A few years ago Dad started to write an autobiography. He last worked on it on 12-22-2007. We visited Jack in Cleveland from 12-27-2007 until 12-31-2007 and I took him to the hospital on 01-02-2008. He died in the hospital on 01-10-2008. From this you can see that he was working on his autobiography right up until the time when he died. As you will see from the empty sections, he had quite a lot more work to do. Still it is interesting reading.
My name is John Beecher Clough. I am a son of Otto and Grace Loretta Bristol Clough, born on a farm in Jackson Township, Clarke County Iowa, January 3, 1914. I had an older brother, Truman Bristol Clough, born October 30, 1909 and a younger sister, Mabel Marian who was born May 6, 1916.
My father, the number seven son and number twelve of the 13 children of Samuel and Mary F. (Morley) Clough, was born on a farm that became known as “Shingletown Farm” located in Pleasant Township, Union Country, Iowa on November 12, 1878. Samuel was born on a farm at Alna, Maine April 26, 1824, a son of Samuel and Hannah (Philbrick) Clough. Mary F. Morley was born in Indiana. They were married in Henry County, Iowa in 1853.
My father was a farmer. He was also a salesman. When he was a teenager, he accompanied his father to Creston with his weekly wagonload of fruits and vegetables and other farm produce (chickens, eggs, cream, butter, honey, etc.) that were in season during the summer and fall. They would peddle this stuff to Creston residents, mostly railroad workers who were paid on a weekly basis. His education consisted of attending country school for few years, perhaps six or seven. The school was taught sometimes by his oldest sister, Exy
Later, he was a book salesman. He sold books house to house, in towns and villages. Encyclopedias and sets of books such as the Waverley novels by Sir Walter Scott were among the samples he carried. He traveled by train from town to town. He also worked for a time for the National Biscuit Company in Kansas City, MO across southwestern Iowa. We still have the set of Waverley Novels and other books that were used as samples, including a set of encyclopedia.
To further his education, he attended Iowa State College at Ames and Drake University in Des Moines, taking non-collegiate courses. At both places, he would work for his board and room doing odd jobs, such as: rake yards, wash windows, fire the furnace, carry out ashes, etc. Also, while in Des Moines, he was a circulation manager for the Des Moines Daily News and at another time, the Iowa State Capital and it was during these times that he met my mother.
My mother, Grace L. Bristol, was born in Mercer County, Illinois July 9, 1875. She was the oldest of six children of William Robert Truman Bristol and Sarah Ann Smith. When my mother was 12 or 13 years old, the Bristol family moved from Illinois to a farm in Sac County, Iowa just south of the town of Schaller. When my mother was 14, tragedy struck. Her father, Willie, was clearing a field of stones when a charge of dynamite went off unexpectedly, fatally injuring him, leaving my grandmother with five children 14 and under to take care of and manage the farm.
My mother graduated from Schaller High School and taught (all subjects, all grades) at a country school for a couple of years, where she said “some of the boys were older and bigger than me.” Later, her mother moved the family to Des Moines, where my mother attended the Capital City Commercial College (4-C’s) and learned accounting, typing and shorthand. As a result, she got a job as the stenographer/bookkeeper at the Des Moines Drug Company. She worked there until she was married. She was a wife, mother and homemaker. She was a devoted member of the Osceola Presbyterian Church and was an active participant in church, school and other community activities. She was an Eastern Star. She was active in the Farm Bureau women’s group. She had a musical talent. She had a nice alto voice and was an above average piano player. She and Dad were members of a mixed quartet that entertained at Farm Bureau meetings and also did hymns at funerals.
She was an excellent cook. She had a large garden and did a lot of canning – tomatoes, corn, beans, apple sauce, plums, pears, cherries and peaches (which were bought). She could sew. She would order patterns from ads in the Wallace’s Farmer, for which my Dad had a life subscription. Using a foot-pedal driven sewing machine, she made many of her own dresses, as well as patch her husband’s and sons’ overalls.
My father and mother were married February 26, 1908 at her mother’s home (1126-26th Street) in Des Moines, Iowa. On March 1, 1908 they took possession of the farm that later became known as “Graceland Farm” and lived there the rest of their lives.
I would say my father always wanted to be a farmer. He was a breeder of purebred Aberdeen-Angus cattle and Poland-China hogs. During the twenties, all of the cattle, both male and female were registered. As for the pigs, only the boars and gilts from the biggest litters were registered – there had to be at least eight pigs saved in a litter.
He was a charter member of the Clarke County Farm Bureau and a Board member for many years representing Jackson Township. He was Secretary-Treasurer of the Woodburn & Whitebreast Telephone Company forever, as far as I know. He was a member and Elder in the Osceola Presbyterian Church. He was a member of the Masonic Lodge and the Eastern Star. He was also involved in other community activities and was a one time candidate for County Treasurer on the Republican ticket
He had one of the biggest barns in the county – 90’ long, 40’ wide and 40’ high to the peak of the roof. The framework, mangers and stalls of the barn were built with lumber from trees (mostly red oak and white oak, but some cottonwood) grown in his timberland of 120 acres, which was about two and a half miles from Graceland Farm.. Only the windows, siding and shingles were purchased.
He had an apple orchard located inside a windbreak of scotch pines and a row of soft maple trees. Apple varieties included, Yellow Transparent, Strawberry Chenango, Snow Apple, Wealthy, Jonathan, Grimes Golden, Tallman Sweet, Ben Davis, York Imperial, Rhode Island Greening and others for which we didn’t have variety name. Dad took care of those trees religiously, kept them free of grubs, pruned them and sprayed them.
There was a row of Mulberry trees between the pine trees and the apple orchard. My mother made lots of jam out of the mulberries. The fruit would ripen in mid to late summer and we would spread (bed) sheets under the trees, then shake the trees, and the berries would fall on the sheets Easy pickin’ and boy were they good right off the tree.
Truman went to Lewis School (Jackson Twp. #9) and graduated from the eighth grade in April 1922; graduated from Osceola High School in May 1926 and graduated from Iowa State College in June 1930 with a BS degree in Civil Engineering. Upon graduation from College, Truman went to work for the McClintock-Marshall Construction Company in Pittsburgh, PA. This was a well-known and highly respected company in those days having fabricated the steel for the locks of the Panama Canal. The company was bought by the Bethlehem Steel Company in the 1930’s, and Truman continued to work there until he retired.
Truman was married to Edythe Balbach, a secretary at McClintock-Marshall on February 25, 1932. They had two sons and a daughter, Truman Charles, Florence Ann and Roger Bristol. They were all college graduates, with Roger earning a PhD degree.
He was a member of the Lutheran Church. He was a Mason and was active in several Masonic organizations in the Pittsburgh area.
Marian went to Lewis School, also. She started in September 1922, having reached the age of six the previous May. She must have skipped a couple of grades in country school, as did Truman and I. I say this because in the summer of 1929, Dad bought a used Model “T” Ford coupe for Marian and me to drive to High School in Osceola. She graduated from High school in May 1933, went to Des Moines, and stayed with Aunt Mabel while she went to the Capital City Commercial College (4-C’s) graduating in 1935. At 4-C’s, Marian honed her skills at typing and shorthand and learned bookkeeping and accounting.
Right after graduating from 4-C’s, Marian got a job working for a Finance Company. She did not stay there but for a few months when she got a secretarial job working for Mr. Lindfeldt of the Lindfeldt Manufacturing Company, a glove manufacturer. She stayed there for several years, through WWII. In the mid Forties, she went to work for Wisdom and Wisdom, a Des Moines law firm, which provided legal assistance to many County Rural Electric Cooperatives and was the legal advisor to the Iowa Rural Electric Cooperative Association. She became the chief accountant for the law firm. In September 1936, she married Michael Peter Leo and they had three children, Marilyn Ruth, Virginia Ann and Michael John.
My mother died July 30, 1937 and my father died February 12, 1958.
As mentioned previously, I was born on the farm in Jackson Township, Clarke County, Iowa. The house in which I was born still stands (2006), but I believe all but one of the other buildings that were there at that time are gone.
You know, a farm is a great place for a kid to grow up. That observation is in retrospect. There were a few things that weren’t so nice, among them for instance, the outdoor toilet, carrying water from the pump, to the kitchen stove and to the washing machine which was in the “wash house”.
But, then, there was the barn, the haymow, the machine shed, the machinery, the horses, the cattle, the pigs, the orchard, the spring with the water tank, the freedom, the scrap boards, the shanty, the granary with the loft in it, the wood house and shop, the coaster wagons, the tools and Billy, the Shetland pony. I got to play in, on, or with all that stuff.
I always had chores to do from the time I was pretty young. While I was still going to country school, I had to get home to “throw down hay” for the horses and cows. There were two chutes to the haymow. One was used mainly to throw down hay for the horses and the cows that would be kept in the barn overnight, especially in the winter months. The other chute was used to throw down straw for bedding for the cows. While in High School it was my job to milk a couple of cows after I got home. In the summer time, I made “slop” for the pigs. This consisted of filling a 55 gallon wooden barrel 2/3s to 3/4s full of water, adding a two or three buckets of bran meal and a half a bucket of linseed oil meal to the water and stirring so it would be well mixed. It would be better if the mixture soaked for at least four or five hours.
In the late winter or early spring of 1927, my father bought a 10-20 McCormick-Deering tractor made by International Harvester. The term "10-20" refers to the power of the tractor. Ten horse power on the drawbar and 20 HP on the pulley. Actually, this model tractor would do the work of 4 horses - pull a two bottom plow, an 8 ft. disc harrow, an 18 ft. spike tooth harrow, an 8 ft grain binder, and so on. The pulley was used to drive the wood saw, with which we would cut tree trunks into usable chunks for fire wood. The tractor also furnished pulley power for the feed grinder. The feed grinder was a “hammer” mill made in Kansas by the Western Land Roller Co. Dad already had a “roller” so he was familiar with the company and trusted its products.
While the tractor was used to do the heavy work – plowing, disking, harrowing, and some harvesting – horses still were used to do the corn planting, mowing, cultivating, and other lighter jobs around the farm. This began to change when Dad bought a row-crop type tractor with rubber tires, an Allis Chalmers WD, probably in the late 1930’s, just before WWII. He then also bought a two row corn cultivator. In speeches I would make in the ‘60’s, I would comment on the changes in agriculture saying, “I have never cultivated corn with a tractor, but my father did not cultivate corn with horses the last 20 years he farmed.”
That next summer (1928) he had the old machine shed moved to the northeast corner of the orchard and a new machine shed and granary was built in its place. There was quite a bit of cement work connected with the new building which consisted of a foundation for the entire building plus a concrete driveway and concrete floors in the corncrib and grain bins. While I was only 14, I was trusted to take the tractor pulling a wagon to Woodburn, load the wagon with sand and take it home to make the concrete for the cement work of the new building. I thought I was pretty big, but I was doing something that someone would have to have been paid to do. Part of the framework of this new building, especially the rafters, was made from lumber salvaged from the wooden stave silo which had “blown in” for the umpteenth time
Driving the tractor taught me lessons in handling a motor vehicle in terms of stopping and starting with an implement or wagon in tow. The tractor engine speed was controlled by a device called a governor. For all practical purposes, the engine ran at the same speed all the time. The ground speed of the tractor was determined by the gears in the transmission of the tractor. There were three forward gears – first, the slowest and most powerful (about two miles per hour) – second, a little faster (about 3 miles per hour) and third, the fastest (about 4 miles per hour). If you started up with a jerk, you would be reminded in no uncertain terms to release the clutch slowly, letting it slip a little until the machinery was in full motion. Imagine a man sitting on a binder seat and you started the rig with a jerk, it might cause the person on the binder to fall backwards to the ground four or five feet below. Another thing, starting up with a jerk, you might break the machine or a part of the machine or wagon you were pulling.
For many years, my father followed a five year crop rotation system of corn, corn, oats, wheat and clover. That way we produced the “cleanest” hay in the neighborhood, since the cornstalks (that had not decomposed during the oats year) were plowed under in preparation of the wheat seed bed. Wheat was seeded with a drill and oats were seeded broadcast and “disked in”. One year while I was in College, I believe it was 1933, I did everything in connection with the seeding of 14 A field of wheat. The operation included plowing, disking and harrowing the ground, and drilling the seed. We also had to wait for the “fly free” date. This referred to the Hessian Fly, a pest that could damage the crop if allowed to thrive and the date which did not allow enough time for the eggs to develop before freezing. Another interesting thing about the whole procedure was that the power was supplied by a four horse team which I had to groom and harness every day. We had oats which took the place of kerosene. The plow was a 14 inch two bottom one, the disk was an eight footer and the spike tooth harrow had three six foot sections. It took four horses to power each of these implements.
Yes, we had a tractor but one must realize that the farm economy along with the entire US economy was in a severe depression – money to buy kerosene, fuel for the tractor – or anything else was hard to come by. Corn was 10¢ per bushel; wheat, 50¢; oats, 25¢, etc, very cheap. Another situation that affected the farm economy adversely was the severe drought during the summer of 1933. As a matter of fact, the field where I sowed the wheat had been planted to corn in May of 1933. The corn got to be about waist high with no grain developing, so about the middle of August, Dad turned the cattle into the field and within two weeks, you could not have seen any trace of a corn plant.
The harvest season began with “putting up hay”. That would be the first cutting of mixed hay – clover and timothy – or the first cutting of alfalfa. Then the cutting and binding of wheat, next the cutting and binding of oats and then the cutting of binding of timothy. Corn was the last crop to be harvested, and that usually began in late October, when the ears would be well dried, and lasted until the last ear was picked, many times until Christmas.
During the harvest season, I drove the tractor to pull an 8 ft. grain binder while Dad operated the binder and made sure everything was working right. The “knotter” was the source of most of the problems in the operation of the binder. The “knotter” had to be adjusted just right or it would not tie the bundles. Too loose, the knot would not stay tied, too tight, the bundle would hang in the knotting mechanism. When the binder would “kick out” three or four bundles on to the bundle carrier, Dad would dump the bundles to form a windrow. Shocks would be built from these bundles.
We made our shocks with eleven bundles. First, there would be two bundles leaning against each other (with the knot inside). Then, two more bundles would be placed leaning against the first two, so you would have four bundles in a row, two leaning against two. Then, we would place three bundles on each side. Then we would put our arms around the ten bundles near the top and pull them together to make a sort of cone, tepee or pyramid (with the knots inside). Then, we would take the 11th bundle, bend it in the middle and place it on top of the shock with the knot side down and the heads of the grain pointed to the west or southwest. The reason for putting the bundles in place with the knot side in or down is that the opposite side of the bundle was smooth and would shed (rain) water better. You would place the cap sheaf headed west or southwest because that was the direction of the prevailing winds and it would be less likely to blow off if a wind came up.
After the small grain (wheat, oats) harvest, came the threshing season. I can remember when the power for the threshing machine was supplied by a huge steam engine. I say huge because it took a lot of power to drive a threshing machine with a 36” cylinder. There would be a bundle hauler on each side of the machine pitching bundles into the feeder which extended from the front of the machine some six or eight feet. There would be six or eight bundle haulers, depending on the distance from the field to the thresher. There were two grain haulers to haul the threshed grain to the granary. Later, one of our neighbors, George Marquis, bought a small threshing machine, mainly to do his threshing and that of his sons, Olin and Gene. This was a 16” or 18" cylinder machine and could be driven by an ordinary two-bottom plow tractor. One of the Marquises, Olin, I think, had a Fordson tractor which was used to power their threshing machine. Since it was a small machine, it did not take as big a crew as the big machine, so there would be three or four bundle haulers, maybe one or two grain haulers, one or two men out in the field to throw the bundles (spike pitcher) on to the bundle wagon (hayrack). The hauler would place the bundles on the wagon in such a way that they would not fall off on the trip between the field and the thresher. I have hauled bundles (easiest job), been a spike pitcher (second easiest job), hauled grain (hardest job). My father was the official straw stacker for the crew and he would get credit for two days work for every day he did that.
Thresher dinners were about as memorable as the threshing itself. The women would help each other as their husbands were helping each other and each lady trying to outdo the last, as the season progressed.
My first school was Lewis School (Jackson # 9). I started to school on the day I was six years old, January 3, 1920. Lucille Collins was the teacher. At the end of the term, I was promoted to the second (1920-21) grade and Mrs. Davenport was the teacher. Louie O’Neal was my third grade teacher (1921-22). Faye Clark was my fourth grade teacher (1922-23). Mrs. Florence Funk (Frank) was my fifth grade teacher (1923-24). My seventh grade teacher was Joy Rosenberger (1924-25) and my eighth grade teacher was Charlene Cline (1925-26). You will note that I skipped the sixth grade. Whether this was good or bad is still debatable.
Lewis School # 9 was a one room “country school”. There was one teacher for all eight grades. All eight grades were not taught every year, maybe never. That is one of the reasons and maybe the only reason I skipped a grade. I would have been the only student in those classes. School was held from the first Monday of September to the end of the second or third week of April. As I recall, there were eight four-week grading periods. It was said we had eight months of school each year.
My father was elected “school director” probably in the spring of 1922 and so he had charge of selecting and hiring the teacher for about the next ten years or until my sister Marian graduated from the eithth Grade. The first teacher he hired was Faye Clark. It probably was her first job. She was a daughter of Oliver (Ol) Clark, the owner of the 80 acre farm that joined our farm on the north. The operator of that farm was Claude Clark, the son of the owner and a brother of the teacher he had hired to teach at Lewis school #9 that year beginning in September 1922. During the school year, she boarded with her brother and family. She would go home to Osceola for the weekend.
The next teacher was Florence Funk who lived on a farm with her husband, Frank, about a half mile west of the southwest corner of our farm. The Funks gave us a collie puppy that became a very nice dog. We had Rover for several years. Mrs. Funk was red-headed and was not the world’s best teacher. She had a strange way of disciplining the kids. For example, if a misbehaving kid had to go to the toilet, she might not let him/her go right away. I think the Funk’s moved out of the neighborhood and so she was there only a year.
Joy Rosenberger was my seventh grade teacher. She was a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Marion Rosenberger who farmed about two and a half miles east and two miles south of our place. My dad knew him pretty well. Joy was quite a talented person. There was an old “pump” organ at the school which she could play. She played a piano for square dances at Woodburn every Saturday night for several years. Joy had a brother Elmer who was a County Agricultural Agent in Harrison County, Iowa at the time. Later he was in Hardin County during part of the time I held a similar position in Osceola County which I will write about later. She and Charlene Cline, my eithth grade teacher, were two of the best teachers I ever had. I don’t know how my dad knew about Charlene, but I’m sure he knew her family. As I recall, all of these teachers received a salary of $30 a month– the princely sum of $240 for eight months of work.
Many of the teachers taught us to recognize certain special days as they occurred during the school year by putting up decorations for Halloween, for example, consisting of “chains” made of alternating black and orange strips of paper pasted in a way to fashion a link; of pictures of pumpkins drawn and colored by some of the younger pupils and other stuff including real jack-o-lanterns brought in by some of the older students. At Christmas, there would be red and green “chains” and so on depending on the season.
Depending upon the teacher, there might have been a “program” appropriate for the season or day being celebrated, be it Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas or whatever. The “program” would be put on by the pupils. Some would recite a poem; or be in a playlet; others might sing a song. I remember one time I was asked, among other things, to sing a solo. I made a mess of it, embarrassing my parents as well as myself. All students would participate, maybe two or three times, in different ways. All students would serve as a chorus for one or more songs.
In those days, “country “ kids who wanted to go to high school or graduate from the eighth grade, had to pass a state-wide standard test covering all aspects of an elementary education – arithmetic, grammar, history, spelling, hygiene, geography and civics. As I recall, I was the only student from Lewis school taking the exams in the spring of 1926. The others in my grade at school did not plan to go to high school which was common in those days. Among all those in Clarke County who took the test for graduation from the eighth Grade in the spring of 1926, I ranked fifth.
Starting in September 1926, I went to Osceola High School. The first semester, I took English 1, Algebra, Latin 1 and General Science. The second semester, I took Commercial Geography in place of General Science, which was only a one semester subject. I had Miss Carpenter for English, Miss Miller for Algebra, Miss Osborne for Latin and Commercial Geography, and Mr. Latimer, the principal, for General Science.
In my sophomore year, my studies included English II, taught by Miss Pratt; Latin II (Caesar) by Mrs. Robson; Plane Geometry, by Miss Enid Sater and Modern History by Miss Olive Nelson. Miss Pratt was great on Iowa writers. One that she promoted was Ruth Suckow, who was born in Hawarden, Iowa.
When I was a Junior, I took English Literature taught by Miss (Dorothy) Runkle; Solid Geometry (first semester) and Advanced Algebra (second semester) by Mrs. Boyd (wife of the P.E. teacher and Coach); American History by Mrs. Wheeler; and Manual Training by Mr.William Bagg.
During my senior year in High school, I took Physics taught by Miss (Lillian) Hjort, American Literature taught by a lady whose name I don’t recall; Economics (first semester) and Civics (second semester) by Miss Freyermuth; and Manual Training by Mr. Bagg. Miss Freyermuth whose home town was Muscatine, was also the Senior Class sponsor. She was in on and was the chaperone of Senior Class activities.
I did pretty well as far as grades were concerned. I ranked third in my graduating class of fifty-three for the four years over all. In several instances I was exempt from final exams at the end of each semester because of the grades I had earned during the previous 18 weeks. I probably would have done better if I had made better use of the time I spent behind the horse pulling the buggy in which I was riding back and forth to school, hauling on alternate days a 5 gallon can of cream and a 30 dozen case of eggs. I could have read books, studied history, or something similar. Instead, I spent a good deal of time trying to figure out how to mount an engine on the buggy so I could go a little faster, or looking for pop bottles that were tossed out along the roadway that could be taken to a store for a penny or two refund.
It was while I was in High School, probably in my sophomore year, that I became interested in Scouting. I was a member of Boy Scout Troop #56, Elk Patrol. There were four patrols in the troop. Ron Rarick was my patrol leader. We met in the basement of the Osceola Public Library every Monday evening, probably for about an hour and a half. I attained the rank of Star Scout and had all but one (Life Saving) merit badge to become a Life Scout. One of the scouting activities other than merit badge projects in which I participated was the Des Moines Area Council Jamboree. But at that time I worked on my swimming merit badge at the Des Moines YMCA
Later, Ron who weighed less than 100 lbs. “wringing wet”, was the quarterback of the OHS football team which went through the 1929 season undefeated, untied and unscored on. He was one tough little guy.
For a little while, when I was a freshman, I played a cornet in the High School orchestra. Miss Costello was the director of both instrumental and vocal music. The only piece I learned to play was “Azure Skies”. I could read the notes, but I couldn’t keep the time. But I did get into the Boy’s Glee Club and the Mixed Chorus and when I was a junior, I competed in a Declamatory Contest – in the humor division. I memorized this speech and delivered it, but I probably didn’t put much into it so may not have ranked very well. I was part of the entertainment at the High School Christmas program in my Senior year. I gave a humorous rendition of the poem, “The Night Before Christmas”. It brought down the house!!
I have had a few disappointments one of was when I tried out for the Senior Class Play, was selected for the “lead”, but I was canceled before the first scheduled rehearsal for reasons that were never disclosed to me.
In September 1930, I enrolled as a student at the Iowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts in the Agriculture Division, Department of Animal Husbandry. My fear, in going to college was that I would not be able to find where my class met or remember when the class was held. You see, I had to go a different building for each class and most classes only met two or three times a week. My fears were unfounded, because they, the College, held what they called Orientation Week before classes were to start. Bill Eno was the student leader of the group I was in.
In Animal Husbandry (now, Animal Science), you learned everything there was to know about the different breeds of beef cattle, dairy cattle, swine, sheep, horses, including ideal conformation. In other words, one of the objectives of AH course was to make a livestock judge out of the student. I observed early on that my classmates who were or had been in 4-H had an advantage over those of us who had not had that experience.
Livestock production, genetics, feeds, and feeding and marketing were all a part of the curriculum. You also learned about purebred livestock and how to trace the “family history” of an individual purebred and registered horse, cow, pig, sheep or whatever.
The subject matter was taught by some of the outstanding professors in the nation at that time: Phineas “Phin” Schearer (beef cattle), J. C. Holbert (beef cattle), Elmer Hansen (dairy cattle), Wm. “Bill” Lagrange (sheep), A. B. Caine (horses), R. W. “Red” Anderson (swine). H. H. (Herb) Kildee was Dean of Agriculture
In addition to the Animal Husbandry courses mentioned above, I had courses in Inorganic and Organic Chemistry (Dr. Brown and Dr. King), Farm Crops and. Soils, Horticulture (J.C.Cunningham), Forestry (Prof. Larsen), English (mostly writing), Dairy Industry, Public Speaking, Ag. Engineering, Botany, Music Appreciation, Mathematics, Zoology, Landscape Architecture, Tech. Journalism, Ag. Economics, Vet. Anatomy, Vet. Physiology, Bacteriology and Cooking.
Iowa State College was/is the home of the State Agricultural Experiment Station. As a result, a lot of data was available to back up study materials in textbooks and other sources. For example: one of the important courses was “Feeds and Feeding”. So, the literature presented the best rations for feeder pigs, finishing beef cattle, market lambs, and breeding stock of all classes.
I earned enough credits in Farm Crops and Soils to have a minor in that category. The professors in this department were outstanding, too. They included J. C. Eldredge, xx Hughes, xx Hensen, B. J. “Bugs” Firkins, and J. B. Peterson among others. They had data from the Experiment Station that were used in their teaching. Such as: relationship of varieties to yield; planting dates to yield, amount of rainfall to yield, use of fertilizer, etc.
My college training was supplemented by extra-curricular activities. I was a member of the Block and Bridle Club, the AH department student organization. I showed steers at the “Little International”. I participated in an apple variety contest and won it. The prize was a year subscription to the “Iowa Horticulturist”, a monthly magazine published by the State Department of Agriculture.
One of the big events of the year on campus was VEISHEA. These letters stood for: Veterinary, Engineering, Industrial Science, Home Economics, and Agriculture, the five divisions of the college for many years until the college became a University. Usually held in April, Veishea was the showcase of the college and each department had an exhibit. All high school seniors in the State were invited to attend. When I was a senior, I was in charge of the Animal Husbandry exhibit. Among other things, we served Hamburgers to show where and how animal agriculture fit into the “food chain” listing the opportunities for employment after an education in AH. Also, when I was a senior, I served as a departmental editor of the “Iowa Agriculturist”, the monthly magazine of the College of Agriculture, published and edited by Ag students.
For some reason, I was never able to qualify for a student loan or any other financial help from the college. The Registrar would not give me my final term grades, because the cost of my hospital stay in March and April 1934 was unpaid. I finally convinced someone that if I had a job, I would pay off the debt. They found some SRE (Student Relief Employment) money some place. One of the problems many professors had to contend with was the storing and organizing Bulletins and Papers (booklets and pamphlets) relating to various agricultural activities. This job involved developing a filing system for Professor Fred Beard, the Meats Professor. The SRE job paid 35 cents an hour. I earned enough to pay the hospital bill (and then some).
About the first thing I did after “matriculating” at Iowa State was to find a place to stay. My Dad and Mother must have taken me to Ames along with a trunk that held all my belongings, mostly clothes. We found a room for me at 320 Stanton Ave. The room was about the size of a closet, yet big enough to handle a single bed, a desk , my trunk and room to move around a little. Mrs. Cushman was the landlady. She had a son and a daughter in their early twenties to help with the work involved: making beds, doing laundry, etc. Mrs. Cushman had three other bedrooms upstairs and she had two students in each room for a total of seven roomers from whom she collected a total of something over $75.00 per month, all cash. A tidy little sum in those days. I had my room there for two quarters (the school year at Iowa State at that time was divided into three quarters of 12 weeks each). In March 1931, I moved to 210 Welch Ave. and gained my first roommate, Gibson Huntbatch, the all-Big Six second baseman on the ISC baseball team. The main reason I moved to Welch Ave. was that was where I had my meals (three a day) at $5.00 per week. Mrs. Woods was the landlady and cook.
During the summer of 1931, a neighbor who lived on the road to Woodburn, Frank Powell, told us he had sold out (probably lost the farm) and was moving his family to Ames. He had rented the old Alpha Delta Pi sorority house on Lincoln Way that had a capacity of perhaps 30 students on three floors and was going to run a boarding house. He gave me a job of washing pots and pans (every evening) for my room. I had two roommates at this place, “Scotty” Muir of Spirit Lake and Jack Chattan. I don’t remember his hometown. Jack was a boxer. On a Saturday night he would go to Kelley where a guy had a ring and bleachers set up in an old barn and presented a boxing card.
I don’t how good he was, but he must have been good enough to get invited back. He was never a “main event”, but would box three rounds, collect a couple of dollars and leave.
Other students living at this house included: Fred Cutler, Ralph Damon, Carl Hamilton, Ray Hagie and Gwynne Garnett. Carl “Pete” Hamilton worked for Claude Wickard when Wickard was Director of the Rural Electrification Administration and later when he was Secretary of Agriculture during the Roosevelt and Truman Administrations. “Pete” became a dyed in the wool liberal. ”Pete” returned to Iowa after Eisenhower was elected President, bought a newspaper in Iowa Falls which he ran for several years, then became “Vice-President for Development” at Iowa State University, a position he held until retirement about 1980. Ray Hagie became big in hybrid seed corn. Gwynne Garnett became an AFBF staff member and worked on foreign trade issues. His claim to fame is that he got the idea, got the support of the AFBF officers, board of directors and delegates for a program that would allow the sale of farm products (principally corn, wheat, cotton and perhaps a few other items) for the currency of the purchasing nation; i.e., to India for rupees, to Russia for rubles, France for francs; to Germany for marks, etc. The idea became Public Law 480. Later, Gwynne went to the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) to implement the plan which was very successful for several years.
During the fall quarter of 1931, I became a pledge member of Alpha Gamma Rho fraternity and was activated (initiation #254) at the end of the winter quarter 1932 (March). Also initiated at that time were Martin Weise, Leonard Bodenstiener and Howard Ford. Members included Eddie Matzen, Clarence Powell, Herbert Jones, Walter (“Bump”) Thompson, Ben Pomeroy, Ted Dorhmann, Hilton Boynton, “Frosty” Winters, Harold Ryon, Donald Dilworth, Gilbert Hadley, Bob Stewart, Franklin “Lank” Nolte, Bob Morford, R. J. Coverdale. Herb Jones was my best man at our wedding. Other members I recall include the Strayers, George and Gordon. Then there were the Youngdales, Paul and Carl. Later, there were the Latham twins, Wilbur and Willard, Verald Brown, Wayne Tyler, Gerald Swan, Tom Scott, and Herb Plambeck.
There were no jobs available at the house, such as washing dishes, waiting tables, etc. as they were all taken. I was given the candy stand, but it made only $2 to $3 a week. And I had to go to downtown Ames for my supplies. Not nearly enough to pay a House Bill of about $30 per month. I did not go back to school for the Spring Quarter of 1932.
During the summer, arrangements were made for me to borrow money from Aunt Mabel. As I remember, it was $30 per month. I know the total amount for the remaining seven quarters was $700. In the fall of 1932, I got a job for my room as “handy man” for Mrs. Warburton who lived in a big square house in downtown Ames. It was about one and a half miles or so from where she lived to the Ag Campus where most of my classes were held. One Monday night, after house meeting, Price Grieve convinced me that I didn’t want to walk that two miles, more or less, every morning and night in the dead of winter, so why didn’t we rent Mrs. Cushman’s basement at 320 Stanton Ave., cook our own meals, and get by with bringing a lot of stuff from home: potatoes, ham, beans, apples and stuff our mothers had canned during the summer and early fall. Since I had all ready done the yard work, cleaned up the garden, cleaned up the furnace, taken the screens down and put up the storm windows for Mrs. Warburton, I agreed with Price and we rented Mrs. Cushman’s basement for the rest of the school year. She was to furnish the oil (kerosene) for the oil stove, on which we did our cooking. We also used her dishes, pots and pans.
Beginning in the fall of 1933, I was a “third quarter” junior and a senior, I worked at a “Hamburger Joint”, the Black and White Inn, (about four hours a day at 25 cents per hour) washing dishes, peeling potatoes and frying hamburgers earning enough to pay for my meals and a little spending money. Mr. and Mrs. Gyle Teague were the owners and operators and very nice people. She would open the place in the mornings (6AM) and he would close in the evenings (11PM). They had a son ten or twelve years old who was a brat, but still a pretty good kid. My buddy in the restaurant was another Ag student who was studying poultry husbandry, Orin Bolin. Orin became a producer of “exotic” birds, mainly pheasants in Kankakee County, Illinois near Kankakee.
I graduated from college in December, 1934. I had no job. I thought I wanted to be a livestock buyer for Swift or Armour or Cudahy or one of the other smaller meat packers. I didn’t have the slightest idea about how to apply for a job. In November 1934, I went to Chicago for the national convention of Alpha Gamma Rho and International Livestock Show which were held at about the same time starting the Friday after Thanksgiving and running for the next several days. While there, I went to two or three of the large meat packers, mentioned above, to inquire about a job, but was told nothing was available in the US, but one of them told me there probably would be something in Argentina or Brazil in a few months. At home for Christmas, I told my Dad and Mother about what I had learned from one of the meat packers. They, especially my Mother, put the squelch to any foreign type job I might have in mind.
After Christmas 1934, I went back to Ames to the hamburger shop, and to the College to be at the Ag Engineering building subbing for an AGR brother who wanted a Christmas vacation. In this job, I saw that the lights were turned off and the doors locked every evening. That was all. I received a few dollars a day for that, but during the day I was around the AGR house and Ag Hall to listen for any word of a job. During this time, I filled out an application for a job with the Soil Conservation Service (SCS). Then one day, I heard that the (Agricultural) Extension Service was going to hold a meeting on a certain day to recruit people to assist farmers in the drought areas of the State, mostly southern Iowa. I went to the meeting and signed up for a job that was supposed to last three or four months. This was the first job I had after graduating from ISC.
The job was at Leon, Decatur County, Iowa where I was the Assistant County Agricultural Drought Relief Director. The salary was $135.00 per month, less 10 percent (because of current economic conditions), plus expenses, plus 5 cents per mile for the use of my car. You should realize that this was the winter (January) of 1935. This time period followed a very severe drought during the summer of 1934 when there was very little hay and fodder produced. Also, at that time, there were very few farmers who could afford to buy what little hay may have been available because the country was in the middle of the Great Depression In this situation, my job as the assistant County Agricultural Drought Relief Director (County Agricultural Agent) was to organize a procedure and provide a place where farmers could bring their starving cattle to sell to the Government.
I conducted two of these “sales”, one in February and one in March, arranging for the government to buy perhaps fifty or sixty head of cattle total for both sales. In the meantime, I got acquainted with the workings of the County Farm Bureau and the AAA federal agricultural program. Ivan Burnison was the County Agricultural Agent and as such was the head of Iowa State College Agricultural Extension Service in the county and manager of the County Farm Bureau. Gwendolyn Penniwell was the Office Assistant (secretary). In those days and for several years after, the local sponsor of Agricultural Extension programs was the County Farm Bureau and as local sponsor could qualify for a county appropriation of $3,000. if said county organization could raise $1000 to guarantee local farmer or citizen support. So, the Farm Bureau with dues of $5.00 per year had to have 200 members to qualify for the funding from the county government. Well, the County Farm Bureau didn’t have 200 members and so it became part of my job to solicit members at $5.00 each. I would ride with a local farmer to call on his neighbors to explain the “Farm Bureau program”. The farmer I rode with was more influential in determining whether the prospect parted with his $5 and joined the Farm Bureau than any explanation I could give. I could say my father was a member in Clarke County and that had a more positive affect than any thing else I could come up with. Anyway, we finally recruited the necessary 40 or 50 members and on May 1, I was transferred to Jasper County with the title “County Club Agent” where I remained the rest of the year.
Jasper County was a pretty good county as far as Farm Bureau/Agricultural Extension was concerned. Leonard Zahn was the County Agent and Esther Miller was the Office Assistant. Ralph Moore was president of the Jasper County Farm Bureau. The Farm Bureau/Agricultural Extension office was in the basement of the Newton, Iowa Post Office Building. The County AAA Committee and the Rural Rehabilitation Agency also had offices there. Early in the time I was in Jasper County, I was notified that my application for work in the SCS had been accepted and could report for work at such and such a place and such and such a time. Even though both these agencies dealt with farmers, I had little to do with them. One of the AAA committee members was John Kimberly. He was an orchardist from the northwest corner of the county.
There was a good 4-H Program with some two-hundred members in the Boy’s club and about the same in the Girl’s club. There was no County Fair, but there was a 4-H Club Achievement Show which was held in August just before the State Fair. This Show was held at Colfax, a small town about 15 miles west of Newton. At this Show, the boys exhibited their livestock and the girls exhibited their sewing or what the project was that year: cooking, handicrafts, etc. Included on the agenda was a Health Contest and a presentation of the operetta, “The Bohemian Girl”.
During the last four months of 1935, I spent most of my time recruiting 4-H members, organizing clubs and helping them get lined up with a project, which at that time of year was mostly the Baby Beef project
During my tenure in Jasper County, I found four boys including Earl Steppe, Henry Kling, Lester Davis and Jr. Atwood. who were very good livestock judges. They won the Livestock Judging Contest at the State 4-H Club Rally held at Ames between Christmas and New Years.
While in Jasper County, my salary ($121.50 per mo.) and expenses were all paid by the federal Government. I don’t remember who the County Farm Bureau treasurer was. I don’t remember going to any board meetings although I surely must have done so.
I was at Sigourney from mid January 1936 to the end of May 1938 as County Club Agent. Maurice W. Soults was the County Agricultural Agent. Velma Packer was the Home Demonstration Agent some of the time I was there. She divided her time between Keokuk and Wapello Counties and worked with the County FB Women’s Committee and the County 4-H Girls Committee.
The Keokuk County Farm Bureau was the sponsor of all Agricultural Extension programs in the county and the 1936 annual meeting was the first county wide meeting I attended after arriving in the county. J E. (Bert) Zepp was president, S. T. (Bud) Yates was treasurer. Glen Sorden was Boys 4-H Committee Chairman. The meeting was held in January (1936) at, as I recall, the Presbyterian Church.
Keokuk County claimed the distinction of having the first 4-H Clubs in the country as the county superintendent of schools had arranged for extracurricular educational activities outside the classroom for boys and girls who were interested. It was my understanding that these groups were organized more or less on a township basis that and it involved some kind of project work such as sewing and cooking for the girls and caring for a pet lamb, calf or pig for the boys. Handicraft projects were available for all who were interested.
The projects, livestock, poultry, grain, garden stuff, and some girls’ 4-H work, were mostly exhibited at the County Fair in What Cheer. Another exhibit time would be in June at the Memorial Hall in Sigourney at a 4-H Girls’ Rally Day when sewing and handicraft projects would be on display. In the Girls’4-H Club/Extension Program, all the girls participating in the program would be doing the same project any one year, cooking one year, for example, and maybe sewing another.
I spent a great deal of time training boys to be livestock judges and the giving of “reasons” for their judgments. Most anyone can pick out the best individual in a class of livestock, but being able to tell “why” is a different matter. I also worked with boys who wanted to be on a “demonstration team”.
Demonstration Teams usually were two 4-Hers who would put on a 15 or 20 minute presentation on how to do something. Kermit Bliss (a nephew of the State Director of Agricultural Extension) and Marvin Sanger were two who demonstrated ‘How to Operate and Care For A Cream Separator’. They did well. They worked without a script or notes. They knew what they wanted to cover and they did it. Their talk was mainly on cleaning the working parts. This was in the days before “detergents” and it was hard to do with the soap of those days. It didn’t matter much about the water; hard water could be “softened” with lye. The boys put on their demonstration at the Waterloo Dairy Cattle Congress where they won a trip to the National Dairy Convention at Minneapolis. Marvin went on to college and became the Extension Dairyman in North Carolina. I don’t know what happened to Kermit. He had a good voice and appeared several times on Herb Plambeck’s Farm News Program on WHO, Des Moines, singing “Ole Man River”.
Maury Soults was an outstanding County Extension Agent. He understood the job – the purpose of the exercise. He was very well liked by the farmers and he maintained an excellent relationship with the business community in all the towns of the county. I learned a lot just from watching him work. He left Keokuk County late in 1937 and went to Franklin County in a similar position. Some years later, he became Assistant Director of Extension and was State County Extension Director leader. Forrest Bennett, the Sigourney High School vocational ag teacher, was selected as Maury’s successor in Keokuk County.
By the summer of 1937, there was a goodly number of fraternity brothers who were in County Extension work as County 4-H Club Agents or County Agricultural Agents. There were several state-wide meetings of these groups as a whole, so seven of us decided to form an organization the purpose of which was never very clear. The seven were: John B. Clough, Lindley Finch, Grover Hahn, Herbert H. Jones, Wayne E. Tyler, Thomas N. Scott and Gerald W. Swan. We all were employed by county farm bureaus that were not flush with money, so when at Ames, we stayed at one of cheaper hotels, the Ames Hotel. They had two large rooms that could handle three or four people comfortably.
We called ourselves the “Unholy Crew”. None of us was married at the time. We got to thinking about that situation and decided to rename our little group – The Last Man’s Club. Since none of us had any responsibilities for Fourth of July celebrations in our various communities, we set that date for our annual meetings. And that is the way it was for the next several years.
I started to work in Osceola County, June 1, 1938. My wife and I drove from Sigourney to Sibley via Osceola on May 29 and 30 (about 400 miles) and we found a place to stay that day. We had the next day (May 31) to drive around a little bit to get acquainted with the territory. We may have called at the “Pete” Bangert farm. He was the County Farm Bureau president and lived six or seven miles straight south of Sibley. He had a brother Fred who lived “kitty corner” across the road. They, along with another brother who lived in Melvin, were big in the Masonic Lodge, as well as the Farm Bureau. We probably called on others that day, too.
Ferd Jarrott was president most the time I was there. The office staff when I arrived consisted of a Home Demonstration Agent, Elizabeth Flynn, and an office assistant, Alice Huisman. Osceola County shared the services the HDA with Lyon County. Elizabeth married John Stahl, a farmer who lived near Ocheyedan, about 1940 and so she resigned the position and Opal Dyer took her place. Opal married in about 1942 and moved to Decatur, Illinois. The next HDA was Mattie Neilsen and she was still there when we left Sibley in 1943. After we got the Osceola Electric Cooperative going, Bill Roberts wanted Alice for his secretary. I thought she was a good choice because she knew the people and some about what it took to get going. Virginia Roben was hired and this may have been her first job as it was with Alice. She was very good, but after a couple of years, she got itchy feet and wanted to go to California
Other CFB officers included W. H. “Bill” Osterman, v-president; R. D. Mayer, Secretary, and Ed Agar, Treasurer. Lyle Fletcher was Boys 4-H Chairman and Mrs. Ed Agar was Girls 4-H Chairman. My salary the first year was $2200, $1800 of which was paid by the college, but if I was still there at the end of the year (October 1, 1939), I would receive a bonus of $200.
The County Farm Bureau had 228 members, barely enough to qualify for the “County Appropriation” of $3000. The Farm Bureau dues had just been raised from five dollars a year to ten dollars per year. Some of the more important things that happened during my tenure there were: Farm Bureau membership more than doubled to over 500 members, boys 4-H Clubs were reactivated and expanded and the Osceola Electric Cooperative was organized. Several township Farm Bureaus held regular monthly meetings, among them: Viola, West Holman, Horton, Fairview, Ocheyedan, Harrison. Members who lived in other townships like Baker, Wilson, East Holman, Allison, Gilman and Goewey, held “annual” (some more often) meetings to select someone to serve as chairman/director and to conduct other business.
Besides developing the Extension Organization (County Farm Bureau) and 4-H programs, all kinds of demonstrations were conducted. Such as: establishing a home orchard or a forestry wind break project. The farmer would furnish the planting place, labor and the trees which were available at a discount. One time, Price Grieve who at the time was working for The Portland Cement (of Iowa) Assn. came to Sibley, built the forms for a septic tank and helped conduct the demonstration. We also field tested seed corn varieties of various producers such as Pioneer, DeKalb, Pfiester and others along with some of those developed by the Iowa State Experiment Farm.
There was a great deal of activity related to the war. The slogan was: “Food will win the war and write the peace”. I was a member of the machinery ration board and numerous other boards and committees, all related to the war effort.
We had the welcome cooperation of the Osceola County Fair Board. The Osceola County Cooperative Creamery was the biggest business in the county at that time. William “Bill” Bartlett was the manager of the Creamery. Sam Robinson was the secretary/manager of the County Fair. The manager of the Osceola Electric Cooperative was William “Bill” Roberts. Sam O’Toole was the manager of the Osceola County Coop Oil Company. John Gosch was the chairman of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration Committee.
My tenure in Buchanan County was rather short – from April 16, 1943 to August 1, 1944 – hardly long enough to make any kind of a mark in Buchanan County as County Extension Director.
The Farm Bureau/Agricultural Extension office in Buchanan County was located in the County Courthouse which at the time was relatively new. I had a nice private office and there was a good sized reception room for the office assistant and another secretary, files, and bulletin display rack.
Lavon Barske was the office assistant and she was quite efficient. She could do the work of two. However, she could not do it all. And so I hired another secretary, because as part of the war effort, there were a lot of mailings
I was appointed Regional Field Director for the IFBF effective August 1, 1944. I had charge of membership acquisition and program development in 23 counties in Northeast Iowa. I held this position until December 31, 1945.
In this position, I worked with the officers, directors and staff of the County Farm Bureaus of: Allamakee, Winneshiek, Howard, Mitchell, Worth, Cerro Gordo, Floyd, Chickasaw, Fayette, Clayton, Wright, Franklin, Butler, Bremer, Dubuque, Delaware, Buchanan, Black Hawk, Jones, Jackson, Grundy, Hardin and Hamilton Counties.
The first place I lived after I had graduated from college and left home was in Leon Iowa where I had a room in the home of an MD and his wife. I lived there from the middle of January to the end of April when I was transferred to Jasper County to finish out the year. I lived at Newton and had a room at the home of the hardware store owner, Shelley Marshall. I dealt with Mrs. Marshall. I didn’t see much of Mr. Marshall. They said he spent most of his leisure time at the “Club”, which I think was the Elks Club There were easy chairs, newspapers and a place where he could smoke his cigars without any static from anybody, especially Mrs. Marshall. At both Leon and Newton, I had my meals at restaurants and cafes.
While in Keokuk County, I lived in Sigourney with Mr. and Mrs. Sam Utterback. I offered and they accepted $2.50 a week which was the going rate for a room for a kid going to college at Ames. I paid them every week for a whil. Then I suggested, since I got paid once a month, that I pay them once a month which was agreeable, and I paid them $10.83 a month in advance. I may have been able to get a room for less, but I never tried. . After all, it was only $130.00 a year and I had a nice big room all to myself, and they were very nice people. I took most of my meals at the Iowa Café, owned and operated by Mr. and Mrs. Ernie Winters. They had a meal ticket with $5.50 worth of meals which they sold for $5.00. All the “regulars”, which included most of the young unmarried around town, including many of the teachers, bought them. A meal ticket would last me almost a week, maybe a little more if I was invited to stay over for dinner at noon at the home of a 4-H member. Or if I went for Sunday dinner at the Ragans’, which happened a lot after State Fair time in 1937.
I “formally” met Ruth Ragan in early June 1937. Alice Robertson and Vaughn Hartzell had a date and they wanted to go to the dance at Wellman but had no way to get there. Vaughn said I know a guy that has a car but he has a 4-H club meeting and won’t be back to Sigourney until 10 PM or so, besides that, he wouldn’t want to go to Wellman without a date. Well, Alice said she could take care of that. So, Vaughn waited for me to get back from the Club meeting and I agreed to take them to the dance. Alice had made arrangements with her cousin, Ruth Ragan, that if I would take them to Wellman, she would be my date. Well, we had a good time. It wasn’t exactly a blind date because I knew who she was and she knew who I was. I saw her about every day. She was the secretary for Ed Hamilton an attorney, who had an office on the second floor of the same building as the County Farm Bureau office.
Anyway, we were married February 26, 1938. After a honeymoon in Chicago, we moved into a house on Stone Street owned by Harry “Skinny” Miller and his wife, Lucille. The house had no running water or inside toilet. We lived there three months, March, April and May 1938, and then we moved to Sibley, Iowa.
We found a one bedroom furnished apartment with Mrs. Stage at 200 3rd Street . And we lived there for about three months. By that time we found more desirable quarters at 320 and 1/2 Third Avenue with Mrs. Smith, where we lived until June 1940 when our little house at 215 3rd Street was built.
The house was built by Carl Shutte, and Lampert Yards furnished the building materials from cement to roofing. Mr. Palmer was the plumber; Mr. Anderson installed the furnace and heating system. R. D. Mayer, a dairy farmer who was also an electrician, did the electrical work.
It was a small house: two small bedrooms, a living room, a fair sized kitchen, and a bathroom, about 900 square feet, but it was cozy. Ruth did most of the moving, because I was at a 4-H Camp at Okoboji for the week. By the same token, there was very little to move other than clothing. And it had to be carried only a block. We did have a few items of furniture: a side chair given us by Ruth’s Mom and Dad, a crib for the baby (Jackie), an armoire (which I built) and a studio couch. I don’t remember if we had the breakfast set before we moved or not, but if not, it had to be one of the next things we bought. We also needed other furniture for our little home: a sofa, easy chair, another side chair, floor lamp, a bedroom set, refrigerator, and cook stove.
The house at 605 Sixth Street SW in Independence, Iowa was the only house we ever rented for any length of time. We moved in on a rainy day in April in 1943. We lived there until January 1946, little less than three years.
This was a modern house. There was running water and a bathroom. There was a coal-fired hot air furnace. Our cook stove was heated by bottle gas. One thing we had was a large garden and that was a plus. None-the-less the house was fairly comfortable with a living room, dining room, and kitchen downstairs and three bedrooms and a bath upstairs.
We had a beautiful house in Des Moines. It was in a nice neighborhood and a nice a part of town. It was home. The address was 2405 33rd Street. We had quite a time getting the place bought. The Ken Warboys raised the price on us three times before we said “no more”. I guess they must have thought we wanted their place pretty bad. We did. The house was just right for us, close to everything, just the right size, and just barely what we could afford; and we finally got what wanted. In the way of houses, that is.
This house had a good sized living room, a separate dining room, a nice U-shaped kitchen with a breakfast area, and a small bedroom downstairs. Upstairs there were two large bedrooms and a full bath. There was a full basement with a forced air hot-air gas burning furnace. In the furnace room, there was a work bench where I could fix things. Opposite the furnace room, was the laundry room. The other half of the basement was a nice large room which became a playroom for the kids. The house was built on a good sized lot with about a dozen huge oak trees or at least a half dozen. We raised bushels of acorns every year. Don Groves gave us a puppy so I put a picket fence around the back yard. There was a fireplace in the backyard, too.
We went to Maine the last days of August 1951. On the way, we stopped in Chicago to visit the AFBF offices and do a little sight-seeing. We probably stayed at the Morrison Hotel. One of the places we visited in Chicago was the Museum Of Science and Industry. Their big promotion at that time was the Coal Mine. You had to have tickets. I think the charge was ten cents for adults, and kids were free. The first night out Chicago, we stayed in western (in a cabin camp) Michigan. The next night we stayed at a similar place at Welland, Ontario, Canada. It rained all night. The next morning it was still raining, but we hadn’t gone far until we came to a drawbridge which was “up”. In a few minutes, a huge boat came by – we were about to cross the Welland Canal!! The next night, we stayed at the Walloomsak Inn in Bennington, Vermont. A quaint place. And it was haunted. By this date, it is Sunday, Septembe .2, 1951. We had dinner at a very nice hotel on the circle in Portsmouth, NH. Then we drove on to Auguster, Maine and checked in at the Augusta House.
We found that the house we liked (from pictures) had been sold, so we got in touch with a realtor and started looking. This would have been Tuesday, September 4. We found a house we liked in a couple of days but we couldn’t settle until the buyers (the Otto Kahres) of our Des Moines house settled. We had given the Kahres ten days.or so to make their arrangements and appointed Ben Buckingham to handle the details and send us the money.
So we bought this house at 75 Stone Street, Augusta from Joe Vachon, a Frenchman, whose English vocabulary consisted of “yes” and “no”. He was hard to deal with but we got this house for about $500 less than we got for our house in Des Moines.($16,750). This was a well built house. It was fairly new, about three or four years old at the time we bought it. Built by Joe himself. Probably about 1948. It had beautiful maple floors, good sized bedrooms, two full bathrooms, a huge kitchen and a two car garage. The garage had lots of extra storage space. We kept the doghouse in there. There was room overhead to store the storm windows. There was additional space in the house under the roof up stairs at the front of the house. The kids liked to play in there. The house had a hot water heating system fueled by an oil furnace. A very good system.
The rooms upstairs had lights controlled by a pull chain. I installed switches in all of rooms. I should say here that this house was built to accommodate an apartment upstairs as the kitchen plumbing was “roughed in”.
In March 1954, I accepted a position with the American Farm Bureau Federation with the title of Regional Organization Director. This meant moving from Maine. Between all concerned, it was decided we would move to the Washington, DC area.
We looked for houses on the Maryland side of Washington DC and didn’t find anything that met our fancy. The father of my secretary in Maine was a builder/contractor in Bethesda, MD. I contacted him and he built us a house at 10705 Torrance Dr., Silver Spring, MD.
My first car was a 1932 model “A” Tudor Ford Sedan. A day or two after I found I had this job that required a car, I hitchhiked to Des Moines to buy a one. I checked with a couple of car dealers, found a car I thought I could afford, went to see Uncle John, my mother’s brother, to see if I could borrow the $150.00 from him. He loaned me the money (at no interest, just like today). So, I went back to the car dealer, closed the purchase and drove to Ames. I packed up my belongings and went home to Osceola the next day. My Mother and Dad looked the car over, asked how much it cost and where did I get the money to buy it. When I told them from Uncle John, my mother read me the riot act, informing me that I should have come to them first, etc., etc. Anyway, they wrote out a check to Uncle John and I paid them (Mother and Dad) off about the time I was transferred to Newton. I drove the Model “A” Ford all of 1935 and into the summer of 1936. About the first thing I bought for the Ford, was a pair of Mud and Snow tires. I found early on that I needed them to navigate the mud roads of Decatur County. The second item I bought was insurance. One Sunday afternoon while driving west on Highway US 6, west of Newton, there was this group of people doing what ever they were doing. The driver in front of me slowed down to see what was going on, and I was also looking to see what was going on, but didn’t slow down until too late. Fortunately, there was no damage to either car, but I got some State Farm auto insurance the next day. At the time there was a relationship between the Farm Bureau and State Farm Insurance, and I knew the agent. I have had State Farm Insurance off and on ever since.
1936 Plymouth: I bought this car in May or June, 1936 from Chapman Bros., Sigourney, Iowa. It was a new Plymouth Coach. A two seated car, as was the Ford, but with only two doors, the same as the Ford. I don’t remember what I paid for it, but the list price as noted on the registration/title was $720 which was no doubt more than the real price. I probably got a trade-in-allowance of $200 for a vehicle that I had paid $150 for 18 months earlier. I borrowed the money from the Keokuk County State Bank, B. D. (Bert) Helscher, president I say that because….
My mother suffered for many years with a severe case of arthritis. She had aches and pains in her knees, hands and feet. Her feet bothered her very much. She had read or heard of a doctor that treated problems of the feet in Canada. Since I had a new car, I told her I would take her to see him if she wanted to do that. She did and so after the County and State Fairs were over in 1936, we set out to see the doctor at Williamsburg, Ontario, Canada.
We went by way of Pittsburgh and stopped to visit Truman and Edythe for a few days. It took two more days to get to our Canadian destination. We stayed over night at what now would be a B&B, but without breakfast, just the bed. We crossed the St. Lawrence River at Ogdensburg, NY and then it was only a few miles to Williamsburg.
1937 Plymouth
1939 Plymouth
1941 Chevrolet Sedan: This was the second car we bought in Sibley from the Horton Chevrolet Co., Ray Horton, owner. And it was quite a fancy one. A four door deluxe model with a deep blue body and a gray top. About the first crack out of the box, we took a trip with the McGlothlens, leaving July 5 and returning about the 15th. This trip included the Bad Lands, Black Hills, Yellow Stone Park, The Great Salt Lake, Pikes Peak, The Garden of The Gods and then home. In the meantime, Jack visited his Grandma and Grandpa Ragan in Sigourney.
1947 Ford: This was the first car that I got after the war and I had to go to the ”black” market to get it. Cars were scarce in those days. You had to get on a dealers “wait list” and then wait maybe a year before he had a car he could (or would) sell you. This car I got through the Anchor Serum Company, St. Joseph, MO. It was a good car
1949 Ford
1951 Ford
1953 Ford Convertible
1956 Ford
1958 Edsel, Sept. 1960 -- 1963
1961 Ford Falcon May, 1963—May 1965
1963 Chrysler
1967 Chrysler
1973 Chrysler—May 16, 1973, Ogden Chrysler/Plymouth to Aug. 31, 1977 at 51,781 miles. Brown car.
1977 Chrysler—Aug. 31, 1977, Mt. Prospect C/P to October 29, 1982, at 63,972 miles. Yellow car.
1982 Olds—Oct. 30, 1982, Bravos Olds, Barrington to June 16, 1989 at 71,050 miles. Gray car.
1989 Lincoln—June 16, 1989, Libertyville Lincoln/Mercury, to March 30, 1999 at 86.690 miles. Light blue car.
1999 Chrysler T & C.—March 30, 1999, Clifford Chrysler-Plymouth, Buffalo Grove, IL White van.