Edward Lust

EDWARD LUST is one of the most up-to-date truck farmers in the whole of Wyandotte county and does credit to the agricultural profession. It is only the progressive foreigners who immigrate from their native countries and come to America, those who are content to continue in the rut formed by custom and prejudice, remaining at home. Mr. Lust belongs to the former class and the remarkable success which he has enjoyed in the state of Kansas, as indication of his determination, enterprise and ability.

Mr. Lust was born in the little kingdom of Belgium, September 18, 1851, in the reign of King Leopold I. After obtaining a fair education in the schools of his native district, Edward Lust learned to farm, an occupation in which one-fourth of the entire population of Belgium is engaged. He devoted his attention principally to truck gardening and farming, but he, with his progressive ideas, felt hampered and restricted by the conservative methods of the farmers, for the Belgians are notably slow to adopt improvements and new methods of agriculture. He remained, however, in Belgium until he was forty-three years old, when, in 1894, he disposed of his farm at home and took ship for Canada, of whose agricultural possibilities he had formed a high opinion. At the expiration of four years of Canadian farm life which had not quite come up to his expectations, he came to Kansas, direct to Rosedale. Four years later, in 1902, he bought twenty-five acres of cultivated land on which he proceeded to erect a greenhouse, the finest in this section of the country, one hundred and sixty feet long and twenty-five feet wide. Close beside this building is a smaller structure, one hundred feet long and twenty-two feet wide. The two buildings stand on the side of a hill, are built of solid masonry, equipped with a heating system that he himself introduced, which prevents all possibility of freezing. He has put up a windmill and a mason-work viaduct or dam, which supplies a large pond of water for general use and also makes a perfect drive from one side of the ravine to the other. He has installed a gasoline engine pumping station, by means of which water is conveyed to all parts of his farm. He raises all kinds of garden truck, forcing some produce in his greenhouses. The smaller building he devotes exclusively to raising mushrooms, and to such perfection are they grown, that he can always find a ready market for them, as well as the rest of his produce. Each day one large wagon is loaded with truck and sold to dealers in his vicinity. At present he is living retired from active duties, watching his sons as they attend to the work about the place and leaving to them all the responsibilities.

In 1877, before Mr. Lust left Belgium, he married Silva, daughter of Peter and Natalie (Verstracte) Dismuth, life-long residents of Germany, where their daughter Silva was born May 4, 1850. Of the nine children who were born to Mr. and Mrs. Lust, six are living in Kansas, as follows: Alede, married to Joe Frangersberg, a truck gardener in Wyandotte county; Emma, wife of Emil Nunicg, a fruit farmer in Shawnee township; Mary, living in Lenexa, Kansas, with her husband, George Gest; Cerial, Albert and Joseph superintending the work of the farm at home.

Mr. Lust was reared in the Catholic faith and the family attends the church at Argentine, greatly respected in church as well as social life.