Bombs, books, buttons and bowls: A new book collects Wichitans’ collections

As author Sondra Langel and photographer Larry Schwarm collaborated on their third book, a collection of collections called “Crave Covet Collect,” they found themselves in some surprising situations.

In one, they went to visit Patrick Daniels to see his World War I and II items, “which turned out to be a collection of munitions. Bombs. We are talking about bombs and grenades,” Langel said. “We walked into his living room and found right next to the sofa a bomb that was, like, 10-feet high.”

Another time, they drove through a muddy field on a farm south of Wichita to meet with Dave Hensley and see his collection of bricks.

“It was way more interesting than you would think,” Langel said. “The reason to collect them is they come from interesting places.”

Hensley explained how “he goes annually to a convention of brick collectors, and they trade bricks.”

This book of 50 collections follows Langel and Schwarm’s 2016 book “Wichita Artists in Their Studios” and their 2018 book “Thursday Afternoon Cooking Club,” which profiled a Wichita club that is the oldest of its kind nationally.

Like the first two books, Langel said, “We really were thinking of the people that we were going to want to talk to, not necessarily the collections.”

Unlike the book on artists, about a third of whom Schwarm already knew, with this book he said “one of the biggest pleasures for me was getting to meet so many people.”

He said he liked “getting into their homes and kind of seeing below the surface.”

Most of the collectors had one thing in common.

“What we found is that collectors in almost all cases are collectors of collections,” Langel said. “Hardly anybody had just one collection.”

She said they kept hearing, “Oh by the way, I also collect . . . .”

For instance, they talked with Paula Downing for her collection of Nishapur bowls “that she has brought back from visits to various Middle East countries.”

Langel called them “beautiful and unique and actually priceless” but said “her home is just full of things that she has bought in her travels.”

“She mentioned a number of collections that we could have featured, all of which would have been wonderful.”

Sometimes, Schwarm said, they’d show up to include one collection in the book and wind up featuring another.

Juliana Greenberg of Juliana Daniel Antiques invited Langel and Schwarm to see her collection of carved walking cane heads, but they were drawn to her collection of Art Nouveau gold leaf embossed books.

“Everywhere you turn there’s something,” Schwarm said of Greenberg’s house. “We could have done a whole book on that.”

They considered more than 130 collections for the book, knowing they were going to select only 50.

Some of the submissions were for the same kinds of collections, such as several people who had shot glass collections.

Kevin Crockett’s collection made the book. He has more than 6,000 shot glasses, “each of which has a story,” Langel said.

A selection committee helped Langel and Schwarm narrow the list.

Some collections that could have proven somewhat ordinary were unexpected instead.

“A really delightful surprise was someone who collected buttons,” Schwarm said.

He said he’s seen lots of button collections, but none like Gina Kohn’s.

“It turns out she has a whole wing of her house devoted to buttons.

There were ordinary ones, specialized ones and ones from the 1700s.

“The extent of it was just staggering.”

At a recent launch party for the book, Langel said people kept saying things like, “Now listen, when you do your next 50 collectors, I want to be in it.”

Except this is the final book that Langel and Schwarm are collaborating on since he’s moved to Washington state.

“It’s going to kind of leave a void in my life,” Langel said.

She’ll still be busy, though, since she said she’s promised the Junior League of Wichita she’ll write a commemorative book for its 100th anniversary in 2025.

And Schwarm, who already has a number of collections, is inspired to start even more after seeing the ones they featured in the book.

“I was a little bit envious of some of them.”