Joy Neal Kidney's Blog, page 70
May 13, 2021
May 12, 2021
Twins Dale and Darlene Wilson, Born 100 Years Ago, Stuart, Iowa
Leora Wilson burned old wallpaper in the heater stove and kitchen range while Clabe was gone with the two boys. Twins were due in a couple of months and she kept an eye on three-year-old Doris. They had just moved to the edge of Stuart from a nearby farm.
It was a windy, clear day, not very cold, when neighbor man stopped by. “Lady, I think your house is on fire!”
It sure was. She took Doris out in the yard with a little red rocking chair and told her to stay right there. She stayed. That was Doris’s earliest memory.
Leora threw things out the kitchen window, including the clock, which flew apart.
Firemen came, neighbors got most out of downstairs and some from upstairs. When Clabe and boys got home, their household goods were in the yard. The fire was in the attic, a defective chimney they decided. The Wilsons had insurance, which helped.
Ripleys, who’d stayed with them the year before, asked them to stay at their place until they found another. They found another place the next day and got moved in.
The Chittick house was a small one-story home at 515 Gaines Street. Mrs. Knox, widow of Dr. Knox, lived next door to the south. Ferns grew lush on the north side of her house.
Doris, Donald, and Delbert in Mrs. Knox’s ferns, 1921, StuartWhile they lived there, the Stuart nightwatchman was killed during a bank robbery attempt. Clabe Wilson and another man were hired to take over.
On May 13, twins Dale and Darlene were born. Leora’s mother, Laura Goff from Guthrie Center, came for the births and stayed for several days.
Mrs. Knox next door enjoyed them and came over often. “You folks don’t need to go out for entertainment. You have it at home.”
Clabe brought home a twin baby carriage to assemble. Leora had to walk several blocks to get groceries or mail, so a wagon and the baby carriage became their little parade. Going, Doris rode in the wagon while Delbert pulled and Donald pushed. They followed Leora with the baby cab or carriage. The wagon was needed for the groceries on the way home, so Doris hitched a ride on the front of the carriage.
Donald, Delbert, the twins, and DorisThis photo, of twins Dale and Darlene on their first birthday, with their big sister Doris, was shown on the screen at the Stuart theater.
Bricks at the restored Stuart Depot remember the birth of Dale and Darlene Wilson.
May 10, 2021
Dandelions for Mrs. Wilt
Neighbor Mary Wilt, in her 70s, was a neighbor of Wilsons. She moseyed across the highway in her slippers, because her feet hurt, to visit Leora Wilson. Mrs. Wilt had been born in Germany so spoke with a brogue. She paid Dale and Danny each a quarter to pick dandelions. Mrs. Wilt was born in Germany.
Pete Jensen, her half brother, was born in Iowa seventeen years later, the same year that Mary married Benjamin Wilt of Earlham. After Mary was widowed, she and Pete lived together just west of Pete’s pasture.
Mary (Jensen) Wilt and her bachelor brother Pete Jensen, Dexter, Iowa.The Wilson brothers weren’t helping Mrs. Wilt weed her lawn. Prohibition had ended two years earlier, and she planned to use those blossoms make dandelion wine.
The boys spent their quarters on baseball caps from the Sears catalog. Nine-year-old Junior wrote his big brothers, “We sent out an order and I am getting a baseball cap and a pair of shoes, and I get I’ll look like a dressed up millionaire.” Dale and Danny were also getting shoes. Danny wrote that now they’d be able to go to Sunday School. He and Junior would wear Delbert and Donald’s old knickers, the ones they’d worn to eight grade graduation.
Don’t forget what happened to Mrs. Wilt’s pump organ!
Ben and Mary Wilt are buried at Earlham, Iowa. “Born on the Island of Pellworm, Schleswig-Holstein. Parents: Julius Mathias Jensen & Dorothea Amalie Clausen. Maria came to America about 1870, with family. Her mother died aboard ship (of smallpox). The family lived in Dallas County, near Dexter. Married Benjamin Wilt, of Earlham, on March 24, 1887; he preceded her in death. No children.
Pete Jensen is buried at Dexter. He served in World War I: Iowa, Pvt Co G 161 Infantry.
From Leora’s Dexter Stories: The Scarcity Years of the Great Depression.
May 8, 2021
Mother’s Day guest Alan Brown
POSTED ONMAY 10, 2019 BY FUELFORTHERACEBLOGIf I were…
“She was just sixteen and all alone when I came to be. So we grew up together…mama-child and me. Now things were bad and she was scared, but whenever I would cry, she’d calm my fear and dry my tears with a rock and toll lullaby…” (1972) Rock And Roll Lullaby. Recorded by: B.J. Thomas. Composers: Barry Mann & Cynthia Weil.
With age, I have learned that…
If I were the teen who fought through a sexual assault, then carried an unwanted pregnancy, debating the heart’s choices, then allowing life to grow, I would be a spectacular teenager wise beyond my years.
If I were a parent who protected my newborn from assault and murder at the hands of the father, with a sacrificial unselfish front, I would be a medal of honor recipient.
If I were to end an abusive marriage, to defend and shield my innocent toddler, knowing there would be no child support, I would be a heroine authors would write about.
If I were a single parent constantly contending with the voices of psychological demons, chanting accusations of worthlessness, depreciation, and shame, all the while rising above it all to raise my child, I would be the dragon-slayer described in countless novels.
If I were to defeat my fear by moving into an uncharted world, away from family, to make a life for my young child, I would be a courageous warrior with monuments anointing the landscape.
If I were one who taught my toddler the true value of the gift of grandparents, I would be a brilliant educator with my name on the walls of universities.
If I were to faithfully read scripture to my young child each night, combined with the simplicity of personal prayer and church attendance, I would be a righteousness seeker with my statue erected by the world’s cathedrals.
If I were to seek out the finest pre-schools and kindergartens, in the attempt to assure my only child got a leg up, I would be a proactive parent to be noticed.
If I were to be rejected for loans and credit, due to being a single parent in the 1960’s, only to exercise faith while tackling a life of poverty with my head held high, I would be a fearless champion in my child’s eyes.
If I were to knock on every door to find a job waiting tables, or struggle with an overnight shift on an assembly line, I would be a humble workhorse of a provider for others to impersonate.
If I were to give away the opportunity to have a brilliant singing & recording career, just to be home with my child at the end of a hard night’s work, I would be self-sacrificing, worthy of a screenwriter’s time.
If I were to provide for my child after several lay-offs, by way of two or three jobs, I would be Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman combined, never being poor in spirit.
If I were to train my child well enough to leave him alone overnight, in order to work the graveyard shifts, I would be an example of a strong tower of faith.
If I were to work overtime to aid in the development of my elementary age child with raw musical abilities, by paying for piano, violin, guitar, and voice lessons, my portrait would hang in Carnegie Hall.
If I were to be a staunch, independent single parent, refusing financial aid from my parents, I would be wealthy of heart.
From my granddad’s cedar coin box. The two of us from 1969.
If I were to resist the temptation of suicide, while being beaten down by company lay-offs, Green Stamp submissions, and accepting government blocks of cheese, I would be a brave ferocious fighter for my child’s future.
If I were to support my teen’s sports and musical interests, which differ from mine, I would be a liberally devoted parent of love and understanding.
If I were to tirelessly stand up to my rebellious teenager, with the possibility of damaging our relationship, I would have attributes resembling the God of the Bible.
If I were to sit all alone in a church pew watching my child wed, I would have earned the vision of a soldier adorned in glistening armor after a long battle.
If I were to bless my grandchildren with my physical presence, my mind, as well as my heart, I would be worth my weight in gold.
My mom with my middle daughter, Megan. (1992)
If I were to deny myself, for the betterment of my child, to the point of self-injury, while killing my own pursuits, and avoiding life’s trinkets that shine in the night, I would be Joan of Arc, Boudicca, Anne Sullivan, and Rosa Parks rolled into one.
If I were to be an example for my adult child, by being the caretaker of my aging parents, suffering from Alzheimer’s and Dementia, along with other elderly ones in my community, I would reflect what I have always been…a mountain of love, compassion, and selflessness.
If I were to describe a fictitious character from my own dreams, they could not come close to the one I have held in my heart for my entire life.
I don’t have to write the words “If I WERE…” The reason being, I simply could never measure up. The one described above is my mom, Carolyn Atherton-Brown.
I am her portrait. I am her monument. I am her novel. I am her screenplay. I am her statue. I am her champion. I am her armored soldier. I am the medal of honor.
To be gracefully broken, brilliantly strengthened, and beautifully poised is to be one who drinks deeply from the well of fuel for the race.
“…As surely as you live, I am the woman who stood here beside you praying to the Lord. I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him. So now I give him to the Lord. For his whole life he will be given to the Lord…” – The words of Hannah – I Samuel 1:26b-28a (NIV)
Alan’s 11-minute story, first aired on Our American Stories on May 7, 2021.
May 7, 2021
Clabe Drives to Omaha, Mother’s Day 1946
Laura Goff is wearing a parka and a parka from Newfoundland and a grass skirt from Hawaii, both gifts from her son Clarence Goff who served in the Navy during WWII.Clabe and Leora Wilson drove, just the two of them, to Omaha the first Mother’s Day after the war. Those three boys were never coming home and, in spite of the memories and the anguish, they needed to get on with their lives.
Standing: A friend of Collis Jordan (Laura Goff’s younger brother), Merl Goff (Laura’s oldest son), Clabe Wilson, Laura (Jordan) Goff, Collis Jordan, Clarence Goff (Laura’s youngest son), Jennings Goff (another son).
Seated: Maxine (Goff) Allgood with Donna Allgood, Greta Goff (wife of Merl) with Phyllis Goff, Leora (Goff) Wilson (Laura’s oldest child), Jean Goff (first wife of Merrill Goff) with Michael Goff, Mrs. Foss (Jean Goff’s mother) with Gail Allgood, Bernadine Goff (second wife of Jennings) with Ronnie Goff.
The photographer was Merrill Jennings Goff, son of Jennings and brother of Maxine. He’d become a photographer in the Marines after serving aboard the USS Pensacola during WWII. It became his career.
Guthrie County, Iowa
Jennings Goff’s young first wife Tessie died of the mumps a few days after Merrill was born in 1924. Maxine was just a toddler. Jennings moved in with his parents, Sherd and Laura Goff, who then lived in a Victorian home in Guthrie Center, along with other adult children. Maxine and Merrill lived there, too, but also stayed with Tessie’s parents at Wichita, Iowa.
Dexter
After Clabe and Leora Wilson moved to Dexter with their brood of children, Sherd and Laura moved there too, along with Jennings and his children. During the summers, Maxine and Merrill stayed with their Wichita grandparents, but during the school year, they lived with their Goff grandparents. Both Maxine and Merrill were in the same classes as two of their Wilson cousins so were very close.
Omaha
During the Great Depression, Uncle Clarence Goff offered their father Jennings a job in Omaha in his heating and cooling business. Grandmother Laura Goff went with them. The first Mother’s Day after the war, several family members were able to get together. What a good sport she was to dress up for the only nice photograph taken of the reunion.
May 6, 2021
Nu Alpha Gamma Chapter tours Minburn sites Saturday by Sue Leslie
Nu Alpha Gamma Chapter members visiting the Dallas County Freedom Rock Saturday included, from left, Sue Leslie, Sharon Ulrich, Deb Irving, Cathy Clark, Marlene Johnson, Wilson family author Joy Neal Kidney, Carol Hill, Barb Burket, Myrna Griffith and Marilyn Bode. Photo courtesy Nu Alpha Gamma ChapterThe members of Nu Alpha Gamma Chapter heeded the call to “Meet Me In Minburn” Saturday, and there they learned about the history of Minburn from Nu Alpha Gamma Chapter First Vice President Deb Irving, who grew up in the area.
Chapter members also met Joy Neal Kidney of West Des Moines, who talked about the background of the Wilson family highlighted in her book, “Leora’s Letters,” and she shared stories of the seven children growing up in Dexter in the 1930s.
“About 25 years ago, I’d prayed that the loss of Dale, Danny and Junior Wilson would not be forgotten,” Kidney told the Nu Alpha Gamma members. “The two older brothers married during the war, but only Delbert Wilson had children. Most of us cousins are the children of the two sisters, Doris and Darlene. Doris was born after the two oldest, the Navy brothers, and Darlene was Dale’s twin. Dale has never been found. Maybe the Freedom Rock was the answer to that prayer.”
Kidney also spoke of her personal journey in writing, and she previewed her newest book, “Leora’s Dexter Stories: The Scarcity Years of the Great Depression,” which will debut soon.
Kidney was also involved in creating the storyboard that accompanies the Dallas County Freedom Rock, which details the people featured on the Freedom Rock located in Minburn and painted by Ray ”Bubba” Sorensen. Following the meeting, members journeyed to view the rock.
Nu Alpha Gamma is a chapter of Delta Kappa Gamma International, a society of women educators. The chapter is made up of women educators who live or work in Dallas County, and strives to promote the professional and personal growth of women educators as well as to promote excellence in education.
Sue Leslie is the secretary of the Nu Alpha Gamma Chapter.
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Originally published in The Perry News, May 5, 2021.
May 5, 2021
We Brake for Lilacs (poem)
We Brake for Lilacs
When the air is permeatedwith luxurious lilac fragrance,my daily walk takes longeras I linger in lush perfume.It’s hereditary. My mother,in her eighties, admits toclimbing off her riding mowerfor a blessed breath of bliss.(written about 2000)
May 3, 2021
Earlham Bricker-Price Senior Series–May 2021
10:00 Friday mornings
Bricker-Price Block, Earlham, Iowa
These are all live-streamed and recorded, so if you missed my grandmotherly-voiced presentation about Leora’s Dexter Stories, it’s still on their Facebook page. Here are the surprising Senior Speaker Series offerings for May:
May 7 – Nancy Trask, MLS, retired director of the Winterset Library, will give a presentation on Iowa’s Monuments Man, George Stout. (George Clooney’s character, Frank Stokes, in the movie was based on Winterset’s own George Stout. Yes, he was from Iowa.)
Stout is also featured on the Madison County Freedom Rock.
May 14 – Quilts of Valor is based in Winterset. Jeri Beem, Iowa’s State Coordinator, will talk about this great way to honor the service of our veterans.
This group is also featured on the Madison County Freedom Rock.
May 21 – Rod Stanley, oral historian, will talk about the Orton Brothers Circus. (See pages 6 and 7.) A Dallas County town was the winter headquarters for the circus, and is said to have an elephant graveyard.
May 28 – Jack Oatts, the Father of Jazz Education in Iowa, began teaching at Earlham High School. Earlham graduates Marilyn Lawson Bode and Bev Schardein Welshons will talk about those great years of playing in one or more of the Earlham bands while Mr. Oatts was the director there. Others are also welcome to share their stories.
You may attend these programs in person or streamed through the Bricker-Price Block Facebook page.
Located in Madison County, Iowa, in the small town of Earlham, the Bricker-Price Block (consisting of C.D. Bricker Building, 115 S. Chestnut Ave. on the south, and W. Price Building, 105 S. Chestnut Ave. on the north).
The Bricker-Price Block occupies the prominent southwest corner at the intersection of First Street and Chestnut Avenue in the Earlham central business district, located on two-thirds of a subdivided building lot. Built in 1900 to house the C.D. Bricker grocery and general store business and leased commercial space in the W.P. Price Building, with second-floor offices above each, the Bricker-Price Block also includes a 1919 one-story rear warehouse addition to the Bricker Building.
These two adjoining but separately owned buildings were built at the same time by the same builder with a unified façade and matching cast-iron storefronts, and thus the two buildings are jointly known historically as the Bricker-Price Block.
You may enter on the east and climb a flight of stairs, or from the north to use the elevator. It’s their Senior Series, but they won’t check your ID to see if you’re old enough.
April 30, 2021
“Out of the Dust” – A Newbery Award Winning Book
In order to have more of backdrop about the Great Depression for Grandma Leora’s stories during those years, I hunted for books. I really wanted Iowa stories, or at least ones that reflected the Midwest. Most of those dealt with how hard it was being part of a farm family in those days. Like my father’s family. But farm families weren’t hungry.
Where were stories about families living in small towns?
There are plenty of scholarly tomes, complete with statistics, but those just didn’t satisfy what I was searching for. I ended up with children’s books. There’s a series by Crystal Thrasher, about a girl from a needy family “coming of age.” They were okay, but still not what I was wanting.
Though unusual and not set in the Midwest, Out of the Dust is satisfying. Unusual because the entire story is written in free verse. It won a Newbery Award in 1998.
I’d even written a short review of it on Amazon: “A expressive and spare journey through the physical and emotional obstacles of a young teenager living through terrible losses during the Great Depression. I’m writing the stories of my mother’s family when she was about the same age. The gaunt unrhymed poetry expresses that bleak era of our history so well.”
The photo on the cover is by Walker Evans, hired by the Farm Security Administration of FDR’s New Deal to record efforts to help tenant farmers and sharecroppers. “Daughter of a cotton sharecropper, Hale County, Alabama, about 1935.”
April 28, 2021
Arthur Rothstein, FSA Photographer for the New Deal
Earlier this year, Dr. Annie Segan joined us on the Depression Era Iowa Facebook page. Her note: “I am a daughter of photographer Arthur Rothstein. This Facebook page honors my dad’s prolific and extraordinary photographic legacy.”
