Joy Neal Kidney's Blog, page 66

Boxing on the Radio During Those Depression Years

I did not expect to like to movie “Cinderella Man,” but had heard about James J. Braddock through family letters to Delbert and Donald Wilson who had joined in the Navy during the Depression.

This film shows as well as anything I’ve seen what the mind-set was of those needy families embarrassed by being “on the dole.”

During the 1930s, the Wilson family of Dexter, Iowa, would listen to “the fights” on the radio, Leora Wilson working at her mending while she listened.

James J. Braddock, with 24 losses, won one of the biggest upsets in heavyweight boxing championship history. He defeated Max Baer on June 13, 1935, in Long Island City, New York, for the world title in a unanimous decision after a grueling 15 rounds.

The next day, Leora wrote her Navy boys, “Expect you may have heard the Braddock and Baer fight. I’m glad Braddock won–he needs the money for his family.”

June 19, 1936, at the start of their legendary boxing rivalry, German former world heavyweight champion Max Schmeling gives Joe Louis his first defeat, with a twelve-round knockout.

June 21, 1937, Joe Louis became heavyweight champion of the world, knocking out James J. Braddock in round eight. The new champion then says he won’t consider himself a champion until he beats Max Schmeling in a rematch.

June 22, 1938, in the second fight of their famous rivalry, Joe Louis retained the world heavyweight title with a first-round knockout of former world champion Max Schmeling.

I imagine all or most of the Wilsons of Dexter scooted close their radio set to listen to these fights. Entertainment during the Great Depression.

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

 

Fascinating Memoirs from Southerners

Look Unto the Hills: Stories of Growing Up in Rural East Tennessee

by Dennis L. Peterson

“Tell us a farm story, Daddy!” That was the almost nightly request that we kids had of our father when we were growing up in rural East Tennessee. Sometimes Daddy obliged, and we enjoyed a session of storytelling from his childhood. As I grew up, I amassed experiences for my own arsenal of tales, which I, in turn, told to my children. And so it goes, from one generation to the next. That’s how traditions and family values are preserved. They get handed down from one generation after another. Sometimes serious, sometimes hilarious, each of the stories in this volume carries with it valuable lessons about growing up, maturing, and living life. They teach important values such as a solid work ethic, the importance of education, the benefits of healthful play in the outdoors, and faith in God.

The stories are categorized under play, school, work, people, animals, and values, and they demonstrate the benefits of growing up in a rural setting, where work was the norm, education was a privilege, and faith was a necessity. They emphasize family as the central focus of life and community. And they underscore the importance of a sense of humor to life.

My Thoughts: This is a fine memoir written in the form of 51 essays, divided into seven sections: Farm Stories, Play, School, Work, People, Animals, and Values. Among the compelling stories is one about what wearing a “hideous sport coat” reveals about a man.

Dennis’s compelling 8-minute story from his memoir aired over Our American Stories, called “Nanny’s Hands.”

The first part of this two-part Mother’s Day post on Our American Stories is also from Dennis’s memoir, about his crafty mother. I especially enjoyed the part about the ugly sports coat!

Website for Dennis L. Peterson.

—–

Coming Clean: Stories

by Betty Moffett

I am a born and bred Southerner successfully transplanted to the Midwest. Very early in my life I learned to love the stories I heard on my grandmother’s screen porch. Soon after, an intense love affair with ‘Black Beauty’ taught me the power of stories to transform and transport.

All my life, when someone says, Let me tell you a story, I have known I will soon learn more about that person than the most thorough recounting of historic detail could ever reveal and I will have more fun on the way.

I offer you these stories about what growing up meant to four different generations; about neighbors, horses, prejudice, sweethearts, students; about moving, marriage, grandchildren and dogs. I hope they remind you of your own stories. I wish I could hear them.

My Thoughts: What a mesmerizing collection of eclectic stories. Betty Moffett shares watchful insights, from her childhood to the elderly years of her father and favorite uncle. Among other vignettes, readers experience quirky friendships, angst of teaching college English, a celery fight during her teenage years, and a women who pierced her own ears. “Coming Clean” is a fascinating interlude, thoughtful and amusing. A delight.

Betty admits that these stories are all based on memories, but that she’s embellished them.

Grandpa Otto’s Hammer by Hubert Caloud

My middle name Otto is from my maternal grandfather Otto Wesley Vlasak. He was born in 1896, he was a World War I veteran and died in 1984.–I don’t remember Grandpa telling me anything about his time in the army until I came home from Marine boot camp. Then he told me several stories about his service. Some of them seemed totally out of character with the tall stern no nonsense grandfather that I grew up with. He was a strong presence in my life until I left home for the Marine Corps.–He entered the army in September 1918 but the armistice was signed while he was in training, so like many other WWI Doughboys he never went to France. He told me about the bayonet training and drills they did at Camp Dodge [Johnston, Iowa]. I never forgot and used some of the yells he told me when I was a bayonet instructor at Parris Island. He told about the large amount of deaths during training they had from the Spanish Influenza epidemic, and carrying out dead soldiers in the morning who had died during the night.–He said when they finished basic training, him and his buddies rented a hotel room and among other things some not to be repeated here bought dozens of eggs and threw them on brand new Model-T cars parked and driving by below. Just like Marines who had finished boot camp and were celebrating. . . .–After basic training he took a train as close as he could get to his home place, then friends brought him the rest of the way by horse and sleigh. It was winter time. He was assigned as a guard to Hospital 22 in Philadelphia. It was constructed for long term care of amputees, blinded, gassed, and shell-shocked veterans from Philadelphia.–He also did guard duty in the Philadelphia money mint. Grandpa showed me his green army wool “Horse Blanket” overcoat that had a small pouch inside one sleeve for a large caliber derringer he was armed with on duty. He was discharged as a PFC in 1919. I’ve seen several pictures of him in army uniform.–He married my grandmother Vera Sevcik several years after his discharge in 1924. The two of them were inseparable I have hardly any memories of seeing one without the other.My grandfather died in 1984 when I was stationed in Hawaii getting ready to go TAD to Fort Benning, Georgia to Army Jump School. My orders were modified to stop in Iowa en-route to Fort Benning. My cousin Chuck Sienknecht was in the Navy at the time and the two of us folded the flag on his casket and presented it to my Grandmother Vera.–He was a charter and life time member of the American Legion and his post comrades from the Hora-Machacek Post in Clutier fired the volleys and played taps over him. Grandma Vera died in 1990.Ella, Mike, me, my mom’s parents, my parents. This is the home I grew up in. My mother has lived there since shortly after she married my dad at 18. Mom is prairie tough lives alone and is 88 now. My older brother farms his own place nearby and also farms mom’s place tends her livestock etc. We are all lucky to have such a great older brother with the same passion for farming that I had for the military. Delbert had other options, had a degree in electrical engineering worked for different companies in the private sector but when dad died he transitioned back to our roots and his passion–farming and livestock. 1979 or 1980–Grandpa Otto was old school. He hunted fox with a long barreled Model 1897 Winchester 12 gauge shotgun and two grey hound dogs. He wore Stetson covers, “Osh Kosh by Gosh” bibbed overalls, possessed only what he thought what was essential, and those items were carefully chosen. I remember on the cabinet desk beside his dining table were a series of Barclay 3-Inch folder pocket knives with the blades sharpened to toothpick size his sharpening stone nearby. The stone was so worn it had a U shape in it.–He usually had a pack of Black Jack gum beside it. He rarely smoked or drank but kept a case of Bud Long Necks in the root cellar they took shelter in during tornadoes for those who did. He would make “Irish coffee” on holidays or special occasions one of which was when I finished Marine Boot Camp.–He had a full head of long straight white hair he combed directly back in the style of his time as a young man and kept it in place with hair oil. He didn’t talk too much had kind of a snort when he laughed. When he did speak he had something to say that he wouldn’t repeat so you needed to listen and remember what it was.–When my grandmother Vera died I was sent two things from their estate. A ceramic figure of a Marine setting his sea bag down getting ready to hug his mom that I had given Grandma sometime but I don’t remember when. I’m not sure what happened to it but know I don’t have it anymore.–What I do have is my grandfather’s hammer which I treasure. Grandpa Otto didn’t hang onto junk or extras and what he had was carefully chosen and maintained. It’s a wooden handled finishing hammer. When you pick it up its perfectly balanced light in your hand and will drive a nail in hardwood without much effort. I can picture him in a hardware store picking up every hammer in the basket swinging all of them to chose exactly the one he wanted. The wood handle had to be smooth without any knots or slivers, head perfectly set\attached and other small details I probably wouldn’t know or think of.–Ella and I have moved many times around the world since I received that hammer in 1990s Maine. Whenever we move his hammer is something I always track where its at and that it gets where we’re going.–Thank you, Grandpa, the older I get the smarter you seem. You were a man.I was a boy.—–Hubert Caloud is a retired US Marine and the site Superintendent of the Oise-Aisne American Cemetery in France.

Cotter Key

A young farm girl learns

the fine art of lining up

a wagon tongue with

a tractor’s towing hitch,

dropping in a bolt, securing it

with a cotter key.

—

She learns to watch gates

while the tractor chugs through,

hauling the wagon

to drop off hog troughs,

she keeps porkers away

from the gate and escaping.

—

She learns to wear a shower cap

while painting her inventor-father’s

winter projects, a pig feeder,

a gravity wagon, lest she ride

to school with barn-red

paint in her hair.

—

To scrape mud from

cultivator shovels while

Dad is in for noon dinner,

which she had stirred

the gravy for and made from scratch

his favorite spice cake.

The Cheerleaders and Encouragers for “Leora’s Dexter Stories”

More than two dozen encouragers have been on the journey with me to see these stories published, some of them years before the first book. Endorsers and beta readers are listed separately in the book, but all of them have cheered me on in so many different ways. I thought you might like to get better acquainted with them:

Matthew Walsh – Author of The Good Governor: Robert Ray and the Indochinese Refugees of Iowa, Matt is a history instructor at DMACC. He has also written for Iowa History Journal. 

Bryon Weesner – Founder and administrator of the Memories of Dexter – The Original One Horse Town Facebook page (with nearly 900 members), Bryon is a long-time Dexter historian.

Rod Stanley – Oral historian, Dexter Museum Board member, Rod lives in Dallas County, Iowa. 

Patti Stockdale – Patti and I “met” through an online writers’ group. She is an author, working on her fourth novel, and has a winsome website.

Dennis Peterson – Dennis, a former history teacher and history curriculum writer, is an author and historian from South Carolina.  He’s also begun to share stories from his compelling memoir on Our American Stories (his is in the first part of this one, aired for Mother’s Day). He’s already featured Leora’s Dexter Stories on his website!

Mark Peitzman – Historian and preservationist, Mark was formerly with the State Historical Society of Iowa and the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs. He lives in Dallas County and is related to the Peitzman family who showed such kindness by giving Clabe Wilson a job in Chapter 31, even allowing him to stay with them during that time.

Gloria Neal – A retired art teacher and my sister, Gloria is a member of the Dexter Museum Board.

Nelly Murariu – Nelly designs book covers and formats books for PixBeeDesign.com, which she founded. She designed the covers of both Leora’s Letters and Leora’s Dexter Stories, and formatted the paperbacks and ebooks for both.

Richard Muniz – Author Rich Muniz from Colorado has also been in law enforcement, served in the Army, and is now in IT. He’s Lawman series (under penname William R. Ablan) is available on Amazon, and he has an awesome website. He is also is a regular contributor to Our American Stories. Here’s the latest, which lasts 10 minutes.

Cheryl Mullenbach – Cheryl is the author of The Great Depression for Kids among other history books for young adults and middle school age readers, and has a regular column in Iowa History Journal.

Betty Moffett – Betty taught for nearly 30 years in Grinnell College’s Writing Lab, and is the author of Coming Clean, a collection of short stories, published by Ice Cube Press. 

Mary McCollogh – Member of the Dexter Museum Board, Mary is also the librarian at the Dexter Public Library.

Darcy Maulsby – Iowa’s Storyteller, Darcy is author of several books, including A Culinary History of Iowa, and Dallas County (which includes the Wilsons’s WWII story). She lives on an Iowa farm and has her own marketing/communications company, Darcy Maulsby & Co. 

Larry Lehmer – Is a journalist and author of The Day the Music Died: The Last Tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, and Ritchie Valens. 

Arvid Huisman – Arvid is a former newspaper publisher, also a director of The Salvation Army, Arvid  is the author of More Country Roads, an anthology selected from more than 900 of his Country Road columns, which continue today in Iowa History Journal.

Tom Honz – Tom is a Media Specialist and Teacher Librarian with the Ankeny Community Schools. He’s also our neighbor!

Pat Hochstetler -Member of the Dexter Museum Board and the Dexter Cemetery Board, Pat is also a genealogist, member of the Madison County (Iowa) Genealogical Society, and has mapped the Dexter cemetery.

Louise Hartman – I went to high school with Louise, and avid reader and genealogist. She’s been an encourager of my writing for a couple of decades.

Van Harden – Van, a Dallas County resident who lived for a time near Dexter, is an author, speaker, and Marconi Award-winning broadcaster, recently retiring from NEWSRADIO 13 WHO. Here’s his website. 

Robin Grunder – Robin, a ghostwriter and writing coach, is the founder of Legacy Press. She was my coauthor for Leora’s Letters, putting it on a diet and making it more readable. She has shepherded Leora’s Dexter Stories though its cover and interior design (through Nelly Murariu) and uploading everything to KDP.

Robert Frohlich – Bob, who lives in Wisconsin, wrote a compelling memoir, Aimless Life, Awesome God, and has a website. Our American Stories has produced a couple of his delightful adventures in truck-driving: 3, 2, 1, You’re It! (11 minutes) and Learning to Drive (19 minutes).

Mike Flinn – Mike is the author of several books, most of them are historical fiction having roots in Dallas County, Iowa. See his Amazon Author Page.

Doris Feller – Doris, a member of Questers and a Dexter Museum Board member, is married to the son/grandson of the Fellers whose car was stolen during the 1933 Bonnie and Clyde shootout, which is mentioned in Leora’s Dexter Stories. She also hosted me at a Quester’s meeting to talk about Leora’s Letters.

Jorja Dogic – I met Jorja, an accountant and avid reader, when we both taught ESL (English as a Second Language). She encouraged my writing well before Leora’s Letters became a reality, and she still does.

Anne Clare – I “met” Anne through her website, The Naptime Author. She writes compelling WWII historical fiction, but is also a mom, a musician, and a teacher in the Pacific Northwest.

John Busbee –  John owns The Culture Buzz, which includes a weekly newsletter and a radio program on KFMG 98.9 FM. He also writes a regular column for Cityview, articles for Iowa History Journal, and is involved in many other “creative mischief,” as he puts it, and cultural endeavors. John not only wrote the Foreword to Leora’s Dexter Stories, he also offered editorial input.

Chad Brown – Chad, who majored in history in college, is the founder and administrator of the Iowan’s Making History Facebook page, which has well over 16,000 followers.

Elaine Briggs – Elaine is the daughter of Joe Dew and his biographer. That’s how we “met,” since her father grew up at Redfield, another small Dallas County town, during the same Depression years that the Wilson children were in Dexter. Also the wife of a Michigan farmer, Elaine has been a steady cheerleader during both books. She is about to publish her second book about her extraordinary teaching experiences.

Marilyn Bode – A friend from childhood, this avid reader offered feedback for the very early version of Leora’s Letters and recently hosted me for programs about that book with two groups. Marilyn, a pianist who also taught home economics at Iowa State University, has self-published a book about having polio as a child. It’s out of print but you may see a copy of it at the Dexter Museum or Dexter Library.

 

“Modestly Illustrated” Books by The Gracie Press

The Gracie Press

The author: John Spiers is a writer, artist, and “dad” to a small flock of chickens who live in the center of his backyard garden.

While he often produced small writing and drawing project over the years, he never found his creative niche until he decided to raise some baby chicks. They became the characters in his stories and the subjects of his drawings. Now they are his friends, and he spends time with them each evening under the shade of the camellias bordering his backyard garden.

His stories occur in the intersection where the world of people meets the world of chickens. It is an intersection where the unexpected can happen. Chickens can talk with people who truly love them. They can also dance ballet and even put on backyard comedy shows.

His work seeks to share the same joy he feels with his chickens along with bits of timeless “chicken wisdom” about life which he has learned from them.

Seasons of Friendship: A “My Life With Gracie” Story Collection

The book: You can learn a lot from a chicken, especially a chicken like Gracie! Timid and shy, Gracie stayed mostly to herself and away from the other young chicks. Without her best friend, Bessie, she may never have survived those difficult first weeks.

The stories in this collection take place over a single year and tell how a group of chickens became a family of friends. Scattered throughout are bits of “chicken wisdom.” Some are easy to spot, and others may need some scratching and pecking to find. Journey through “Seasons Of Friendship” with Gracie and her friends and see how her transformation “from least to leader” unfolds in their beautiful garden home.

Based on the author’s experiences with raising his own backyard chickens, this book will hopefully have you saying, “I wish I had a friend like Gracie.”

My thoughts: This is such a charming intro to the Gracie stories, a series of “modestly illustrated” stories about a winsome flock of chickens, and their wise and witty owner/shepherd/wise guide. The author had hoped to be a fine artist, but hadn’t anticipated that his most compelling work would be about endearing chickens.

This small book, only an ebook at that point, is indeed divided by seasons. Each one contains three stories about friendship, abundance, beauty, being real, patience true prosperity, anticipation, etc. Each story ends with a big of “chicken wisdom” The illustrations are just dear, with a specific flower for each. At the end, all of the chickens are introduced, the meaning of each flower chosen, and the wondrous story about how these dear chicken stories began.

How to Explain Christmas to Chickens

The book: Pearl never quite fit in or felt accepted. After losing Blanche, her only friend, Pearl’s unstoppable curiosity leads her to explore her neighborhood to find out what Christmas is all about. She secretly visits The Bottle Cap Lady who has more Christmas lights and decorations than anyone. Pearl learns there is a gift only she can give to The Bottle Cap Lady, but will Pearl give up her Christmas wish to help someone who has nothing to give in return?

My thoughts: I can hardly wait for my granddaughter to become old enough to appreciate these winsome stories and their compelling stories. No, I didn’t find Gracie’s ballet slippers, nor the three friendship hearts, not even The Bottle Cap Lady’s real name. I’m saving those delicacies for Kate.

Did you know that “Sometimes you have to be a foolishly extravagant and generous giver”? Pearl the not-so-normal Chicken clucks that wisdom, and more. John Spiers’ Gracie and Bessie and Emily and Amelia chicken stories are just delightful, at any age.

A Most Wondrous Place

The book: Timid and shy, Gracie stayed mostly to herself and away from the other young chicks. Without her best friend, Bessie, she may never have survived those difficult first weeks. But from the beginning, Gracie was sure her new backyard garden home was “A Most Wondrous Place,” and that was one of the first things she said to the author as they sat together in the cool of the evening.

But A Most Wondrous Place is more than a garden filled with beautiful flowers and delicious vegetables. It is more than somewhere that chickens can dance ballet and talk with people who love them. Even though Gracie could share a great deal of chicken wisdom with the author, explaining what A Most Wondrous Place means is simply something she could not do because it is only understood with the heart.

Journey with Gracie and the author through a single year and learn how a group of chickens became a family of friends. You will also find scattered throughout are bits of “chicken wisdom.” Some are easy to spot, and others may need some scratching and pecking to find. Most importantly, you will also discover along with the author what chickens mean when they say, “This is A Most Wondrous Place.”

Based on the author’s experiences with raising his own backyard chickens, this book will hopefully have you saying, “I now have A Most Wondrous Place.”

My thoughts: What a sweet way to talk about friendship, caring, acceptance, and more. Listed as a Christian children’s book, it may contain biblical principals but it’s just a gentle story about the author’s delightful flock of chickens. My grandmother enjoyed raising chickens and now I have an inkling why. A few of hers also had names.

I got out an old chicken waterer and a couple of my own chicks so they could meet Gracie and Bessie and the others. The book takes the flock through good times and scary times, month by month, but our granddaughter (age 4) probably isn’t old enough to appreciate it yet. The drawings, also by the author, are winsome.

—–

Gracie Press even has a newsletter.  And How to Explain Christmas to Chickens is on special on Amazon right now.

 

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

The second book in the Leora’s Stories series has become a reality!

The undertow of the hard times of the Great Depression becomes poignantly personal in the experiences of a small-town family as they slowly sliding into unemployment and poverty. Jobs dry up and so does their cow, but my grandmother Leora labors to clothe, feed, and see to it that all seven children earn high school diplomas. 

So far the book is only available (paperback and ebook) on Amazon, but in a couple of weeks, you can find autographed copies in the Des Moines area from Beaverdale Books (shipping offered) at (515) 279-5400, as well as at the Urbandale Machine Shed Restaurant.

Chapters are short. Even high-schoolers could learn what it was like to be a kid during that defining era in America, from the stories of the Clabe and Leora Wilson family.

Table of Contents

Foreword by John Busbee
Dexter Map
Family Chart
Preface

Chapter 1--Danny’s Earache
Chapter 2--Mastoidectomy
Chapter 3--Penn Township
Chapter 4--Independence Day at Dexfield Park
Chapter 5--Acreage at the Edge of Dexter
Chapter 6--Clabe’s Stories
Chapter 7--Their Cow Dries Up
Chapter 8--Whooping Cough
Chapter 9--Decoration Day
Chapter 10--Husky and the Pack of Dogs
Chapter 11--Paving of the Great White Way
Chapter 12--1930
Chapter 13--Grandpa’s Heart Attack
Chapter 14--Guilt and Consolation
Chapter 15--Clabe’s Surgery
Chapter 16--The Sheepshed
Chapter 17--Yet Another Move
Chapter 18--First High School Graduates
Chapter 19--Delbert to California
Chapter 20--Bonnie and Clyde
Chapter 21--A Biplane Ride Before School
Chapter 22--Delbert and Donald Join the Navy
Chapter 23--Running the Town Pump
Chapter 24--Machine Perm in Redfield
Chapter 25--Rusty
Chapter 26--The Panama Canal
Chapter 27--A Suspicion Before Christmas
Chapter 28--The Imbedded Needle
Chapter 29--Goffs Move to Omaha
Chapter 30--Gossip
Chapter 31--Clabe Becomes a Hobo
Chapter 32--Spats
Chapter 33--The Canning Factory
Chapter 34--New Deal Jobs
Chapter 35--’Possum for Birthday Dinner
Chapter 35--Blizzards
Chapter 37--Basketball Tourney
Chapter 38--Pollywogs Become Shellbacks
Chapter 39--Another Dexter  Graduate
Chapter 40--California Visitors
Chapter 41--American Institute of Business
Chapter 42--Discharged from the Navy
Chapter 43--California Jobs Fizzle
Chapter 44--Bounty for Starlings
Chapter 45--Dallas County Champs
Chapter 46--Minburn and More Graduates
Chapter 47--Leora

Afterword: How I Learned Everything
Notes - To bring people and places up to date
Questions to Ponder

 

 

Flag Day

The American flag was precious to my grandmother, Leora Wilson. One of my favorite pictures of her is under a flag at my parents’ farm near Dexter.

Back in 1890 when Leora was born, Idaho and Wyoming had just been added to the Union, making 44 stars in the flag. Utah became a State when she was 5, the year her father went bankrupt in Nebraska’s drought, adding another 45 star to the flag.

Leora was nearly 17, living in Audubon County, Iowa, riding a horse to town to take piano lessons, and helping her dad in his fields of popcorn, when Oklahoma was admitted to the Union. 46 stars.

The 48-star flag came about when New Mexico and Arizona became states right before the Titanic sank. Leora was 21 then, living at Wichita, Iowa, not yet married.

It was that flag, with 48 stars, for the next 33 years. . . through Leora’s marriage, the Great War, the births of her 10 children, the loss of three as infants, WW II. . . and the loss of three sons during that war.

Making her a Gold Star Mother.

Flag Day was also important to her. She’d display the American flag at her little house in Guthrie Center.

Her family had sacrificed so much for that flag.

In September 1945, when Japan officially surrendered after WWII, Leora’s son Danny was still Missing in Action in Austria, although the war in Europe had ended months before. In fact two sons were still Missing in Action–Dale and Danny.

Their youngest brother, Junior, was killed in training at the end of the war. An American flag had been presented to Clabe and Leora by Junior’s Army Air Force friend, Ralph Woods, at the funeral.

War was over. The Wilsons’ two surviving sons had served in the Navy. Delbert and his family moved home to be with his folks. Donald stayed in the Navy. Daughters Darlene and Doris, both married, also lived in Iowa. Four small grandchildren kept Clabe and Leora entertained, at least part of the time.

Harry Wold, a pilot friend of Danny’s, who’d been his “stone hut mate” in Italy while in combat, wrote that he still hoped that Danny would be found–maybe in a hospital, but he was skeptical.

On September 26, 1945, a carton of Dan Wilson’s things arrived at the Wilson acreage south of Perry–sent from the Army Effects Bureau of the Kansas City Quartermaster Depot.

Clabe signed for the carton. I suppose they opened it, but did they sort through their son’s eighteen pairs of socks, five cotton undershirts, three khaki trousers, and other clothing?  If they had, they would have found Danny’s wrist watch, souvenirs of his R and R to Rome over Christmas, a fountain pen, other items including a small New Testament.

Yes, the war was over, but life just kept on and on. . . .

According to Leora’s notes, she churned butter every week. Two cows had calves. Clabe helped a neighbor with field work.

At some point, they would have thumbed through the Danny’s small New Testament.

They would have found the page with the American flag pictured in color.

Under that flag is an arrow, drawn in ink, and the words in his bold printing, “I give everything for the country it stands for. D. S. Wilson.”

Daniel Sheridan Wilson. . . . Danny.

If this brings tears to my eyes, these many decades later, how did my grandparents deal with it then?

No wonder the American flag was precious to my grandmother.

In the picture of Grandma under the flag at my parents’ place, she’s wearing a watch with a small silver bell fastened to it.

The Capri bell arrived in the same box as Danny’s small Bible. . . . with his personal pledge to the American flag.

Featured on the front page of the Opinion section in the June 14, 2020 issue of The Des Moines Sunday Register.

The Needle in Her Hand

An 8-minute Leora story from the Great Depression, which also includes a little history from a Bonnie and Clyde shootout in Dexfield Park.

First aired by Our American Stories on June 9, 2021. Produced by Matthew Montgomery.

Leora’s Dexter Stories: The Scarcity Years of the Great Depression is the second book in the Leora’s Stories series.

 

 

 

 

John Neal, Muralist at the Iowa Gold Star Museum, Camp Dodge, Iowa

I’d visited the old Iowa Gold Star Museum at Camp Dodge, Johnston, Iowa, several times, usually with Mom, so this new one was a compelling surprise. Curator Michael Vogt wrote an excellent introduction to the museum in the Iowa History Journal.

Artist John Neal (no relation) has completed several murals for this one, each one of which enhances the display it anchors.

Civil War

John’s Civil War mural is the backdrop for the Civil War display at the Gold Star Museum.

Michael Vogt was recently interviewed about Iowa in the Civil War.

 

World War I

The damaged storefront houses a display of a WWI trench at night.

Artist John Neal next to his mural of a morning sky over a French airfield. They did have a couple of lion cubs as mascots.

 

World War II

The first photo shows the mural for the Pacific Theater exhibit, of landing on a Pacific Island. The second one is the completed exhibit.

The day my husband and I visited, John and his son Cameron (who is also an artist and musician) were working on the WWII mural. Nearby were several books they used for research.

Korean War

The nose of this F-86, like the one piloted by Iowan Capt. Hal Fischer, is a fabrication. John completed the rest of the fighter on the curved wall of the exhibit. Marsden matting was used for runways and taxiways.

Vietnam War

The completed Vietnam War exhibit with a mural by John Neal, who did a lot of research as he worked on each display.

Cold War

This amazing exhibit is a replica of a nuclear submarine conning tower, with one of John’s murals wrapped around inside.

Here’s an award-winning virtual tour of the museum.

John Neal’s website shows more of his handsome and engaging artwork.

The Gold Star Museum has a YouTube Channel. The clips are not long, well-edited, treasures for all of us. If you enjoy them, please Like, Share and Subscribe.

Autographed copies of Leora’s Letters: The Story of Love and Loss for an Iowa Family During World War II  have been donated so the Gold Star Museum may benefit from the proceeds. Find it in their gift shop.