Traveling by Train

When I started composing this personalized history, or it may have been after I began, I made an outline of the things in my life I wanted to write about. So far I have yet to start following this outline. At this point I feel the need for a more systematic approach and I shall attempt to follow one. Actually I have touched on some of the themes already so there may be some repetition of what I have already set down.

In considering the events of my life, one dominating pattern seems to have been forming or influencing my life, and that is that I seem to have drifted for the most part along the path of least resistance. An avenue would open up and without much evaluation I would move in that direction. This kind of pattern of philosophy does not produce a high level of achievement in any field, tends to dissipate one’s efforts and activities in rather numerous and random directions with no high degree of proficiency in any one of them and makes one reflexive and reflective rather than initiative and leading. But rationalizing what my life has been, I don’t think that I would have wanted to it be any different from what it turned out to be. Even for those parts or occurrences which may have seemed somewhat traumatic at the time.

To summarize, I evaluate my life as having been relatively interesting and varied, with no real “highs” or “lows,” no great achievements but no real catastrophes either. One ideal feature has been a relatively long period of retirement that has provided ample time for reflection and review of my life, the world past and present and the accumulated thinking of thoughtful individuals before me. While I shall doubtless continue the process as I live on the main features of my appraisal are I think largely set at this time and changes will be minor — just smoothing off the rough edges of thought here and there.

I was born on August 6, 1920, in the small town of Gowrie, in the southern part of Webster County, which in turn is located some 80 miles northwest of Des Moines, the state capital of the state of Iowa. The area around Gowrie, indeed most of Webster County, is rich farmland, perhaps not quite the best land in the United States and the whole world, but quite close to being so. It is perhaps somewhat less productive than farmland farther east, as in Illinois, but this is the result of rainfall patterns. Iowa has progressively less precipitation from east to west.

Gowrie was then, and still is a small town of about 1000 inhabitants. Legend has it that a Scot by the name of Gowrie had title to this tract of low-lying west area and in order to make use of it decided to establish a town. More probably the town grew up because of the intersection at the site of the Chicago Northwestern and the Minneapolis and St. Louis railroads. During the early part of the 1900s there were a considerable number of passenger trains, in addition to the freight service, on both of these railroads. The passenger service dwindled over the years, being discontinued first on the CNW. On the M and St. L there was still service at least once a day each way between Minneapolis and Des Moines. I rode on the M and St. L as late as my college days at the University of Iowa while coming from (or going to) Iowa City at such times as Christmas break. By that time the train was a diesel-powered unit of a couple of cars, but I can recall rather dimly the steam locomotive-powered trains of the 1920s. It was such a train that brought the vice-presidential candidate (the Republican Curtis) through Gowrie in the year 1928. Again I can recall seeing the event and the candidate speaking from the rear of the train.

The CNW line through Gowrie was a branch line; the main tracks went through Boone, east and south of Gowrie. When I went to California in 1942 to being my working career with the Shell company, my father bought my ticket from the CNW agent in Gowrie whom he knew. Passenger service on the CNW to Boone had been abandoned by that time; I needed to go to Boone to get the train to California.

At the present the only part of the CNW track still in service is owned by the Grain Co-op which uses it for the hauling of grain. The M and St. L track was refurbished 10 or 20 years ago and is in good shape. The M and St. L tracks run south from Gowrie alongside the old Joe Johnson farm which we purchased in 1960. Actually near the northwest corner of the farm there is a raised area along the track which was to have been a siding at the site originally planned for the town of Gowrie. Perhaps the site was moved to be closer to the CNW line.