Reading Material

I would tend to describe my father as somewhat of a dreamer, constrained by the circumstances of his upbringing and later by the demands of marriage and parenthood to a life of diligent labor. He liked to sing although as he sang tenor, his ability to master the high notes was a limitation. In this he exhibited a liking for music, as also evidenced by his acquiring a Victrola during his bachelor days. Probably also during this period of bachelorhood he acquired a set of encyclopedias and a multi-volume set of books called Ridpath’s History of the World. These were during my childhood housed in the two lower shelves of the bookcases on the north side of the partition between the dining room and the parlor of the little brown house. As children we used the encyclopedias in our school studies and on occasion looked through the volumes of Ridpath’s History. The latter was noteworthy for some particularly gruesome scenes as I recall.

My father was also intrigued by faraway places and had he been able to do so, would have been delighted to travel. To take place of this yen he was a long-time subscriber to the National Geographic magazine and I believe he kept up his subscription even during the darkest days of the Depression in the 1930s. My earliest recollection of this file of National Geographics was in a bookcase adjacent his roll-top desk (also dating from his bachelor days) which stood in a corner of the bedroom that Vincent and I used in the little brown house. As children we were permitted to look at these magazines — my favorites were a couple of issues which were pictorial compendiums of both wild and domesticated animals. While these magazines were in the bookcase they were neatly arranged. Later on I recall seeing them in a small cupboard in the bedroom shared by my sisters in the little brown house (after my parents moved back to Gowrie from the Peterson farmstead and during a visit by me back to Gowrie) in a state of random disorder.

After the death of my father the file of magazines was donated to the library of the Gowrie school — a fitting end for them after his many years of service on the local school board.

I think that my mother was acquiescent in my father’s subscribing to the National Geographic during the Depression days. However, my father also subscribed to a church publication, detailing I think what transpired at the periodic meetings of the Augustana Synod. I believe the latter was a quarterly publication. My mother was somewhat acerbic as to the value of this subscription thinking, probably correctly, that my father didn’t read them and never would. Though he did religiously keep and preserve them. Where these were kept I don’t remember.