Joy Neal Kidney's Blog, page 61

Famous Hog Raiser: Daniel Ross Wilson

Grandma Leora Wilson wrote in her memoir that her husband Clabe and his father, Daniel Wilson, were in the purebred hog business, and had won prizes for them at the Iowa State Fair.

But when she claimed that one male hog brought over $2000, “a fortune in those days,” I was skeptical. Until I found the 1907 clipping.

Panora Vedette, October 3, 1907

Clabe, then 19 years old, was Dan Wilson’s only son. Dan had taught him to hunt and trap, to ride and take care of horses, to identify the flora and fauna of the woods in Iowa’s Guthrie and Dallas Counties. He even let Clabe keep a young wolf as a pet when he was a boy.

And they raised hogs. They’d owned LaFollett #36563 about a year, so in 1907 there were several of his offspring ready to sell. They decided to sell #36563, too. Just like fancy horses, these red hogs with droopy ears were known by their pedigrees.

This hog was so famous that you can now even google  LaFollette 36563 and find him!

Because of Dan’s asthma, according to a Panora Vedette item that fall, they planned to sell out and try another climate, maybe the Ozarks. But by the next January, he had attended a hog sale at Yale, Iowa, and had invested in “new blood.”

Even though they showed three Duroc Jerseys at the 1908 Iowa State Fair, Dan Wilson’s health was deteriorating: July–attack of apoplexy (stroke), October–stroke, January 1909–stroke of paralysis. In February he threw a corn knife at his son, according to records from Clarinda State Hospital, where he was admitted in March.

Dan Wilson had been a “periodical drinker to excess” and “domestic relations have never been pleasant.” Now after the strokes, he could barely use his left arm. Evidently right handed, he sent a photo postcard of himself, with such a poignant note to his wife, “I am anxious to hear from you all  love to you all  from your best friend.”

 died in the state hospital that April, leaving a widow (Georgia), son Clabe, two adult daughters, two small daughters (ages six and two), and a barnyard of red hogs.

The 50 State Freedom Rock Tour

Iowa has 99 counties. Freedom Rock founder and artist Ray “Bubba” Sorensen just completed the 99th Freedom Rock this fall. He calls his project “a unique 99 piece mural across Iowa,” and indeed it’s an iconic legacy for the entire state.

Iowa’s Freedom Rock #100 will be auctioned for a veterans’ charity.

Meanwhile, the 50 State Freedom Rock Tour is underway, spreading the message of gratitude for veterans beyond his home state of Iowa. Five are already completed, with two more booked. Click the link to see if your state has a Freedom Rock in the works.

Each year, Ray and Maria Sorensen create a calendar promoting a dozen Freedom Rocks. “Our” Dallas County Freedom Rock is the October feature for 2022! The five Wilson brothers are on one side. The north side remembers Bob Feller (from Van Meter) and Nile Kinnick (grew up in Adel).

Calendars are available here.

Here’s Ray “Bubba” Sorensen’s  20-minute interview with Our American Stories.

Van Harden, Author and Broadcaster, Endorser of “Leora’s Dexter Stories”

“Many of us have had relatives that saved every little thing to the point of ridicule. When you laughingly tell people about it, the response is, ‘They lived in the depression, didn’t they?’ And yes it’s true. When I’d open a certain cupboard in my Gramma’s kitchen, there would be an avalanche of Cool Whip containers or Parkay butter tubs. Funny to us, but not to them. In this book, Joy shows us what it was really like, and in an Iowa area where I lived myself for some time. Thanks Joy for the reality check!”

Van Harden retired as our well-loved early morning broadcaster on WHO-Radio. He generously wrote the foreword for the first Leora book, Leora’s Letters: The Story of Love and Loss for an Iowa Family During World War II, and even interviewed me in the studio about it.

Van is the author of two books (so far), an inventor, and a speaker. Here’s his website.

Dexter’s 1916 Community Building AKA the “Roundhouse”

It isn’t round! Google Dexter, Iowa. Zoom in on the main street. Switch to satellite and to the NW of the downtown is the very pleasing elliptical-shaped domed roof of Dexter’s 1916 Community Building.

It was built to replace a temporary tabernacle, which had been used for revival meetings, Lyceums, high school plays, and social gatherings. Dexter was in its “heyday” in the early 1900s, so the churches and town fathers began plans for a permanent building.

They hired Matthew Leander King as the architect. Born in Panora, King studied engineering at Iowa State College (now ISU) and developed very strong hollow-core tile, which became widely used in building silos. There are no supports inside. The domed roof is supported by those innovative tiles with steel girths in the outside walls.

A stage was built on the north end, with dressing rooms and locker rooms and coal bins underneath. As you can imagine, Dexter became popular for holding basketball tournaments. And band concerts, Chautauquas, political gatherings, special church services, and box socials.

For the end of the year celebrations during the 1950s, our music teacher, Ruth Sellers, would have spring production which included the entire Dexter School. Students would line the bleachers on the east side of the auditorium, with the audience seated on chairs on the floor, with part of the floor cleared for dancers (including square dancers) and the annual May Pole Dance.

More recently, the historical building has welcomed films, plays (see photo), bus groups (including the Red Hat Ladies). I even joined a book club there this summer to talk about Leora’s Letters, since the Wilson children grew up in Dexter during the Great Depression.

This group, Music/Theatre Artists, the anchor for Adventureland entertainment, also provided music after the park season ended for a production at the “Roundhouse” around 1980. (They eventually toured from New York City to Chicago to Colorado to Las Vegas and did a 5-week USO Caribbean Tour.) John Busbee, founder of Des Moines’ Culture Buzz, is second from left in the back. Kimberly Busbee is on the left in front.

I wonder whether the founders would be surprised to learn that wrestling matches have been held there. Pro wrestling!

The 1916 Dexter Community Building is listed with the National Register of Historic Places in Iowa.

Sources: Buildings of Iowa by Gebhard and Mansheim.

Dexter Centennial history, 1968, pages 49 and 50.

I didn’t realize until the centennial of the building that my great grandfather, O.S. Neal, had been on the committee, as a representative of the Presbyterian Church.

Eighth grade graduation was held there in 1958. As President of the School Board, Dr. Chapler handed out our diplomas. He came to Iowa in 1933, just in time to patch up Buck Barrow, brother of Clyde (Bonnie and Clyde infamy). He and Doctor Osborn delivered hundreds of us in the area and administered our first polio shots.

 

The grandson of architect Maj. King is the actor Nick Nolte.

I hesitate to call the Dexter Community Building “the Roundhouse” because a roundhouse is a railroad term. Since Dexter is on the Rock Island Railroad, people take it for granted that their roundhouse is for housing and repairing locomotives.

Most of the community events–concerts, basketball games and tournaments, dances, political talks, and graduations–mentioned in Dexter in Leora’s Dexter Stories: The Scarcity Years of the Great Depression–were held in this handsome building.

 

Permission to Publish a Depression Era Newspaper Photo

©USA TODAY NETWORK

This photo was published in The Des Moines Tribune, Sports section, January 10, 1933.

“Dexter High Girls Seek First Cage Victory of Season. Although beaten in every game so far this season, Dexter has a scrappy team which has displayed good teamwork, but they are handicapped because of size. Verna Maulsby and Doris Wilson will start as forwards, Ethel Schoonover and Mildred McMullen at centers, and I. G. Hoy and Mary McMenamin at the guard. Wilson, although a freshman, is showing promise and is expected to develop into a fine forward.”

I wanted to use this photo of mother in Leora’s Dexter Stories: The Scarcity Years of the Great Depression, so I went through the red tape to obtain permission. The Des Moines Tribune is no longer published but was owned by The Des Moines Register. In 1985, the newspaper was sold to Gannett. They directed me to use the copyright ©USA TODAY NETWORK with the photo every time I publish the photo.

And as long as I don’t sell more than 1000 copies of the book, the charge to reprint the 1933 photo was $150.

I dearly wanted to publish the photo of this left-handed girl in the too-big shoes and baggy socks, with a rough and tumble scab or two from shooting baskets with her older brothers, at the time playing old-fashioned three-court girls’ basketball.

I paid the $150.

Doris’s basketball story.

 

Ahhhhhhhhhh Choo! Bless You! – Guest Blogger, Paul Kotz

This morning I am exiting the shower and I sneezed.     “Bless you,” Jan said.     I followed up without too much hesitation. “Ah choo!”     “Bless you,” she again said.     “Thanks.” And then I started laughing.     I had a flashback. I was new to this hormonal scene called high school, and the first class session was getting underway.     I was excited to work with a group where this subject was not their favorite. Maybe, I could make an impact.     One young man sneezed.     And a few people yelled out, “BLESS YOU!”     I thought to myself what an enthusiastic class. They care for one another.     “Ahhhhhhhhhh Choo!” again….     “BLESS YOU!” really loud.     And, then the same ring leader started saying, “Shhhhhhhhhh…….”     And one of his cohorts would wait for a good enough pause, and chime in “……….……it”     Someone sneezed again, and the same “BLESS YOU”, “Shhhhhhhhhhh………….it” routine happened.     I stopped and became very quiet. So, did the room. I gave my group an assignment to investigate what I thought was kind of a stimulating and enjoyable activity but this guy wasn’t in the mood on this particular day.     I asked the master of antics to join me in the hall.     “I appreciate you giving out so many blessings, and I have to admit the ‘Shhhhhhh……..it’ follow-up is very creative. What is going on with you?”     “I am bored. Also, I never liked school. Now I have to be in this dump. No one talks to me like an adult.”     There were a few layers here. “Well….what can I do to make this less boring and make your time here better?”     “I like to be moving around and like activities.”     I sized him up, still uncertain how I could help him, as of yet. “I see. Let me see what I can do.”     “Oh, you don’t have to do anything today for me.” His eyebrows moved in a way indicating he might hear me. Maybe something registered.     “Can I ask you a favor?” I inquired.     No response, but he seemed to be receptive.     “I think you want to be treated like an adult. Right now, you are pretty close to being an adult, legally. I am talking to you like an adult now. You can’t use that kind of language, and the antics with ‘Bless Yous’ has to stop unless you truly mean it.”     “Do you realize how much of a leader you are, and how others look up to you? That is a gift, not everyone has it, and your friends and others in the class will respond to your actions. Do you see the power you have? You are lucky.”     I continued, “These individuals consider you as a leader. Use that in the classroom and on the field.”     “You think?” He seemed surprised.     “Yes. But, I have to get back in here because, like you, I have a responsibility to the other 27 people in my class, and I am trying to give you my best in what I do know, and so you can be an example for others in what you can offer.”     I continued, “Thank you for listening.”     He returned, and the group was engaged, thankfully. I didn’t have mayhem or other incidents that session.     I also saw gradual improvement from this young man, knew I had to step up my game to create engagement, come up with better activities, and continue to encourage these young hearts and minds along to their next journey.—–

Dr. Kotz is a lifelong learner with education and business expertise. This includes working as faculty and advisor with undergraduate, graduate students and since 2013, in a doctoral program in leadership. Kotz has taught and served as an executive coach to graduate students and business professionals; and has assisted high school students in navigating adolescence.

In 2020, he published Profiles in Kindness – an award winning CIPA/Reader’s Choice Award for motivation & inspirational leadership. In 2018, he released the CIPA Award winning Something Happened Today, addressing seeing the goodness in everyday life even in the face of adversity. In 2014, he published Personality, Gender and Learning Styles for students and practitioners. His new book, Start Late – Finish Happy – will be released in late 2021. Dr. Kotz is a resident of Saint Paul, Minnesota and continues to collect new experiences that shape and challenge his perspectives.

Yes, Paul is in academia, but he’s so relatable and approachable. His gentle common-human-foibles stories are delightful. They made me rethink my knee-jerk reactions to circumstances.

Because of Jerry O’Brien‘s similar interaction with a respected teacher, I believe the student in Paul Kotz’s story will carry this prophetic scene the rest of his life.

Paul is a regular contributor to Our American Stories. His Amazon Author Page 

Leora’s Mother: Laura (Jordan) Goff (1868-1962)

The War Between the States had ended just three years earlier when Laura Goff was born September 28, 1868, in a log cabin just west of the town of Monteith, Guthrie County, Iowa.

Firstborn.

The next three children are buried at Monteith. Laura’s small siblings didn’t live past age 5.

Ephraim Riley Jordan died in 1873, almost 2 year old. Rose Emma Jane Jordan died in April 1875 of “brain fever–almost a year old. Phoebe Caroline “Cally” died the next month, age 5.

Laura Jordan at ages 6 and 13.

Both parents had come to Iowa from eastern states. Her mother Emilia Ann (Moore) Jordan, as a nine-year-old, rumbled across the prairie in 1855 with her family (Ephraim W. and Lucy Jane Moore and five other children), in two wagons from Parke County, Indiana. She later met and married David Jordan, who’d arrived in Iowa from Noble County, Ohio, as a young man with his father in 1865.

David and Emilia Jordan Family, late 1889 or early 1890. L-R: Floyd Roy (b. 1880), Emilia Ann (Moore) Jordan (1846), Frederick David (1889), Floy Temperance (1876), Lottie Belle (1878), Collis Moore (1883), Laura Arminta (1868), Cora Nell (1886), David Jordan (1842).

Laura taught country school before marrying Sherd (Milton Sheridan) Goff–whose parents paid a fee so he wouldn’t have to serve in the Civil War. Laura sold her teacher’s watch to her father for a cow when she was required to quit teaching to marry.

Sherd and Laura moved over a dozen times, giving birth to eleven children, from Guthrie County to NE Nebraska (where Santee Sioux were neighbors), Guthrie County again, then NW Minnesota, and back to Guthrie County.  Sherd “went bust” in Nebraska, and probably more times than that.

The Goffs finally settled for five years in Audubon County, where they made enough raising popcorn to buy a farm at Wichita, Iowa.

July 4, 1907, Audubon, Iowa. The only family portrait of all of the M.S. Goff family. Back: Jennings (11), Georgia (13), Merl (15), Leora (16), Wayne (14), Rolla (almost 9). Front: Ruby (almost 7), Milton Sheridan “Sherd,” Perry (almost 4), Clarence (almost 2), Laura (pregnant with Virgil), Willis (5).

About the time their oldest sons were drafted for the World War, they moved to a furnished Victorian house in Guthrie Center. Laura went to a WCTU meeting at a church there in 1920 to learn how to vote.

They were a musical family, and Laura took singing lessons. (My mother remembered her lovely alto voice.) Their daughter Georgia, age 28, died while they lived there. Goffs eventually moved to Dexter to be near their oldest daughter, Leora (Goff) Wilson, and her growing family. Laura was widowed there when Sherd died in 1930.

When the Dexter house went into bankruptcy, Laura moved to Omaha to live with her son C. Z. (Clarence Zenas) who had a heating and cooling business. After her oldest daughter was widowed in 1946, they decided to move back to their Guthrie County roots.

Laura Arminta (Jordan) Goff, photo taken by her grandson, photographer Merrill J. Goff, in Omaha, 1948

Great Grandmother Goff was 76 years old when I was born. On the back of the picture taken of the four generations, it was noted that we were all the oldest daughters in our families.

Baby Joy, Doris (Wilson) Neal, Leora (Goff) Wilson, Laura (Jordan) Goff. Near Minburn, Iowa, July 4, 1944.

I loved visiting Grandma Leora and her mother, Laura Goff, at their little home on North 4th Street in Guthrie Center, playing Canasta and Samba with them, going downtown for a “sodie,” as Great Grandmother called them.

The two of them took their very first plane ride to southern California to visit Laura’s daughter Ruby and two of her sons, Wayne and Willis.

I was a freshman in college when Great Grandmother died. I wish I’d been wiser then and asked about her growing up years. About all the moves she made. About her rich and fascinating past!

Gold Star Mothers

When an active-duty service member dies, his or her mother automatically becomes a Gold Star Mother. It’s a distinction that no mother wants, but it’s one they wear proudly.

The tradition of the Gold Star began during World War II. Even during World War I, a blue star was used on service flags and hung in homes and businesses to represent each living active-duty member. If a son or daughter were killed in combat, the gold star was superimposed on the blue star to honor the person for his ultimate sacrifice to the country. Eventually, the mothers of those fallen service members became known as Gold Star Mothers, and their families Gold Star Families.

Gold Star Mother’s Day is observed in the United States on the last Sunday of September each year.

Leora Wilson, probably late 1940s

I grew up with a Gold Star Grandma, Leora Goff Wilson. She wore that pin often. Three Gold Stars had been pasted over the five blue ones in the service flag that hung in her rural home.

It’s hard to realize the loss of one son, but she lost all three three within two years.

Guthrie Center Gold Star Mothers. Leora Wilson is second from the left.

These mothers lived with their terrible losses the rest of their lives, remembering long-ago details and dates of those heart-rending telegrams.

Leora’s Early Stories–Need Help With Working Title and Cover Photo

I’ve been thinking about Leora’s early stories, even about what it might be called and an iconic photo for the cover. It will be the first in the “Leora’s Stories” series, even though it’s being written last.

That WWII story, well, it needed to be first.

Some of the episodes in the book will include having Indians (Santee Sioux) come to trade when Leora’s father Sherd wasn’t home (Leora was about 5)–NE Nebraska. Sherd “went bust” there and also at Key West, in NW Minnesota.

Riding a horse to piano lessons (Audubon County, Iowa), graduating from 8th grade (Sherd wouldn’t let his older children go to high school), and attending sewing school in Exira.

The rest of the book is set in Guthrie County, Iowa, where both Clabe and Leora were born and grew up. And eventually met.

I plan to weave Clabe’s growing up years with hers. Their childhoods and personalities were so different. I’m just going to have to imagine their first meeting. (I do know where and when it occurred.)

Taken in front of Clabe’s mother’s house, Panora, Iowa, 1914 or 1915

It’ll also include their marriage, births of the first six children, taking care of the popcorn farm of Leora’s brothers when they were drafted and sent off to fight in France, the misery of the influenza pandemic, Clabe’s job as a night watchman after the one before him was killed in a bank robbery attempt.

Clabe and Leora, 1917, with Donald and Delbert

Also the Victorian house Leora’s parents and siblings lived in in Guthrie Center, and traveling there and back on the Liza Jane branch train.

It will end on a farm SW of Dexter, tenant farmers, where Junior is born and things are at least more secure.

Back: Doris, Donald, and Delbert. Twins Dale and Darlene are in front. Stuart, Iowa 1922Doris, Donald, and Delbert Wilson is Mrs. Knox’s ferns, next door. Stuart, Iowa, about 1921Delbert, Doris, and Donald ready for Sunday School (Presbyterian Church in those days), Easter Sunday 1925, SE of Dexter Iowa. Leora made Doris’s pale green pongee dress. She lost the cherries on her hat when she wore them on the giant strides at school recess.

 

Too many people for the cover, but I like it that Clabe is holding baby Junior, born in early July. Clabe was good with his kids, especially his sons. August 30, 1925, Doris Wilson’s birthday.

Do you have a favorite photo for the cover?

I want the title to begin with the name Leora, but can’t decide on a working title:

Leora’s Guthrie County Years: Childhood and Meeting Clabe

Leora’s Early Years: Meeting Clabe in Monteith

Leora’s Early History: Clabe Joins the Story

Help!

 

Mom’s Black Walnut Chocolate Drop Cookies

My mother loved black walnuts. Whenever she got to Des Moines, this farmwife liked to shop at Campbell’s Nutrition. She knew they’d have bold-flavored black walnuts. Most local stores only carried the more bland English walnuts.

Mom often baked and frosted dozens of her soft black walnut chocolate cookies. She’d freeze cakepans full of them.

I couldn’t find the recipe in her own handwriting, but she often used recipes from the Meta Given’s Modern Encyclopedia of Cooking, first published in 1947. Baking cookies in those days was certainly labor-intensive!

Sift flour, measure, resift four times with salt and soda. Put brown sugar through coarse sieve to remove lumps. Put chocolate in large custard cup in hot water to melt, then cool. Cream shortening, add sugar gradually and cream well together. Stir in vanilla. Beat in egg until fluffy, then beat in cooled chocolate.

Add flour mixture and milk alternately in 3 or 4 portions, beating smooth after each addition. Stir in nuts. Drop from dessert spoon into neat mounds on lightly-greased baking sheet. Bake at 400 degrees about 10 minutes. Don’t overbake. Let stand on sheet a minute before removing to cake racks to cool.

When barely cool, swirl chocolate icing over tops. Let stand until icing is firm. Store 1-layer deep in a covered container. Makes 3 dozen cookies.

Measure butter into 2-quart mixing bowl and let stand over hot water to melt. Put chocolate in large custard cup and set in hot water to melt, then cool. Add xxxx (powdered) sugar alternately with cream to melted butter, beating until smooth after each addition. Beat in vanilla, then chocolate, egg yolk, and syrup until smooth and shiny. Enough for 3 dozen cookies. 

—–

Mom’s taste for black walnuts went back to the Great Depression, maybe earlier. The Wilson family would gather them in the timber in Guthrie or Dallas County, then dry them outside. Her dad, Clabe, would run the Model T truck over the green husks to loosen them, making them easier to shuck. Under those husks, which would leave dark stains on their skin, were the hard shells that still needed cracked to pick out the earthy bittersweet nutmeats.

When Doris (Mom) was in high school, the family had a pet squirrel one summer. In the fall, Rusty began to spend less time with them, but he’d show up when Doris cracked walnuts on the back step. He was smart enough to help himself to the ones she’d already managed to open.

Leora’s Dexter Stories: The Scarcity Years of the Great Depression

Rusty is on the fender of the Wilsons’ Model T roaster, featured on the cover of the book. Junior, the youngest brother, is looking down at him.