KANSAS PANCAKE DAY CERTIFICATES

IN THE CHRISTIAN LITURGICAL CALENDAR, Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent, the period leading up to Easter when Christians commemorate the forty days that Jesus spent fasting and praying in the wilderness with their own acts of sacrifice. The days preceding Ash Wednesday are known as Shrovetide, when Christians prepare for the Lenten season through rituals of self-reflection and repentance (the term derives from the verb "shrive", which means to receive absolution through confession). The last day before Lenten season begins is called Shrove Tuesday and is traditionally marked by acts of indulgence in those culinary pleasures that believers will abstain from during Lent. Among English speaking Christians in particular, Shrove Tuesday is commonly known as Pancake Day, since pancakes are made of rich ingredients like eggs, milk, and sugar that need to be used up before the Lenten period of sacrifice begins.

In England, one variant on Pancake Day celebrations takes the form of pancake races, a practice that is traced back to the town of Olney, Buckinghamshire, in the mid-fifteenth century. There, it is said that a tardy housewife busy making pancakes once ran to Shrovetide service at the sound of the church bells with her frying pan (and pancake) still in hand, a story which became the basis for Olney's centuries-long tradition of pancake racing. Since 1950, a version of this race has been practiced as a good-natured transatlantic competition between Olney, England, and Liberal, Kansas, a city just shy of 20,000 people that serves as the seat of Seward County.

The piece of novelty currency featured here, styled as a "Pancake Day Certificate", celebrates the annual running of these parallel races.

Front and back of the Pancake Day Certificate. Different versions of this novelty note were printed from at least 1955 and until as late as 1968 (Image source: author's collection).

For Olney and Liberal, the International Pancake Race takes the form of two, separate 415 yard courses over which the respective teams of each town's womenfolk run, with frying pan containing pancake in hand. Racers must flip their pancakes at least twice en route to demonstrate that they have not dropped them. The required uniform includes a skirt, apron, and headscarf. Both begin at 11:55 am, although because of the transatlantic time difference, Olney's contest takes place several hours before Liberal's; victory goes to that racer on either side of the Atlantic with the fastest time. The winner of each race receives a "kiss of peace" from that person designated as the verger, or bell ringer, of the church (in past races at Liberal, this gesture has been bestowed by a representative from the British consulate).

Although they are not mentioned in the event's souvenir programs of the time, the Pancake Day Certificates seem to have been an official emission of the Liberal, Kansas Jaycees. According to a brief account in Linn's Stamp News, the note was produced as an advertising novelty by Robert and Helen Baughman, a husband-and-wife pair of stamp dealers who had a business in Liberal (Robert was once President of the Society of Philatetic Americans). The Baughmans put out different versions of these notes over the years, with the earliest dating from 1955. A newspaper account of that year's race winner, Mrs. Binnie Dick, mentioned that she attempted to deliver to President Dwight Eisenhower (a fellow Kansan) in Washington, D. C. a "short snorter" fifteen feet long consisting of pancake certificates taped together and bearing the signatures of one thousand of Liberal's citizens. Over the years, not all versions of these notes bore dates, but the latest ones seems to have been put out in 1968. Robert Baughman himself died in 1970.

Like other novelty funny money of the 1950s-60s that incorporated topical or humorous themes, these examples were large, measuring 5 inches by 12 inches. The Pancake Day Certificate illustrated here, dated March 5, 1957, has a blank space in the center of the note's front which allowed customers to order customized notes printed with their own advertising. For example, the Baughmans' own version of the note featured a portrait of the couple, affixed as a perforated stamp. The content and arrangement of the note's reverse also varied over the years but generally consisted of a description of the pancake race and its origins.

To read the complete article, see:
The Pancake Day Certificate of Liberal, Kansas (https://www.spmc.org/blog/pancake-day-certificate-liberal-kansas)

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