The Stenholms and the Renquists

At this juncture I have sort of completed the travel from the little brown house to my grandmother’s following a route kitty-corner through the park and through the business section of Gowrie. I bypassed the school building as I’ll cover that later on. But I want to mention two other buildings before starting at my grandmother’s house.

The first is a correction of sorts and that is there was a third residence in Gowrie that rivaled Nils Lindquist’s residence and “John” Johnson’s house in construction and relative elegance. That was the Stenholm house which was in the same block as Albert and Molly Rosene’s and faced the park on its west side. It was built of sort of a pink stone or brick and had a porch in front with two-story columns. Stenholm (Pete) had a farm implement dealer (International Harvester) in Gowrie who had died in a swimming accident, either before I was born or when I was too young to remember the occurrence.

Anyway the house looked pretty elegant from the outside — I may have been in it but I have no recollection of the interior. Pete’s widow inhabited the house in sort of solitary splendor during my youth. Mrs. Stenholm was a sister of my aunt Edith (married to my uncle Serenus) and thus an aunt of my cousin Eugene. I recall Eugene staying at the Stenholm house during one or more of his parents’ visits back to Gowrie.

Aunt Edith grew up on a farm about one mile due east of the Peterson farm. Her siblings experienced several traumatic accidents. One brother, Constant, died in the same swimming accident as Pete Stenholm. During the time we were on the farm, Ernest, who was farming the old homestead, dies from an encounter with e Brown Swiss bull he owned. Constant had farmed it until the time of his untimely death. Whereas Ernest was a so-so farmer, Constant was up and coming and at his death left the farmstead with perhaps the best corncrib and barn in the threshing run. Next on the docket for Constant I have heard was a new house but that was never built. Constant died and the old house continued on in use for an indefinite period. It was still in use when I left Iowa for good to begin work in California.

The other house I want to mention, not for the architecture but for the inhabitants, was the Albert Renquist house. Albert was married to Maria (née Callestrom) and if my reading of genealogy is correct, a cousin of my grandmother’s. They lived in a modest structure on the very east end of Gowrie. We always called them uncle Albert and aunt Maria, even though that wasn’t correct, either for us children or for my mother (if I have the genealogy right).

Albert and Maria had one son, Harold, whom I liked very much. He was a rather quiet, bookish person, easy to talk to and tolerant both of ideas and people. He was I suppose 4 or 5 years old than I. It was Harold who introduced me to the Tom Swift, of which he had several.



Harold, Maria, and Albert Renquist, in an undated photo


The Renquists had a radio before we did and I recall hearing it in use during one of our periodic supper visits to the Renquist home. It was one of the small table models and I have the vague impression that on one of these visits the program that Orson Welles put on about the invasion of Martians was discussed. This must be erroneous though as the occasion was well before our move to the farm and I think the Welles program was in the middle 1930s.

Harold was mostly blind in one eye, resulting from an injury in a forceps procedure at his birth. This did not keep him from military service in WWII however, which I think was in some sort of clerical assignment. Later in life he located in the Twin Cities area and I think he married and had a family. He worked for the federal government. I’ve had no contact directly with him since before I went to school at Iowa but I’ve head about him indirectly over the years. Had circumstances been different I’m sure we would have had a continuing congenial association over the years.

Albert worked off and on as a painter and during the time we were on the farm he painted the outside of the farmhouse and I think the shanty. He had painted the other buildings some years earlier, but weather had prevented the painting of the house. I assisted in the painting, being given the tedious task of the windows with all the separations between the panes of glass.

The Renquist family subsisted in part on the income from a farm in southern Minnesota. It was on a trip to attend to farm business that Albert was killed in an automobile accident. Maria was very dependent on Albert psychologically and seeing to her welfare afterward was indeed a burden for Harold. As I have mentioned Maria was a Callestrom, hence a Seashore, and as a consequence was intelligent but somewhat unstable personality-wise (my opinion). Some of the Callestroms were really dithering females in my estimation — they had this sort of slightly mad look in their eyes and face, which Maria certainly had.



The Callestrom sisters. I don’t know which one is Maria. The only one I can identify, because she is identified in a different photo in my dad’s photo album, is the one at lower right, who is Daisy.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Mel Rosene

Across the street from Nellie’s house to the east resided Mel Rosene and his wife. They were childless. Mel made a living as an insurance agent or representative — but as in the case of Mollie and Albert I wonder if there was some sort of financial asset that wasn’t evident, such as might have come from a family estate. I think I have heard that the older Rosenes had been farmers so there could have been some property somewhere.

Mel, like Albert was a man of substantial stature, with an imposing facade at waist level — they weren’t fat, just imposing. Two vivid memories I have of the period when Mel and his wife lived across from Nellie. The property had a small barn and it burned down with considerable smoke, flames and neighborhood excitement. I can’t recall the time of day but I think it was early morning. Mel used the barn for his goats which supplied them with milk. It seems to be from this transitory brush with goat husbandry that I became aware that goats are milked from behind rather than from the side as in the case of a cow. Whether I ever saw Mel milking his goats I don’t recall but it would have been an interesting picture. This large, imposing rather austere individual stooped down behind a goat milking it.

The other vivid memory was of the time Mel arranged to have two large cottonwood trees cut down. Perhaps he thought they were a hazard in being subject to being blown down on his house. The trees were to the west of Mel’s house along the road so they were quite visible from the little brown house. The cutting down was done on a day which turned out to be increasingly windy and stormy as it progressed. I think one of the trees was felled and the workmen were in the last stages of cutting down the second tree late in the afternoon. They intended it to fall in a certain way and had ropes pulling it in that direction, but the developing wind was too strong and it fell in another direction. I guess it missed the house but the situation was rather scary for a while. Later on Mel sold the house and it was purchased and fixed up as a funeral home. But it was never a very prosperous business.

Still later Mel bought the vacant lot between us and Nellie’s and had a home and a garage built on it (although he never had a car). They were residing there I believe when we moved to the Peterson farm. My mother worried a little at having them for such close neighbors — they (Mel and his wife) were “finicky” people about their house, lot and belongings and I suppose she wondered if we children would be an annoyance to them in our play. But there was never any trouble.

While I am on the subject of the Rosenes I must not forget that two of the sisters of the family lived just across the park from Albert and Mollie. One was married to Carl Magnusson, a longtime clerk at the clothing store in Gowrie; they two like Mel and his wife were childless. The other sister was married to Frank Lindquist, who was president of the bank where my father worked until the Depression. They had one son, Maurice. To my knowledge, Mel, Albert, Mollie, and the other two sisters produced one descendant in the next generation.

Mollie and Albert Rosene

Beyond Nellie Scott’s house, across the street to the south lived Mollie and Albert Rosene — unmarried brother and sister. Their house at the time lacked indoor plumbing of the toilet variety and their outhouse was one of the targets of Halloween escapades. I dimly recall seeing it in a tipped-over state on the morning-after one year. The house I believe had been the home of their parents and on their death the two of them just continued living in the house that they grew up in.

Albert had at one time worked for the railroad on the track maintenance crew, but when I was aware of him he no longer worked at that trade. He had a large yard and garden and that serve to keep him occupied. He also spent time caring for the city park which was just across the street from the Rosene house. Care of the park consisted primarily of mowing the grass during the summer months. But Albert spent considerable time grubbing out quite a few tree stumps left over from the activities of his predecessor on the job, one Griffee. I seem to recall Albert telling me that Griffee merely cut down the trees for firewood. Albert never, or hardly ever appeared in anything other than his everyday clothes of overalls and chambray shirt — I think I saw him once at some church function where he was wearing a hat dating back to the 1920s or even earlier.

Mollie was less of a homebody and often participated in a vocal duet at the church we attended with Anna Blomgren (the Blomgrens had the lot which formed part of the path between the little brown house and grandfather Strand’s house). Mollie was the alto in the duet, Anna was the soprano. Mollie was relatively tall and thin, Ann was short and fat.

I can remember being in the Rosene house. Once I was there at some sort of women’s church function (I think it was) and we were in the front room or parlor. There was a player piano in the parlor and in the course of the afternoon Mollie operated it. I was entranced.

Mollie and Albert subscribed to the Sunday paper (the Des Moines Register and Tribune) which we did not. When they finished with the paper they would give it to us children and I at least was enthralled by the colored comic section. I can recall going in the kitchen of the Rosene home and Mollie getting the paper to give it to me. Whether I was the only one of us to actually get the paper from them I don’t know. I also have an extremely dim recollection that we as a family were invited once to a meal at the Rosenes’.

Nellie Scott

I have some rather vivid recollections of being in Nellie Scott’s home. She was not as neat a housekeeper as my mother and the little table in her kitchen was always littered with traces of the last meal — crumbs etc. — with the ubiquitous salt and pepper shakers always in evidence. These were always put away in the cupboard after the meal was over at home.

Nellie had the kind of stereopticon device for viewing pictures that gives the illusion of depth perception and she let us look at these.



Stereopticon viewer

She subscribed to a women’s magazine called the Delineator http://www.magazineart.org/magazines/d/delineator.html as I seem to remember and this magazine contained a page (I guess in each issue) of cut-out paper dolls. She let us have these after she had read the reverse of the page. The reverse never contained any advertising material.



Cover of Delineator magazine, December 1931

Nellie was a small, stooped lady, I suppose that she suffered from osteoporosis although at that time I don’t think it was recognized for what it was. Her relatives sort of “sponged” on her particularly in times of economic stress as during the Depression years. I don’t know what she lived on. Eventually she lost her home (sometime after our family moved to the Peterson farm). She lived out her days in a sort of ramshackle house at the west end of town. She apparently died in her sleep maybe from hypothermia. Anyway somebody noticed she wasn’t being seen and investigated. This I have secondhand as I had left Iowa by then.

My Life in the Little Brown House, part 28: Albert and Molly Rosene

Across the street to the south of Nellie’s house was the house where Albert and Molly Rosene lived, unmarried brother and sister. I surmise it was the house where their parents had lived their last years and expired; as the other Rosene children left, Albert and Molly stayed on and made it the place where they too spent their last years and finally expired (actually I’m not sure just what happened to them in their declining years as I was no longer in the community, but I can easily visualize this happening). Mel left of course and for awhile at least lived kitty corner across the intersection from Albert and Molly. One daughter married Carl Magnusson; they lived directly across the park from Albert and Molly to the east. Like Mel and his wife they were childless. Carl worked as a clerk in the local Lindquist clothing store. Another daughter married Frank Lindquist, the older son of Nils Lindquist, an early banker in Gowrie. Right now I can’t recall the names of these two daughters. Frank and his wife had one son, Maurice, a tall thin person at least in his younger days. Frank lived on the same street, and on the same side, as Carl Magnusson some four or five houses to the south. So all the Rosene children ended up residing on the periphery of the city park, or close to it. Five children and they all together produced one person, Maurice, in the next generation.

Albert and Molly’s house was an old one and did not have an indoor toilet. Their outhouse was often the target of Halloween activity and I dimly recall seeing it in its upturned, rather overturned, condition. Outhouses, by the nature of their function and need for occasional move to a new location, were not firmly affixed to the foundation. Also being a small structure they were quite within the scope of the effort of a couple of young hoodlums to overturn. Albert in earlier days had worked on a section crew (maintaining railroad track) for the railroad, but when I knew him he had retired from this activity. A good part of his time was used in maintaining the lot around their house, growing his considerable vegetable garden and I think tending to his chickens. There was a small barn at the rear of the property, probably suitable at one time for stabling a team of horses.

For a time he was the gardener for the city park, mowing the grass etc. This was not a small task during the spring, summer and fall months, as the park was a city block in size, and the time was before the advent of motorized mowers. Albert mowed the whole park with his hand-pushed reel-type mower, I suppose once a week. Prior to Albert’s time as gardener, the gardener had been one Griffee (daughter Doris was in my class, and was one of the two members surviving at the time who did not show up for the 50th class reunion in 1988). Griffee’s one big activity in the park was apparently to cut down trees, I suspect as a source of firewood for his family.

At any rate when Albert took over the park, it was dotted with stumps more or less over its entire extent. Albert, with his sense of orderliness and neatness, removed the stumps by grubbing them out with axe, shovel and considerable effort. I would sometimes watch him as he worked with his good-sized garden cart alongside the stump he was attacking and serving as the means of carting off the parts of the stump as he dismembered it. Typical of Albert’s standards, it was removed to below the surfaced, thus restoring the lawn to its original level. Albert didn’t want little boys playing around on his yard though. One time I remember some of us were playing cops and robbers with rubber guns and we wanted to use his barn as a place to hide. He took a dim view of this and while not exactly saying no, intimated that he was not going to let us.

In stature Albert resembled Mel, being rather tall and husky, and with considerable girth at his midsection. His almost invariable attire Sunday as well as weekdays was overalls with I suppose a blue chambray work shirt. I don’t think I ever say him in church though I believe he was at least nominally a member. Somehow I recall seeing him in a more “dressed-up” attire, with a very old-fashioned hat on his head — the kind of hat from the period before 1920, or even 1910, which appeared on my Uncle George’s head on the few times he too appeared in more formal dress.

Molly was a generally slighter of build and girth person than her two brothers and resembled her two sisters in this regard. She sang quite often at church functions in a duet with Anna Blomgren. Anna was the soprano, one of the better ones if not the best, in the congregation and Molly was the alto. I sort of remember two social occasions when I was in the home of Albert and Molly. One was when our family had been invited for a supper meal. The other was some sort of women’s church function, and I accompanied my mother. The meeting was held in Molly’s parlor and I was fascinated by the player piano, which Molly demonstrated in action. Molly was the person who decided when we could have their Sunday paper after they were through with it, with its attractive comic page section. Bringing Up Father (Maggie and Jiggs), the Katzenjammer Kids, Tillie the Toiler, Popeye the Sailor, Flash Gordon — all were absorbed by me with great interest. I’ve mentioned already how I think this exposure to drawing had in the end a considerable, though much delayed, [impact] on the hobby I’ve had in retirement of drawing and painting.

My Life in the Little Brown House, part 27: Mel Rosene, Nellie Scott

The other incident which involved Mel and his wife while they were in the house across the street occurred when some large cottonwood trees were being felled along the west side of their home. There were two or three of these large cottonwoods, and as cottonwoods are when fully grown they were rather tall trees, with a large crown of correspondingly large branches. Whoever was cutting down the trees had completed the task except for the last tree by the middle to late afternoon. I’m not sure at this time whether it was in the spring (as in March) or in the fall (as say late in October) but the day had become increasingly cloudy and windy as it progressed and so as the tree felling proceeded, climatic conditions were steadily deteriorating. The fellers had attached ropes to direct the line of fall but with the wind the way it was they were rather ineffective and the tree finally came crashing down somewhat prematurely. Fortunately it did not fall against any structure but the situation was rather frightening for awhile. I recall looking out the south windows of the little brown house either in the parlor or the dining room and watching as the workers struggled with the tree in the rising wind. After Mel’s moved out of that house it was refurbished and used as a combination residents and funeral home. The business competed not too successfully with the well-established mortician business of Lennarson and Johnson who captured most of the local business.

Beyond the vacant lot to the south of us was the home of Nellie Scott, a stooped little lady of indeterminate age. A spinster, she had no visible means of support and to my recollection had never been employed. Perhaps she lived on funds from some inheritance. I don’t think she was elderly enough to have developed osteoporosis, but she had the rounded back and stooped stance characteristic of the condition. At the rear of the property was a building that could be partly used as a garage (though wasn’t as Nellie had no car) and was partly used by Nellie for her flock of chickens. These roamed outside in a large enclosed yard along the west side of her property, Nellie was a friendly person and both Clarice and I spent time in her kitchen and parlor/dining room visiting and talking with her. This contact began at an early age for Clarice and me and was the reason why we never developed a real facility in the use of Swedish for talking. Clarice I think was able to understand Swedish some, but I never really developed any understanding except for a few commonplace phrases or expressions. Neither of us could speak it. Nellie was not of the Swedish community so spoke only English and Clarice and I soon adopted it and our Swedish fell into disuse. I think that my parents spoke Swedish in their early married life so had it not been for Nellie I’m sure Clarice and I would have acquired a working facility in it. I know this happened with one of my contemporaries, Arthur Holmer.

Nellie maintained a more haphazard style of housekeeping that did my mother — her little kitchen table always had salt and pepper shakers on it, condiment containers and other material. My mother always cleaned off the table completely after a meal. One of the attractions that Nellie provided was contained in a women’s magazine she subscribed to called I believe the Delineator, whatever that signifies. Each issue would have a page of paper doll cutouts, which she would let us have (after she had read the reverse of course). I recall that the reverse was a complete page of text — no advertiser would buy the space there.


























Cover of Delineator magazine, October 1930

Nellie had various relatives that imposed on her. During the depths of the Depression, either a brother or nephew with wife and son Jackie lived with her for some time. Later Curtis and Lowell Smith lived with her — Curtis was a little older than I, Lowell younger; how they were related to Nellie I don’t know. Nellie later either had to sell her home or lost it via the mortgage foreclosure route. She spent her last days in a substandard and rather decrepit structure in the far west end of the town. One day, after people noticed there was no sign of her, she was found to have expired in bed. This all happened after I had left the community so I only learned of it third hand or even more indirectly. The news caused sort of a pang of sorrow in me, for a friendly person who had fallen on hard times and whom I had not thought of in years.

I have a couple of memories related to Nellie’s house and lot. Her lot had several larger trees on it, compared to the trees growing up around the little brown house. These produced a correspondingly larger amount of leaves which of course fell in the fall. I remember assisting Nellie in a superficial way by raking these into piles, which were then burned. No EPA or local burning criteria in those days to hinder such a practice. Whether it is because of this early and pleasurable experience with the smell of burning leaves or not I am not sure, but the distinctive odor still rouses a sense of pleasant reaction and nostalgia in me. I also recall playing at one end of her front porch — there was a low spot in the ground which afforded access to the open area beneath the porch and I recall using this to get under the porch. Inside the house I remember using the stereopticon viewer she had and the various pictures to look at, and wondering how the perception of depth was achieved. Although I’m sure Clarice was along most of the time when I was at Nellie’s I don’t really remember her presence, in my memory of Nellie and her house.




















Stereopticon viewer

My Life in the Little Brown House, part 26: Mel Rosene and Transients

Although I am nominally writing about the little brown house I have included to this point some areas around the house that were closely involved in the activities of my early years there. At this point I shall also include some additional material about several residences close bu that were similarly involved in the early family activities for me.

Originally just to the south of the little brown house was a vacant lot that in the summer grew up to bluegrass unattended. As long as it remained a vacant lot there was a path across it from the rear of the little brown house diagonally to the street which we all used when walking in the direction of town, school or Grandmother’s (or to Grandfather Strand’s for that matter). It was along this path that some of my mother’s jewelry was found after Vincent, at an early age, got into her dresser drawer where she kept these items and took them to play with.

It remained a vacant lot for quite some time but eventually Mel Rosene and his wife purchased it and built a house and garage on the property. Mel didn’t have a car so he didn’t need a garage for that purpose but I guess he needed a place to keep his gardening tools etc. Mel and his wife were childless and this unacquainted with the propensities of children, so my mother was a little concerned about possible friction between the Rosenes and us as children. Nothing developed along this line however, Mel (Melvin to be correct) made a show of earning a living by selling insurance, but I suspect that he had inherited some funds from his parents and was living partly off of that. I can see him still, a fairly tall man, quite erect, but with a substantial girth at his midsection, walking toward town with a little leather satchel-like contained, perhaps containing his insurance papers. It was rather an odd-shaped carrier — sort of like it was sized to contain legal-size envelopes and other papers folded to that dimension. It looked to be leather, dark reddish brown in color; probably not plastic — those were the days before plastics (except for Bakelite) were in much use, even existence of thought of them.

Before Mel and his wife built the house on the lot next to the little brown house, they resided in an old house across the street in a 45-degree direction toward the northwest corner of the park; indeed that house faced the park across the street from it. I have two vivid recollections from the time Mel and his wife lived in that house. While Mel lived there he kept several goats for the milk they produced and these goats were housed in a little barn at the rear of the property. The picture in my mind of large, portly Mel milking the goats has always fascinated me. Early one morning the barn caught on fire and was consumed as I recall. I don’t know if the cause of the blaze was ever determined but it could have been transients trespassing and using the barn for a night’s lodging. Gowrie had a floating population of hoboes or tramps that would ride the trained into the town and, presumably, stay for awhile before drifting on.

Some several blocks to the east of the little brown house the M & St. L tracks ran through the town (just north of the town they circled to the west and passed north of Lindquist’s pasture as I’ve written earlier) and adjacent to the tracks just north of Armour’s egg and chicken facility there was a hobo camp. I have the vague recollection of viewing the place, perhaps in the company of Harris Magnusson, and noting the evidence of habitation. There were no occupants there at the time. The tramps would make the rounds of local residences cadging free meals and perhaps offering to do some menial work in exchange. I’m sure that from time to time they solicited at both the little brown house and at my grandmother’s, with some success. I don’t think they were ever given any work to do — probably the feeling was that the sooner they left, the better, though there was regard for their hunger and homelessness. Or I suppose not homelessness, since the hobo jungle was in a way their residence.

I would suspect that this transient population no longer exists in Gowrie. Certainly the greatly reduced rail traffic through the town makes it much less accessible to tramps. I have the feeling that there was more tolerance then to such vagrants than there would be now. In addition to the hoboes there would appear traveling bands of gypsies who would spend varying lengths of time camped at the north end of the city park. Whether they received permission to do so I’ve no idea. As children, we were warned to steer clear of them — there were these rumors that children had disappeared, presumably being kidnapped into their society and culture.

My Life in the Little Brown House, part 12: Gowrie Library

The Gowrie library did exist and function at least in the years just preceding the move to the farm. I recall one Saturday evening before the weekly bath sitting on the steps leading to the upstairs bedroom, right in the place where the steps turn at the base for the straight section of the steps, and reading from Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer. I was reading the part of the book where Tom and Becky Thatcher get lost in the cave and I was quite afraid that something dire was going to happen. I was too young and inexperienced in the ways of authors to realize that most fiction ends relatively happily with all the heroes and heroines safe and sound. The library was situated at the back of Brunson’s jewelry store (later combination jewelry and variety store) and it was open for returning and checking out books on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Both days the hours were in the afternoon, perhaps somewhat longer on Saturdays.

The elder Brunsons (old Mr. Brunson was the watch repair man) had one child, Leonard, and it was his wife who acted as the librarian. She was a dark, plump, rather short lady with rather a brusque way of meeting people, perhaps particularly the younger patrons of the library. I don’t know if the library received some financial support from town or county taxes, such as a stipend for the librarian’s time. It was not a very large library but it was a focal point of interest for me (and I think Clarice and Vivian) and I visited it regularly, even after the move to the farm. I don’t know how the books were acquired — perhaps most of the original core had been donated — but in later years there was a section of books supplied by the state library that were periodically changed. My reading was not very edifying I’m afraid. I tended to favor Westerns (the principal authors I recall were Zane Grey and William MacLeod Raine) but I also read all the Tarzan books that the library stocked. My mother didn’t really approve of the books I read, particularly the Tarzan books but she didn’t actively oppose any of them. Perhaps she had too many problems which she felt were more important to deal with.

Before I left Gowrie to go to SUI for school, the town had constructed a town hall, which housed the fire truck, provided an expanded area for the library and I think a meeting room for such meetings as the town council. I recall visiting this new location for the town library and checking out books, but I don’t remember the hours nor who served as librarian. I’m sure it wasn’t the younger Mrs. Brunson.

One of the less pleasant memories I have of the little brown house was an incident that occurred one Sunday in the interval between arriving back from Sunday morning service and the midday meal. I was lying on the parlor rug reading and not far away Vincent was squabbling with the younger brothers. My father was irked by the squabbling and misinterpreted me as being the source of it and administered a spanking to me. I felt affronted by the injustice, particularly at the time. In the long run though its main effect was to engender in me the recognition that any person in a position of authority will on occasion make a mistake, with the further upshot that no opinion from authority is unequivocally correct. I think this recognition played its part in the questioning process that went on later in my life as to the validity of the statements I heard from the clergy and relatives regarding religion in general and the Christian teachings in particular. Nothing is taken for granted as being true, even though voiced by individuals generally respected, even loved; all too often human frailty is all too evident.