Joy Neal Kidney's Blog, page 45

The Rest of the Story of the 1942 Plymouth

McDonald Drug store in Perry, where Doris worked, sold Evening in Paris Cologne, which shoppers could sense as soon as they entered the store. Whenever any of the Wilsons were in Perry to shop or sell eggs, they honked their “party line” phone ring–long, short, long–near the store so Doris would know they were in town.

During her break she would join them in the Plymouth to read the latest letters from her three brothers who were serving by the summer of 1942.

Doris also had a little mishap when trying to back the car out of the garage on the farm. (Chapter 3 of Leora’s Letters)

1943

Junior Wilson, leaving for the AAF. Clabe (holding grandson Richard Scar, who turned 80 last month), Junior, Leora (wearing Dale’s pilot’s wings on her coat), Darlene (Wilson) Scar. With the Plymouth, Autumn 1943, Minburn, Iowa. (Yes, Junior’s brothers kidded him about the way his jacket is buttoned.)

The next Wilson brother to join the military drove the car to Des Moines when he left. The next youngest brother drove it home. When Junior joined, their father drove the car home from the Capital City for the first time.

As the brothers came home on leave, the Plymouth took them to Edmonson’s Studio in Perry to have photos taken of them in uniform.

1944

Mom (Doris) returned (from Marfa, Texas, where Dad was stationed) for my birth, which was at Dexter two days before D-Day. When I was 10 days old (standard for new mothers to stay in the hospital in those days), we rode home (the Minburn farm) in the 1942 Plymouth.

With all five sons in the service, Clabe and Leora could no longer keep up with the landlord’s farm. They bought an acreage near Perry and moved there that October. Clabe cut down a crate so they could haul Leora’s chickens to the new place in the trunk of the Plymouth.

To the right is the Plymouth with the chicken crate sticking out of the trunk. House at the Perry acreage, October 1944

1945

Dad was ordered to Biggs Field, Texas, the summer of 1945. Families couldn’t be with the B-29 crews, so Mom and her toddler came back to Iowa to stay with Grandma and Grandpa (Leora and Clabe). Mom didn’t practiced driving during that time and took her driver’s test with the Plymouth.

1946

The Wilsons drove to Omaha, which was Clabe’s longest trip with the car, for Mother’s Day with Leora’s mother and other Goff relatives. After Clabe Wilson died that fall, it probably became the family car for oldest son Delbert and Evelyn. They moved back to Iowa after Junior was killed, and Leora never learned to drive.

I wonder who eventually bought the 1942 Plymouth. There’s no one left to ask what happened to it.

1947

Warren Neal with daughters Gloria and Joy, with the Wilsons’ Plymouth. Acreage at Perry, 1947

Leora’s Letters: The Story of Love and Loss for an Iowa Family During World War II

 

The Wilson’s 1942 Plymouth, One of the Last New Cars until after WWII

In November 1941, the Wilson sisters, Doris and Darlene, were anxious to see their brother Donald, who was home from the Navy. AWOL.

Knowing war was imminent, Don and a friend had jumped ship on the East Coast and headed for the Minburn, Iowa, farm. Don’s four brothers lived there with their folks, Clabe and Leora Wilson. Tenant farmers.

It looked like all seven Wilson siblings would be home at the same time. Their mother Leora hoped to get a family picture taken. 

Doris rode the M and St L train from Perry, where she was a waitress, to Minburn. One of her brothers met her at the depot in their “old smoking Buick.” Darlene and her husband Sam arrived from their farm near Earlham. For the family photo, everyone piled into the two cars and headed north six miles to Perry, to Edmondson’s Studio.

Ready to go to the Air Olympics in Des Moines, June 22, 1941. Danny, Junior, Delbert, and Dale Wilson, in front of the “smoking” Buick.

While still in Perry, Donald suggested trading off their old Buick on a newer car, which they did. The Wilson brothers and their dad pooled their money and bought a brand new grey, 1942 Plymouth four-door, 95-horsepower, Special Deluxe sedan, with concealed running boards.

A few days later the expected letter arrived from the Navy: Your son is AWOL. Do you know where he is?

Dale, Danny, and Clabe Wilson. USS Yorktown crewmen Frank ___ and Donald Wilson, headed back to the navy after hitchhiking to Iowa AWOL. Delbert Wilson on the end drove them to Des Moines in the new Plymouth.

Soon, after snapshots in the farm driveway, handshakes, and pats on backs, Donald and Frank turned themselves in at the Navy office in Des Moines. They were sent to the brig at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station in Illinois. While they were there, Pearl Harbor (where their ship had been based a year earlier) was attacked by the Japanese. The young navymen were hustled back aboard their aircraft carrier on the East Coast. Both lost rank and pay, but were soon in the thick of the war in the Pacific.

Meanwhile, at home in Iowa, the Wilsons didn’t know it would be the last photo taken of the family, and that they’d just purchased one of the last new automobiles available until after the war.

Leora’s Letters: The Story of Love and Loss for an Iowa Family During World War II

Annual Thanksgiving Dexter-Earlham Game Next Thursday [1931?]

More about the annual Thanksgiving Dexter-Earlham football rivalry, welcome excitement during the Great Depression:

“Dopesters At Sea In Efforts To Accurately Compare Qualities of The Two Teams.”

Trophy for the annual Dexter-Earlham Thanksgiving rivalry is now housed in the Earlham Community School, Earlham, Iowa. It was played every Thanksgiving from 1912-1944. (Thanks to Cody Thompson for the photo!)

“The game is the annual Thanksgiving Day clash between the traditional adversaries–Dexter and Earlham.

“The place is the Dexter Athletic Field.

“The hour is exactly 2:30 o’clock, CST

“The temperature–of the crowd–it will be 180 in the shade.

“Who will win? Who knows?

“If the teams are judged on a basis of consistent playing, then Earlham wins. But if the teams are judged on their ability to play, then Dexter wins.

“The writer has watched both teams. Earlham plays a steady, consistent game from start to finish, ready for every break, ready for every falter in its opposition. Earlham plays just as strong and just as hard in the last minute as in the first–I’ve never seen the Earlham boys waver, not even when it appeared they were about to be overwhelmed, neither when they were riding high, wide and handsome over their opposition. They are in there all the time–and that’s how they make it tough for any team against them.

“Now, Dexter is erratic. For a few minutes they play football that would credit a big college–then they are just as like as not to act like a bunch of kindergarten children. They’ve played that way all this season. Why? We opine that the blame is equally distributed between the team and the coach. Some fans claim [cannot read] erraticisms are because of the method of substitutions, which come anytime and ofttimes lacking the purpose of strengthening the team. It is said that many time not even the team understands why men are jerked and other substituted. Resentment and bewilderment are generated in the team ranks–the coach becomes taciturn and morose–and the morale of the players is shattered. Of course both team and coach sbould be above personalities. Should it be that nothing untoward happens to smash Dexter’s morale, then Dexter will beat Earlham–otherwise Earlham wins.

“This annual conflict is an institution. The crowd will be great. The price of admission is 35 cents for other than students–25 cents for all students.”

The Dexter Sentinel, Volume XLII, addressed to Clabe Wilson, subscription expired Sept. ’32, so perhaps 1931.

Our Veterans

His Compelling Generosity

This kindly bearded phizog belongs to the gentleman who radiated the most winsome generosity ever, and one I hadn’t met in person.

Photojournalist, author, teacher, generous friend, David LaBelle

It’s no surprise to his family, friends, and students that Dave LaBelle would drive 450 miles in one day just to attend the book talk of a social media friend.

We’d “met” a couple of years earlier through an online writers’ conference, where he was a presenter. Afterwards I contacted him about his novel, Bridges & Angels: The Story of Ruth. I read and reviewed it. He read my first book, Leora’s Letters.

Both books are family stories, both deal with horrendous losses. We connected because of those stories.

A year later I asked if he’d share his story with Our American Stories, which he readily agreed to. (It runs about 15 minutes.)

He’s also a photojournalist and has taught at the university level. He lugs a black camera with big lensy things on the front. A cellphone camera is my style, so I didn’t expect to enjoy his books about photography. But one promised that I wouldn’t need to know about f-stops and such, called “I don’t want to know all the technical stuff. . . I just want to shoot pictures.” Perfect. And the writing is delightful.

Recently Dave read Leora’s Early Years: Guthrie County Roots. The day before I was to give a book talk about it in Guthrie Center, he sent an email with his compelling reflections about it.

“Here’s looking at us,” he captioned this one

Well, you can’t miss a tall man with a cap and a white beard filling the doorway of the library in Guthrie Center. I was surprised, and yet not, having picked up on his genuine character through social media. Afterward Dave mingled with the audience, sharing some of his own books. His surprise visit enhanced an already-perfect day.

God blesses us through other humans, their generosity. May Dave’s serendipitous visit always remind me to radiate generosity to others.

Here’s David LaBelle’s website. You may also order books and prints from his website, and sign up for workshops. A beautiful 15-minute video about his work, “connecting the eye and the heart.”

My review of Bridges & Angels.

Dave photographed my handsome “support staff.”

 

 

“Thanksgiving Day As Observed In This Community” [Dexter, Iowa, 1920s]

There’s no date on this one, but among former Dexter residents who returned to watch the game was Keith Neal, who was the older brother of Kenneth and M.M. Keith’s last child born in Dexter was Merritt Winsell (named for the first Dexter boy killed in WWI, but called “Bud”) in 1920. His next children, Mary Marjorie (named for M.M. Neal’s twin sister) was born in Des Moines in 1922 (as were the rest of Keith and Cora’s 10 children).

So, after 1922, Dexter newspaper:

“Morning Busy, Noon Very Full, Afternoon Exciting, and Evening Very Peaceful.

“Thanksgiving Day in the morning. Sun came up bright and warming after several days of cold weather. Everyone woke to find nature adding its bit to the general spirit of holiday. Those, who had not arrived the night before, came in the morning to be on deck at the various family dinners in the community. Mothers stuffed chickens, ducks or turkeys, chucked them in the oven, and started all other good things for the huge Thanksgiving dinners. Last minute shopping was done; tables were set and extra leaves added to the dining room tables; everyone was very, very busy. Shortly before ten o’clock, like Pilgrims of old in modern dress, folk wended their way to church to give public thanks to the giver of all good gifts. Union services were held by the Presbyterians and Methodists in the Presbyterian church, and the Lutherans held services in their church.

“Thanksgiving Day at noon.

“Everyone sat down to overladen tables, with all the children home to take in mother’s stuffed turkey and cranberry sauce. From the supplies of the more fortunate had come chickens and the trimmings to spread Thanksgiving cheer in other less favored homes, so that nowhere in this community could there be a dinnerless Thanksgiving Day. And still the sun shone and the day was fair. And everyone ate too much.

Trophy for the annual Dexter-Earlham Thanksgiving rivalry is now housed in the Earlham Community School, Earlham, Iowa. It was played every Thanksgiving from 1912-1944. (Thanks to Cody Thompson for the photo!)

“Thanksgiving Day in the afternoon. Nearly 2:30. Everyone grabbed coats and hats and galoshes to go to the big football game held in Dexter this year. The unusually fine weather brought out a large crowd of Dexter and Earlham fans. Fences went down on both sides, as per usual, from the pushing, cheering, excited rooters, Earlham and Dexter bands played. Everybody yelled. Folk were there who had not been back to see a Thanksgiving game for more years than they cared to remember. Saw Fred Wolfinger, who had decided at his dinner table in Des Moines that he wanted to see Dexter and Earlham play again and whom we heard say as he left the field, “Good game. Glad we came.” Also saw Homer Bosley, Bill Vogel, Howard Calfee, Carl Hodson, Albert Gilleland, Keith Neal, Dewey McMurray, and other former Dexter residents. Fine old spirit of football rivalry pervaded the crowds with none of the old animosity. Dexter won, 6-0, by good straight football. Great game! Great deal of excitement.

“Thanksgiving Day in the evening. Plenty left over from dinner for the evening meal. Some visitors left after the game, others stayed for the weekend with the home folk. Fine edge of the afternoon hilarity and excitement worn off and a feeling of peace settled over the community. Lighted windows showed small family groups gathered about the fire, reading, visiting, being thankful for each other and the good things of the day. The end of a perfect Thanksgiving Day.”

Arvid Huisman, Author and former Newspaper Editor, Endorser of “Leora’s Early Years”

“While I am not related to the author of Leora’s Early Years, I feel like a long-lost cousin after reading her books. Especially in this latest book, Joy Kidney’s weaving of her families’ stories into a colorful tapestry that can help the reader appreciate their own families’ stories. Leora’s Early Years is a heartwarming narrative of real people who lived real lives in real places that we can find on a map. We of the 21st century have much to learn from the lives of Joy’s family of the 19th and early-20th centuries.”

Arvid Huisman, former newspaper publisher, author of More Country Roads, an anthology selected from more than 900 of his delightful Country Road columns, which thankfully continue today in Iowa History Journal. 

His compelling story in the latest Iowa History Journal (Nov./Dec. 2022) is “The greatest of these is love: Sharing my Christmas snapshots.”

Retired as Director of Development, Community Relations and Media Relations for The Salvation Army in Des Moines, Arvid has had hundreds of speaking engagements and still enjoys giving programs.

Arvid doesn’t have a website, but here’s an interesting interview from a while back with Aaron Putze.

Clabe Wilson saved a clipping called “Why Is Gossip Harmful?”

“The fear of the tongue,” Willa Cather wrote, “that terror of little towns. . . .”

Clabe Wilson knew about it first hand.

Railroad officials had asked around Dexter about anyone seen spending time along the railway. It looked like something had been deliberately placed on the tracks to hinder the trains. Clabe Wilson’s name came up and he was questioned about it. He occasionally drank to meanness, but was honest to a fault, sometimes to his own detriment. 

But the suspicion stung. 

New Year’s Day 1935, Clabe trudged along the Rock Island tracks, shivering as he headed to the pumphouse, a part-time WPA job, brooding about being suspected of a misdeed. Was it common gossip around Dexter that he couldn’t find a real job? That he sometimes drank too much? Drab smoke drifted from chimneys into the weary winter as he plodded by each house. It was desolate and cold inside the little brick pumphouse, with nothing to do but keep the pump oiled. 

Being on welfare in the 1930s was called being “on the dole” or “on relief.” Families were ashamed to accept money and food paid for by other citizens. The Wilsons were in that somber predicament. 

Neighbors and teachers in this small town were appreciative and supportive of the family, but a few negative comments wormed their way back. Not only that but accepting government dole was a dreaded necessity. 

Clabe tucked a June 16, 1935, clipping into a small cloth-covered New Testament, “Why Is Gossip Harmful?” At the bottom he wrote in pencil “Look it up.” The Scripture noted was James 3:1-6, about the destruction the tongue can wage. 

Prince Albert was Clabe’s choice for pipe tobacco. This is his pipe and the small New Testament with the clipping still between the pages, “Why Is Gossip Harmful?”

There are several paragraphs, but Clabe had underlined part of this one: “A gossip is a public menace, and richly deserves to be muzzled; for a biting, dishonest human tongue can do more harm than the snapping jaws of a dog! A gossip can ruin your reputation, start a run on a bank, break up a church, make neighbors hate one another, shatter the happiness of a town. And no man is immune to the serpentlike flashing of a gossip’s tongue.”

Keeping a clipping like that says a lot about a man.

 

—–

This became part of a chapter called “Gossip” in Leora’s Dexter Stories: The Scarcity Years of the Great Depression.

“Doing History” by Reading Minds by Dennis Peterson

“DOING HISTORY” BY READING MINDS by dlpedit

by Dennis Peterson

Often, I’ve regretted not having access to a plethora of private documents–letters, journals, photos, etc.–on which to base my study of and writing about my family’s history. Unlike Joy Neal Kidney, who has uncovered scads of such documents for the basis of her three books (to date, with another in the works).

Sometimes, however, we can fail to see the forest for the trees. We can fail to see the obvious right under our nose.

This fact suddenly occurred to me several weeks ago as I was engaged in my daily Bible reading. I was using a Bible that I had given as a Christmas gift to my parents while I was a student in college. My mother had written her name at the top of the first page, but it was Daddy’s infrequent underlinings of verses and his scribbled notes in the margin that attracted my attention.

Daddy was a laboring man, a brick mason, and he had large, rough, calloused hands. His handwriting never came close to resembling the Palmer or Zaner-Bloser styles taught when he was in school. Unlike my mother’s neat, always legible handwriting. Even her hurriedly jotted grocery and to-do lists were the epitome of handwriting correctness. Daddy’s handwriting, on the other had, was seldom neat, even when he concentrated on it. It was, at best, a scrawl.

But whenever I encountered his underlining or writing in the margin of that Bible, I began to go back and reread the verse or passage or read his notations, trying to determine what he was thinking at the moment he read the verse or passage. I began asking myself questions. (Much of “doing good history” involves asking good questions.)

What prompted that particular verse or passage to strike a chord for him at that moment?What was happening–or had happened–to give it special meaning for him?Why did he write that particular note? What–or who–was influencing his thinking at that moment?

Daddy didn’t keep a journal. He wasn’t a writer. So I have nothing by which I can reach definitive answers to such questions. But if I know certain other facts, I often can surmise answers that might help me better understand him and his thinking at the moment he underlined or wrote a cryptic note in the margin.

Consider, for example, this one instance. When he was reading Psalm 37, he underlined verses 1 and 7 out of the total of 40 verses in the psalm. Why had those specific verses captured his attention so clearly as to prompt him to underline them?

By the way, I knew that Daddy, not Mother or anyone else, had underlined those verses because he had a “style” of underlining unique to himself. He didn’t underline a whole unbroken line of text; his underlining was erratic. He would underline perhaps the first word, leave a gap, underline the next two words, then leave a gap, skip a word, underline one or two more, etc. It was unpredictable and seemingly random. Sometimes, even only part of a word would be underlined.

But I digress.

Both verses say “fret not.” Don’t worry. Don’t let yourself get all wrought up. About what?

“Because of evil doers . . . those who work unrighteousness” (v. 1).

“Because of him who prospers in his way . . . who brings evil devices to pass” (v. 7).

Now what motivated Daddy to focus on those particular verses?

On a December Sunday night, about a week before Christmas, Daddy, Mother, and Gina, my sister, were on their way to the evening church service for the Christmas cantata. My parents were in the choir. My sister possibly was playing the piano or the organ. They were all anticipating a joyous Christmas holiday together.

As they topped a hill, a car coming the opposite direction hit them head on. Mother was thrown into the windshield. She died a few days later. Daddy, on the passenger side, and Gina, who was driving, were injured. Gina returned to college (at Daddy’s insistence) after the first of the year to graduate, but Daddy remained in the hospital for several weeks and then, even after being released, was unable to return to work for months.

The driver of the other car had been drinking and had a blood alcohol count far above the legal limit. He was not seriously injured. He was never charged. Neither the sheriff nor the detectives in his office pursued an investigation. A judge refused to issue an arrest warrant for the drunk driver. Justice was never executed. Everyone involved seemed to go about their lives as normal, not in the least affected by their actions–or inaction. Except Daddy.

Naturally, Daddy was dismayed by this miscarriage of justice. He lobbied numerous public officials at many levels, begging them to do their jobs or to encourage others to do what they were pledged by oath to do in their positions, and to bring justice to bear–and to gain closure for him. But no one did anything.

Daddy had a “right” to worry and be angry, right?

He was. But one day, he read those verses in Psalm 37 and apparently made the choice to stop fretting and just to leave the matter in God’s hands.

In the end, over time, justice was served. Not in the way Daddy expected and wanted, but in God’s way and in His time.

The drunk driver, apparently unable to deal with his guilt, committed suicide. The detective who refused to investigate and the judge who refused to issue a warrant were removed from their positions. The sheriff was himself later arrested, convicted, and imprisoned for operating a “chop shop,” dealing in stolen cars. He was replaced by a new sheriff who had campaigned primarily on getting tough on drunk drivers.

All of this without any action–or fretting–by Daddy.

Perhaps these things were in Daddy’s mind when he read those verses. They taught him to “let go and let God.”

I had to do the same kind of “mind reading” when I was trying to determine why Daddy dropped out of Lincoln Memorial University before he ever recorded a grade on his transcript. Lack of money? Academic problems? The need for him, an only son, to work on his father’s dairy farm? Homesickness for the love of his life, his future bride and my future mother?

In doing your own research, especially if you don’t have written records, try to ask questions about what motivated your subjects’ actions. What were they thinking? What influences affected their actions? In effect, try to read their minds and come up with plausible back stories to round out your family history.

—–

Dennis L. Peterson is a historian and the author of several books, including the delightful Look Unto the Hills: Stories of Growing Up in Rural East Tennessee. He is also a regular contributor to Our American Stories.

Website for Dennis Peterson. At the top of the home page are his delightful audio stories, ready to listen to.

Here’s his Amazon Author Page.

Book Talk in Guthrie Center November 1

Leora’s Early Years – Book Talk – Joy Neal Kidney

4 p.m., November 1, 2022, Mary J. Barnett Memorial Library, Guthrie Center, Iowa

Cover photo taken in 1914 in front of the home of Clabe Wilson’s mother. Newlyweds Clabe and Leora Wilson

Leora’s Early Years: Guthrie County Roots, Joy Neal Kidney new release

Short Description: The oldest of 10 children, Leora Goff developed the tenacity, optimism, and hope to endure many family moves, great losses, an influenza pandemic, brothers sent off to the Great War, marriage to Clabe Wilson, and the births of seven children–mostly set in Guthrie County.

After World War II, she was a long-time resident of Guthrie Center, a Gold-Star Mother active in her church and many civic groups.

“Morrisburg Cemetery,” a poem by Guthrie Center native Nicholas Dowd, enhances the book. (Clabe Wilson’s mother and grandparents are buried in Morrisburg Cemetery, along with several other relatives.)

Joy’s other books are Leora’s Letters: The Story of Love and Loss for an Iowa Family During World War II and Leora’s Dexter Stories: The Scarcity Years of the Great Depression. All five Wilson brothers are remembered on the Dallas County Freedom Rock at Minburn, near where they were tenant farmers during the war. Only two came home.

Guthrie Center, Iowa, was Grandma Leora Wilson’s town, where she made a home for her own mother after WWII until Great Grandmother Laura Arminta (Jordan) Goff died in 1962. Grandma lived alone for the first time in her long life until the age of 97, in 1987. Guthrie Center meant Grandma Leora for us, a half-an-hour drive from rural Dexter.

I still have a soft spot for Guthrie Center, enjoying Sunday dinner at the Cabbage Rose Restaurant on a Sunday, after driving there from the Des Moines area, “over the river and through the woods” (Monteith, where Clabe and Leora met and began their married life, also where Leora’s mother was born in a log cabin in 1868).

Grandma Leora lived at 505 N. 4th Street, now remodeled and unrecognizable as Grandma’s little house.

Come hear stories about early Guthrie County!