Francis & Julia Zeller
McCracken, Kansas
Francis and Julia Zeller were first introduced to “Modern Western Square Dancing” in the 1950s. Later on in 1961 they began their lifelong love and commitment to square dancing when they took ten lessons in La Crosse (17 miles, one way from their home in McCracken) with Galen Shull, a caller from Dighton. As we all know, involvement in square dancing leads to more friends (there were 85 couples in their club) and greater commitment.
So, it follows that Francis and Julia attended their first square dance camp with their mentor, Galen Shull, at the Lighted Lantern Square Dance Camp on Lookout Mountain in Colorado. Francis and Julia were enamored by round dancing and thought they could teach round dancing. The sound equipment (a record player) couldn’t slow the music down for teaching purposes so they purchased an amplifier and the dealer threw in 50 square dance records as a bonus. So, the avocation began.
In 1967, Francis started on his square dance caller vocation by calling for the 25 clubs in a 130 mile radius from their home. Francis’ marketing plan was simple, he would call for free at his first appearance and then charge $15.00 plus mileage of up to 15 cents per mile thereafter. He averaged 300 dances per year in addition to his teaching commitments. In addition to his square dance calling gigs he worked full time as a US Post Office letter carrier and farmed on the side. (I wonder when they slept.)
His talent did not allow him to be content to calling for western Kansas. He branched out to America and then to the World. He called in Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Russia, Australia and Canada. He would invite up to 105 dancers to pay their own way to “follow” him to these exotic places for his dances. The most annoying part of dancing in these exotic places was the language barrier. All square dance calls are in English; but, very few of the local dancers could speak English so conversation between tips was almost impossible.
Francis and Julia were Charter Members of CALLERLAB. Francis and Julia were early advocates of a relaxed dancing dress code. They believed that a dancers’ presence was more important than the type of clothes they wore.
Those of us who knew Francis & Julia Zeller count ourselves lucky. Those who didn’t wish we had known them.