The Gowrie Post Office

Gowrie had a post office and early on it was located in the same building as the offices and printing establishment of the Gowrie News. Armanis F. Patton owned and ran the paper and I think he was also the postmaster. He probably got the position as a patronage plum during the Coolidge and Hoover Republican years — at any rate he lost it after Roosevelt was elected.

My father took the test for being the postmaster after he lost his job at the bank during the Depression, but I think he placed only third and did not get the job. Besides he was or had been registered as a Republican.

The individual who got the appointment was Mrs. Lundvick, the wife of the doctor that my mother had for some of the births of us older children, but whom she abandoned later on. Mrs. Lundvick must have had the correct political orientation though, as I recall, she placed first in the examination. Why did she compete for the position? Was it because her husband was losing out professionally as a doctor?: Rumor had it that he had a problem with alcohol.

Gowrie did not have mail delivery within the town — either you had a mailbox and the mail was put into it and you had to walk to the post office to get it (but it was there to be had even thought the post office hours were over) or the mail was delivered over the counter. Either way though you had to walk downtown to get one’s mail and I recall that such an excursion was a daily occurrence at my grandmother’s. For us my father would naturally pick up the mail while he was at town for his work at the bank. Our box was number 4, I always wondered how we got such a low number and who had the numbers 1, 2 and 3.

The post office had one little window that opened up when someone was in the post office to provide stamps and other service. The rest of it was taken up with the usual counter for writing on, with the ubiquitous scrawly ink pens of the times and the array of mailboxes.

Rural mail deliver was of course free and I remember this was commented on favorably after our move to the farm. Some Gowrie residents on the edge of town were, I think, occasionally successful in getting themselves included on a rural route so they did not need to go to the post office to get their mail.

Gowrie had two rural delivery routes and my impression was that there was usually considerable competition for them. If nothing else they did furnish a dependable sure income. When we were on the farm our carrier was Liljegren — he never did seem unduly prosperous to me but he certainly had a living. Duane Anderson (of the Leader Store Andersons) was a carrier in the time after the war. He had been in the service and this may have given him an edge to get the position. In time he married and was living with his family in what had been Nellie Scott’s residence — this was after my parents moved back into town. He always seemed sort of a dour individual, perhaps his economic outlook had been clouded by the failure of his father’s business. The Andersons had always been staunch Lutherans and Duane took refuge in the religion I think in response to the emotional and financial problems he doubtless experienced.

The father of Vincent’s wife Jean was also a rural mail carrier. He was a veteran of World War I and when he quit farming he got the carrier job. I recall the first time I ever saw him. He had been farming to the east of the Peterson farm over in the vicinity of Burnside and had rented a farm west of Gowrie. He came driving a tractor along the road in front of the Peterson farmstead, as part of transferring his equipment to his new location. The tractor was pulling a wagon or something laden with various items, but the only clear recollection I have is of his John Deere tractor. Why we were aware of his passing I don’t know — perhaps the mail had just come and we were out to get it so we were standing by the mailbox. I have the vague memory that he asked for a drink of water. I even have the vague impression that some of the Peters children were along — it thus may have been the first meeting between Vincent and Jean.

Two Drug Stores and a Beer Hall

There were two drug stores in Gowrie, the more substantial establishment being Bowman’s. Bowman’s was also the place where school textbooks were purchased until the time when the school took over this function. Even then, at least initially, the school district required that the students purchase the texts. Bowman’s was also the source of the supply of marbles to play this young boy’s game with. I can recall splurging once in the purchase of an agate — they were normally used as shooters. I was not a particularly good marbles player but I did participate.

The other drug store was across the street in a less imposing and not quite plumb wooden structure (Bowman’s was brick). Both stores had a soft drink counter of sorts. I think the second was called Youngquist’s Rexall but I am not sure.

After Prohibition was repealed Gowrie acquired a beer hall, much to the dismay of the local WCTU. This den of ill repute was located more or less across the street from the Johnson lumberyard. It usually had a few cars parked in front of it — non-teetotalling old farmers in town for a quick pickup I suppose. The building was a newly constructed one for the particular purpose.

Comics and Crossword Puzzles

My parents subscribed to the Fort Dodge Messenger rather than the Des Moines paper. I would have preferred the Des Moines paper with its more imposing cartoon section, which for me at an early age was the most important part of the paper. Sometime when I was 8–10 years old I suppose the Messenger expanded its comic section but the added comics were not the well-known ones. I can recall only one of these, about an aviator named Scorchy Smith.

The Messenger did carry the Webster cartoons as well as a strip about a George Tuttle (?) and his wife Josephine (?) who were always carrying on sort of a verbal battle (brought on by George’s idiosyncratic actions). I didn’t appreciate at the time the subtle humor of these two cartoons.

My favorite cartoons at the time (in the Sunday papers which I garnered from Albert and Molly Rosene) were Popeye and Flash Gordon. I wonder if my unrealized aspiration to be a cartoonist dates from these exposures to cartoons.

Later in life my preferences shifted to such cartoons as Li’l Abner and Pogo. My introduction to Pogo as a cartoon was through a Shell colleague, one Werden Waring. I am not sure just what his position was at Shell but he was on the scene in San Francisco and later Emeryville after the engineering department was moved there. I think in the period just after WWII, Shell along with most companies was interested in building up their technical and engineering staff and welcomed just about anyone who could reasonably be expected to develop into a useful employee. I think Werden fell into this group but in his case he really didn’t find his niche in the organization and left Shell in the early to middle 1950s. Like many Shell employees he was an interesting individual with interesting ideas and outlook. I was never close to him so I lost all contact with him when he left Shell.

One additional thing about the Fort Dodge Messenger and that was that it carried a crossword puzzle. I can remember trying them, but I didn’t do them regularly — not consistently as is my present wont.

My Bicycle

I was the only one of us six children to get a bicycle and that happened because I was given $25 at the time I was born by my uncle Carl. I am quite certain that the reason behind my uncle’s gift was that I was born on his birthday and was naturally given his name.

When I was at the age where I craved a bicycle I was told by my parents that I could use this money for this purpose. Which I did, buying the bicycle from the Lennarson and Johnson hardware store. It received considerable use, both in such activities as following Harris on his paper route and later when we were living on the Peterson farm as a mode of transportation to Gowrie for such things as the Saturday morning Confirmation class. That lasted during the year when I was a freshman in high school. As I grew older and my use of it diminished, my brothers tool over, but they never used it to the extent I had.

I never felt much empathy with my uncle Carl, somehow or other our personalities did not respond to each other. I think my uncle had a more congenial relationship with my cousin Eugene. Perhaps this was because Eugene had lived on the Peterson farm as a child when my uncle Serenus was participating in the running of the farm. My uncle Carl would have tended to have had a closer contact with him on a more or less daily basis during Eugene’s early years. It is true that my uncle compensated me for the work I did for him and the farm and this helped me with my educational expenses at SUI. On the other hand he never helped me with my actual school expenses as he did with Eugene.

Banks

During my early days in Gowrie there were two banks — the First National Bank where my father worked and the State Bank across the street on the south side. The National Bank was founded by Nils Lindquist and had been inherited by his two sons Frank and Arthur. Frank, the older son, was the president of the bank. Art’s position was less well defined, at least in my mind, perhaps he could be classified as a teller. My father was the bookkeeper. I can recall my father commenting on the day’s work, saying for example that he had had trouble with the trial balance at the end of the day.

The National Bank survived the Depression, partly because a local well-to-do farmer injected some capital into the business. Frank was on the conservative side in his outlook and this may have kept the bank in such shape that it could survive.

The State Bank failed. In a way it does survive in that in later years the National Bank forsook its original location and moved across the street into what was formerly the State Bank. Also Maurice Lindquist (Frank’s only child, a son, who eventually acquired the bank in toto, Art Jr. selling out I guess) changed the bank charter from national to state and it is now the Gowrie state bank. I think the old National Bank building now houses the resident lawyer in Gowrie (one Dean Erb). We have used his services on occasion in connection with the farm property we own in Iowa. Maurice’s son inherited the bank from his father, moved his residence to Gowrie and operated the bank for a while but I believe he later sold it to some regional bank.

At the original state bank, the bookkeeper (paralleling my father’s position) was Fred Magnusson. Fred’s oldest child was Harris who was my age and was in my class at school until he was kept back a grade. Harris and I spent a good bit of time together mostly in connection with the paper route he had for the Des Moines Tribune. The Tribune was an evening paper, actually sort of late afternoon paper while sister paper, the Register, was delivered in the morning. After I got my bicycle I would accompany Harris on his evening route, and also on Saturday mornings when he did his collecting. It never entered my mind to try to get a paper route, somehow or other I have the impression that such an enterprise would have been viewed by disfavor by my parents. I think they tended to be too protective of their children, at least the older ones, in restricting certain activities outside the home. The attitude was particularly noticeable with regard to anything which would interfere with the religious activities and the usual Sunday routine. With respect to a paper route such conflict would occur on Sunday mornings with the delivery of the Sunday paper. Although at the time the Tribune and the Register had separate daily editions, the Sunday edition was a common one.

Harris was a congenial extrovert and we got along well as friends. Considerably taller than I and much better in his athletic abilities, Harris participate in the high school basketball team (of course this was after out family moved to the Peterson farm, when I had much less contact with him). Both Harris and his younger brother Floyd played on the University of Iowa basketball team. So Harris and I were at the university during the same time but I had no contact with him anytime I was at school there.

The local farmer who, by injected some capital into the Lindquist bank, saved it from failure during the Depression was Warner Larson. His “home” farm was located a mile north and about a mile west of the Peterson farmstead. I believe he was an immigrant but I am not sure. He was a large burly man, a prodigious worker and fiscally astute. Though strong he suffered from human frailties like all humans. I recall my uncle Carl relating the story that on one occasion he [Warner, I assume, not Carl — LS] was doing some custom mowing work for my grandfather Peterson and his mower ran into a hornet’s nest. He was stung several times, enough to make him quite ill at the time as a result.

In age he was of a generation between my grandparents and their children. I recall my mother saying she had one of the younger Larson children, Kenneth, as a student, either in the country school or in the church Sunday school. Larson’s crusty temperament was counterbalanced by that of his wife who was of a much more equitable nature. I didn’t know her well, but when I was having my encounter with appendicitis, she visited me in the hospital and left a book on Abraham Lincoln as a gift. Mrs. Larson died quite some years before her husband and I recall his lonely figure at Sunday morning services seated on the left side of the church near the front. I was a youthful usher at the time and noted that his invariable contribution was a dime. I’m sure he contributed a great deal more to the church than his weekly dime, but his token weekly contribution reflected his careful attitude toward money.

Larson gave each of his four children the title to a farm sometime in the early adult life. I think some of these farms cam by foreclosure on loans he made to less fortunate individuals at the time of the Depression. So he could be as hard-hearted as any banker should the situation arise. He was equally stern with his children. When his twins (Harris and Margaret I believe) participated (or tried to participate) in “skip” day at Gowrie High School he learned of it and sent Harris out to haul manure and told his wife that if she couldn’t keep Margaret busy to send her out to help Harris. I’m sure this story is what actually happened as I think I heard it either from Harris himself or from a reliable secondary source.

Larson himself was the very epitome of a self-made man, who thought doubtless of little education knew the value of it. He made the best use of whatever hand life had dealt him and expected his children to do likewise. I personally could not be so hard-hearted with any of my offspring. They mean too much to me.

I am reminded at this point of a colleague of mine both at SUI and at Shell. His oldest child, a girl, was I think given a college education by him and his wife (both of whom achieved their college degrees with little of no financial support from their parents). When Laura, the child, after a stint in the Peace Corps wanted to return to school to earn a degree in pharmacy my colleague friend and his wife would not help her. So she struggled to achieve her goal on her own and did.

She was a pharmacist for a while and died a rather mysterious death the circumstances of which have led me to believe her death was a suicide. During this period she had I think strained relations with her parents. Their second child, a boy, was after his college career, estranged from his parents. Only the youngest remained close to his parents and only he had any children.

My opinion of my friend is that he brought this estrangement from two of his children by his intransigent attitude. He came from a rather strict Presbyterian background and was himself dedicated to the sect and I think this influenced his conduct relative to his children. I could never do what he did, my children as so much a part and parcel of me that though they may do things I consider unwise I would not let this affect my relations with regard to them.

I have often wondered if my colleague at Shell ever looked back at his actions with respect to his children and in retrospect rued what he had done.

Shell Emblem Cuff LInks

I don’t much care for jewelry and have never used a ring for example as an adult. I think I did use some sort of cheap ring as a child for a time. Shell would give its employees little emblems in the shape of a pecten shell on their tenth anniversaries and on succeeding 15th, 20th, etc. anniversaries.



Jean had mine for my ten- and fifteen-year milestones make into cuff links that I used until they were stolen from our car in 1978 as it was parked in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. I contacted Shell to see if I could buy replacements but I was informed that the design was no longer in use or available. I have in the safe deposit box the emblems for 20, 25 and 30 years of employment at Shell.

One of the Shell alumni in our little group of retirees was in middle management at Shell and in connection with this had received over the years several sets of Shell emblem cuff links. He gave me a set which I used for a while on the rare occasions when I would use a shirt requiring cuff links. I lost one of the pair so I used a pair that one of my daughters had made either in school or Camp Fire. After the two strokes I have had we no longer attend church which was the only place I would wear a suit or a shirt using cuff links so I no longer have any possible use for cuff links.

Timepieces

I mentioned earlier that the public library in Gowrie started our as a back room adjunct to the one jewelry store in town. The store survived the Depression (it would not have survived except that it became sort of a variety store). The jewelry part of the store declined however and old man Brunson succeeded in keeping his watch repair business going.

Like Bert Gardner, the slow barber, Brunson was a slow watch repairman. I never had anything to do with him but once my uncle Carl took his watch in to Brunson to either have it serviced or repaired. During the time it was being repaired Brunson gave him some sort of watch as a temporary replacement — not a very high-quality watch as it kept either gaining or losing time at a considerable rate. Typical of my uncle Carl it did not occur to him that the main idea of the replacement was to provide a quick and reasonably accurate indication of the time. Rather what intrigued him was to investigate how inaccurate the replacement was and the simplest way to do this was never to reset it. Thus he needed to make an adjustment in his mind whenever he looked at the watch to see what time it was.

I think it never occurred to him to keep a running record and to reset it each day. Normally he would set his watch against the clock sitting on the mantel in the parlor of my grandmother’s house which I suppose in turn would be reset against the noon whistle in the town. The town whistle was a fixture of life in the town — I think it was located atop one of the downtown buildings in Gowrie but I’m not sure of that.

Somewhere along the line, my uncle Carl, following his mechanical bent, became interested in clocks. While in his old age and living at the home in Madrid, he took to repairing the clocks for the other inmates, whoever would bring one to leave with him. On one of the few occasions I visited him there the table in his small cell-like room would be littered with clocks in various stages of dismemberment and repair. I recall someone saying that the personnel at the home were annoyed at the disorder he created in this way.

My uncle had other differences with the staff at the home. He would go for walks and the staff would check on him and he was not to be found. To his dying day he was a man with his own way of doing things.

The pocket watch that my uncle Carl used (and was the one he took to Brunson for repair) was probably the one that his father gave him on the occasion of his 25th birthday. My recollection is that my grandfather did this for each of this child (at least for those reaching that age before he died). My mother had such a watch — I believe that it was one that could be worn as a brooch. She kept it in a little box along with some other jewelry in her dresser.

Once my brother Vincent got into the box, took out the watch and it was found, damaged in the path crossing the vacant lot next to the little brown house (this obviously occurred before Mel Rosene built his new house there). I never saw my mother use her watch — it may have stopped functioning — and I have no idea what happened to it eventually.

My grandfather Strand and my father also had old-style pocket watches. I think that Marold inherited my dad’s; where my grandfather’s ended up I have no idea. During my high school years I acquired a wristwatch — purchased at Olson’s jewelry in Fort Dodge. Whether I financed this purchased myself or my parents bought it for me as a substitute for the class ring that I chose not to buy I don’t remember.

My parents did present me with a pocket watch on my graduation from college, and Shell gave me another watch when I passed my 25th year with them. I used them as timepieces up until a few years ago when the age of the two watches, we well as their being outdated made it have for even a knowledgeable watch repair person (who also were becoming difficult to locate) to find the spare or replacement parts to keep them running. I had them cleaned and restored to running condition one more time and just stopped using them. They now sit in the safe deposit box.



18th birthday watch




Shell 25th anniversary watch

I think of them occasionally and realize that this is indeed silly. I guess what I should do is make a little display case and have them on my dresser where I can enjoy looking at them each day. For a while I took to using a cheap pocket watch that I was able to find either at Kmart or a local discount store. On special they would retail for about $5 and would last for a couple of years before they would cease to function. Eventually their availability stopped and since then I have used battery-operated watches. I am now on the second one of those.

Health

Generally my own health has been good all my life except for the episode with appendicitis. During the earlier years of my married life and with the responsibilities of caring for the family I did have fairly frequent physical checkups, etc. The Shell first aid department at Emeryville provided gratis physical checkups which would catch the more obvious evidences of trouble. Through the first aid department I also established a relation to Dr. Patch in Berkeley who periodically would give me a more detailed physical examination. He was an individual about my age and was I think the one doctor whom I have most liked and trusted.

Sometime during the early years of our marriage I had a kidney stone attack. The stone passed without surgery or specific treatment but it was rather painful. To ease the discomfort Jean at one juncture gave me a hot water bottle which was too hot and I had a burn somewhere on my back — there was a scar for a while but I think as of now it has disappeared. The same can be said for the evidences of my bout with the shingles several years ago.

At one time I re-read what I had written to this point and came to this point where I comment on my general good health throughout my life except for my appendicitis. This comment did not anticipate the heart attack I had in the early 1990s and the subsequent bypass surgery. This occurrence has been a definite watershed in my life. Up until that time my eventual demise was somewhat of an abstraction, not it is something that can happen at any time. As to my heart the cardiac surgeon indicated that the bypass surgery could reasonably be effective for ten years, perhaps more since in my case the graft material was from an artery instead of a vein.

But now in 2004 I am well past the ten years so my heart could give out at any time. I have also in the meantime in the last two years or so have had two minor strokes. They affected primarily my right arm and leg and while I have regained most of the use of my arm and leg my left hand is still rather impaired. I surmise it will be that way the rest of my life. I am fortunate though that I have recovered as much facility as I have. I take my Previx [Plavix?] pill once a day and it is over a year since my second stroke and there has been no recurrence.

As a result of my heart attack I did two things. First I decided to write an account of my life experiences so that my children would know about it, not like in the case of my father of whose early life I actually know relatively little. The other action was to prepare for an eventual move from our house here in Ashland to a “retirement” facility. First we considered moving to the Rogue Valley Manor but that did not work out and we have ended up at Mountain View Retirement Residence in Ashland.

More Medical Matters

Later in the summer of the same year my mother had her operation for goiter. I think this condition was brought forcefully to her attention by Dr. Studebaker during one or more of the post-hospital visits to him to check on the healing of the cuts on my abdomen. Her convalescence was slower than mine and we had a “hired girl” for several months as I recall. Her name was Sigrid Anderson, she lived in with us, did pretty much everything from cooking to housework, and I suppose worked 12 to 14 hours each day. She had one day off — her boyfriend would come around late Saturday afternoon and she would return about the same time Sunday evening.

My mother also had an operation for gallstones, I think sometime during the war years. By then I was working in California so I don’t know the details, but I think the operation occurred during the summer. Anyway Vivian returned to help out during the post-operative period. Dr. Studebaker had retired by then. I don’t know who the surgeon was.

My appendicitis and my mother’s goiter operation came of course at a time of financial difficulties for the family. I really don’t know how these expenses were handled, except that the doctor’s (Studebaker’s) fees were delayed and he reduced the charges to half of his normal fees. How the hospital costs were handled I have no really good information but I have the faint recollection that my grandmother out of her own funds handled the costs of employing Sigrid Anderson — which were at the munificent level of $3/week. It is hard for me to credit that recollection but I am fairly certain it is correct.

Whereas my mother had at least four experiences in a hospital, Marold’s birth, her goiter and gall bladder operations and her final stay at the time of her death, my father had only one stay in a hospital. As in my mother’s case he died in the Lutheran hospital in Fort Dodge. My mother apparently died of a heart attack. She had just bathed and while no one was in attendance her heart just stopped. I don’t really know what my father died of. I do know that his death was preceded by a very high temperature that had he survived at the time might have made his mental capacities questionable afterward.

Bookends

The post on November 6, 2010, featured some items my dad made in his high school manual arts class. My sister was finally able to send me some photos of the bookends he made, one of which is featured here.

A Brush with Mortality

When Dr. Erickson died or retired (the two events may have coincided) his practice was sold to Dr. Borgen whom my mother called to see me when I had my ruptured appendix in 1934. I don’t have too clear a recollection of the night before Dr. Borgen came out to the farm but I know I was feeling pretty awful. Actually the discomfort had eased towards morning and this was interpreted subsequently as indicating that the appendix had ruptured.

It was the spring of the Dust Bowl in the southern plains and this dust had blown north and was pervasively settled on and in everything in the house. Anyway the house was quite dusty inside and my mother had sort of cleared a path for Dr. Borgen through the east door, the dining room, the parlor, up the stairs, along the hall and into the bedroom occupied by me and Vincent where I was lying on the bed. After Dr. Borgen had made his diagnosis he asked my mother where he could wash his hands and my mother was mortified as she had not seen this as likely to occur and the bathroom was a mess.

The surgeon was Dr. Studebaker, the same doctor who had been in attendance at Verner’s birth. For four or five days after the operation I was quite sick and is understand it was pretty much touch and go whether or not I would survive. During this first few days I was attended by a special nurse, around the clock, and I suppose this corresponded to intensive care at the time. This nurse, a Miss Bang (who actually was engaged to be married to one of my father’s co-workers at the county treasurer’s office) had heard of a device developed by a Wallenstein (doctor?) which could be used to elutriate out the contents of a stomach. Sort of like a stomach pump except that the operation was continuous. I guess the water came in through one tube and the stomach contents were sucked out through the other. I think these tubes came in through my mouth but I’m not sure now.

Anyway the device worked and my mother at least credited its use for my survival. Those were the days before antibiotics or even sulfa drugs, so either you survived on your own or you didn’t. I was discharged from the hospital after eleven days. By then I suppose the two discharge tubes through the two incisions on my abdomen had been removed. I don’t recall when the stitches were finally removed. My recovery from that point on was rapid but I was restricted from vigorous physical activity for some moths until the incisions were fully knit again. At the pre-induction physical I had during WWII I recall the examining doctor looking at the scars and commenting on them.

Doctors and Medical Care

During my early days in Gowrie there were two doctors — Erickson and Lundvick. I think my parents used the services of Lundvick at first but at the birth of one of the older children my mother was disenchanted by his lack of attention or competence and may have reverted to Erickson. Rumor had it that Lundvick was addicted to the use of alcohol, although those were Prohibition days and I don’t know where his supply would have been. [I recently read an excellent account of Prohibition — “Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition” by Daniel Okrent. In it, he discusses the various loopholes by which people could acquire alcohol. One loophole allowed doctors to prescribe “medicinal” alcohol. —LRS]

Erickson was no prize either. He was quite old and had lost whatever competence he might have once had over the years. During the period in the late 1930s and early 1940s when my aunt Ruth was ill with whatever ailed her (it was never clear to me what she had but I suspect it was some sort of inoperable cancer), she either went to Dr. Waddell in Paton or to a doctor in Fort Dodge. I recall driving her to both places, using uncle Carl’s old blue Essex.

At one time when my grandmother was having her gall bladder trouble, the family first called on old Dr. Erickson to diagnose her difficulty but when it became obvious that he did not know what was going on and my grandmother’s condition was getting worse, someone in the family called Dr. Waddell and when he came to the house (doctors made house calls as a rather usual thing in those days) he immediately recognized the symptoms and ordered her to Fort Dodge for immediate surgery.

When Verner was born there were complications and Dr. Studebaker came from Fort Dodge to Gowrie to assist in the birth. I don’t know how he was selected. In the birth it was necessary for one of Verner’s legs to be broken and I dimly recall seeing the cast. I certainly recall the actual day — the most vivid recollection though is of Studebaker’s car which was a rather grand one in my child’s eyes. Perhaps because of my mother’s difficulties with the birth of Verner she went to the hospital when Marold was born. I think there was a surgery associated with the birth — perhaps she had her tubes “tied” but that is pure speculation on my part.

Marold was the only one of the children born in a hospital, all the other five children were born at home. Again I have some recollection of the birth, this time it is the recalling of a trip to Fort Dodge to the hospital. But I can only remember sitting in the car outside the hospital, not being inside to see either my mother or Marold. At that time there was only the one hospital in Fort Dodge, the Mercy hospital operated by the Catholic church. The Lutheran hospital was constructed sometime in the early 1930s and currently the two hospitals are under some kind of coordinated management.

My uncle Carl at the time the Lutheran hospital was built made a large enough contribution so that he was entitled to have the use of the hospital any time in his lifetime. He took advantage of this when he decided to have his hemorrhoids taken care of, I am told.

Of Dentists and Dentures

Gowrie had one dentist, Herman Johnson, and I recall having some dental work done by him (his office was upstairs in one of the stores along the south side of the main street of the town, perhaps the Gowrie Savings Bank or the Bowman drug store). Clarice I believe had some teeth braces for a while, but not too effectively as she had an eye tooth that was never correctly aligned as an adult.

Dental work was one of the casualties of the Depression years and except for occasional efforts by my mother to get us to brush our teeth, our teeth received little attention. Until I was in my late twenties I never gave my teeth much attention either but then there were symptoms of toothache and decay and I started to pay some attention to them. I inquired at the first aid department at Shell for a recommendation and started going to a Dr. Hudson. When I started with him, I think he had just started practicing on Bancroft Avenue in Berkeley just below the intersection with Telegraph Avenue. He operated with one assistant who acted as a receptionist or dental assistant whenever needed. Unlike dentists nowadays (at least those we use here in Ashland) he did all the teeth cleaning, X-ray taking, etc. as well as the more professional dental services. Later on he moved to more elegant quarters down on Telegraph Avenue a ways. He proved to be an excellent dentist, though he was not particularly gentle at times.

By the time of my marriage I had had most of the neglected dental work done and at Hudson’s suggestion the work was all gold crowns or inlays. From that time on it was mostly an annual cleaning though there may had been occasional inlay work. As an indication of the quality of his work only one tooth that he put a crown on gave trouble at a later date. This tooth was probably dead and the crown came loose while we were on a trip through Houston in 1980. I had some emergency repair there and when we got back to Ashland the dentist here did a root canal and put on a new crown.

Hudson had either an English or possible an Australian background. His hobby was acting as the unpaid coach of the California rugby team, at least I think he was unpaid. I once referred to the sport as soccer and I was informed in no uncertain terms that soccer was not the same as rugby. It often happened that when I was in the dental chair he would be called to the phone, obviously on rugby matters. The conversations could be quite lengthy at times. Meanwhile I was sitting with dental equipment in my mouth.

Hudson was older than I — in the Cal monthly [magazine] that Jean gets as a lifetime member of the Cal alumni association, there was an article a year or so ago (2002–2004) that reported his death and remarked on his days as the rugby coach. During his tenure as coach the Cal team was highly successful.

While I am on the subject of teeth I want to add a few random recollections. I can see for example my father vigorously brushing his teeth during the time we were living on the farm. He would get a cup with salt water in it and with his toothbrush go outside the house on the rear lawn and go to it. I don’t think he brushed his teeth with any regularity however. But he and my mother eventually had dentures, first my mother and then my father. I think this was after I left home at least in the case of my father. Wherever he got his false teeth, they did not fit too well and when he was eating you could hear them clicking against each other.

It seems to me that my sister Clarice also had false teeth but I am not sure. My grandmother Peterson had false teeth and the story is that when she decided to get them, she had her remaining teeth extracted without anesthesia in the lobby of one of the hotels in Gowrie. Perhaps the dentist was an individual traveling from one town to the next, plying his trade as he went. In a way I find the story a little hard to believe but I have no specific reason for discounting it.

Another recollection I have from a time much later in my life, after our retirement to Ashland. We came acquainted with a retired couple, Albert and Gladys Ernst. Albert had false teeth but didn’t like to have them in his mouth except when he was eating. So he would put them into his mouth before a meal and take them out afterward. He was very adept at doing this so even if you were watching closely it was virtually impossible to see the actual transfer, either in or out. We had a considerable contact with the Ernsts over a period of years, including dinners at the church we both attended and dinners during visits in our respective homes — in all of these there was only once when I thought that I caught Albert in moving his teeth, either in or out, but even then I was not really sure. I don’t suppose that I would have ever known about Albert’s practice had it not been that Gladys confided to Jean about it.

The Johnson Lumber Company

The lumberyard where my father was the part-time bookkeeper was during its heyday an important part of the Gowrie economy. In addition to selling lumber and other building materials, the firm was active in constructing houses, farm buildings, stores and other structures. They were the main contractor in the construction of the Lutheran church building, which was really a very substantial undertaking for a firm of their size. Later on as I have already mentioned they expanded into the grain business and gradually extended the area that their activities occupied.

When we were on the farm my father would drive into town after supper to work on the books and occasionally Clarice or I would go along to prepare itemized statements for various of the projects or purchases. These were simply listings of prices of materials that had been sold or of the charges for labor. In the winter time the office was on the cool side and I can recall wishing for a little more heat. My father typically stood while he was working, using the old hand-operated adding machine.

Sometime in the late 1930s or early 1940s my father left the county treasurer’s office and went to work full-time at the lumber company. The work at the treasurer’s office was more stressful than at the lumberyard. My father had a congenial relationship with the two owners (Carl J. was the man in charge of the construction work, etc., while Axel was the “indoor” man and handled the bookkeeping and the financial side of things). So it was with Axel that my father had most contact.

I think the latter years my father worker were happier years for him. The family was back in town, the financial pressures were much abated (by that time the farm, which my father had inherited when my grandfather Strand’s estate was settled, was finally free of debt, and the indebtedness of my uncle Reuben was at last accounted for) and my father could in his spare time indulge in the gardening activities and cleanup work on the farm that he enjoyed.

After the war was over, a son-in-law of Axel’s came to work for the firm and his activities gradually led to a lessening of the financial condition of the firm. Eventually the two brothers decided to split the business and for a while Carl had a separate construction business. Axel continued at the same original location but eventually tat ceased operation. I don’t know now if there is any building material supply outlet in Gowrie. I believe that both Verner and Marold worked as day laborers for the Johnson lumber company at times. Verner has in the past made some barbed remarks about Carl’s employment practices. I guess he was a member of the old school who figured he was entitled to a full day’s work for a full day’s pay.

Axel was a dark, rather saturnine individual with a good eye for the dollar and had the appellation by some of the locals as the “Swedish Jew.” Carl was the larger man, sort of stooped or hunched from hard labor and a more bluff-mannered individual but still somewhat reserved. He had bought the more westerly lot of the three lots that my grandfather Strand had originally bought in Gowrie and had built one of the few brick houses in Gowrie on it. It was next to the old Nils Lindquist house, the best house in town.

One recollections I have of the Johnsons relates neither to Carl or Axel but rather to Axel’s wife. On some occasion I was in the audience at the new church, it must have been in connection with one of the women’s groups in the church (i.e., either the Ladies Aid or the Missionary Society) and Mrs. Axel was giving some sort of talk or report. She had brought along with her several of her young children (this was before the days of babysitters) and she left them in the pew when she went to give her talk. They ended up playing at her feet at the front of the church. She seemed to have done a better job a raising her family than Mrs. Carl did. One of Mrs. Axel’s sons, Thatcher, became some sort of Iowa state official. Carl’s only son, though an intelligent individual, ended up his life as an alcoholic.

The Library and Reading Books

I guess it was next to the site where the blacksmith shop had been that Brunson’s had their combination jewelry/variety/library store. This was their second location — at the first in a substantially better structure it had been primarily just a jewelry store though even then there was a public library section in the rear. During the Depression the store had to retrench and move to a less auspicious building. The family also expanded their operation to include various stationery items, etc. The library section continued. Just inside the door old Mr. Brunson had his counter at which he plied his trade as watch repairman.

The library played a significant role in my growing-up days and I have memories of going to the store selecting books and taking them home. The library hours were on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons but I don’t remember the specific hours it was open. The Brunsons (the elder Brunsons that is) had one son who resided with them along with their daughter-in-law. The latter was the librarian. The library contained a nucleus of books that were permanently included — I have no idea of the source of these, whether the town had bought them or they had been donated.

The library also had a changing assortment of books from the state library system. These were periodically returned to the state library and a new batch obtained, perhaps every three months or so. The quality of the books was not very high and much of my reading was of westerns, Tarzan books and the like. There were however some classics such as Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.

I must have started using the library at quite an early age. I can recall reading Tom Sawyer and being petrified with apprehension when Tom was lost during the cave episode. I can still see myself sitting on the steps leading to the upstairs in the little brown house, on a Saturday evening after supper was over reading the gripping (to me, at the time) account. Perhaps I had taken out the book just that afternoon. I must have been 8 or 10 at the time.

My mother did not approve of the Tarzan books — they smacked in some way of the evolution of man and although she did not have quite the attitude toward the theory that others in her family did she was definitely ill at ease with the books.

There were also books to read at home which had been garnered in various ways. These were contained in two bookcases (with panel glass doors) in the divider separating the dining room and the parlor in the little brown house. There was one shelf of books which my parents had bought for us as children, probably before the family fortunes declined in the Depression. The only book in this group that I definitely remember was R. L. Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses. There may have been a book about Pinocchio.

My father in his bachelor days had acquired a set of encyclopedias and a multi-volume set of Ridpath’s History of the World. In retrospect these appear to have been rather low-quality books but they did play a useful and informative role in our development. The history contained a considerable number of illustrations, some pretty gory in subject matter. We used the encyclopedias I’m sure in conjunction with our schoolwork.

There were doubtless a considerable number of religious books in the store of books at home but I can’t remember anything about them. There was sort of an illustrated history of the Bible at my grandmother’s house which as children we were allowed to look at on occasion. This book also contained lurid illustrations as of drowning sinners as the floodwaters rose at the time of Noah and other dire happenings. I wonder what happened to some of these books.

One of my fonder recollections of reading books was as I was growing up at the Peterson farm. On occasion, perhaps on Sunday afternoons but at other times I’m sure when work or school did not interfere, I would go to the room that Vincent and I occupied, lie down crosswise on the bed on my stomach so that my feet extended past one side of the bed and my head and arms over the other side. With a book on the floor beneath my head I would read until such time as I was called away for some duty. There was also an old rocker in our room, and I would sit in it with me feet on the windowsill of the window to the east and read as an alternative to lying on the bed and reading.

The whole experience would be particularly enjoyable in the summer time (provided the weather was not too warm) with the two windows in the room open, with perhaps a slight breeze blowing through the room and the inimitable sounds of an Iowa summer in the background. Of these latter I recall with delight and nostalgia such sounds as the cooing of the mourning doves, the song of the meadowlark, the whirring of grasshoppers and the chirping of crickets.

The Blacksmith Shop

Nearby the Chevrolet garage to the west was for awhile the blacksmith shop of “old man Magnusson.” I forget what his first name was. The shop was a really rundown ramshackle building, sadly leaning. It was torn down when I was still quite young, perhaps when the old man stopped working. I seem to recall that he kept on at his trade until shortly before he died. He was short, stopped, gnarled and quite deaf, doubtless from all the noise of the shop — the hammer beating down on iron, etc. The interior of the shop was dim, littered with junk strewn around in seeming total disorder and redolent of the many horses that had passed through the shop over the years to be shod.

I remember the old man coming to the church service on a Sunday morning all alone (his wife had preceded him in death and I have no recollection of her) and using one of the individual earphones because of his deafness. I guess it was at this blacksmith shop that my uncle Reuben had the accident that virtually blinded him in one eye. Evidently an iron chip came sailing and hit him in the eye.

Tractor and Car Dealers

There were two farm implement dealers in the town, selling International and John Deere equipment respectively. Both were thriving enterprises then, now they are completely gone. The John Deere dealer was also the Chevrolet and Hudson/Essex dealer. In 1988 after the Strand family reunion, Jean and I did some genealogical research at the office of the Gowrie News, looking through old issues of obituaries. By chance I noticed an advertisement for Hart-Parr tractors to be sold through the John Deere/Chevrolet agency. It turned out that my uncle Carl was listed in the ad as the agent for the Hart-Parr company. This was a facet of uncle Carl’s dealings with Hart-Parr tractors that I was quite unaware of until then.

I recall being in the dim interior of the car repair section of the Chevrolet garage — one of the mechanics was Ernie Anderson who drove the school bus as a sideline for a time when we were living on the Peterson farm. He was an uncle of Harlan Anderson who lived next door to us on the farm for some years. Harlan went to Fort Dodge junior college one of the years I attended so I got to know him well. Harlan’s parents were Carl and Nellie Anderson, two of the nicest people I think I have ever known.

I have another vivid recollection of the Chevrolet garage. Once when I was I suppose 7 or 8 years old I was pulling our play wagon past the garage apparently on the way between the little brown house and my grandmother’s. The wheels of the wagon were squeaking loudly. One of the individuals sitting on the bench outside the garage adjacent the sidewalk engaged me in conversation about the squeaking. Apparently he was a mechanic on a break from his work because he couldn’t stand the squeaking, went in the garage for an oil can and oiled the wheels.

The Movie Theater and the Meat Market

Gowrie had one movie theater and represented a business/entertainment establishment that was not patronized at all by any member of our family until the older of the children were well into high school. I doubt that either my mother or father ever saw a movie in their entire lifetimes. I personally can only recall being in the theater once, can remember virtually nothing about the feature being shown and don’t remember what the occasion was that brought me there. I’m sure it was an out-of-the-ordinary situation to make a change in the well-established pattern in our family life.

Adjacent to the theater was the principal meat market, first operated by one Lundell who sold out to Hinman. I can still see the features of the market with the sawdust on the floor, the counter extending across the store from right to left separating the proprietor and his wares from the customers. Dimly I recall errands to the meat market at the behest of my mother. On one of those occasions one of the local newsboys came in with his dog in tow (no leashes in Gowrie at the time, the dog just followed his master and there was no hesitation in allowing the dog in the market). For 5 cents the newsboy purchased a meal of liver for his dog who consumed it on the spot where it was thrown on the floor in front of him.

Lundell I think later on restarted a meat market at another location about a block further east and across the street. He had a small sideline in buying unroasted peanuts and roasting them himself. This was an item of food that my uncle Carl liked (along with watermelon) and I can recall being treated to his latest supply when we were at my grandmother’s house at some time.