Grades and Teachers

Summarized on the two pages which follow is the record of the teachers I had from Grade 1 through high school along with a recap of my learning performances. The latter is based on the report cards I received which somehow or other I still have. How I managed to keep these I have no recollection. I can certainly recall having them through the years in school in Gowrie, but how they were preserved when I left home to go to school at Iowa City or to work for Shell or how I again got them into my possession is a mystery. I’m certain there was a period after I left for California that they just laid in a drawer somewhere in the Peterson farmhouse. Somehow or other I must have retrieved them.

I have mentioned that P. A. Leistra was responsible for the scholastic standard in the Gowrie school and the quality of the teachers. But the quality of the teachers did nonetheless vary somewhat. The two teachers that impressed me most were a Margaret Nagel who was one of the two teachers I had in eighth grade and a Miss Amlie in ninth grade. Miss Nagel was a woman of rangy physical build and a very no-nonsense instructor. Miss Amlie who taught English for me in ninth grade (and for a short while at the start of my tenth[-grade] year) was an ex-reporter. Both of these teachers were in Gowrie only for a year (actually Miss Amlie started a second year but she received an offer of a better teaching position and was released from her contract).

What happened of course was that though Leistra tried to secure the best teachers he was competing with larger schools and the advantages they could offer in pay and position.

Perhaps the poorest instructor I had was Archie Gerber in highs school. He was the teacher in all the math classes I took (algebra, geometry, third semester algebra, business arithmetic) as well as physics. I can recall him coming into geometry class and opening the text as if just then was he considering how to conduct the class. He had been hired primarily for his qualities as a coach, but because of the size of the school he had to perforce teach several other classes.

Mrs. Knapp whom I had in eighth grade and later for history in high school was a very earnest individual, but she was not up to the standard of Miss Nagel. I liked Edith Irene Anderson, who succeeded Miss Amlie as English teacher in high school. I also had her for Latin. She was a plump person with a happy disposition and enthusiastic about her teaching even though she wasn;t perhaps the most competent.

In reviewing what I indicated in the summary of my performance of the teachers I had I find that I must have been mistaken in the English instructor in the freshman and perhaps the sophomore year. I’m sure that at some time I had Vera Morris for Literature (either or both, American and English). As in the case of Mr. Gerber’s hiring she had been hired primarily as the home ec teacher and girls’ basketball coac and she had to fill in as literature teacher. She was really an uninspired teacher and worse than Mr. Gerber if that is possible.

In junior high there were occasional classes for the boys in manual training and physical training. These were taught by Mr. Leistra himself. I have rather vivid memories of him telling the class how to “square up the board” — by trimming up one face, then a side then one end and reversing the sequence to complete the process. And I can see him demonstrating the use of a plane in doing it. My memory of physical training was of him in front of the class leading us in calisthenics. For this he had replaced his usual suit coast with a gray sweatshirt. These sessions took place in the gymnasium.

In the fall and spring months there was softball in the two diamonds back of the school and I believe he was the instructor here also. These involved choosing up teams, and characteristically I was always one of the last to be chosen — an entirely valid assessment of my athletic ability. I was invariably placed in right field where there was the least likelihood of a hit coming in my direction. There were periodic games with junior high teams from neighboring schools and in these the team members had to be of satisfactory academic standing. This sometimes meant that the better players, who also tended to be those having scholastic difficulties or lack of performance were unavailable to play on the team and I was perforce recruited to be on the team.

I can sort of recall some of these games but one in particular is etched in my memory. We were playing the neighboring team of Farnhamville (I think) and I had been assigned right field. Whether by design or accident a looping fly ball was hit in my direction and I ran in the direction of where the ball would land and somehow managed to catch the ball. The ball diamond was adjacent to the track field and I recall wondering as I ran to the ball if I was going to run into a cement post that was used as some sort of a market. Who was more surprised at my feat — me, or the assembled teams and spectators — I’m not sure.

Anyway, in anticipating of my not catching the ball the runners had advanced and had them to scramble back to the bases they had left. Whether the runners were thrown out I don’t recall but I do remember being called on the throw the ball in quickly. My feat was notable enough so that it was mentioned in an account of the game in the Gowrie News. It was my one moment of glory athletically.

Lunches and Walking to School

The lunches that the rural children brought with them (based on what my mother furnished us) consisted of a couple of sandwiches, some kind of fruit (generally an apple or banana) and some kind of cookie or other “goodie.” Some children might also bring some kind of drink, perhaps in a thermos, but we never did. Most of the time we lived on the farm my father was working in the treasurer’s office in Fort Dodge and my mother would prepare a lunch for him also. He of course always took a thermos of coffee in his lunch.

Note: I date my liking for peanut butter to the sandwiches my mother prepared for me during the years I spent on the farm and either riding the school bus to Gowrie or riding with my father to Fort Dodge and the junior college there. I don’t know what my siblings had but I had, as I recollect, a continuous exposure to peanut butter. No jam, jelly, lettuce, pickles, but just butter (the cow kind) and peanut butter.

The school building had a lunch room and kitchen facilities in the basement floor. I seem to recall that at least some of the grades or students ate their lunches in the classrooms but of this I’m rather uncertain. In any event during spring and fall months boys would often eat their lunches outside the building — perhaps next to the three or four horseshoe courts at the rear of the building, perhaps engaging in a game at the same time as lunching.

For a few years in the late 1920s or early 1930s hot lunches were prepared in the kitchen and served in the lunchroom but this was discontinued perhaps because of the effect of the Depression. It was in the lunchroom that such events as the Junior-Senior banquet was held; at that event the mothers of the members of the Junior class prepared the meal for the banquet.

It was on such an evening when I was a junior that my mother and I returning after the event was over noted various signs of a severe thunderstorm and small tornado. About a mile west of the Peterson farm at the Constant Hade farm a barn had been under construction with the rafters up but not yet secured. My mother and I saw that they had all been blown down. When we reached home we saw that the old playhouse (converted into a chicken house) had been picked up by the wind, blown over some electric wires and then upended in front of the hay door on the barn. The same storm damaged the barn on my dad’s farm; it was repaired but a later storm in the 1960s damaged it so much that it was torn down.

The easy walk to school for my sister Clarice and me almost could have resulted in injury to us on one occasion. She and I had started out from the little brown house on a rainy day and had progressed as far as Molly and Albert Rosene’s house, when Molly called to us to come to the house because it had started to rain so heavily. Shortly after we stopped there was a bolt of lightning that struck one of the large trees in the parking strip of the JET Johnson residence directly south of the Rosenes. A large section of the bark of the tree was stripped off and projected toward the house where it broke the glass in a large front window — a distance of perhaps 30 or 40 feet. Had Molly not called to Clarice and me to stop we could easily have been between the tree and the Johnson house when the lightning struck. I don’t remember the event myself, the description is a secondhand account.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Hardware Stores, Funeral Parlors, and Barber Shops

The two hardware stores were operated by Lennarson and Johnson, and Martindale and Tedford. The former was also the primary funeral business in Gowrie. Neither Lennarson or Johnson was a licensed mortician (hearsay had it that Lennarson could not pass the state licensing test) and I guess Johnson wasn’t interested in trying. So they had to hire a licensed mortician — early in my youth this was a man Ed King, who for some reason decided to switch positions with another mortician in a neighboring town.

The replacement mortician was Ted Palmer who eventually took over both the hardware store and the funeral business. He later phased out the hardware store but kept operating the funeral end of it. He acquired the old Nils Lindquist house and after expanding it used it both as a residence and a funeral home. His son, Max inherited the business and I think still runs it. One of the few times, perhaps the only time, I was actually in the ex-residence of Nils Lindquist was at the time of my mother’s funeral.

Lennarson also sold some furniture and at Christmas time had a fairly extensive toy and gift assortment. Every year they would trot out a Lionel train layout and have it in their front window. There I could see it run and enviously eye it. The closest I ever got to having an electric train was looking at the brochures that the Lionel and American Flyer companies would send out gratis to an advertisement in the American Boy magazine. This magazine was one of the two principal boy’s magazines of my youth — the other being Boys’ Life. It was I think a merger or a continuation of the Youth’s Companion of my mother’s early days on the Peterson farm. I suppose the subscription I had was a victim of the Depression as I don’t recall having it after the move to the farm. There was a substitute for me in the subscription that the Woodard boys had for Boys’ Life, but more about that later.

The firm of Martindale and Tedford was a less impressive business. Tedford I think more or less ran the store and Martindale was the man who took care of the plumbing end of the business, doing the field work and was seldom in the store. One of my most vivid memories of Tedford was with respect to the principal barber shop in Gowrie. One Saturday evening (this was before the move to the farm) I accompanied my father when he drove to town to work on the Johnson bookkeeping, for the purpose of getting a haircut. The barber shop, like all of the businesses on a Saturday evening was a busy place. Tedford had chosen this time for a leisurely shave and haircut. The assembled potential customers moved slowly in order through the three operating barber chairs and I recall how impatient I was at the slow progress of things. Tedford of course occupied a disproportionately long time which is probably why I remember him particularly. Perhaps this experience is the cause of my ingrained aversion to waiting in a barber shop for a haircut.

The Gowrie barber had four chairs but one was seldom if ever used. The chair nearest the door to the shop was serviced by Bert Gardner who was probably the slowest barber I have ever encountered. Next came the empty chair and then the two chairs where Walt and Ross Plotner were the barbers.

The barber also had a bathtub facility in a back room and I recall seeing old Ed Plotner come in on a Saturday evening for his weekend bath. One of his brothers would take time off from his haircutting to draw the bath for Ed, provide him with some bath towels and then Ed would plod into the bathroom and disappear from view. Ed was a bachelor — I don’t know where he lived but presumably he did not have access to a bathtub. Ed was the maintenance at the Gowrie cemetery and I suppose that he dug all the graves. A short stooped man of uncertain age, I don’t recall ever hearing him speak a word. Even when he came in for his Saturday evening bath any communication with his brothers seemed to be by empathy, not a word was spoken.

I wonder in retrospect if the bathroom facility at the barber shop was a carryover from Gowrie’s early days when more homes did not have bathrooms and it was more widely used by the citizenry. Although the Plotner shop was the principal barber shop in Gowrie (haircuts for adults were 40 cents — I believe the price went down to 25 cents during the Depression) there was for a time a shop in one of the two old buildings that were at onetime hotels. That building was located half a block from the M and St. L tracks — kitty corner from the town water tower to the southwest. Along the front of the building was a long open porch and the barber shop was in the northeast corner on the ground floor, just off the porch. Here however haircuts were 15 cents and I had a haircut there once or twice.

The other old hotel in Gowrie was just across the street from the Leader store and was known as the Munday hotel. It was less impressive structurally than the other hotel but appeared to have more use — not any more from transients but rather from longer term residents.

Here I must make a correction — there was a third barber shop, Asperson’s. Where the Plotners tended to be Methodists (Bert Gardner was a Congregationalist but the church had ceased functioning by the time I was old enough to be aware of it) Asperson was nominally a Lutheran. My uncle Carl, thinking to encourage anyone who was a Lutheran, tried out the Asperson shop but put it on his blacklist when Asperson told an off-color story to him during the course of a haircut.

The two hotels were certainly forlorn relics of the days of passenger trains through Gowrie and the need for some sort of accommodations for passengers staying overnight or changing railroads.

Although I, and I suppose my brothers, had intermittent contact with the local barber shops I, and we, also had haircuts at the hands of my mother. Doubtless this was one of the economies to better utilize the financial resources of the family. My mother was not particularly adept with the hand clippers she used, and on occasion was not pleased with the outcome of her efforts. I did not like the occasional tugs at my hair when the clippers were used less than expertly by my mother. I suppose that Clarice and Vivian had haircuts using only scissors.

Another vivid memory I have relative to my hair was the periodic fine-tooth combing to remove dandruff. This painful abrasion preceded having one’s hair washed — which occurred less frequently than the weekly Saturday evening bath.

Carl Johnson and Family

The IGA store was operated by Carl F. Johnson and his wife — they were parents of Everette Johnson, who was in my class at school and at church and with whom I played on occasion. Everette was an only child and one of the upstairs rooms of their home was filled with a collection of toys which I am sure raised envy in my youthful mind.



Everette Johnson, high school graduation, 1938

The IGA store was first located on the north side of the main street in Gowrie in a rather ramshackle building but it later moved across the street to a more substantial brick building. After our move to the farm and the decline in the fortunes of the Leader store, most of the family grocery shopping was done at the IGA store. On Saturdays it was a bustling hive of activity and this pace continued on through the evening until close to midnight. Mrs. Johnson served as a clerk in the store, and despite the late hour in the store on Saturday nights invariably showed up on Sunday morning to sing in the church choir. Her husband seldom if ever made an appearance at the Sunday morning service. I don’t recall seeing Everette ever working in the store but I suppose he may have.

Earlier on before we left for the farm the store employed a Leonard Anderson who was a good friend of the Duane Anderson of the Leader store. One year after the Leader store acquired their little Model A delivery truck, the two young men used it on a trip out west — I suppose to Yellowstone, etc. and I suppose they slept in the vehicle.

One of my remembrances of Carl F. was on a winter morning when I was waiting in the store perhaps having finished the Saturday morning Confirmation class instruction. For some reason he needed to go outside the store for a brief errand but he wouldn’t go without getting his hat and putting it on his head. He made some remark that at his age he wasn’t about to go out in the cold without a hat even briefly. I recall thinking at the time that such an attitude was silly, but now being older and wiser consider that he was quite right.

As far as grades were concerned Everette was my closest competition in school. I can recall my mother mentioning that Mrs. Johnson had remarked to her rather plaintively that despite Everette’s efforts he didn’t match my record gradewise.

I have all my report cards from high school days — when I looked at them I noted my record was rather spotty, particularly in the earlier grades. Arithmetic and spelling I excelled in, but not some of the other subjects. It wasn’t really until high school that a more consistent level of achievement was reached and even there the situation improved in later years. This pattern of achievement continued into junior college, but at the University of Iowa the performance sequence of high school was repeated, with improved performance in my second year there.

The Luther Anderson Family and the Leader Grocery Store

The commercial business establishments in Gowrie included several grocery stores, two hardware stores, one movie theater, several gas stations, four car dealers (one in conjunction with a farm implement dealership), two farm implement dealers, one lumber yard (although the Farmers’ Coop also marketed building material on a small scale), one jewelry store, a bakery (off and on, it seemed to lapse periodically and them revive), a couple of meat markets, the post office of course, two doctors, one dentist, two banks (one of which failed during the Depression), two drug stores, and an assortment of smaller miscellaneous shops and businesses.

Early on the two main grocery stores were the Leader store, which my parents patronized for the most part and the IGA store (Independent Grocers Alliance). The present day single grocery store in Gowrie grew out of the Carr grocery store which started up probably sometime in the 1930s. The Leader store was located near the west end of the business district, sort of off by itself and this disadvantageous location may have contributed to its demise in the Depression. A more likely factor in my opinion was the lower level of business of the proprietor. In addition to the grocery part of the store, it had initially also a dry goods section and this was still operating in the later 1920s. This part of the store was the first part to dwindle and die.

The store was owned by Luther Anderson, but most of the actual work in the store was done by three of his children, all unmarried at the time. Marion and Pearl served as clerks and Duane was the delivery person (using a small Model A Ford panel truck). Home delivery was a feature of the Leader store and this feature may have been the deciding one in my mother choosing to use it. She would simply call up the store for what she wanted and within a couple of hours the order would be delivered at the back door step.

For my parents, feeding a growing family was a very significant cost, the figure sticking in my mind is $40/month which was about one-third of my father’s monthly pay of $125/month. Service at the Leader store as at the IGA store was not self-service. One approached the counter, the clerk would take the order, assemble etc. The grocery bill was carried on credit, at least in the case of my parents and was paid once a month I suppose.

The Andersons were active in the Lutheran church with both Marion and Pearl singing in the choir. Duane was the only son and the youngest of the children. I can recall once when we had moved to the farm that my mother instructed me to go to the Leader store for some item at the meat counter. Duane was in the store and when I asked him for the item he replied rather despondently that they were out of it. I’m sure at the time the store was in the last stages of operation and it wasn’t too long before it went out of business.

I mentioned that the Leader store did at one time have a dry goods section. I can recall when the closeout sale was held and my mother bought several items that she would use in her sewing for the household. Although my mother did sewing she did not like to do it but felt that the family economy dictated that she needed to do so. I believe I forgot to mention when I was describing the businesses in Gowrie that there was one clothing store which also sold shoes. And there were two barbershops, one with four chairs on the main street and the other with a single chair in one of the old hotel buildings in the town. When I was young they were not inhabited by travelers but by permanent residents.

Local Businesses

Along with the elevators as a basis for the marketing of farm products and thus a mainstay of Gowrie’s economy were such enterprises as Armour’s which bought and processed chickens and purchased eggs, Blomgren’s produce (again the Blomgres from whom my parents bought the little brown house) which also bought poultry and eggs, the Gowrie Creamery which bought cream from the farmers in the vicinity and Lizer’s sales pavilion which conducted auction disposal of farm livestock.

During Gowrie’s early history and continuing into the 1930s, the farmers in the area typically maintained chicken and cows for eggs, milk and meat (hogs also) and the excess production of these items served to augment the grain and livestock sales as the farm family income. My parents, along with a substantial fraction of the Gowrie residents also kept chickens and a cow or two for their own household use primarily. Those who did not secured milk from the Forsmark dairy — I think there was a second dairy but my memory is hazy about this.

The Armour plant was located alongside the M and St. L tracks, probably to facilitate shipment of the processed chickens and the eggs to outside markets — it was just opposite the city water tower and about a block north of the principal business street in Gowrie. I can recall going to Armour’s to purchase a dozen of cull eggs for 10 cents/dozen during the darker days of the Depression while the family was still living in Gowrie.

The Gowrie Creamery was located sort of at the east end of the business district and in its heyday made both butter and ice cream. In earlier times I think the farmers actually brought their cream to the creamy themselves, later on two or three individuals had creamery routes in the countryside collecting the cans of cream. I can recall lugging the five-gallon can of cream out to the roadside to be collected. Mostly the cream was sour by the time it reached the creamery — those were the days before widespread refrigeration and government regulation on production facilities.

I have a vivid memory of going into the cool moist interior of the Gowrie Creamery and being enveloped in the sweet smell of cream, ice cream and butter being churned. The ice cream was marketed by the creamery in two- or three-gallon containers which were packed in an ice/salt mixture which in turn was held in a green wooden barrel-like container. This was pretty heavy by that time and had two large metal handles for carrying and transport.

I can well remember these containers at such events as the Fourth of July celebration or the annual Sunday School picnic of the Lutheran church. Mostly the creamery made vanilla ice cream but on occasion they did make strawberry and I think chocolate. Although we did produce enough cream, later on when we were on the farm, to sell cream to the creamery, there was a period when we made butter ourselves from the cream we produced. I cam remember sitting on the screen porch at the back of the farmhouse turning the little butter churn. When we sold cream, a portion was taken back in payment as butter.

Rural Electrification

Another similar hamlet was the town of Crooks (also known by the more elegant name of Palm Grove). This place was located adjacent the interurban tracks, about 5 or 6 miles east and north of the Peterson farm. I think the elevator there is still in use, perhaps as part of one of the larger cooperatives that have been formed in recent years by the merger of several smaller firms or coops.

The interurban is an electrified railroad and I suppose it carried freight as well as passengers. Like the M and St. L it was still offering passenger service as late as the early 1940s. Once or twice when I came back home from school at Iowa City I used the interurban between Des Moines and Harcourt (where my father or some other member of the family picked me up). Between Iowa City and Des Moines I had to use a bus line.

The electric service provided by the interurban line was the source of the electricity at the Peterson farm. At least initially, later the power came from Gowrie. A group of farmers in the area of the Peterson farm had joined together, I suppose in the 1910s and formed a cooperative to supply themselves with electricity. They put up the lines, connected up with the interurban, and ran the system themselves. Later on they hooked up with the municipal plant in Gowrie.

Grandfather Strand’s farm did not have electric service until in the 1930s when the rural electrification system of the Roosevelt years made it possible. Anton Holmer was a guiding light in achieving this as he was renting grandfather Strand’s farm at the time.

I can remember family visits to the Holmer household in which a kerosene lantern or a more modern adaptation (such as a Coleman lantern) were brought and used towards dusk. I can also remember uncle Reuben’s house which had been wired for electricity at the time it was built (probably in the 1910s) and did not get electricity until the 1930s.

Uncle Reuben with his usual lack of business acumen built expensive buildings (house, barn, corn crib, maybe other buildings) as he started farming. This financial impediment doubtless dogged him during most of his farming career, along with his typically poor continuing financial misadventures and lack of foresight and control. I think his decision to build the expensive buildings was the result of the boom in farm income occasioned by WWI. What he did not foresee was the diminished income of the 1920s when a more normal farm economy resumed.

My father and uncle Reuben had together bought the nucleus of the Reuben Strand farm before uncle Reuben had married and started farming. My father about that time gave title to the land to his brother, assuming the indebtedness taken on by his brother. He should never have done this but either split the property or insisted on joint tenancy. That way my father would have had the income all those years when uncle Reuben was simply benefiting from the arrangement.

Grain Elevators and the Local Economy

While the little brown house was relatively close to my grandfather’s residence, my grandmother’s house was two-thirds to three-quarters of the way across the longer dimension of the town of Gowrie. Gowrie stretched for just a mile or so (in our early days in the little brown house) along an east-west orientation. Its width north and south was considerably less and varied from a block or s block and a half at the east and west extremities to perhaps four blocks at its widest point (or I suppose for half a mile or so at most). The widest point was at the M and St. L tracks as they passed north and south through the town. The CNW ran east and west more or less along or slightly south of the town proper.

The town economy had as one of its mainstays the marketing of farm products and secondly of providing food and manufactured items to the residents and to the farming families in the vicinity. The main farm product was grain (corn and oats). Soybeans came in during the 1930s and has displaced oats as a grain crop. What grain wasn’t used on the farms for livestock food was sold to one of the several grain elevators in Gowrie (or depending on the location of the farm in one of the nearby communities).

During my childhood days in Gowrie there were four elevators though operation of two of them was not continuous. The two principal elevators were those belonging to the Farmers’ Cooperative and to a private entrepreneur by the name of Bruntlett. Actually the latter business had been inherited by Bruntlett’s wife from her father by name of Bomberger. In the early 1930a Bruntlett was operating the elevator though Bomberger may still have owned it. The inheritance by Bruntlett’s wife may have come later on. Bomberger during this period was one of the county supervisors and I think it was through his intervention that my father got his work in the county treasurer’s office.

My scanty recollection of Bomberger was of a short, rather overweight elderly man with a rather gruff or brusque manner. Again my vague recollection is that his wife was reputed to be a very congenial person. Bruntlett was the sort of individual with more bluster than ability. He was one of the American Legion coterie.

Both the Farmers’ Coop and Bruntlett’s were located near the intersection of the CNW and Mt and St. L railroads. The two other elevators with less impressive facilities were adjacent to the Mt and St. L tracks, one of them being right off the main street in Gowrie, the other about a block north.

The latter was later acquired by the Johnson lumber company (for whom my father worked for part-time for years and which he ended up working full-time in his later working years) probably sometime in the later 1930s. When they acquired it they asked my father if he wanted to manage it, perhaps recalling that at one time he had worked at the Farmers’ Coop (this was before he went to work at the bank). As I recall he considered it for a while but decided against it, perhaps because deciding that he didn’t really have the experience of the temperament for the buying and selling of grain. How long the Johnson firm operated the elevator I don’t know.

The last elevator was the least impressive of them all and though I think it operated during my childhood it had ceased operation early on. Eventually I think the structure was acquired by the Johnson lumber company also whose property abutted it, but it was only used for storage, etc.

I think on of the two latter elevators had been operated and owned by one Pirie. Competing with the Gowrie elevators were the elevators in the adjacent communities. Some of these communities were very small — perhaps not more than half a dozen families (maybe even that number was on the high side). One of these was the little hamlet of Lena which was located on the M and St. L tracks about a mile south of the main part of my grandfather Strand’s farm. I think my uncle Reuben’s farm extended close to it. It had an elevator and because of the convenience I’m sure my grandfather and my uncle Reuben used it to market their farm products.

The elevator has been inoperative for years now but the associated buildings are used for a fertilizer supply business. During my visits to Iowa I have sketched the old elevator and I have made one watercolor of it. Now (2004) it is gone, burned down as an exercise for the Gowrie fire department. Sad. During WWI there was a grocery operating in Lena run by one “old man” Klippel. Sugar was scarce during the war and my mother was able to get a 100 lb. sack from Mr. Klippel to augment her supply. Whether this was a favor, an oversight or simply negligent behavior on Klippel’s part I don’t know.

As I wrote the old elevator in Lena was a picturesque object for sketching. Vincent’s wife Jean has said that their son Joel and his friends used to get inside and climb to the top of the abandoned structure — I guess to Jean’s consternation.

Transients

While I am on the subject of the city park, I should not forget to mention that occasionally there would be a group of gypsies who would camp in the park for varying lengths of time. Whether they needed to get permission from the town authorities I don’t know. As children we were cautioned to steer clear of any contact with them.

The transient population of Gowrie included not only the gypsies, such people as those tenting in the vacant lots to the east of the little brown house in the Depression years, but also hobos or tramps. The latter were doubtless brought into town by the rail traffic through Gowrie, and I’d guess that at the present time there are few if any around. During their stay in Gowrie they tended to inhabit a sort of informal camp pr hobo jungle which was located behind the Armour chicken, egg and cream plant which in turn was located just across from the M and St. L tracks from the city water tower.

I have a vague recollection of having viewed the hobo encampment but I’m sure we had been instructed, or it was tacitly understood, to stay clear of the area. Whether the place was on railroad property or on city property that included an adjacent golf course I don’t know.

It was a fairly common occurrence for one of these tramps to knock on the back door of town residences asking for a free meal. I’m sure this occurred both for us at the little brown house and at my grandmother’s house. From what I’ve heard the request for food might be accompanied by the offer of some labor in return but this was never accepted by my mother or grandmother. Rumor had it that the hobo fraternity had an informal way of designating places where a free handout was possible or likely. I don’t know as to the validity of this.

The closest contact I ever had with a transient came not with one of the tramps staying or passing through Gowrie, but rather a fellow student at Fort Dodge Junior College. If I can believe what he told me, he had “ridden the rails” out to the West Coast and as I recall related some of his experiences. He was the kind of brash, adventuresome character that would have been attracted to this kind of activity. In the Depression years with the associated idleness of young men, thia activity might have been a likely possibility. I didn’t know this individual well and I can’t know recall his name. I think he came from the Fort Dodge area.