My Life in the Little Brown House, part 29: Picnics and Dolliver Park

After my mother moved to Grandmother’s house, I think she sold the little brown house — anyway I as never inside it again. I last saw it I suppose in 1988, the year of the Strand family reunion and my 50th high school class reunion. We attended the Fourth of July festivities at the Gowrie park and we drove by the house. I thought it looked in fairly good shape but Vivian thought it was a sad picture (although that may have been her comment at a later time). Houses have been built on adjacent lots (including the old pasture) so it no longer has the feel of being on the very outskirts of town. I wonder how it looks inside now. At least it is still in existence, unlike the Peterson farmhouse.

I note in re-reading what I have written so far about the little brown house and my life there that I have not mentioned any travel or excursions away from the house. Generally there were rather few of these. My mother liked picnics — this was a liking that developed during her school days at Gustavus Adolphus. I think in part it was a reaction to the strait-laced life in the Peterson household.

Anyway, during the summertime there were usually several family picnics at Dolliver Park, typically late in the day after my father’s daily work at the bank was completed. There would always be wieners, roasted on spits over an open fire in one of the places provided in the park. What else was included in the picnic fate I don’t recall. Sometimes other families would be included thought not as a rule my grandmother or those living with her. I always had the impression that picnics were an unnecessary variation of the eating function in the opinion of members of my grandmother’s household. Eating was properly and expeditiously done inside the house seated at a table.

Dolliver Park lay on the Des Moines River between Gowrie and Fort Dodge, I suppose fifteen miles or so from Gowrie. It is a scenic area, by the standards of flat, agricultural Iowa, and I have fond memories of walking the trails, wading in the creek flowing into the river, seeing fall foliage, etc. During trips back to Iowa in later years I have returned to it to enjoy it again and to reminisce of times past. During some of these visits I have picked up acorns (following the example of my father) and from these I presently have several “eastern” oaks in our yard here in Ashland.



Dolliver Park