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.