Early in their marriage, when Taft served as governor to Philippines, she endeared herself to the Philippine people by actively promoting equality of the Asian culture. She included native women in invitations to Tea in a gesture not before seen.
    When she wanted to turn the Potomac swamp area near the White House into a Potomac Park, she ordered 2,000 cherry trees to grace the space. The diseased trees were replaced by 3,000 healthy trees as a gift from Japan in appreciation of her respect of the Asian peoples.

    		•  Helen (Nellie) Taft
  • Louise Thaden - The only woman aviator (aviatrix) who held the three major competitive awards in aviation at the same time. A contemporary of Amelia Earhart, and responsible face for Wichita aviation success through Beechcraft.

    		•  Louise Thaden
  • Katharine Wright - The sister of Wilbur and Orville Wright brothers, the business and public relations face of success behind them. Her story has family, romance, and relationship issues.

    		•  Katharine Wright


    Woman veteran owned
    NAICS 66170, 54612
    DUNS 079137088
    CAGE code 079137088/72CD7
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