Joy Neal Kidney's Blog, page 7

Song of Guthrie County by Chad Elliott, Iowa’s Renaissance Man

Guthrie Center native, Chad Elliott, not only designed and painted a large mural for Guthrie County, he entertained the crowd at the dedication last October. He is a singer and songwriter who performs them with guitar and harmonica. The first public presentation of his “Song of Guthrie County” was at the dedication. 

The Guthrie County Arts Council commissioned Chad, a well-known artist with his own studio in Jefferson, to create a mural that would capture the essence of the county.

The mural, on the side of the fire station, is visible to those heading west down State Street in downtown Guthrie Center, Iowa.

Chad graciously allowed me to include a stanza and chorus of “Song of Guthrie County” in Meadowlark Songs: A Motherline Legacy. Of the seven generations in my motherline, five of them had deep roots in Guthrie County, including two who arrived in 1855 as pioneers, mother and daughter. Chad Elliott’s mural reminds me of those days.

Here is a snippet of the song:

No matter where I roam the sweetest peace I've known
In the Guthrie County I call home.

Chad Elliott is a singer, songwriter, painter, sculptor, illustrator, and author. He does solo concerts, and has teamed up with Kathryn Severing Fox on fiddle, viola, and mandolin as Weary Ramblers. Here is a link to their tour schedule. This is his studio.

Called Iowa’s Renaissance Man by John Busbee of The Culture Buzz, Chad is a 2025 Iowa Rock ‘n Roll Music Association Inductee.

Items related to the new mural are available at Art On State, which hosted the dedication. The gallery at 320 State Street in Guthrie Center also carries autographed copies of the “Leora books,” and this month copies of Meadowlark Songs will join them.

Graham Gems

Leora Goff Wilson with great grandson Daniel Neal Kidney, March 1975, Aurora, Colorado

Grandma Leora came to Colorado with my folks to meet our son, her great grandson, who was fourteen weeks old. When Mom arrived, she had a cold so was afraid to interact with baby Dan, so Grandma kept him busy while I cooked. I was amazed that this 84-year-old could heft him! (The pediatrician had just called him “mighty mite.”)

I made whole wheat muffins for one meal. “Graham Gems,” she remarked. What a delightful name for them.

Among her keepsakes was probably her first “cookbook,” a tiny memorandum book where she jotted recipes and pasted in others from newspapers. Just seven pages in is her recipe for Graham Gems.

 

Grandma would have had a wood or cob burning stove so the temperature isn’t listed, but often in other recipes, “moderate oven.” Faint note at the end: “1 doz. Georgia,” so she got the recipe from her sister, Georgia Goff, who was a few years younger, still living at home.

Graham flour is ground more coarse than wheat flour. Something I didn’t know: It was named after Sylvester Graham (1794–1851), who was disgruntled when nutrients such as germ and bran were lost when making white flour for white flour. He believed that using all of the grain in the milling of flour and baking of bread was a remedy for the poor health brought on by changes in diet during the Industrial Revolution.

I don’t make them anymore since I’m gluten intolerant, but if I did, I’d call them Graham Gems.

Whole Wheat Muffins

2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
2 eggs
1/4 cup melted butter
Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl. In another bowl, mix milk, eggs, and melted butter. Fold into to dry ingredients just until combined, then fill an oiled dozen-cup muffin tin. Bake at 350 degrees 20 minutes.

Synchronicity of social media and interstates lead to meeting a favorite indy author in person

He was tapping trees to make maple syrup, sharing videos on LinkedIn of the process, with a sense of humor. Who is this guy? I wondered, so I checked his profile: Craig Matthews, author/speaker/mentor, Port Huron, MI.

Author? I had to check that out and was promptly reeled in by the title of one of his books, Immigrant Patriot. Yes, I was hooked, not only by the title, but also the story and by the man behind the story. That was two years ago.

Craig is such a gifted storyteller, writing about fascinating settings and characters with messy lives that eventually intersect with God’s redeeming grace. I’ve enjoyed all four of his compelling books, all standalones at this point, and I’ve been a beta reader for a couple of them. In the process we became online friends.

Craig’s next book was about to come out last November when his wife, Connie (age 60), died suddenly. It’s been four months of grieving and processing, much of it by reading (Jerry Sittser for one) and writing (he’s shared poignant free verses with us on Facebook). Last week was his first outing for something other than to visit family–a trip to the National World War I Museum in Kansas City to research for a sequel to Immigrant Patriot. (He and his brothers researched there for the first book.) Immigrant Patriot is so compelling and eye-opening. I look forward to the sequel.

Joy and Craig at the Urbandale Machine Shed Restaurant. (My “Harry Potter” scar is healing well three weeks after surgery.)

Well, you can get to KC from MI via I-80, which does a do-si-do right with I-35 right by the Urbandale Machine Shed Restaurant. Driving a grey Chevy pickup and wearing a new Detroit Tigers cap, Craig blessed my Favorite Guy and me with a visit here at home, where he made sure I had autographed copies of all four of his books. He also brought a printout of the text of the next one, just like he’d given his mom.

We continued conversation with supper at our favorite Machine Shed. All three of us were encouraged by the too-short visit, but we’ll hold fond memories of a meeting that was only possible because of the synchronicity of social media and two interstates. 

Dale Ross Wilson, recently honored and remembered

Second Lieutenant Dale R. Wilson was honored and remembered recently by EdD Kris Cotariu Harper when she visited the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial in the Philippines.

Kris is an educator, trainer, and a student of military history. I “met” her on LinkedIn, where she noticed something I posted about Dale’s brother Danny Wilson who is buried in the Lorraine American Cemetery in France. Kris asked for information and said that she would honor Dale and Dan Wilson when she’d visit an overseas cemetery, which she does regularly.

Each year, to honor their parents, the family of Kris Cotariu Harper offers The Cotariu Memorial Scholarship for active duty service members of the Marines or Navy, or veterans of those groups. April 5 is the due date for applications for this year’s scholarship.

I am so blessed that Kris would take the time to point out Dale Wilson’s name. All six members of his B-25 crew are among the nearly 36,300 names on the Walls of the Missing in this far-away American cemetery.

 

Audiobook! What Leora Never Knew

What Leora Never Knew just became an audiobook, narrated by Virtual Voice, on Saturday. You may listen to a sample on its Amazon page. It’s available on its own or as an add-on to the hard copy or ebook version.

The one drawback to listening to this one without the book with the photos, the captions to the photos are included.

You might remember that I was ambivalent about having anything to do with computer narration, but I liked what I heard was offered through Virtual Voice. This one was a little more challenging to work through because of so many military numbers and phrases. For S/Sgt., the voice said “S slash” and a mushy sound. I had to stop the audio, choose the word or phrase which brought up a box where I could ask the “woman” to say “staff sergeant.” It also told me how many times S/Sgt. was used in the text and let me choose to have every one of them changed with one click.

This electronic stuff is just amazing, isn’t it!

I sure appreciate the review of this book by Steve Blake, who is the editor of Lightning Strikes!, the newsletter of the P-38 National Association, especially his comment, “This reviewer, a World War II aviation historian, was very impressed with the author’s determined and exhaustive research.”

Meadowlark Songs – coming soon

Seven Generations

According to Native American tradition,
the consequences of choices
made by ancestors in one generation
reverberate for seven generations.

Make those decisions with utmost care,
they say, to guarantee good lives
for those who come after.

Seven generations of a motherline,
all seven lived on farms,
six lived in Iowa,
five in Guthrie County, five widowed,
four were oldest daughters, had ten or more children,
three lived into their nineties,
two earned high school diplomas,
only one was born in a hospital
and she became the keeper
of the stories of her motherline.

 

Smorgasbord Coffee Morning – Author William R. Ablan invites Author Joy Neal Kidney for Coffee

What a delightful way to start the week! Thank you to Richard Muniz (AKA William R. Ablan) for the invitation, and to Sally Cronin for her generosity and creativity in coming up with ways to encourage authors, especially indie authors.

He wrote on his website: Virtual Coffee with Author Joy Kidney. Check it out.

Smorgasbord Coffee Morning – Author William R. Ablan invites Author Joy Neal Kidney for Coffee.

I’d like coffee with both Rich and his wife, Julie. I know her character in his lawman stories (she’s Jewell), which are based on his own days as in policework, and even from his military days. His lawman stories are really compelling!

Henny Penny and Singing Jenny

Leora and her flock of chickens, Minburn farm, about 1943

When Leora Goff was eleven her mother had yet another baby, so Leora took on the job of caring for the setting hens, ones that brooded their eggs to hatch. She certainly enjoyed her job, as she’d always helped her mother with it before. She knew how to get a reluctant hen to “sit” on her eggs: Pluck up the hen and give her a ride, like a cartwheel in the air, until she is dizzy. She’ll sit.

“One of  my jobs on the farm when I was growing up,” she wrote in her memoir, “was teaching calves to drink after taking them from their mothers. Some years there were as many as 20 calves. Another was raising chickens. With setting hens there had to be a coop for each hen and chickens, with about 15 little chicks each, and we always had wooden boxes in those days. We would have to shut each up at night to keep varmints from getting the little chickens and open up their boxes each morning and then feed the chickens. Sometimes we tied the mother by one foot or leg to keep her from roaming too far.”

After she married and had chickens of her own, Leora kept an account of the dates her hens began to brood, laying no more eggs but sitting on their nest, so she knew about when they would hatch, about three weeks later. She also recorded the number of other eggs she gathered in order to sell or trade what they didn’t use. Besides having a source of income, she enjoyed working with a flock of chickens. 

A year later Leora stayed busy with nursing a baby, cooking, cleaning, washing and ironing, and tending her chickens. She sold eggs seven dozen at a time early in the year, then twenty-four dozen each time by March 1916. By July, this business woman had sold 350 dozen eggs, then she began selling chickens.

During 1924, Leora sold 135 chickens (earning 14 to 18 cents per pound) and 92 dozen eggs (earning 36-47 cents a dozen). Selling eggs and chickens enabled this mother of six youngsters to order a brand new Singer sewing machine through the Sears, Roebuck catalog. 

“I raised a lot of good purebred chickens, Rhode Island Reds, setting hens mostly–had as many as 50 or more hens setting at one time. They had feed and water and were kept in an empty corncrib.”

Leora with a bucket of eggs she’d gathered from her flock. One hen is having a dust bath at the lower right. Minburn, Iowa, 1943

After the Depression years, Clabe and Leora returned to living on a farm near Minburn where Leora kept a flock of chickens. As her sons left for the military, they’d send requests home–someone please take a photo of Dad with a fish or with Spats, let’s have one of Mom and her chickens. A couple of hens followed her around as she did her chores outside. She named them Henny Penny and Singing Jenny.

How about some chicken songs?

Harry Potter Powers?

It began as a small itchy crater on my forehead, near an eyebrow. A biopsy showed skin cancer. I was warned that there’d be swelling and that an eye might swell shut. 

Last week, Dr. Joshua Wilson performed Mohs surgery on it, carving a round chasm a little smaller than a dime. One of the advantages of Mohs surgery is that you know your results right away. You usually don’t leave your appointment until all of the skin cancer has been removed.

Son Dan suggested that this may give me some powers like Harry Potter and the lightning-shaped scar on his forehead.

Mohs surgery is considered the most effective technique for treating many basal cell and squamous cell carcinomas, the two most common types of skin cancer. Sometimes called Mohs micrographic surgery, the procedure is usually done in stages, including lab work, while the patient waits. It allows the removal of all cancerous cells for the highest cure rate while sparing healthy tissue and leaving the smallest possible scar. Dr. Wilson removed all three layers the first time.

The surgery was developed by Frederic E. Mohs, MD, in the late 1930s. In the mid 1960s, Perry Robins, MD, studied the procedure with Dr. Mohs took the technique to NYU, where he established the first fellowship training program to teach dermatologists this skin cancer surgery, called Mohs surgery.

Before they discovered how to flash freeze tissue, this took more than one day. After waiting only about 45 minutes for the lab work, Dr. Wilson’s assistant, Taylor, announced that the cancer was gone, then talked about stitches. But how could they stitch the sides of a circle that large? She made a diagram of V-shaped cuts Dr. Wilson would make below and above the crater, borrowing neighboring tissue to suture together. Skin tissue is alive and malleable, and begins to heal itself right away. Just amazing.

The pictures online show how a pretty good sized excision can turn into a nice straight hardly-noticeable scar, but I guess my old author photo will have to do for Meadowlark Songs: A Motherline Legacy.

The whole thing took about three hours, then I kept busy at home icing the area so it wouldn’t swell much, although bruising might show up later. The photo is from two days after surgery, when I was allowed to take off the original bandage. Very little swelling! I’m so grateful.

This skin cancer is probably from detasseling corn, earning my first $100. 1958. The surgery will cost a bit more than how much I earned that entire summer.

An interesting tidbit: Dr. Wilson’s grandmother, age 92, rode on RAGBRAI for years, retiring from it just a few years ago!

Grandmother Goff’s Flower Garden Quilt

68″ X 84″

Great Grandmother Laura Goff (1868-1962) had set the blocks together by hand, with no white hexagons around them. It looked very jumbled.

In 1991 I took the blocks apart and washed them. The next year, I cut out white hexagons in and sewed them by hand around each block, completing the top. The hand quilting was done in time to give it to Mom, Doris Wilson Neal (a granddaughter of Laura Goff’s), in time for Christmas that year.

A cheerful treasure!