Joy Neal Kidney's Blog, page 57

O.S. (Orlando Swain) Neal, born January 14, 1868

O.S. Neal Died Sun., Nov. 4 Following Major Operation

Death Came at Dexter Clinic

O.S. Neal, well known and very highly esteemed Dexter man, passed away Sunday evening at the Dexter Clinic where he was taken following a major operation in the Lutheran hospital in Des Moines. Mr. Neal lived in and near Dexter for many years and will be greatly missed by all who had the pleasure of knowing this fine man.

The service was held in the first Presbyterian church of which he was a member. His pastor, the Rev. S.C. Wadding, officiated and the body rests in the tomb at the Dexter Cemetery. The pall-bearers, all grandsons, were Merritt Neal, Warren D. Neal, Willis K. Neal, Rawson Neal, Clifford Connor, and Mervin Wells.

The music was provided by: Harold Ellis of Redfield, Ed Snydergaard of Dallas Center, and Mrs. Ed Snydergaard as pianist.

—–

Orlando Swain Neal, son of John and Rhoda, was born at Redfield, Iowa, January 14, 1868, and passed away at the Dexter Clinic on November 4, after an illness of six weeks. Although he was of a healthy constitution, he failed to rally after a major operation and answered the Master’s Call at the age of 77 years, 9 months and 21 days.

He was married April 5, 1892, to Nellie Edith Keith of Clay Center, Kansas. Four children came to bless their home: Keith J., Kenneth, and twins: Maurice Marshall, and Mary Marjorie. Keith and Marjorie preceded their father in death.

O. Swain, Marjorie, Kenneth, Nellie, Keith, and Maurice (M.M.) Neal

He has been a life-time resident of the Dexter community where he was proud to make his home. His home and family were his chief concern and enjoyment; but he was interested also in his friends and the good of the community.

He led a very fruitful life, being active in the Presbyterian church for fifty years and of which had been an elder for many years and was the senior elder of the church at the time of his call to the Heavenly Home.

He evidenced his Christian faith in his life and works and expressed to his family his willingness to respond to the call of his Lord and Savior.

He leaves to mourn his passing his companion and two sons: Kenneth and Maurice both of Dexter. Three sisters also survive: Mrs. Dora Andrew of Des Moines, Mrs. Hannah Doling of Clay Center, Kansas and Ida Andrew of Cordova, Ill. Also twenty grandchildren, five great grandchildren, and a host of nieces and nephews.

The Dexter Sentinel, November 8, 1945

His grandsons had just returned from serving in WWII. Merritt Winsell (Bud) Neal was named for Merritt Winsell, the first Dexter boy killed in WWI.

O.S. Neal was named for two of his mother’s brothers, Orlando and Swain Marshall. (Swain served in the Civil War.)

Neal served on the 1916 Community Building Committee as a representative of the Presbyterian Church. The permanent building was to replace a temporary tabernacle.

When the Dexter Canning Factory was in business, O.S. hired the corn growers and kept an eye on the progress of the crops. He also hired the workers and foremen during canning season.

Swain and Nellie Neal were beloved neighbors of Clabe and Leora Wilson, so they turn up from time to time in Leora’s Dexter Stories: The Scarcity Years of the Great Depression. (Mrs. Neal’s navy beans after the baby twins died, and one time Spats stole Mr. Neal’s mitten!)

More Nancy the Horse and Other Stories

Nancy was the landlord’s gentle horse when the Wilson family lived southeast of Dexter. Clabe was a tenant farmer there, where he farmed with horses. They were also allowed to ride Nancy, and she eventually took the “Wilson schoolbus” to the Dexter School 2-3 graveled miles away. Delbert (age 10) drove the horse and buggy, while Donald (9) and Doris (7) rode along.

One day it was icy. Nancy slipped and fell. When she managed to clamber upright again, she hobbled.

The Wilson kids were late for school. Doris cried. The teacher had her sit by the radiator to warm up. The little girl still whimpered when the other kids went out for recess. The teacher put her arm around her. “Doris, are you still cold?”

“No, but Nancy fell down and we might have to shoot her.” More tears.

Well, that’s what her nine-year-old brother announced about Nancy’s predicament.

Danny, Dale and Darlene, Doris, Donald, and Delbert Wilson, SW of Dexter, Iowa, about 1925

One day Nancy and and the buggy met a threshing machine on one corner. Nancy trotted right down into the ditch and reared up, with the three kids bouncing around in the buggy. But after they were passed the monster, she pulled them back up on the roadway.

Delbert was told not to drive on the highway because it was gravel. One time they had a different horse, which was faster than Nancy. Delbert headed the horse onto the highway and it was scary for Doris. Yes, she tattled.

Later, someone tattled to the teacher that Doris had said a bad word.

“Doris, what did you say?”

“I don’t know. All I said was ‘I’ll run like the deuce’.” Her brothers talked like that all the time.

“Well, you’re not nice a girl to talk like that. You may sit in the cloak room until recess.”

More tears.

Second grade can be so dramatic, can’t it!

The Rock Island Wreck, January 1899

This story is a follow-up to one about the Liza Jane engineer Murray Johnson. (That post includes information about the wreck from the Des Moines Leader.)

This information is from the Atlantic Daily Telegraph, January 11, 1899:

Further details of Disastrous Collision at Chautauqua.

COLWELL’S NECK WAS BROKEN

He Jumped as the Trains Came Together and Died Instantly from the Effects of the Fall.–The Engineer on the Extra Forgot His Orders and Caused the Accident.

The killed in the accident at Chautauqua siding near Council Bluffs yesterday morning about six o’clock are:

J. W. TAYLOR, engineer, Valley Junction. [now West Des Moines]

JOHN STONE, fireman, Centerville.

JOHN COLWELL, fireman, Stuart.

The trains which met in such fatal collision were the regular freight, No. 56, which leaves Council Bluffs for the east every morning at 6 o’clock, and a west bound extra which was running in the opposite direction on No 56’s time. The regular freight was in charge of Conductor H. E. Drew and the crew of the engine, No. 508 consisted of Engineer [Murray] Johnson [sic] and Fireman Colwell. The extra was in charge of Conductor Hanniphan, with Engineer J. W. Taylor and Fireman Stone on its engine, No. 820. No. 56 consisted of sixty cars, mostly empties, while the extra consisted of a train load of steel rails.

All the facts that came to light yesterday seem to indicate that the accident was the result of forgetfulness on the part of one of the engineers. Before leaving Council Bluffs the regular freight had received orders to look out for an extra at Chautauqua siding. Thought it could not be learned definitely, circumstances indicate that the extra was running under orders, general or special, that would require it to make the siding and let the regular train pass. As he drew near the siding Engineer Johnson [sic] of the regular slowed up his train until it was almost at a standstill. The engineer of the extra however, for some cause or other, approached the siding at full speed, apparently without any though of stopping. A curve in the track made it impossible for a sight of the other train to recall to his mind the orders under which he was funning and his train swept down the track upon the unsuspecting train and crew that were helpless to get out of the way even when they discovered their danger.

They struck with a terrible force that jammed the engines into each other until their very cylinder heads met; every particle of woodwork was shivered and torn into splinters and with the projecting iron work, twisted and bent into every imaginable shape, was scattered broadcast.

How the Victims Were Caught.

Of the great danger that impended the engineer and firemen of the regular train had sufficient warning to reverse the engine and jump. To only one, how ever, did the leap prove fortunate; Fireman Colwell escaped death on the engine only to meet it as a result of a terrible fall upon his head, which broke his neck immediately below the base of the brain. But if the engine crew of the extra had any warning of the danger it came too late to enable them to try to save themselves by jumping, and both were crushed within the cab. Fireman Stone was killed instantly, but Engineer Taylor lived for several hours after the time of the collision.

He was badly crushed about the abdomen and lower portious [sic] of the body, but he was conscious and could talk intelligently. Every effort was made to remove him and finally, after several hours of work, the wreckage was lifted from his body. He did not live more than five minutes afterwards, however, his injuries being too great. Before his death Engineer Taylor was heard to remark to those who worked to release him: “It’s my fault; I forgot about the orders.”

Died in the Cab.

Fireman Stone was found wedged in between the cab and tender, one of his hands on the throttle of the engine. He was badly mangled; one side of his head was crushed and his right cheek torn open. His left arm was almost completely cut or torn off and his left thigh was also badly cut and crushed. He death was undoubted instantaneous.

Engineer J. W. Taylor lived in Valley Junction; he was 35 years of age and leaves a wife and one child, a girl 8 years old. Of Fireman John Stone but little could be learned.

The head brakemen of each of the trains escaped death almost miraculously. Brakeman Reynolds of the regular train was standing on the top of the second car from the engine when the train struck. The car ahead of him and the one to the rear were shattered and torn into thousands of pieces but the car on which he stood was torn from its trucks and thrown nearly twenty feet to one side of the track. Reynolds landed with the car and came out of the shower of timber and bolts without injury except for a few bruises.

Brakeman Gould of the extra was in the cab of the engine and the shock of the collision threw him out of the window upon the ground. He was badly shaken up and sustained a fractured collar bone, but otherwise was uninjured. The men in the way-cars were merely shaken up. The bodies were taken east on No. 14 this forenoon, that of Colwell to Stuart and the others to Valley Junction.

—–

Funeral of John Colwell.

Lee Prall went to Stuart this afternoon to help arrange for the funeral of John Colwell. The body will be brought here and the funeral held at the Congregational church immediately after the arrival of No. 5, due here at 11:07.

—–

Stuart Locomotive, January 13, 1899

Murray Johnston became the engineer on the Liza Jane, which was the branch train from Stuart/Menlo to Guthrie Center. His last run was in 1912.

I thought of the train as a safer way to travel than a horse and wagon, but I’d heard of the deliberate smashing of engines as a stunt at the Iowa State Fair, with the engineers bailing before the head-on crash!

 

Clabe Wilson, born January 7, 1888

My Grandpa Clabe Wilson was born January 7, 1888. I sure wish I remembered him.

Mom and I lived with Grandma and Grandma at Minburn my first two months. I was a toddler when we lived at the Perry acreage when families couldn’t be where Dad was stationed. I was two years old when Grandpa Clabe died.

Clabe D. Wilson Laid to Rest

Once Lived Near Dexter

Funeral services were held Oct. 9 for Claiborne (Clabe) D. Wilson, former Dexter resident at the Workman Funeral home in Perry.

The Rev. Lyle V. Newman of the First Christian Church officiated and burial was in the Violet Hill cemetery.

Music was furnished by Mrs. John Canutt and Mrs. Galen Fiscel, accompanied by Mrs. Charles Cornelius. Songs included “No Night There” and “God Will Take Care of You.”

Casket bearers were Lester Crumley, Roy Snyder, Everett Shaw, and Carl Reeves of Minburn, and Kenneth Neal and Pete [Jensen] of Dexter.

Obituary

Claiborne Daniel Wilson, 58, died Saturday, October 5, 1946, at his home two miles southeast of Perry. He had suffered a general breakdown in health.

Clabe Wilson, about 19002

He was born January 7, 1888, near Coon Rapids in Carroll county, the son of Georgia Ann and Daniel Ross Wilson.

During his lifetime he farmed in various localities including Guthrie Center, Stuart, Dexter, and Minburn. He moved to his present home about two years ago. The family lived near Dexter nearly 20 years, leaving there about 8 years ago.

 

 

 

Clabe Wilson married Leora Goff February 15, 1914, at Wichita, Iowa

On February 15, 1914, he was married to [Leora] Frances Goff, who survives. Also living are two sons, Delbert G. of Perry and Donald W., who is in the Navy, two daughters, Mrs. Warren D. Neal of Redfield and Mrs. Alvin C. Scar of Earlham; six grandchildren, a half-brother, Fred Davis of Des Moines, three sisters, Mrs. Alice McLuen of Stuart, Mrs. Fonnie [Kiggens] of Boston, Mass., and Mrs. Verna Parrott of Des Moines, and several nieces and nephews.

Preceding him in death were three sons, Dale R., Daniel S. and Claiborne [Junior], and three children who died in infancy.

[Local newspaper] October 17, 1946

Clabe Wilson had had a stroke the month before, but was home. Mom made the comment that he died of a stroke and a broken heart. Dale, Danny, and Junior lost their lives between the end of 1943 and 1945. The terrible news about two of them arrived in early 1946.

Nancy and the “Wilson Schoolbus”

In the mid-1920s, the Wilson’s landlord not only attended the Presbyterian Church, which he lived near, his house and barn were near the Dexter school.

Delbert and Donald, just arrived home from school. Donald’s 7th birthday, September 14, 1923, SE of Dexter, Iowa.

The landlord allowed the Wilsons to use the “nice gentle pony” Nancy. Oldest sons Delbert and Donald rode Nancy not quite 3 miles to school, leaving the horse in the landlord’s barn all day.

Kids were given authority a lot younger in those days, at least rural ones.

Decades later, Leora Wilson wrote in her memoirs, “They did pretty good, even did grocery shopping. I would send a list of groceries to get when they left for school and they would get the groceries after school. Clabe, their father, fixed a grain sack with a draw-string to hang over the saddle horn. Once they came home and no sack of groceries. They went back and someone had picked the sack of groceries up and hung it on a fencepost–all the groceries were there.”

Nancy ready to give Delbert, Doris, and Donald a ride to school in the “Wilson school bus.”

When Doris started school in 1924, Clabe taught Delbert to hitch Nancy to a rig and drive the “Wilson school bus” to town. He was 9 years old.

While they lived on this farm, Leora ordered a sewing machine from the Sears Roebuck catalogue. It was too large to carry with the rural mail delivery, so the postman left a note to pick it up the post office. As soon as the kids got home from school, Leora drove Nancy and the rig back to town for her treasure.

It looks like the younger Wilson kids also got to enjoy this gentle horse.

Alas, there’s no date. Darlene, Dale, Doris, and Danny Wilson.In November 1926, five siblings rode this “Wilson bus” to school.

Doris noted that sometimes when just the three kids rode, the wind blew so hard she couldn’t get her breath. When it rained, their mother sent an oil cloth to hold over themselves. When Dale and Darlene started school in 1926, Clabe made a cover for a two-seater buggy so all five could ride to town and back.

Ether

Ether was commonly used as an anesthetic for more than a century. Some of us are old enough that we can attest that it worked well!

Doctors the births of ten Wilson children (two sets of twins), in rural Guthrie County, Stuart, and Dexter. Leora’s mother was also with her each time, from 1915 to 1931. Among other things, the babys’ grandmother “administered the ether.” She dripped the liquid anesthetic onto a cloth for Leora to breathe.

Doctor Keith Chapler, who arrived in Dexter in 1933, also used it for Leora when he fished the broken needle out of her hand in early 1935. The ether used as an anesthetic made her nauseous afterwards. Since it was terribly cold that January, the doctor was also concerned that breathing ether could make her more susceptible to pneumonia. 

A Little History

What is ether? An inhalation anesthetic, which was used for over a hundred years. Its discovery as an anesthetic didn’t occur until 1840s, marking the birth of a modern age in anesthesiology. Before the middle of the 19th century and the discovery of ether, surgery was a rare and gruesome procedure.

Ether was safe, easy to use, and was the standard general anesthetic until the 1960s when the fluorinated hydrocarbons came into common use. Although they reduced ether’s problems of nausea and flammability, they were expensive to produce and brought their own side effects. The open-drop delivery system for ether was traded for vaporizers and monitoring systems.

1950s

Doctor Chapler used ether when my sister Gloria, cousin Susan, and I underwent tonsillectomies in December of 1950. I don’t remember the smell, but that it put me out quickly.

The clipping says that Susan’s mother, Mrs. John Shepherd, had an 8-pound baby at the Dexter hospital about the same time!

Aunt Nadine Shepherd was probably administered ether during the birth. I’m pretty sure they gave my mother some when I was born in 1944.

 

 

 

Use During the Civil War

I remembered that the protagonist in one of Jocelyn Green’s historical novels about the Civil War was a nurse, and that she wrote very descriptive medical scenes. Jocelyn enjoys research, so I figured she’d probably studied ether. Indeed, ether and chloroform, both of which were used as an anesthesia. She shared what she’d learned, along with sources.

(Wedded to War is the first of Jocelyn’s fascinating “Heroines Behind the Lines” series.)

Ether was less dangerous than chloroform, took effect more slowly with fewer side effects, but patients objected to the odor, which could trigger coughing.

A Child’s 100-Year-Old Bentwood Chair from Sunday School

When the Dexter Presbyterian Church decided to sell some of the older items from the basement, my mother wanted to buy one of the small chairs. Someone asked her why, since she didn’t even have any grandchildren.

Well, Mom (Doris) had some history with those small chairs. When the Wilson family first moved to the Dexter area, her father Clabe was a tenant farmer southeast of town. The owner not only attended the Presbyterian Church, he lived near the church.

At least the three oldest Wilson children attended Sunday School at the Dexter Presbyterian Church. Here they are, dressed up on Easter 1925, ready to go to Sunday School. (Doris is wearing the green pongee dress her mother made.)

So, these three Wilson kids sat on those little chairs during the 1920s.

 

Doris’s own daughters (Joy and Gloria) attended the same Sunday School with their Neal cousins during the late 1940s and 1950s. One of her daughters (Joy) became the mother of Doris’s only grandchild, whose own small daughter (Kate, age 4 1/2) will enjoy owning the heirloom chair, I hope, especially because of the stories that come with it.

The only thing better than an heirloom is an heirloom with a story!

Why 1846 was an “Astonishing and Decisive” Year

In 1846, the planet Neptune was discovered, September 23.

Iowa became a State, the 29th, on December 28, 1846.

As author Timothy Foote, an editor at Smithsonian, points out, beyond the Smithsonian Institution’s founding, 1846 was an astonishing and decisive year in American history. “It was the year the Mexican War began. The year when the country, taking a quantum leap forward, suddenly completed the westward course of empire that Jefferson had dreamed of when he sent Lewis and Clark out exploring 40 years before. As 1846 began, the Union occupied less than half of what is the continental United States today; when it was over we possessed, or were soon to possess, all of it.”

The man who set it all in motion was President James K. Polk when he acquired California, New Mexico, and most or all of what are now Arizona, Nevada and Utah.

Meanwhile, in Indiana, a baby girl was born that year to Ephraim and Lucy Jane Moore. They named their sixth child Emelia Ann. Emelia would eventually become Leora Goff’s beloved grandmother.

In Iowa.

And in Illinois, also in 1846, Sam Wilson (who grew up with Indians in Ohio) married Emily Huyck. They would eventually become grandparents of Clabe Wilson.

In Iowa.

Nearly seventy years after Iowa became a state, Leora and Clabe would be married.

In Iowa.

I’m thankful that my ancestors decided that this new state would be a good place to settle. Happy Birthday, Iowa!

 

The Dexter Farm

1950s

1950. I loved getting to roller skate in the back room of that house.

1970s

While Guy was in Vietnam, I lived with the folks on the farm south of Dexter, in the little green mouse-free house that Mom had designed and Dad (and Uncle Bill) built when the old American Foursquare farmhouse got too ramshackle.

Grandma Neal’s foot went through the front porch, so it was time to tear it down.

Moving out of the old house, about 1960. Gloria is on the porch roof. The 1952 Chevy is at left. Dad used it for a pickup. The family car then was a 1958. (He missed my favorite 1957 Chevy by one year.) The rest are neighbors’ pickups.

I sorta got homesick knowing we’d be moving out of state again, so took a camera with me when I hiked down to the bridge and into Dad’s fields of corn, oats, and soybeans. I took pictures of the “back” of the barn, the granary, the steel grain bins I’d helped Dad with when I was in high school, the old hog shed.

During winters Dad would build things, machinery and from wood. He built a small hog something and a gravity wagon, which became a job for my sis Gloria and me to paint red the next spring, wearing shower caps so we wouldn’t end up with red hair.

1970s

While we lived in Colorado, I did a lot of stitchery and had learned needlepoint. I’m not good at art, like Gloria is (she taught art for 34 years), but discovered that photographs of the farm had taken care of the problem I had with angles. I plotted the farm on a big sheet of brown paper, counted stitchery squares, figuring out about what size it would end up.

Taken during the winter, but shows angles and relationships of buildings and bins.

Artists can do what they want with their canvas. I mine, there are lilacs booming (May), corn tasseled (whenever), parsley (for humans and the larvae of Swallowtail butterflies), tomatoes ripe (August), and pumpkins about ready to harvest (later).

Once I caught a mouse in the top floor of that red granary. I never did it again after it sank its little teeth into my finger as I climbed down to go show everyone.

Gloria’s fluffy cat Dudley lounges at the front door. I wish I’d though to take a picture of Mom at the clothesline.

I had the needlework framed and gave it to Dad for Christmas the year we moved back to Iowa with our two year old. He was delighted.

Dad had just opened the needlepoint of the farm and was showing Mom. It’s Christmas so he’s probably wearing new overalls, or at least his best ones.

It lives with us in the suburbs now, a reminder of childhood and warm memories.

Bacon and Eggs for Christmas Dinner 1945

Christmas 1945

The war had been over officially since early September, but the Wilsons were still in limbo, with one son buried and two sons still listed as Missing in Action. Danny had been missing since February, in Austria. The war in Europe had ended in May. Still no word by Christmas.

And Dale. He and his crew were shot down in November two years earlier. Nothing. At least they were able to write the families of the other crew members, but they were all left with a strange anxiety. 

When Junior was killed in August, Delbert came home to Perry for the funeral. He was soon discharged from the Navy and moved home with his wife (who was expecting another baby) and daughter. They lived on the acreage with his folks.

CEM Donald and Rose Wilson with their Studebaker, at the Wilson acreage south of Perry

With two sons still missing, how can life begin to settle into a routine? But there were chickens to feed, eggs to gather, and Leora regularly churned butter now that they had cows. Clabe went to the dentist for a bad toothache.

And the Wilsons were finally able to get a phone installed. It rang one October night after 9:00. Donald and Rose had just arrived in Perry in their Studebaker. They’d driven from Washington State. Donald was still in the Navy, still thinking then that he would make it his career–having served since 1934. 

Warren Neal with Joy, Donald Wilson, Clabe Wilson, Delbert Wilson with Leora Darlene. Warren and Delbert had just been discharged from the Army Air Force and the Navy.

Donna Gaye was born November 21 to Delbert and Evelyn at the King’s Daughters Hospital. When Doris and Darlene visited their folks, they also went to the hospital to see Evelyn and baby Donna.

Clabe had a tooth pulled. Evelyn and ten-day-old Donna Gaye came home from the hospital. Leora churned four pounds of butter, which they sold in Perry, probably at the Thriftway, along with eggs and twenty hens they’d raised. 

December 4 was Leora’s 55th birthday. She received her annual “kerchief” from her mother (who lived in Omaha), a plant, nightgowns, and a box of Drews Chocolates from their old hometown of Dexter. 

Delbert begin to wire the little house for electricity. Clabe had more toothaches, and Leora as well. Clabe had another tooth pulled the next day. Leora’s jaw was swollen but she waited another week to have two teeth pulled. Clabe bought a Guernsey bull. Leora churned more butter. 

The Wilson family probably listened to the National Tree Lighting Ceremony, the first since December 24, 1941. “This is the Christmas that a war-weary world has prayed for. . .,” President Truman began.

The paper in this flip diary is brittle, but Leora wrote in it nearly every day. Even as an older woman, she’d record the temperature and weather three times a day. She and Donald also began their letters with the date and weather.

—–

Sleet and snow fell all day Christmas Eve. Sam and Darlene, with Richard and seven-month-old Robert were to bring “roast chick & dressing” the next day but couldn’t. So Clabe and Leora, Delbert’s family, and Doris’s family had a Christmas dinner of bacon and eggs. 

What a comfort to have their oldest son and his family living with them, a blessing at the end of such a terrible year. Even in the middle of the heartache.

 

Leora’s Letters: The Story of Love and Loss for an Iowa Family During World War II is the story of the Wilson family. Five brother served. Only two came home. All five brothers are featured on the Dallas County Freedom Rock at Minburn, where the family farmed during the war, until all their sons had left for the service.