Travel

The trip was by far the longest distance outside the state of Iowa that either my mother or father had ever been. My mother had during her schooling at Gustavus Adolphus spent considerable time in Minnesota. And when we as a family went to visit Uncle Serenus in Rock Island (or at least somehwere in the tri-city area of Rock Island, Davenport and Moline) both of them set foot on the soil of Illinois. But with these exceptions I’m aware of no time when they were outside the bounds of the state of Iowa.

My grandparents were in general more widely traveled. My grandfather Peterson had his emigration from Sweden, his trip back and his two trips (at least) to Montana; where else he traveled in the U.S. I’ve no idea. I wonder if her ever got down to Texas where one of his brothers settled.

My two grandmothers had of course their long journey from Sweden, but once they were in iowa they pretty much stayed put.

My grandfather Strand was born in Illinois and sometime in the late 1920s or early 1930s he spent winter in the Long Beach, California, area in the company of one of his elderly Gowrie acquaintances. For a long time I kept a picture packet they he sent me while he was there but eventually it was lost or misplaced and I never saw it again.

A Visit from the Folks

During the time I was rooming at the Wilsons’, in addition to a contunuing exploration of rural acreage, I also looked at residences in the Bay Area. I recall looking at a home in Walnut Creek, in the area just east of the heart of downtown Walnut Creek, beyond the creek and up the hill a way. As I recall I thought the price was too high, but it would doubtless have been a better purchase than the one I finally made of 931 Seaview.

931 Seaview

The house at 931 Seaview was definitely a substandard house — it had been built sort of piecemeal during the Depression days by an individual who was probably hard put to furnish housing for his family. The house was built on sort of a promontory, which I think was sort of a rock outcrop underneath but close to the surface. To the north of the house the terrain fell off rather sharply into an area extremely subject to slides and to this day I think there are no structures on it.

The house actually belonged to the son of a couple that Jean knew and after the purchase was under consideration and they were aware who the potential purchaser was, talked to Jean about my reliability. I bought the house for $7000, I don’t recall what the down payment was. There was an existing loan to the Bank of America and I also took out a second mortgage (to the parents of the wife of the couple who actually owned the house). Owning and doing the fixing up of this old house was an instructive and interesting experience and I left it in a more presentable appearance and condition than when I acquired it, but it was quilt still substandard in character.

I sold it shortly before Jean and I were married — or the final details may have still be in progress at the time. The pirchaser this time was an individual who sold candy, ice cream etc. from a littl;e panel truck (sort of like the Good Humor man) whom we would see near one of the entrances to Tilden Park. Muriel I think knew a boy from the family at school. He must have been really short of funds as I took a third mortgage for my share of the proceeds — it was paid off less than a year later while I was working in Holland and the bank I was using at the time handled the repayment. The new occupant moved in, expanded the existing structure and probably lives there still. He bought the vacant lot next door (on the non-sliding side of the lot) and carved out two lots. Whether he sold them or built the two houses now there I don’t know.

I had purchased the house early in 1952 and my parents decided to make a trip to California for a couple of months over Christmas that year. I think it was a couple of months — it may have been longer. The visit of course was a change in my life pattern during the time of the visit. My mother of course took over the cooking and I suppose at least some of the cleaning. My father though in the early stages of his Parkinson’s disease was still active and he did considerable work in the yard.

To the north of the house on the steep bank leading down to the slide area was a brambly area of wild berry bushes and my father grubbed most of those out during the visit. In retrospect it may bot have been the wisest thing to do as the bushes served to stabilize the slope and prevent erosion. However I wasn’t around long enough afterward to encounter any difficulties if they did ensue. My father needed a spade fir the work he did on the slope so I bought one for him to use. I still have it and use it almost fifty years later.

This was his preferred implement for weeding, etc. and I have come to agree with him that it is better than any hoe or other cultivation tool ever devised. Although the work he did provided something for him to do during the visit I have wondered since if it wasn’t the wisest thing for him to do with his Parkinson’s. I think when he returned to Iowa he more or less soon became incapacitated by the disease. Was it hastened on by his work on my yard?

The Knock Family

I should mention before I proceed further that there were two families with whom I had continuing though not frequent contact after I came to the Bay Area. One family was that of Mabel and Fritz Udden. Mabel had been one of the girls in the Knock family whom my mother had known in childhood. The Knock farmstead was located a milewest and perhaps ¼ mile south of the Peterson farmstead, on the usual route to Gowrie. My mother had often related how her early interest in flowers and gardening was fostered by Mabel who apparently at an early age was involved in this pastime.

There were perhaps half a dozen Knock children when the father of the family died suddenly. The family continued for awhile on the farm but eventually to facilitate the education of the children, Mrs. Knock sold the farm and bought a house in St. Peter, Minnesota, the site of Gustavus Adolphus College and Academy. Here her brood of children ended their way through high school and college.

At least a couple of her sons became Lutheran ministers, one of them being Gust Knock. He became the head pastor at one of the largest bellwether congregationss sof the Augustana Synod. He retired from that post in the late 1940s or early 1950s. A several of his childen were living in California he moved in retirement to the San Francisco area with his wife and for a time was the manager at a home fo the aged in Oakland. Later he left the job for complete retirement and they purchased a house in Oakland. While at the home for the aged, housing had been provided for them.

He and his wife were delightful people and I had occasional visits and meals with them, both when he was manager at the home for the aged and later on after he left there. I recall hearing him preach as a “fill-in” pastor at Bethany in Berkeley where I was then a member. His sermons were not intellectual but simply inspiring homilies.

After Jean and I were married (he was basically the pastor who married us, though the pastor of the church where the ceremony was held participated), we continued to see him and his wife occasionally, typically for some sort of supper meal.

Mabel and Fritz Udden also had moved to the Bay Area, probably after WWII and when I knew them they were living in the Hayward area. I recall being at their home for a supper meal not long after I had transferred north from Wilmington. As with the Gust Knocks I would see them occasionally and this contact continued after Jean and I were married. They also were congenial people though not perhaps as likable as the Gust Knocks.

Both families were dyed-in-the-wool adherents of the Christian faith as represented by the Lutherans. Though my beliefs were in transition and waning, I consequently had some twinges of conscience on the impresion I left with them that I was still of the same opinions and beliefs that they had. I still however found their simplistic view of life appealing. They were certainly untroubled by any deep-seated inspection of Christian dogma.

The Gust Knocks had four children, one of whom lived in the Bay Area. We got to know her also and still keep up a Christmas card contact with her; she now lives in Fresno. I haven’t seen her I believe since before we moved to Houston. A late insertion as I retype my original account of my life, she died a couple of years ago. She was close to ninety years of age and had been in poor health.

Rooming at 411 Bonnie Drive

I guess I roomed at the Reymanns’ for several years, but then I moved to a large basement room at the Wilsons’ — my first period of residence at 411 Bonnie Drive. In addition to Mrs. and Mrs. Wilson the household included their daughter and her two children, plus from time to time her husband who was in the Navy and frequently off on assignment somewhere.

During the time I had been living in the Bay Area I had been gradually accumulating a larger stock of personal belongings. Included in these was a business-type desk. This I had purchased with a business discount (arranged through Shell) from an office supply firm close to the Shell Building in San Francisco. The name of the firm as it sticks in my memory now was Beier and Gunderson. The desk has followed me to the various places I have lived ever since and is indeed where I am now sitting. Like my father I acquired a desk during my bachelor days — his was a roll top variety which Vincent now has.

It was while I was rooming at the Wilsons’ that I started to accumulate my stock of woodworking tools. I also made a toolbox which I still have. The Wilsons had some sort of past association with my mother, I believe through her days at Gustavus Adolphus. The Wilsons were reasonably nice people — Mrs. Wilson was somewhat on the discontented and fussy side and Mr. Wilson was sort of a loser who had drifted through life in a succession of menial and low-paying jobs. When I was rooming with them he was working as a janitor — I believe at the high school. His work shift was after the school day had ended so he was usually absent from the house in the evenings.

When the Wilsons bought 411 Bonnie Drive they had to rely on the credit rating of their daughter and son-in-law to qualify for the financing. It seems to me that there was some sort of understanding that the daughter and her husband would take over the house when he retired from the Navy but this never developed.

Financing the Farm

Before we bought the place I can recall only one encounter with the Joe Johnson farm. On one occasion my mother was involved in some church activity at one of the farmsteads near the place and for some reason I was to join her there after school let out. To get there I took the school bus. The bus driver was rather inept and in turning around in the farmyard got stuck in a snow drift. Perhaps the incident served to fix the whole event in my mind.

Harris I knew of course — he was my age and he and his twin sister Deloris were in my confirmation class. A likable enough individual but quite mediocre in capability.

Old Joe was a rather large, blustery sort of man. On one occasion he bought 10 bushels of potatoes from my uncle Carl. It was well along in the spring so the potatoes he bought were quite small, really the dregs of the crop. As I recall they were the small potatoes that had been sorted out from the general run. He paid $1 per bushel. I guess he must have been trying to provide cheap food for his rather large family. He was not a particularly good or industrious farmer (I don’t think Harris was either and the farm was on the weedy side when we bought it).

The acreage we had in the Joe Johnson farm was augmented when my mother died and my father’s estate was settled. He had willed the farm to his children with the proviso that my mother would have the income from it as long as she lived. My inheritance amounted to about 40 acres and we purchased the rest of the 80 in which it was a part (the north half of my father’s farm) to help in settling the estate. We assumed a debt to Marold as his share of the estate and as I recall we paid it off in a few years.

The loan we took from my mother we had paid off 3 or 4 years after buying the Joe Johnson place. She wanted the money back to be used in constructing a new house on the farm. As I recall we came up with the repayment, in part at least by refinancing the debt we had on 411 Bonnie Drive. The loan to Prudential was paid off in 1980; there had been periodic payments over the years and finally a “balloon” payment of $15,000 in March of 1980.

There was a curious occurrent in connection with the last payment. I kept expecting a final notice from Prudential (their Minnesota office handled the loan payments) and none came. Usually the notices in previous years of the principal and interest due would arrive a month or so before the March 1 due date. I wrote several letters and finally was in telephone contact with someone in Minneapolis (for some reason I remember writing their office in Fresno earlier).

It turned out that the individual handling our final payment (as well as several others) had left the company, leaving the files as unfinished business in his desk. What would have happened had I not investigated the lack of action by the company I don’t know. The lackadaisical performance by Prudential only emphasized in my ming the quality (or lack of it) in the typical insurance company. I have had similar experiences with the Equitable Life insurance company with whom I have two small life insurance policies.

So in the end I had my desire for the ownership of some Iowa land fulfilled. When Vincent decided to sell out his farming operation, he first offered his half of my father’s farm to us and I thought about it for awhile. Had I been younger I think I could have taken him up on his offer but at my age at the time I decided not to. Since then I have wondered if I made the right decision or not.

Out with the Old

Although neither I nor Jean was present at the closing of the purchase, I remember being in Iowa sometime later (whether it was a stopover on a business trip or on a vacation I don’t recall) and Vincent took me to the farm and we looked the place over. Although Harris and his mother rented the house for awhile, they didn’t happen to be at home while we were there, so we went into the house and looked around. The only item that sticks in my mind was the upstairs bedroom where Harris had several guns lying on the floor. I guess he hunted.

The farm buildings were in rather dilapidated condition, particularly the corn crib. The first year that Vincent farmed the land, uncle Carl actually came out during corn-picking and did some of his makeshift repairs on the crib to make it serviceable. Ironic in a way that after all the time I had worked under him, that in our last work contact he as doing something for me.

One interesting feature of the place was the well which had been dug, not drilled. It was 3 or 4 feet in diameter and the sides were lined with stone or brick and mortar. I would have hated to have been at the bottom while it was being dug. With the top off one could look down into the well and see the water. Probably the best building on the place was an airplane hangar — Harris had had an airplane.

I think it was during the first year we owned the farm that Vincent suggested that we sell off what we could from the farmstead and clear the land. This would reduce the taxes somewhat and increase the usable acreage by several acres; there had been a long lane from the road leading to the farm site and this plus the building site comprised several acres. So he arranged for a sale, I think it was in the spring after we bought the place. Altogether I think we realized something over $1000; the house actually sold for $275 and was moved off the place. The airplane hangar also went for a good price but the barn went only for scrap lumber.

After the corn in the crib was disposed of Vincent arranged to have the site bulldozed. He burned up the crib, the trees were cut down and the person clearing the site bulldozed a big hole, pushed all the debris into it and covered it up. The lane was plowed up and for 50-odd years the site has been indistinguishable from the land around it. For while the old hog pasture was weedy but that too has disappeared with time.

Buying the Farm

Though I had, after the move to the Bay Area, pretty much committed myself to engineering as a lifelong occupation and had dispensed with the idea of farming in the Midwest, I continued to be attracted to acquiring some property with an agricultural aspect to it While I was residing at the Reymanns’, the subject of a 17-acre prune ranch near Morgan Hill came up. Morgan Hill is a San Joaquin valley town on Highway 101 located some 10 to 20 miles south of San Jose. The ranch belonged to some relative of either Mr. or Mrs. Reymann.

I drove down to see it and I recall looking at the house and other buildings (this was after I had the green Chevrolet sedan). It even seems that I may have had a meal there with the owners but I doubt that it was an overnight trip. Whether I seriously considered it as an investment I really can’t remember now but I must have had some thoughts along those lines to drive down to look at the place.

While the prune season was on, Mrs. Reymann would get fresh prunes from the ranch and she would make an upside down prune cake (like an upside down pineapple cake) and which she treated me with on more than one occasion. Maybe having the prune cake was what brought up the subject of the prune ranch in the first place.

Another place I looked at was a 7-acre parcel up in Sonoma County. This came through a realtor I think. The place had been used for growing rabbits but a windstorm (tornado?) had more or less wrecked the structures on the place. When I looked at it, it was mostly just a grassy area, not very many trees and I was not attracted to it.

The urge I had in me to own some land continued at a low level during the rest of my bachelor days and during the first years of my marriage. Mostly this was evidenced in writing for various listings of farm property, such as was put out by the United Farm Agency or Strout Realty. None of these ever developed into a purchase although we did inspect several pieces of property such as the small ranch growing watermelons near Turlock and the alfalfa ranch in the Chico area. In both of these cases we had several of our children along when we looked at the property. Of the Chico property there are several slide I took for later review. These trips were probably coordinated with other sight-seeing activities.

When my grandfather Peterson died in about 1915 he specified in his will that the Peterson farm not be sold during my grandmother’s lifetime. I suspect the reason for this was the wish on his part to have my grandmother provided for for the rest of her life, but I suspect he may also have recognized the trauma my grandmother went through when they acquired the various parts of the farm and wanted her top now have the benefit of that experience which at the time seemed so onerous.

The heirs did not divide the estate on my grandmother’s passing, but eventually decided to do so in the lated 1950s. Vincent at the time was looking for more land to add to his farming operation but did not feel that he had the capital to acquire any land. Some consideration was given to me (we) acquiring the Peterson farm (or part of it), using my mother’s inheritance as a loan to us as part of the down payment. The land would have been farmed by Vincent, although being 8 miles distant from Dad’s farm, the arrangement would not have been very convenient.

The possibility was never realized for several reasons: 1) the potential price was too high for us (all parts of the farm sold for $400/acre or more and we would have had difficulty in arranging the financing), 2) irrespective of the financing the price just seemed too high for us and 3) had we acquired the place we would probably have destroyed (razed) most of the buildings and the farmstead site, which my mother thought would have engendered an unfavorable response from her siblings.

Shortly thereafter however the possibility of purchasing a tract of about 125 acres near to my dad’s farm arose. This tract was known as the “Joe” Johnson farm and was the subject of an estate sale. Joe had died and his son Harris had been farming the place (perhaps in conjunction with his mother). The other children were wanting to sell the property to secure their inheritance and there had been some litigation to implement the sale of the property and distribution of the proceeds.

My recollection is a little vague but it seems there was a court-ordered disposition of the property under a court-appointed trustee — one Maurice Breen. Then there had been an interruption in the process, possibly because the heirs had decided not to proceed. Following this there was again a falling out amongst the heirs and the trustee was again offering the farm for sale. Because of the interruption there was some question as to the legality of the resumed proceedings. Vincent was of course aware of the possibility and brought it to our attention.

To aid Vincent in extending his farming operation, my mother was willing to lend us her inheritance from the Peterson farm as part of the downpayment. It would have been more appropriate for Vincent to have been the purchase but h felt he did not have the capital to proceed.

The advertisement by the trustee was made in August of 1959, I believe, about the time that Laurel was born. . . . I had contacted the trustee indicating an interest, but needless to say my attention had been diverted by . . . the change in the home pattern after Laurel’s birth [and other factors]. Anyway the trustee became irked at my dallying and finally informed me (us) to proceed if we were indeed interested. So finally we made an offer of $42,000 and made the 10% down payment. Another individual who was very important in the situation was a Mr. Johnson who was the Prudential agent who arrange the loan we eventually had (for $25,000) covering the balance of the purchase price.

Vincent later told me that toward the consummation of the deal he [Mr. Johnson?] was out at the Joe Johnson place and got stuck in the long lane leading to the building site. By the time he [Johnson?] got out he had spent most of the commission he got for arranging the loan. It was only after we had made the down payment that the somewhat shaky legal situation came to light and there was a real question in my mind whether to write off the down payment and back out of the deal.

However after consulting with the law firm of Kirchner and Kirchner in Fort Dodge we went ahead with the purchase. I well remember the long telephone call with one of the Kirchners one noon in my office at Shell and his analysis of the situation. Basically what he recommended was that we insist on separate quit claim deeds from each of the heirs, in addition to the trustee’s deed covering the sale. There was also a release of possession signed by Harris and his mother who were still actually living on the property.

The final signing of the documents and transfer of the money was made I think in the offices of Kirchner and Kirchner. Vincent I guess represented us; neither Jean nor I was there. So my long-awaited desire to own some Iowa farm property was fulfilled, albeit with an accompanying period of worry and concern. The investment as it turned out was a good one both for Vincent and me. One reason that the deal went through was that the land market was depressed at the time and we were the only individuals showing interest in the purchase.