Joy Neal Kidney's Blog, page 31

McCormick-Deering Tractor

Warren Neal on his dad Kenneth Neal’s McCormick-Deering tractor, perhaps Grandpa Kenneth’s first tractor. Dad graduated from Dexter High School in 1935, so this was probably when he was in high school. Dallas County, Iowa, early 1930s

The McCormick-Deering steel-wheeled, kerosene-powered 15-30 tractor was a popular farm model between 1921 and 1934. In 1935, when Dad (Warren Neal) graduated from high school, about 85% of tractors rode on metal wheels.

Those steel wheels were covered with piercing lugs that gouged every surface. It’s no wonder hard-surface roads often had signs that read: “Tractors with Lugs Prohibited.”

McCormick-Deering 15-30

The Ideal Three-Plow Tractor

“Powerful, fast-moving, economical, the McCormick-Deering 15-30 is the ideal three-plow tractor. With a plowing speed of three miles an hour and abundant power, the McCormick-Deering tractor owner can plow a satisfactory acreage every day and at a depth of his liking. Fast, deep plowing requires plenty of power. That is the reason this tractor meets the requirements of the practical farmer.

“The McCormick-Deering 15-30 has ample power to pull three plows and meets the requirements of tractor owners for a little more power and a little more speed to enable them to accomplish more during the rush periods of spring, summer and fall work.

Ever-Ready Belt Power

“On belt work, the McCormick-Deering 15-30 exceeds all expectations for smooth, steady running. The effective throttle governor regulates the fuel to the load and keeps the speed practically constant even though the load may vary.

“The McCormick-Deering 15-30 is designed throughout to be of maximum utility as a farm power unit. It is fully equipped with steel platform, wide fenders, belt pulley, adjustable drawbar, brakes and removable angle lugs.

“See the McCormick-Deering dealer or write us for information on this tractor.”

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How to start one of these tractors.

The history of the McCormick-Deering is complicated. Check it out if you’re interested.

I wonder whether this tractor was Grandpa Kenneth Neal’s first tractor. Grandma Ruby wrote, “Living close to town and having a nice matched team of horses, Kenneth was called upon to drive them on the horse-drawn hearse.”

These are work horses, and this is what farming looked like before tractors. The netting on the horses is to ward of flies that would bite them. The driver of the sickle bar mower is probably Kenneth Neal.

Needs Just Five More Reviews!

I don’t check Amazon for book reviews very often, but someone mentioned that having 50 reviews was a threshold for Amazon’s analytics to perk up about a book. When I checked Leora’s Dexter Stories, it had 45 reviews.

After I posted this request on social media sites, another author downloaded the ebook and has already sent a charming meme for it! What an encouragement!

#kindlequotes is something new to me. Here’s how to create them if you’ve got an iPhone.

Intermission

When you get all the ingredients for a cake or casserole together and in the oven, you’ve got a little intermission time–to clean up, set the table, or whatever.

When all the elements of your manuscript have been sent on to be shaped into a real book, there’s a lull. Yes, I already have ideas for the next book, but I’ve also had the urge to clean up, eliminate some piles, even purge some (gulp) books.

I don’t have a cover to show you yet, but how about my mother-in-law, who just turned 100, with her two sons?

Centenarian Carol Walker Kidney Herman, with Guy and Vey Kidney. Guy is 14 years older than Vey, who lives in Indiana. Last time Vey was back to Iowa, he hauled the old Fordson tractor back to Indiana. I asked why there’s a lemon in a vase with a leaf but Guy said it’s a tulip. I wonder where someone found a tulip in September.

And part of the area I cleaned up today.

It was 48 degrees this morning, feels like autumn, so it’s time to put orange things on the front porch.

So this is intermission. Stay tuned for a book cover for What Leora Never Knew: A Granddaughter’s Quest for Answers, which is my journey to try to learn what happened to the three Wilson brothers who were lost during WWII. What happened to one is still a mystery, but how another was located and identified is so compelling. This is the companion book to Leora’s Letters, revealing details that Grandma Leora could not have known.

Climbing the Watertower

Leora Wilson took this photo decades after Delbert climbed the Dexter watertower.

Delbert and Donald Wilson were juniors in 1931. The juniors and seniors had rivalries with their class colors, one class posting their ribbons around town, the other replacing them with their own colors.

Delbert climbed  the watertower and tied the junior class colors to the top of it. No senior would climb up to replace them, so they fluttered there until they wore out.

Leora’s note on the back of the photo.

Lt. Dan Wilson’s Second Burial, Temporary Cemetery, St. Avold, France

Temporary Cemetery, St. Avold, France

St. Avold U.S. Military Cemetery, France. War Theatre #12 [France] – CEMETERIES 10X10 Print rec’d 18 October 1946 from The American Battle Monuments Commission, Washington, D.C. Copied 18 Oct 1946. Released, 22 Oct 1946, JIA.It had been over a year since the end of the war, and at least eight months since Clabe and Leora Wilson had been notified that their son Dan’s grave had been located at Schwanberg, Austria.

More information that the Wilson family never learned about, until my request for Daniel S. Wilson’s 293 (Casualty) File:

August 22, 1946, seven pages of “Report of Investigation Areas Search” were completed for “Unknown X-7341.” This unknown was believed to be Daniel Wilson, but because his identification tags were not with the body, positive identification could not be made. Chief of Police Franz Mueller and Bergermeister Hermann were interviewed for the report.

Unknown X-7341 was also disinterred that day from the Schwanberg cemetery, to be reburied in the new U.S. Military Cemetery at St. Avold, France. By September 9, Unknown X-7341 had been positively identified as Daniel S. Wilson by the following facts:

The laundry mark on the clothing of X-7341 agreed with the initial and last four digits of Lt. Wilson’s military number. [W-0058]The date and place of death of X-7341 agreed with the Missing Air Craft Report for plane 44-24123 of which Lt. Wilson was the sole occupant.German Dulag record KSU 2882 indicated that Lt. Wilson was buried in the civilian cemetery from which X-7341 was disinterred.The cross over the grave from which X-7341 was disinterred was marked “Daniel S. Wilson” and the date of death.A statement by a civilian that the identification tags for Lt. Wilson were present, enabling the marking of the cross.Lt. Wilson was the only American buried in the civilian cemetery from which X-7341 was disinterred.

Unknown X-7341 is Reburied in France 

On September 9, 1946, at St. Avold, France, at 3:00, in the afternoon, Lt. Daniel S. Wilson, formerly Unknown X-7341, was reburied between Unknown X-7330 and Unknown X-7318. Chaplain H.M. Trebaol conducted the service.

I was heartened by the care that went into the identification of this one casualty of the war, to make sure the remains they buried were indeed those of Daniel S. Wilson. This is part of the manuscript of What Leora Never Knew, including documents and correspondence with men who knew one of the Wilson brothers who were lost during WWII. 

Georgia Laurayne Goff – Brain Fever

Georgia L. Goff

“A very sad death which occurred, last Thursday, was that of Miss Georgia Goff, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. M.S. Goff of this city. Her demise was caused from brain fever, and her illness was short.

“Georgia Laurayne Goff was born April 29, 1894 at Bloomfield Knox County, Nebraska, and died September 7, 1922, aged 28 years, four months and eight days. In 1896, she came with her parents to this county to live. Later they moved to Minnesota, returning here in 1905.

“During recent years, Miss Goff has been a resident of Des Moines, working and attending Drake University where she was a student of dramatic art and music. It is thought that it was her close application to work and studies which brought on the illness which caused her death.

“She was a quiet girl of gentle manner and disposition. She had an ambition to excel in everything good and worth while, and never lowered her high ideal although her too frail body could not stand what was required of it.

Laura Jordan Goff and her daughters Georgia and Ruby. Probably 1914 or after, Guthrie County, Iowa

“She leaves to mourn her passing, her parents, two sisters, Mrs. Leora Wilson of Stuart, and Miss Ruby Goff, and seven brothers, Merle [sic], Wayne, Jenning[s], Rolla, Willis, Perry and Clarence. One other brother preceded her in death in 1909. . . . Old friends in the persons of Fern Robertson, Bonnie McLuen, Leila Allen, Mabel Smith, Verna Davis and Pearl Cahail helped to bear the body to its last resting place.”

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Comments from Leora Goff Wilson‘s memoirs: “When my sister Georgia was in her late teens, we are certain that when she had a delirium spell that it was from the fall she had when she was about 9. The doctor wouldn’t find anything wrong and she would get over that, it seemed. She took music lessons, taught music some, and went to school in Des Moines the year before she got real upset, the summer she was 28 years old. A pressure on her brain, in the forehead, it seemed–a slow buildup, we figured, after her death, which was the cause of her death. The doctors couldn’t do anything about it in those days. She passed away September 7, 1922. She was so talented and learned so easily.”

From her niece Doris Wilson Neal, memories from when she was about 4 years old: She felt comfortable with her Aunt Georgia when she visited the Wilsons in Stuart. Georgia would tuck Doris’s small hand in her pocket with her own hand to keep it warm when they walked to uptown Stuart. Once when a torn spot in the roll for their player piano made a discordant noise. It caused Georgia to make guttural noises. Leora put her arms around her sister, “Oh, Georgia, Georgia, don’t.” It frightened Doris.

Doris also witnessed one of the spells at her grandparents’ Victorian home in Guthrie Center. Her Grandfather Goff struck his daughter. Grandmother Goff cried, “Oh, Pa Pa, don’t.” He arranged for Georgia to live at the Clarinda Mental Health Center, which was such a discouragement to her. “So, Pa, that’s where you think I should go.” She died only ten days after arriving there.

I wonder whether Georgia Laurayne Goff had a brain tumor, or had developed epilepsy. She had also worked for the Carl Weeks family, who eventually built the Salisbury House in Des Moines.

Leora’s Early Years: Guthrie County Roots

An Old Fordson Tractor on a Century Farm

Guy Kidney on the 1924 Fordson, near Glidden, about 1954

Guy’s mother, Carol Walker Kidney Herman, age 100, lives on her Century Farm south of Glidden, Iowa. The farm was purchased in 1910 by the grandparents of her first husband, Lowell Kidney. Jerome and Anna Marie Coleman paid $115/acre for the farm in 1909. Jerome bequeathed the farm to his daughter, Rosa Coleman Kidney, who was Lowell’s mother.

Lowell and Carol began married life on this farm in 1942. Guy is the oldest of their four children, who grew up on the farm. Their dad had several tractors while farming, including this 1924 Fordson.

Although fewer than 80 acres, the Glidden farm was awarded the Century Farm designation at the 2013 Iowa State Fair.

Second from left: Guy Kidney, Lois (Kidney) Kail, Vey Kidney. Iowa State Fair 2013. (Left: Iowa Farm Bureau Federation Vice President Joe Heinrich. Right: Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey. )

Guy’s brother Vey, younger by 14 years, came back from Indiana in 2023 for the Glidden reunion with a flat-bed trailer in order to display the Fordson in a parade, then take the treasured tractor home with him.

Guy Kidney aboard the 1924 Fordson tractor, near Glidden, August 2023

Fordson was the brand name for mass-produced tractors manufactured by Henry Ford & Son, dominating the market from 1917-about 1925, then again from 1946-1953.

Somewhat like the Ford Model T for automobiles, the Fordson was for tractors, with a popular design, a low price, a widespread network, and a capacity for producing great numbers.

And just as the Model T helped the public notice how soon cars and trucks might replace horses on the road, the Fordson helped them appreciate how tractors could replace horses on the farm.

A compelling story about the hunt for the only surviving Ford tractor prototype, thanks to Tractor Hyatt via Twitter.

Joyride

When you’re married to a retired air traffic controller. . .

And this morning the control tower folks, mostly retired, are having breakfast together at the Urbandale Machine Shed Restaurant.

What’s Next?

What Leora Never Knew: A Granddaughter’s Quest for Answers is off to the editor, and is having its real cover designed.

While awaiting a couple of official endorsements (I haven’t finalized the front matter yet), my brain is in limbo. It seems to be scanning possibilities of what to dive into next–there are at least three possibilities. What a fascinating process!

Blog posts are mostly scheduled through September, and my favorite Guy’s band begins again, so there’s another few quiet hours. I’ve signed onto a launch team for Jolene Philo’s delightful See Jane Dance, and have a manuscript for a workbook to read through on my laptop and react to.

Even though I’m mainly housebound, I thank God every day for these reasons to hop out of bed even before morning gilds the skies! (Okay, so it’s more like a slow curl out of bed.)

Do any of you remember the old hymn When Morning Gilds the Skies? One from my childhood.

Military Drummers in the Family

While studying the Civil War, I learned that army drummers had more to do with communication than with music. Military drummers have played an important role in warfare throughout history. Soldiers marched to the sound of the drums, including into battle where beat could also regulate loading and re-loading of their weapons. Drum cadences could raise morale during the fight.

While working on genealogy, I learned about two of army drummers among my relatives–one during the American Revolution, the other during World War I.

Revolutionary War

Revolutionary War drummers and fifers were used in battle to signal the soldiers to fire. During fog or smoke, when visual command was impossible, musical instruments were the only way to communicate to the troops. During the Revolutionary War, drummer boys played a valuable role, supporting the troops by helping with camp chores, besides their job of signaling during combat and boosting troop morale with uplifting cadences.

An ancestor, Jacob Jordan (1764-1849) served as a drummer boy with Pennsylvania troops, enlisting on his 16th birthday. He also helped guard Burgoyne’s men after Burgoyne surrendered. About 4000 of his troops were quartered at Charlottesville, Virginia, guarded by old men and boys of the region.

Jacob Jordan was the grandfather of David Jordan, who was Leora Goff Wilson’s Grandpap Jordan.

Civil War

Drummers were important during the Civil War. One drummer boy was John Lincoln Clem who served in the Civil War. This is a 10-minute story about him.

World War I

Jennings Goff

Leora Wilson’s brother, Jennings Goff from Guthrie County, Iowa, was drafted and served with the 88th Division, American Expeditionary Forces, in France. (Co. K, 349th Inf.) Still in France after the Armistice, Jennings wrote home from Reffroy, France, “I haven’t beat the drum since I left Camp Dodge. I haven’t seen it for two months. They don’t use them on this side. . . I have Been attached to Battalion headquarters nearly every since I have been in France, as a signal man.”

WWI Era US military issue wood field snare rope drum

Jennings Goff’s younger son Ron Goff wrote me in 2018 that his father told him and older half brother (Merrill Goff) that he’d been a drummer during the war, but he offered no further details. By then, the army had evidently developed better means of communicating than by drum cadences.

It’s a fascinating rabbit hole of history, isn’t it!

How about an extra rabbit hole: U.S. Army’s Fife and Drum Corps Drumline performing The Adventures of Joe 90.

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History of Noble County, Ohio, pub. by L. H. Watkins & Co., Chicago, 1887

Letter to M.S. and Laura Goff from Jennings B. Goff, December 14, 1918