Joy Neal Kidney's Blog, page 88

Did Iowa Immigrant Detlef Ohrt Really Meet Outlaw Jesse James?

[image error]The bearded man spoke with the heavy brogue of the Old Country. The younger man was an outlaw. They just may have met up southeast of Dexter, Iowa.

Detlef Ohrt was born in 1837, on the five-mile-long island of Pellworm, then part of Denmark. About the time this North Frisian Island in the North Sea became part of Germany in 1865, Detlef married Martha Jensen. Their first thatched-roof home was on low-lying island, criss-crossed with canals, dotted with windmills to pump water from the land.

Daughters Anna and Johanna were born on Pellworm. When they were toddlers, Dethlef and Martha decided to make America their home–so that no sons would be born under the Kaiser’s rule.

They embarked from Hamburg on the ship, Thuringia, and arrived in New York City June 12, 1871. There the little family boarded a train, probably an immigrant train, and arrived in Dexter, Iowa, seven days later.

The Ohrt family settled in Madison County’s Penn Township, southeast of Dexter. Detlef loved horses and began raising “spotted ponies.”

And, according to a family story, that Detlef Ohrt sold one of his precious horses to the outlaw, Jesse James.

During the Civil War, sixteen-year-old Jesse joined his brother Frank in the notorious Quantrill raiders in Missouri. He robbed his first bank when he was nineteen. By the time Ohrts arrived in America, Jesse James had already robbed seven banks.

In 1873, the James gang learned of a $75,000 gold shipment headed east from Cheyenne through Iowa. They sabotaged the recently built Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific Railroad tracks west of Adair. On the evening of July 21, the engine plowed into the ditch and toppled over, killing the engineer. Other cars crashed onto the engine. Several passengers were hurt and the fireman later died of his injuries.

When the masked outlaws forced the guard to open the safe, they found only about $2,000. They looted the 200 passengers, including two dozen young Chinese men on their way to college in New England, and stole another $1,000.

After the terrorizing fifteen minute episode, the seven masked robbers mounted their horses and disappeared across the prairie to the south, having staged the first robbery of a moving train in history.

The Council Bluffs Nonpariel of July 29, 1873, reported that according to a detective pursuing the James gang, “All members of the party had fine horses.” Was one of them one that Jesse bought from Detlef Ohrt?

[image error]Jesse James

“Two at least rode trailed and blooded racers,” according to the Daily Iowa State Register of July 23, 1873. “Several of the horses were subsequently identified as having been shod at Atlantic only a few days before the robbery.”

Ten years and fifteen robberies later, Jesse James was killed for a reward. At age 35, James had robbed 26 banks, stages, and trains. He most likely bought the Ohrt horse just before number eleven. . . . the Adair train robbery.

Detlef Ohrt, who had been in his new country just two years, would not have known who the young horse buyer was. And according to several accounts, Jesse James–ten years younger than Ohrt–when dealing with ordinary people was polite.

Perhaps it was after news circulated about the train robbery that Ohrt realized that he’d sold one of his prized horses to the famous outlaw.

Two months after that robbery, Ohrts had another daughter. Not until 1885 and 1887 were the Ohrt sons, Pete and John, born. Detlef and his sons raised spotted ponies the whole time they lived on the Ohrt homestead.

Free and far away from the Kaiser.

[image error]

Save

Save

Save

The pandemic dominates our lives, and calls to mind my grandmother’s survival a century ago

Having a chronic condition and also recent surgery, I’ve even been concerned about going to physical therapy because of COVID-19.

These dispiriting days reminded me that 100 years ago this spring, my grandmother, Leora Wilson, was still suffering the effects of the influenza pandemic after the Great War. She said that if she had not had two small sons and a baby daughter to care for, she would have been glad to die.

Leora Wilson, age 29, had the flu. Just the flu.

We think of the flu as a nuisance. But Leora Wilson of Stuart, had survived the deadliest plague in history according to writer and researcher John M. Barry in his book. Before finally fading away in 1920, it had prowled around the globe and killed over 20 million people, even more than the bubonic plague.

Fever was among the first symptoms, then a wracking cough. Victims experienced dizziness, vomiting, sweating, achy joints, trouble breathing. Often pneumonia set in, overwhelming the sufferer’s ears, sinus, and lungs. Death usually came quickly.

More than 500,000 Americans died–6500 in Iowa–dropping our life expectancy a whopping ten years because young adults seemed especially susceptible to complications.

Children would recover, but their young, strong parents would not.

By the time Clabe and Leora moved to the three-story stucco house east of Stuart, she probably thought she’d escaped getting the flu.

Christmas 1919

But that December she looked forward to having Christmas in the parental Goff home in Guthrie Center, with a big dinner, her three brothers telling about being drafted and sent to France during the war, and always vigorous discussions about politics. Leora and Clabe would bundle up their three little ones and board the Liza Jane train, to huff and puff north up the Raccoon River Valley and through Windy Gap to Guthrie Center. Nothing short of a disaster would keep them from that wonderful day. But that’s exactly what happened the Christmas of 1919.

Leora was down with influenza.

Wilsons didn’t have a phone. On Christmas Eve, Leora’s brother, age 17, hiked down to the Guthrie Center train station when they heard Liza’s whistle. Their mother wrote her daughter a postcard: “Willis met the train last night and this morn when Liza whistled, thought sure she was bringing 5 of our very nearest relatives, but we had to give it up. Me, Pa, Willis. . . ”

Decades later Leora wrote: “We had flu the winter of 1919 and 1920–Delbert and Doris didn’t have it so bad, but Donald was a sick little boy. . . . I was much sicker than when [Clabe] had the flu in 1918. I got able to write and wrote the folks at Guthrie Center. We were getting over the flu but I was still in bed, doctor’s orders, and in a day or so my mother came down to Stuart from Guthrie Center on the Liza Jane train.

“It was after dark, icy, and she had crawled part way, pushing her suitcase along. When I saw her, I couldn’t believe my eyes, it seemed so impossible, she came to take care of me and my family. Bless her. She had taken care of my sister and brothers who had flu. She and Pa didn’t take flu, a God’s blessing.”

Her mother stayed several weeks, but Leora did not regain her strength until late summer. Even a year later, those who had survived the flu would say they still didn’t feel right or have their normal energy.

Young adults have the strongest, most effective immune systems. But according to John M. Barry in The Great Influenza Pandemic, especially at the beginning, the virus was often so efficient at invading the lungs that what had killed young adults, and orphaned so many children, was not the virus itself but the massive response of their healthy immune systems.

Barry wrote that the later the virus struck in an area, people did not become as sick, and were not as likely to die. 

Spring 1920

The Guthrian reported April 1, 1920, that “Mrs. Wilson is just convalescing from a severe attack of flu.” She remembered being ready to die, except that she had three small children to care for. And perhaps another on the way.

Leora may have also experienced a flu-related miscarriage. Barry said that pregnant women were more likely to die from the flu. And that about a quarter of them who survived lost the baby.

A clue to a July miscarriage comes from a postcard to Leora from her mother: “Sorry you were sick. Take good care of yourself.” Another from her sister: “You’ll just have to quit working too hard.” And Leora said that after both times she miscarried, her next pregnancy was twins.

Indeed, Dale and Darlene were born in Stuart in May of 1921.

[image error]Twins Dale and Darlene with their Grandmother Goff, Stuart, Iowa

Leora lived to bear five more children, including another set of twins. She was a healthy, sturdy woman, still living on her own when she died at the age of 97–even after having lost three sons during WWII and her husband shortly after. It was said at her own funeral that she had had true grit.

She needed true grit to get through the deadliest pandemic in history. I can get through this one. 

Leora is the heroine in Leora’s Letters: The Story of Love and Loss for an Iowa Family During World War II by local writer and historian Joy Neal Kidney. It’s the story behind the five Wilson brothers featured on the new Dallas County Freedom Rock at Minburn.

——

Published in The Des Moines Register April 10, 2020.

[image error]

 

The Official Guide to the Army Air Forces: A Directory, Almanac and Chronicle of Achievement 1944

Four uncles and my father served in the Army Air Forces during WWII, all as pilots.

2nd Lt. Dale R. Wilson, B-25 copilot, Port Moresby, New Guinea. Lost during the war.

2nd Lt. Daniel S. Wilson, P-38 pilot, Italy; KIA in Austria.

F/O C. Junior Wilson, P-40 pilot, killed in training when the engine of his plane threw a rod and exploded, Texas.

[image error]

 

[image error]

[image error]

[image error]

Dad, 1st Lt. Warren D. Neal, Advanced Training instruction, B-29 commander, with orders for Saipan when the war ended.

Uncle Bill, 1st Lt. Willis K. Neal, C-47 pilot over “the Hump.”

This Shoulder Replacement Thing

All I knew is that I wanted the pain to stop.

I could find no comfortable position for my arm, so had test after test, which revealed that I had an un-fixable tear. The options were pain meds the rest of my life, or “reverse shoulder replacement.”

[image error]

Invented in 1985 by a French surgeon, and only okayed for use by the US Food and Drug Aministration since 2003, this innovative surgery involves attaching an artificial ball to the shoulder blade, and an artificial socket to the top of the arm bone.   

It also utilizes the deltoid muscle to take over for the ruined one. It entails repositioning the deltoid to lengthen it, then retraining it.

My deltoid is as old as I am. 

Surgery didn’t take long, only one night in the hospital. Until my blood pressure tanked, so a second night.

Checkup with the surgeon at two weeks. No stitches out; they’d dissolve. Doctor said to wean off wearing the sling. What freedom–I could type again!

Pac-Man

Isn’t it amazing how the human body begins to repair itself right after an injury–accidental or by scalpel? Platelets rush to the wound, bunching around it, attracting others to form a “plug.” I can imagine them hastening around like the characters in Pac-Man. Clotting proteins make threads of fibrin which weaves itself into a clot over that plug, making a seal. Awesome, huh!

Meanwhile I was just trying to “keep up with the pain,” and do everything I could with my other hand.

A week later, physical therapy began. I had no idea that it therapy would last months, maybe longer. That progress would be at a snail’s pace. That nine weeks out I’m still not allowed to lift anything heavier than a coffee cup.

Someone thought I should be back to “normal” before now, but this wasn’t shoulder repair, not the common shoulder replacement. It’s total reverse shoulder replacement.

Six Weeks Out

At my six weeks checkup, I asked the surgeon when I’d be able to reach behind my back with my right arm. “Maybe two to three years.” Think about struggling into a pair of jeans or slacks, trying to tuck in a shirt. Two or three years???

The first eight weeks of physical therapy have been a struggle, mainly because when the deltoid is unhappy the pain is so sharp, so wince-some. And it tended to stay unhappy the rest of the day.

Therapist Hunter was good to banter with me, while issuing warnings and realistic donts. He printed off a clinical commentary for me because I’d asked so many questions. Protocol for reverse total shoulder arthroplasty, filled with lots of big terms and acronyms. He made notes on it, and so did I. It will take me through twelve weeks.

At eight weeks, I could journal fairly well with my right hand, but not feed myself. It also couldn’t wash or fix my hair, lift a cake-pan sized dish into the oven, reach higher than my chin without help.

Nine Weeks Post-Op

But at nine weeks, it felt like I’d reaching some kind of tipping point. DPT Hunter began new passive range of motion positions with my arm/shoulder. After weeks of warnings mixed with encouragement, he was almost effusive about how far I’d come!

[image error]

Even though his only 30, the easy-going Hunter has herded more than a dozen people through therapy for the reverse replacement. He’s a people person and interacts with my stories, which helps him take the arm manipulation a little farther each time. He reads intellectual nonfiction for fun.

We’ve discussed everything from at what age is a person elderly to genealogy and spiritual gifts. His encouragement at this point feels like effective coaching, even cheerleading. Wow, does that help!

Physical therapy has been the best part of this experience, gaining support mentally and physically, as well as twice a week reassurance.

Yesterday, for the first time in months (couldn’t do it before surgery either), my right arm lifted a mug of coffee into the microwave (cupboard height), retrieved it, and carried it down the hall to my office. Yes, tears welled up.

Four more weeks, unless Covoid-19 restrictions prevent it. Several therapists have been deployed to hospitals. Two weeks ago, the therapists began wearing masks. Since last week we patients are.

Now with realistic optimism, I can do this! I might even thrive. . .

 

 

“Care” is Their Middle Name

Iowa’s Stuart Community Care Center is an exceptional community. My mother and five of my aunts spent their last months there–from just six weeks and two days to several years, among very loving employees who saw to their needs.

In 2011, Judy Neal Johannesen, the daughter of my Aunt Helen Neal, presented the facility with a poignant hand-lettered calligraphy artwork, which is still prominent at the end of their main hall.

[image error]

[image error]

 

[image error]Standing: Patty (Wells) McKee, Audrey and Vince Wells, Judy Neal Johannesen presenting the calligraphy to a Care Center employee. Seated: Mary Jane McKee, Nadine (Neal) Shepherd, Betty (Neal) Wells, Helen (Cook) Neal.

[image error]

Article about Judy and her calligraphy business.

Nadine and Betty’s youngest sister, Marian Beaman, moved there in 2012. Also my mother, Doris Neal, in 2015.

[image error]At a “cousin party” at Jacque Johnson’s Adel Quilting and Dry Goods in 2002: Helen Neal, Betty Wells, Doris Neal, Nadine Shepherd, and Marian Beaman.

Mom’s sister, my Aunt Darlene Scar, lived in the Willows section before moving into a nursing home room. So all six of these ladies were watched over at the “conscientious, diligent, efficient, effective, family-oriented” Stuart Community Care Center during the last months of their lives.

[image error]Aunt Darlene Scar, 2016.

Not only are the employees of the Stuart Community Care Center kind and personable to the residents, visitors usually know more than one person living there, or know their family. Families are welcome to congregate in the dining area for birthday parties and reunions.

“Community” is one facet of their success. Their motto is another: “Care that comes from the heart.”

Cousin Judy recognized the them in a tangible and artistic way that residents, employees, and visitors can all enjoy.

 

The Bluejackets’ Manual 1944

[image error]

This manual didn’t belong to either of my uncles who served in the Navy, but I was certainly glad to find a copy. Delbert and Donald Wilson enlisted in the US Navy in 1934. Donald stayed in, but Delbert got out after the original enlistment.

After Pearl Harbor was attacked, Del reenlisted.

E 1/c Delbert G. Wilson served aboard the USS Maumee (AO-2) during the war; also worked an Attack Teacher at the US Naval Submarine School.

CEM Donald W. Wilson was already on the crew of the USS Yorktown, which was sunk at the Battle of Midway. Surviving electricians helped bake out engines on the USS California (BB-44), which had been raised after being sunk during the Pearl Harbor attack. Then served on the crew of the USS Yorktown (CV-19)

[image error]

[image error]

Donald Wilson: Kamikaze

Donald Wilson, who survived the sinking of his USS Yorktown at the Battle of Midway, was now a Chief Electrician’s Mate aboard the aircraft carrier, USS Hancock (CV-19).

The ship and crew had taken part in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval battle of all times, the October before, and had been in combat most of the time since. The US armada consisted of thousands of ships by then, but the Japanese were using increasingly desperate tactics.

While the Hancock attacked Kyushu airfields and Inland Sea shipping March 18, 1945, the Japanese counter-attacked causing 1400 casualties on two ships.

The U.S. carrier force was under attack the next three days. The ship following the Hancock in formation lost over 1000 men. Four other ships were also damaged. When a kamikaze was shot down over the Hancock a day later, parts of the plane hit the deck and its bomb landed in the water within just 100 feet of the ship.

Kamikaze aircraft were essentially pilot-guided explosive missiles. Because accuracy much highter than conventional attacks, Japanese pilots would try to crash their aircraft into enemy ships. “The goal of crippling or destroying large numbers of Allied ships, particularly aircraft carriers, was considered by the Empire of Japan to be a just reason for sacrificing pilots and aircraft.”

On March 21, the stack of the carrier was hit by the guns of a U.S. ship aiming at kamikazes. The Hancock attacked the Nansei-Shoto Islands in support of the ongoing combat with Japan.

There were 65 more casualties when kamikazes hit two ships March 27. 

Day after day, the carrier struck several islands and supported the Tenth Army on Okinawa with continuous combat. A kamikaze hit another U.S. ship, causing twenty-nine casualties.

U.S. troops landed on Okinawa, just 350 miles from Japan, April 1st. Kamikazes damaged eight Allied ship, resulting in several casualties. Six ships were hit the next day, 167 men killed, 166 wounded. Three more ships were hit while the Hancock supported the troops April 3 and 4.

Waves of kamikazes attacked the U.S. fleet off Okinawa April 6, hitting sixteen ships, some several times. Five ships were lost, with many casualties.

Don’s ship was in combat in the Nansei-Shoto Islands. The next day, April 7, 1945, off southern Kyushu, a kamikaze cartwheeled across the Hancock’s deck. Its bomb hit the port catapult and exploded, killing sixty-two men, wounding seventy one. Fourteen other ships were hit. One of them sank, many casualties.

[image error]The U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Hancock (CV-19) is hit by a kamikaze suicide plane off Okinawa, 7 April 1945. US Navy photo.

Two days later, the carrier continued in combat in the Nansei-Shotos. And it retrieved from other ships the Hancock’s survivors of the kamikaze attack they’d rescued.

As the carrier retreated to Ulithi the next day, they held burial services at sea.  Damage to the ship was so extensive that it was ordered to Pearl Harbor for repairs. The Hancock was out of action through early June. 

[image error]

During ten days, The U.S. Navy had taken its greatest pounding in history–1200 casualties. Nearly 200 more kamikazes had attacked the fleet, damaging nine more ships.

At home in Iowa, Donald’s parents had received the second telegram about one of his brothers being Missing in Action. Would this war ever be over with?

In Sickness and in Health. . .

Nearly a dozen husbands, including my own, spend considerable time each day caring for a wife with chronic health challenges. I don’t remember such a thing with the adults in my childhood, but this is real and it’s life-changing.

When my fibromyalgia began 19 years ago, I was probably in denial. Yes, I consulted doctors, but tried to say dressed until Guy went to work. As soon as he left, I’d be in bed with the debilitating exhaustion and unexplained pain.

When he retired, no more denying.

I couldn’t travel, which many retirees have as one of their goals. Still can’t much. Guy does floors, grocery shopping, all the outdoor work. Since my recent shoulder surgery, he’s even taken over dishes, picking up prescriptions, and driving me to appointments–anything I can no longer do myself.


[image error]Doing what needs to be done.


Three of the men I’ve noticed have also dealt with their wives’ unwellness for years, coming to church alone. Their spouses at home don’t have enough energy to get dressed and even to interact with others.

Two care for a wives too ill with COPD to travel, or be out in public anymore, especially with the Covid-19 scare.

Another gentleman does caretaking every evening after he gets home from work because of his wife’s disability.

Spouses of two of the men suffer from fibromyalgia plus lupus, which dictate their lives, what normally enjoyable events they can attend.

Yet another has dealt with his wife’s doctor visits, surgeries, and recoveries for years.

One man commented that he was doing “maid duties,” since his wife suffers from neuropathy. Occasionally he travels with his buddies, but I’ll bet he comes home with a smile on his face.

As Guy does when he’s out for ice cream in a classic car with his best friend. Or a small group of them drive to “Boone for breakfast” on a Saturday morning. Or even a few days at a condo in the Ozarks for a group of husbands whose wives don’t travel well.

He always comes home.

I’ve been pondering that lately. All of these men are part of a quiet brotherhood who long ago–some over 50 years ago–took vows to be there for the long haul. They’re fulfilling those vows well.

Others can’t help but notice what blessing they are to their wives and families, all of them.

For richer for poorer, in sickness and in health. . .

They always come home.

—–
[image error]
Featured image by one of the men mentioned above. He was grateful that someone had brought him the Lysol. I was also struck by the poignant hand-knitted dishrag on his sink.

The Christian in a Time of Crisis–Guest Post by William R. Ablan

Definition of a First Responder – The person who runs into the bad situation while everyone else is running away from it.

I don’t often pull out the old soap box and get on it, but I’ve been thinking of our jobs as Christians in the face of Covid-19. Is it our job to try to save ourselves, or to be out there showing the love of God.

The Bible tells me in Luke 17:33 (NLT) that: If you cling to your life, you will lose it, and if you let your life go, you will save it.

To me, that means two things. If we put this earthly life over the life God meant for us to live, are we really living. Will there be a hereafter. And which is more important, the here and now or the promise of what’s to come?

As Christians, we have been afforded a unique opportunity. We have been given the chance to find out who we really are in Christ. Now, I’m not saying to disregard common sense advice from the government and the likes (even if you are Iron Man, you don’t go tap dancing in a minefield), but to use caution.

Check with your local church or food bank or relief organization. Are there at risk people for instance who need groceries. You can make arrangement for delivery. Pick up the groceries, you don’t even need to go inside, they’ll load it for you. Drive them to the the person’s house, and leave them on the doorstep. You might want to ring the doorbell and let them know they’re there.

You’ve still maintained social distancing but performed a service for Christ.

And last time I checked, Covid-19 isn’t transmitted over the phone lines or the internet. We can still reach out and encourage people. A lot of people are afraid of getting ill, and rightfully so. You can still reach out and talk to people (technology is wonderful thing if properly used). Encourage one another.

Last but not least, don’t give into fear. It’s fear that has stripped our supermarket shelves. It’s fear that has taken good men and women and turned them in hoarders. (I predict a lot of beans served at community gatherings once this is all over). Some people are actually afraid to leave their homes. As far as they’re concerned, the air is laced with Covid.

From where I sit, fear is not a good place to live from.

I was talking with a man who told me he’s been looking at the sky, and for the last several days felt like he was missing something. It finally occurred to him. Because of the topology of the front range, we almost always have this cloud of pollution hanging over us. It was gone. The stay at home order had meant cars weren’t moving much and the stain they leave on the sky had washed away.

Another tells me he woke up to find himself living in a house full of strangers with which he shared some history and a last name. They aren’t strangers anymore. He even likes them.

As I said, we have a unique opportunity here. An opportunity to reforge those bonds with our family. An opportunity to show God’s love to our community in the face of daunting odds. An opportunity to discover the incredible things that makes life so rich.

We are the First Responders. Pray for your friends, and families. Pray for your community and nations. Pray your leaders are given wisdom at all times.

And be of of service where you can.

So be encouraged. We live in interesting times. Now it’s your choice, do you want them to make you or break you?

—–

William Ablan, pen name of Richard Muniz, is the author of the new book, Against Flesh and Blood. My review on Amazon.

[image error]

 

Nine Patch Quilt–Laura (Jordan) Goff

Laura Arminta Jordan was born in a log cabin over 150 years ago–on September 28, 1868, a half mile west of Monteith in Iowa’s Guthrie County. I was a freshman in college when my great grandmother died in 1962.

[image error]Baby Joy with her motherline: Doris Wilson Neal (almost 26), Leora Goff Wilson (54), Laura Jordan Goff (76). All four were the oldest daughter in her family. July 4, 1944, Minburn, Iowa.

After her husband Sherd Goff died in 1930, Laura moved to Omaha to live near her sons. When her oldest daughter Leora was widowed after World War II, they lived together at 505 N. 4th Street in Guthrie Center, Iowa. After Laura died in 1962, Leora (Goff) Wilson, lived there alone 25 more years.

[image error]505 N. 4th Street, Guthrie Center, Iowa

Leora was my beloved grandmother. When she died in 1987–at age 97, her daughters spent weeks sorting and cleaning out her little house in Guthrie Center, Iowa.

[image error]Leora (Goff) Wilson and Laura (Jordan) Goff. Photo by Merrill Goff, grandson of Laura, 1948, Omaha, Nebraska. (Leora Wilson had 10 children, including two sets of twins, all born at home. Her mother Laura had 11 children, also at home.)
[image error]Great Grandmother Goff, as I remember her.

One day I went to Guthrie Center with Mom and Aunt Darlene to help them sort and clean. They emptied a linen closet in the hall.

“Here, Joy. You’re the quilter.”

I ended up with miscellaneous cotton prints and a couple of quilt tops stitched by Great Grandmother Goff. One was a cluttery-looking Nine Patch, but at least each square had a red center patch.

[image error]

It’s too small for a bed but I decided to quilt it anyway. Binding it with red cotton brought out all the small red center squares.

It turned out charming. Sort of.

[image error]

The best part is that Great Grandmother and I worked on the same bit of patchwork. I certainly wish I’d asked questions about raising all those youngsters, about her own parents and siblings. Alas.

Another quilt top made by Laura Goff gave me a lot more trouble. Click here for the story about Laura’s Periwinkle quilt.