Joy Neal Kidney's Blog, page 14

Lustron Houses

Our son and his family recently stayed in an airbnb that turned out to be a Lustron home.

The Des Moines area has a sprinkling of them but we’d never been inside one of these prefabricated enameled steel houses before. There was a shortage of homes after WWII so a Chicago industrialist and inventor, Carl Strandlund, came up with the idea of low maintenance houses which would also be very durable.

They set out to construct 15,000 homes in 1947 and 30,000 in 1948. The houses sold for between $8,500 and $10,500.

With enameled steel panels inside and out, as well as steel framing, the homes were usually built on concrete slabs with no basement.  The frame was constructed on-site and the house was assembled piece-by-piece from a special Lustron Corporation delivery truck. The assembly team, who worked for the local Lustron builder-dealer, followed a special manual from Lustron and were supposed to complete a house in 360 man-hours.

Its plant in Columbus, Ohio, a former Curtiss-Wright factory, only built 2,498 Lustron homes from 1948 to 1950 because the company couldn’t pay back start up loans from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation.

Many of these houses remain in use today. Several have been added to the National Register of Historic Places. The Lustron Houses of Jermain Street Historic District is a notable grouping and historic district in New York state. And some are popular as airbnbs.

A list of Lustron houses.

A closeup look at a Lustron home.

Vintage Franciscan Desert Rose–Dishes of my Childhood

Pink and Green

Favorite memories of meals at home included Mom’s Desert Rose dishes. Even before she could afford to buy settings of it, she’d fallen in love with it during WWII and bought the rosebud salt and pepper shakers and the darling individual ash trays. Yes, ash trays, but I never saw Dad flick ashes from his unfiltered Camels in one. 

When Dad installed Mom’s white Youngstown kitchen cabinets with black countertops. She decorated the kitchen in pink and green, and served porkchops with potatoes and gravy on luncheon sized Desert Rose plates. Colors of my childhood.

I didn’t want china when we got married. I bought Melmac to take to Idaho where Guy was stationed before Vietnam. When we eventually settled down, I admitted that I still didn’t want fine china but I’d enjoy having some Desert Rose dishes like I grew up with. Mom and Guy both enjoyed gifting me something in that pattern, especially if they could find it American made (yes, you can tell the difference), until I sure had a collection of it!

Grandma Leora was here for her last Mother’s Day celebration. I later realized I’d used those dishes against a pink tablecloth covered with one she’d crocheted. After Guy asked the blessing, Grandma leaned over to me–in that perky way she went about such things–and asked, “Do I recognize something?” Indeed, little Grandma. What a blessed memory. 1987

Grandma’s crocheted roses cloth with Mom’s Desert Rose s&p rosebuds and darling ash trays. (I’ve never allowed ashes in those dear little dishes, and I bet Mom didn’t either!)

We’re in the season of downsizing. Son Dan and his wife Renee aren’t interested in the Desert Rose dishes. I let most of them go when Mom’s things were auctioned.

But I kept my mother’s old Desert Rose from the farm along, along with those rosebud salt and pepper shakers and the ash trays.

Blessed by a Long-lived Motherline

Great Great Great Great Grandmother Jane left family behind in Tennessee, so I don’t know how long she had the benefit of her mother and grandmother.

Her daughter Lucy was 32 when she left her mother (Jane) behind in Indiana to pioneer in Iowa. They probably wrote letters to one another, but Lucy never saw her mother again.

Lucy’s daughter Emilia was just 8 years old when she came to Iowa, so she only knew her grandmother (Jane) that long. Emilia was 36 when her mother (Lucy) died.

Emilia’s oldest daughter Laura was 14 when she lost her grandmother (Lucy), and 46 when her mother (Emilia) died. 

Laura’s oldest daughter Leora was 24 when she lost her grandmother (Emilia), and nearly 72 when her mother (Laura) died. She spent time with her grandmother, sometimes living with her after she was widowed. Leora’s mother was such a blessing to her while she raised her family. They lived together a dozen years after both were widowed. Leora spent time with her grandchildren and great grandchildren. 

Leora’s oldest daughter Doris was 44 when she lost her grandmother (Laura), and 69 when her mother (Leora) died.

Doris’s oldest daughter Joy was 18 when my great grandmother (Laura) died, 43 when I lost my grandmother (Leora), and 71 when my mother died. What a blessing! 

Four generations: Laura (Jordan) Goff, Leora (Goff) Wilson, Doris (Wilson) Neal, Joy Neal. Guthrie Center, Iowa, 1950s

When four generations were together at Grandma’s in Guthrie Center, I didn’t think it was unusual. I wish I hadn’t taken those grandmothers for granted. To share so many of those years, I was being mentored in so many ways without realizing it. 

While wondering whether my grandmothers also enjoyed this incredible gift, I noticed that the longest-lived women, overlapping with an extra generation, were especially beneficial to Leora. What a gift to a woman who endured so many losses and hardships during her ninety-seven years.

For the LORD is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations. – Psalm 100:5

First Ad in Our Iowa Magazine

We’ve subscribed to the beautiful Our Iowa magazine for years. We’ve had a couple of old photos published in the Rewind section (Guy as a farm boy riding a cow during the 1950s, and the two oldest Wilson brothers standing in front of the Model T truck as they prepared to leave for the Navy, 1934), but I’d never placed an ad with them for the Leora books.

The very first one is in the August/September 2024 issue, naming the three places in the Des Moines area that offer autographed copies.

Not only that, but Our Iowa holds drawings for prizes to its readers for reading the ads. We advertisers pay for their ads in part by giving away products or services. Readers hunt for a tiny “I” in three ads, jotting them on a postcard to send in for the drawings.

I’ve been told that some subscribers hunt for the tiny “I” symbols as soon as the new issue arrives. What a fun addition to such an inviting collection of glossy photos and winsome stories.

For this issue, I’m offering a gift card to Beaverdale Books in Des Moines, who carry autographed copies of the Leora books, plus they offer shipping.

Friends from Guthrie Center have already spotted the tiny ad! (I didn’t find a tiny “I” in it.) May these ads connect readers with the compelling stories of a diminutive Iowa woman who lived with terrible losses, yet with tenacity and grace.

What a good, round friend you are! – Owl

With a bright moon following me home during my daybreak walk, especially welcome this week, I am reminded of the story of “Owl and the Moon”: “Moon, you have followed me all the way home. What a good, round friend you are!”

The story is from Arnold Lobel’s Owl at Home, a favorite “I CAN READ Book” from 1975.  Later that decades, son Dan and I enjoyed the five delightful stories in it: “The Guest,” who turned out kinda pushy, “Strange Bumps,” which were more benign that naive Owl thought, “Tear-Water Tea,” which I enjoyed reading tearily, “Upstairs and Downstairs,” with poor Owl finding out he couldn’t be both places at once, and the dear “Owl and Moon.”

Arnold Lobel was such a favorite author while Dan was small. He wrote the Frog and Toad series, Mouse Tales and Mouse Soup, and more.

We wrote fan letters to the author. His reply was such a delight, including a sketch of Owl himself. “Dear Mrs. Kidney and Dan, Thanks so much for your nice letters. I am delighted to hear that I have such ardent fans in Iowa. My newest book will be Fables and it will be published in the fall of this year. Here is a sketch of Owl for you. Your friend, Arnold Lobel”

Fables won the 1981 Caldecott Medal for the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children published in the U.S. during the preceding year, so the letter must have been written in 1980.

Our treasured copies of the “Lobel books,” along with others, are about to go home with granddaughter Kate. I hope she enjoys them as much as we did. I hope that when the moon follows her home, the words “What a good, round friend you are!” will also follow her home.

Coded in the Hospital: Thank God for Nurse Susan and Narcan!

Nurse Linda had a new patient late afternoon, August 24, 2016, who’d just had hernia surgery. She noticed that her oxygen level was dangerously low, so she used another machine, which read the same.

Linda hit the “code” button on the wall while she began meds (a shot, I think) to rid the patient (me) of pain meds and worked with a rebreather, trying to get me to respond. The room quickly filled up with hospital personnel, including the chaplain, with more in the hallway. I remember Linda trying to get me to wake up, to open my eyes.

After listening to the assistant surgeon ask the nurse several questions, Guy heard him tell her, “Nice save.” Thank you, Almighty God, for my life. . . . and for Nurse Linda, 8th Floor south, Mercy downtown. She later told us she’d never had a patient measure that low on oxygen and make it out alive!

I’d had a much more serious surgery that January, which set me up for this one, but had not been overdosed with pain meds while still in the ICU.

Total reverse shoulder replacement, February 2020. No overdose!

When I had a shoulder replaced in 2020, I had no pain meds in the hospital. A “neck block” took care of the pain until I was home, lucid, and could take care of my own meds.

I’m very thankful for modern medicine, and very thankful to still be useful this side of heaven!

 

An Awesome Connection

Thanks to the nudges and efforts of Debbie Menning and Vanessa Branson, autographed copies of the Leora books are available in Art on State, right in the town where Grandma Leora lived for decades, Guthrie Center, Iowa!

Thanks also to my sister Gloria for delivering them.

Guthrie Center is the county seat of Guthrie County. My sister lives near Dexter, which is in the SW corner of Dallas County. I live in Polk County, which is to the east of Dallas County.

This 1911 map shows places Leora lived from her girlhood. She was born in the county in 1890. Her family also lived in Audubon County, just west of Guthrie, near Larland. She rode a horse to piano lessons in Audubon, attended sewing school in Exira, just south of Audubon.

Leora Goff married Clabe Wilson at her folks’ home at Wichita, above the T in Guthrie. They first met and also lived near Monteith when they were first married.

There are several stories in Leora’s Early Years set in Stuart, in the SE corner, along the Rock Island railroad. You can see where the branch train, affectionately called the Liza Jane, between Menlo and Guthrie Center.

Leora!

Leora Goff Wilson lived in Guthrie Center for four decades after the war. I have a soft spot for that town, for the whole county after visiting my cheerful and tenacious grandma there dozens of times and learning the stories of her growing up years and early years of marriage.

I’m grateful that her stories are more easily available in her own home town.

Questions to Ponder: Leora’s Early Years: Guthrie County Roots

Questions to Ponder can help get a conversation started after a book club gathers after reading a chosen book. The questions are also interesting to work through for any reader. These are from Leora’s Early Years, which begins with pioneer Iowans and ends during the 1920s: 

Questions to Ponder

How was life different for children when Leora was growing up? What did families do for entertainment? Would you have liked to grow up during those days? 

2. Kem Luther, in Cottonwood Roots, said that Nebraska homesteaders knew there was “a line out there where the rain ended. . . We know today that this line twists its way through the heart of Nebraska like a rattlesnake. . . . But when the droughts of the nineties came it was clear that the snaking line was a sidewinder. . .”  Why were the Goffs and other pioneers so unaware of the problems they could encounter? Did the newspaper ads offer them a false hope? 

3. What do you think about Sherd Goff’s not allowing his older children to attend high school? 

4. How would you compare women’s lives then to now? Were some things better back then? 

5. A study of 1741 cases of insanity by Edward Jarvis, published by the US Commissioner of Education in 1871, concluded that “over-study” was responsible for 205 of the insanity cases. He wrote, “Education lays the foundation of a large portion of the causes of mental disorder.” How well do you think mental health was diagnosed and treated decades ago? 

6. Do you suppose that Georgia Goff might have suffered from a brain tumor?

7. A person’s character is forged during their early years as they go through the blacksmithing concepts of “heating and hammering.” What might these early stories reveal about Leora’s character, where it came from? What about Clabe? 

8. What do you think happened in Georgia Wilson’s first marriage? Why would she give up her first son so easily? Is it fair to conjecture this many years later? 

9. Clabe and Leora’s marriage may not have been “made in heaven,” but what do you think made it work? 

Leora’s Early Years is also available as an audiobook, done with Virtual Voice. You may listen to a sample under the book cover.

 

Living with an Octogenarian

As of today, I live with an octogenarian. Yes, my Favorite Guy!

He grew up on a farm near Glidden, Iowa, and attended school in Glidden. We met at the State College of Iowa, where he was a business major. That meant that he’d be drafted upon graduation, so he enlisted in the Air Force. We were married the same year (1966).

The Air Force sent him to tech school for Air Traffic Control, to Mountain Home AFB, Idaho, then to Vietnam. Air Traffic Control became his career–in Colorado, then Des Moines, where he retired.

Guy has enjoyed robust health until the last few years, when he developed Parkinson’s, most likely for serving in Vietnam. He’s given up his motorcycle and sports car, and we’re unable to travel anymore. Enjoying the Iowa State Fair is in the past, but he still volunteers at church one day a week and has played trumpet with the local New Horizons Band for a dozen years.

Neighbor Murphy waddles over to see if Guy might have a morsel for him.

He’s a popular neighbor, with his chainsaw, snowblower, and willingness to collect leaves every autumn. Now he enjoys watching the neighbors from his swing on the porch.

Happy Birthday from your Favorite Wife!

Misty Mountains Quilt

My shades-of-dusty-blue Misty Mountains quilt is a variation of  the Thousand Pyramids design. You might have guessed that we had been reading J.R.R. Tolkien’s stories.

The quilt is hand-pieced and hand-quilted by my quilting group (the Great Iowa Quilt Factory) in 1983. Elongated hearts are quilted in the lighter triangles. The backing is a printed fabric rather than plain.

Using some of the same fabrics, I made a miniature Schoolhouse quilt for a doll bed, and an even smaller Nine Patch with a Prairie Points border for fun. Well, it was fun back then!

The Misty Mountains quilt won a Blue Ribbon at the Iowa State Fair for a group quilt, was shown in the 1985 Invitational Quilt Show at the Des Moines Civic Center in conjunction with The Quilters musical.

In 1993, it was part of Quilt Extravaganza IV at Hoyt Sherman Place, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, in Des Moines.