Author Archive: Carrie Koster

Before Dysart Was Zip Code 52224 – It Was A Place Called Ettie

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In 2023  the small community of Dysart, Iowa, celebrated their sesquicentennial based on the date that the town was established and named for a founding pioneer, Joseph Dysart. Becoming a named town helped the community establish itself. Of course, it was not the first step in the process of transforming this part of the midwest from the home of the native tribes  to a settler’s town and thus changing the landscape of Iowa forever. Sources, including the Dysart Sesquicentennial  publication and others, inform us that Tama County in which Dysart is located was established by the legislature in 1848 and that soon after settlers began to move into the county.  In 1850, the population in the county was less than 20 white settlers. By 1853 the process of establishing townships was begun and growth continued.  Between the years of 1850 and 1870 the population continued to grow steadily. After the Civil War, interest in railroads provided the structure and resources which led to a town being laid out and the building of an infrastructure which is the present day town of Dysart.

One of the first priorities of settlers was to establish ways to communicate with others for the purposes of social interaction and commerce. According to records, the first post office was located in Monroe township in Benton County and was named in honor of Squire James Wood. This served the surrounding area until 1863 when it was disbanded. Starting in 1864 all the mail was held in Vinton and settlers were required to travel to that location to collect their mail or have someone bring it to them when they traveled to Vinton.

 

And Then There Was Ettie, Iowa

Finally, in 1869, a post office was established at the home of John Tyler Converse in section 11 where it remained until it was moved into the newly established town of Dysart on January 3, 1873. This post office was called “Ettie” and was primarily operated by John’s wife. Marcia. According to the obituary of their son, Palmer, “the family came to Iowa and located in Tama county, near Dysart in 1867. They lived there for thirty-six years. Mr. and Mrs. Converse disposed of their property at and near Dysart and came to Estherville in 1903.” The were eventually buried in the Dysart Cemetery. The Ettie Post Office was located on their farm. Today, if you drive north out of Dysart on the road which lies on the west end of the town and turn west, this farm is the first one on the right side of the road. Long-time Dysart citizens will recognize this location as the Seebach farm. Why the post office was named Ettie is not clear.

John Converse Original Application for Post Office to be called Ettie with move to Dysart noted

The New Post Office Is Announced

 

Thus, the area in and around Dysart was known as Ettie for about 4 years before the town was established. In those early days mail routes were bid on by local residents who were paid to run the routes. On March 10, 1870,  the Post Office Department put out a bid for Route 11211 which ran from Belle Plaine to Waterloo twice a week and included stops at the Ettie Post Office.

Waterloo Courier March 10, 1870

In Iowa newspapers between 1869 and 1873 the name of Ettie was a location in stories, announcements and letters to the editor including this one from December of 1870.

The Toledo Chronicle December 15, 1870

As stated, the post office was moved in 1873 and the name was changed to Dysart where it has remains to this day. After the office was moved to Dysart, the name Ettie pretty much disappeared from the records.

Document from the National Archives showing change from Ettie to Dysart Post Office 1873.

Happy Zip Code Day to the Residents of Dysart! 5-22-24!

 

 

 

The Curious Case of the Returned Trunk – December 1923

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“Thieves Keep Auto But Return Trunk, Bag and Clothing”

Please note: This is a true story. The names of the people have been changed. The details have not.

On an early December night in 1923 a man from one of the small towns reported to Waterloo, Iowa, police that his car had been stolen.  He had parked his vehicle in front of the Scobby residence at 217 Second Street West (now the site of the Dan Gable Wrestling Museum). No details are known about why this man was visiting that location. Newspaper reports show that car theft was occuring fairly regularly in Waterloo that year. At the time, he was a 29 year old, married farmer. It appears this was the home of a respectable family who may have also had some boarding rooms. The (Waterloo) Evening Courier and Reporter reported that this man, Martin,  had his new Ford Coupe with license number 12-5778  stolen. He further reported the stealing of a  trunk and suitcase which were in the car.  About one week later, a large package and the suitcase were mysteriously delivered by express to Martin’s home in the Dysart area. His address was plainly and correctly written. The place of mailing  was St. Paul, Minnesota. According to the paper, the name and address of the sender were on the package but were believed to be fictitious. Practically all of the stolen clothing, which consisted mainly of new and valuable women’s apparel was in the returned packages. No trace of the automobile was found. Police theorized that the thieves drove the auto to St. Paul and “finding the contents were of character dangerous to attempt to dispose of, determined to send them to the owners in a way which would cause the least liability of discovery.”

How curious! Why would thieves who had stolen a valuable automobile trouble themselves over some far less valuable clothing? Surely being traced back to a stolen vehicle would have been more significant than being found with a bunch of clothes. Why risk going to a station and having these items shipped? Minnesota is known as the Land of Lakes, surely they could have found a river or lake along the to throw the trunk and suitcase in. Were there no lonesome places where they could have buried the loot? Why would the thieves spend their money returning these insignificant items to someone from whom they were inclined to steal?

Perhaps knowing more about the victim can shed light on these questions. Martin came from a prominent family in the Mooreville area, a settlement located between Waterloo and Dysart, Iowa. His grandfather was one of the first white settlers in Geneseo Township . County records of this wealthy and influential family in date back before the 1860s.  The local papers of the time chronicle his parent’s business ventures including purchasing land close to home but also in the Dakotas and California. He had married Alfreda, the daughter of another prominent family, and taken up farming in 1914.   Between 1914 and 1922 newspaper reports show that he was doing what other new husbands and fathers do. He was renting land from his father, selling timothy grass, purchasing hogs, and shipping hogs to the Chicago markets. The couple do appear to have done quite a bit of traveling in those years. From the social columns it is unclear if these were unsuccessful moves out of area or just long visits in the Dakotas  and California.

In 1911, Martin’s father, Carlton, decided to sell his farm and move to California for the winter along with his wife, Lacy. Martin was just 17 or 18 at the time Carlton was quoted in the paper as saying that his children “would have to find a way to look after themselves”.  In December of that same year  Martin’s sister, Elsie,  got married and moved with her husband to a new community. In language that would never be used today, the Traer Star Clipper reported “The young folks were intending to be married in the spring, but matters were somewhat hurried by the bride’s parents who intend to spend the winter in California.” By this time, Carlton had already sold the farm. The paper continued “So this daughter took the first chance that came along and found a splendid young fellow to take care of her.”

In 1920, the father died and left his estate to his wife who by then was back in Dysart. She died four years later in 1924. Her will which had been drawn up in 1918 revealed an estate  worth $50,000.  The conditions of the will were a bit strange and may provide a clue about Martin. Money was set aside for her grandchildren and after that was divided into four equal parts. Three of her children received their full share immediately. However, the last 1/4 share was to be divided between Martin and his brother, John. Additionally, that share was to be held in trust by the Dysart State Bank and the brothers received the interest only. Upon their deaths, the money immediately passed to Martin and John’s children. Starting almost immediately both Martin and  John along with the  bank were sued by creditors for money from that inheritance to pay for  outstanding debts. These court cases drug on and on for so long that in 1938 the bank tried to remove themselves from management  of the funds. Another person was appointed by the courts and that person turned the responsibility down.

The early 1920’s appear to have been a challenging time for Martin. In 1919 it was noted in the paper that he had lost a cow and a good horse. How this happened was not clarified.  In May of 1922 he was caught up in a prohibition sweep by the Tama County Sheriff. Arrested with a gallon of  alcohol in his car which was parked outside the Dysart Opera House during a dance, hee pled guilty to possession and transportation of alcohol and was fined $137.00. In February of 1923, he was arrested by the Waterloo police on a traffic violation of cutting corners. Within the same week of having his car stolen in Waterloo, his brother, John, was caught up in a gambling sweep in Dysart and was also arrested.  The rest of his life story is not entirely clear. It is obvious that he and Alfreda divorced. In May of 1929 she married another Tama County resident and moved to Greeley, Colorado, where she lived out the rest of her days.  By 1950 Martin was living in Brooklyn, New York with a wife. By 1960 he was in Florida.  It appears he died in Florida in 1970 at the age of about 76 years old. How he made his living after leaving Iowa is unknown.

So Reader, what do you think?

Does it make sense to you that the random strangers who stole his car returned his items via Express or do you have another theory?

What other information do you need to know in order to make up your mind?

Please post your thoughts to the Facebook page where you are reading this or send me an email. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

 

Iowa’s Celebrated Mad Stone – Rabies in the 1880’s – Tragedy in Mooreville Iowa

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Iowa is dotted with numerous towns which were started and later abandoned. Many of these have a lone marker but many are just memory to the locals. The Iowa Ghost Towns website lists almost 50 such places in Tama County alone. One such town is Mooreville which was  located between Dysart and Waterloo on what is now County Road V37. The last house of the settlement which was occupied into the 1970s has since been torn down. All that remains is a marker and some small cemeteries which are home to the remains of its founding citizens.  Located in section 24 of Geneseo Township in Tama County, Mooreville had a post office from 1871 until 1900.

Mooreville Postmark 1896

Before the settlement at Mooreville was established the area had a different name, Six Mile Grove. The town’s hopes of a prosperous future were dashed when the railroad was established in Dysart instead of Mooreville. It’s too bad. It’s a beautiful part of Tama County and would  have made a nice setting for a town with the Wolf Creek running through it and the lovely trees that fill the hills in this area.

1875 Plat Map Tama County – Geneseo Township

 

The first white settlers in the Mooreville area were the Hills and the Riley’s. The two families arrived in the Spring of 1853 with Joseph Hill being the patriarch of the family and John Riley his son-in-law. John was married to Joseph and Sarah Hill’s daughter, Charity.   Joseph and his wife, Sarah, had eight children who settled the area with him and continued his legacy after his death in 1855. Their journey to Geneseo Township and subsequent settlement in that area are chronicled in the “History of Tama County Iowa” which is available online here. A section of the Traer Historical Museum is dedicated to the Geneseo area.

Joseph Hill

Sarah Hill

John and Charity Riley

In the summer of 1882, the Hill farm was being operated by Joseph and Sarah’s son, George and his wife Cornelia. Their daughter, Mary had married Alpheus Goodpasture and relocated to Fort Scott, Kansas. According to the Courier (Waterloo), Arthur Goodpasture, their grandson, had come for  a visit with George and his mother, Sarah. Sometime in May, Arthur heard a noise in the barn and went out to check for the source of that noise. On his return trip to the house a strange dog jumped upon his back. When he turned to grapple with the dog, he was bitten on the wrist and forefinger of the right hand. He was unable to free himself from the dog’s bite and the hired man was forced to pry open the jaws of the dog before the hand was released. The dog was shot but not before it had  bitten two horses and two calves. The horses and one of the calves died of rabies.  The other calf went mad and had to be shot.

Mr. Goodpasture showed no symptoms of his bite for about six weeks but then started complaining of hydrophobia on a Sunday night in July. He was unable to  swallow water placed in his mouth. By Monday evening he had chills and was given a dose of quinine. He continued to get worse. Dr. Griffin of Vinton, Dr. Evarts of Waterloo and Dr. Knott of Mooreville were all called and concurred that the patient was suffering from hydrophobia caused by rabies. The physicians called for the “celebrated mad stone” from forty miles away but this was of no effect. Arthur remained conscious until the end. Pain relieving medications were given but he continued to have severe spasms. He died on Wednesday of that week.  He was about 25 years old and left behind a wife and an eighteen month old son.

What is a Mad Stone?

Before a cure for rabies was developed by Louis Pateur in the late 1800’s Mad Stones (also known as bezoar stones) were used to treat rabies and snake bites. The practice goes back several centuries. A mad stone is formed in the stomach or intestines of cud-chewing animals. In American folklore, the most powerful of these come from albino deer with pink eyes. In essence it is a hair ball composed of  mineral salts, hair and fiber ingested by the animal. They form from calcium deposits similar to how an oyster forms a pearl. The calcium clings to some foreign material such as hair and slowly adds more layers. If you cut through one you would find rings, similar to a trees growth rings.

Before using, the stones were boiled in sweet milk. The wound to be treated needed to be bleeding and if it was not the skin had to be scraped until it did bleed. If it did not adhere, it was assumed the person did not have rabies. However if rabies was present, the stone would attach itself to the flesh for a long time, drawing the poison out and absorbing it into the stone. When it fell off the wound it would be boiled in milk again to release the toxins. The stone would then be applied to the wound again. If it did not stick, the person was considered cured. If it stuck it would be left to draw the remainder of the toxin out of the body. According to lore, a mad stone can neither be bought or sold to remain effective. They were generally passed down from father to son but their presence in a home was known by those who lived nearby and their owners were frequently called upon to help. The stone’s shape could not be changed or it would lose it’s effectiveness.  Additionally, using the stone was not intended to  involve any kind of payment. The location of “Iowa’s Celebrated Mad Stone” is unclear. A search of newspapers.com produces over 350 results for the use of mad stones in Iowa between 1854 and 1940. Several references are made to one in Paris, Iowa.

Did they work?

Likely not. Rabies can take up to a year to develop after a bite occurs. Someone treated with a Mad Stone immediately after a bite could still develop the virus months down the line. Rabies is also not as easy to catch as one may think. Depending on where a person is bitten the chance of developing the disease are between 10 -90%, with face and head bites being the most dangerous. Like all folklore however, its effectiveness may have been more in the belief than the actual stone but either way, they provided hope to people in what seemed like very hopeless circumstances.

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One Hundred Years Ago In A Small Midwest Town – Gambling Raid – Dysart, Iowa

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“Widow’s Home at Dysart Is Searched: All Bound Over to Grand Jury”

Fifty years into the growth of this small town on the Iowa prairie, Dysart now boasts a population of just under one thousand people. Where once there was only open prairie, this railroad town has grown and thrived. It is a town made up of transplants, both American and and foreign-born.  The people in the town have endured the world’s first global war. On an almost weekly basis the deaths of Tama County’s original white pioneers are recorded. New people arrive to try their hands at farming and industry while others leave for less developed lands and warmer climates. New homes and businesses are being added to those which were built back in 1873 when the town was brand new. It would be easy to think of this place as a perfectly tranquil painting and its inhabitants above those vices that make humans human but, of course, that is not the case and although the papers only occasionally report on crime, it still happens. Even here. Contributing to the increase in crime is prohibition. Iowa was one of the first states in the union to ban alcohol way back in 1916, four years before the rest of the country was made dry by the Volstead Act.

On Tuesday,  December 4, 1923, acting on a tip, Tama County sheriff, W.C. Harrison, a deputy sheriff and the country’s attorney traveled from the county seat in Toledo to Dysart. Their goal was to raid the home of a local widow,  Mrs. Mary Johnson, who it was rumored was running a gambling establishment.

During the raid, five men were found with “every indication of a game in progress” (6 or 7 decks of cards) and a small amount (a nip) of alcohol. All six were arrested and taken before Mayor Edward Wieben. The five men were charged with gambling. Mrs. Johnson’s charge was for keeping a gambling house. A boy named Robert Sutten, of LaPorte, was held as an important witness. The defendants waived preliminary hearings and were bound over to the grand jury. Two days later, on December 6, the grand jury made a partial report charging Mrs. Johnson with keeping a gambling house and the other men charged with gambling. Mrs. Johnson pled guilty and her sentencing was continued until the May term. She was released on December 7 on a $500 bond which she posted for herself.

Of the five men, three were local and were initially released on bond, two before being taken to jail and one, Bazz Jones, posted bond on December 7 after spending a few days in the county jail. The other men Karl Mohler and Troy Hayward who lived north of Dysart were released on bonds the night of the incident. The out-of-town men were Claud Barnhart of Waterloo, and Fred Hauser of Garrison. Barnhart was able to post bond immediately. The next day he posted the bond for his friend, Hauser. In the end Judge Willett  fined the five men $50 plus costs and fine.

Reading the accounts of these arrests in a modern-day context, it is difficult to comprehend how so much could be made of some decks of cards and a small amount of alcohol but at the time, this was a big story and was covered in more than just the local papers. A careful reading shows that there was likely more at play than just the six people arrested that night.  Several references were made that other “well known and prominent citizens” of the Dysart vicinity were implicated. Obtaining those names was clearly a goal for the sheriff.  An ever bigger agenda was likely tracking down the moonshiners, the source of the alcohol.

The grand jury had taken a week to investigate the case more thoroughly and numerous citizens were implicated. Presumably these were anxious days in Dysart as its citizens wondered if they or their families members might be named. It would appear that in an effort to secure her release from jail rather than wait for her sentencing in May, Mrs. Johnson gave the court the names of several more Dysart residents who had been gambling at her house. On December 13, ten of these men were indicted and each paid a $50 fine. In addition to Mohler and Hayward who had already been fined these men were: Ray Filloon, Ralph Myers, W.L. (Shorty) Hollenbeck, Stanley Powell, Walter Clark, Roy Casey, Floyd Harmon, and William Ohde.

A clue that this case might have been more about alcohol than cards is found in the The Traer Star Clipper on December 14, 1923, which reads “It is understood that the grand jury has become disgusted with the perjurious testimony and forgetfulness of the witnesses in liquor cases especially when parties brought before the grand jury invariably testify that they purchased their liquor of strangers, or have forgotten  whom they secured it. The former grand jury took special pains to cooperate with the county attorney in stopping this practice. On the same day as the additional men were charged, two men were charged with bootlegging. .

Gambling was not confined to the town of Dysart. On the 21st of December, the Traer Star Clipper stated “It need not be surmised that the only gambling going on in Tama County is in Dysart. Far from it. There is undoubtedly a great deal more of it in Tama than in Dysart and Traer is not free from it by a long shot. Dysart was simply unfortunate in being caught at it. Buy why stop with Dysart?”

 

The Founding of Dysart, Iowa: First Hand Accounts – From the Editor of the Centerville Citizen 1872

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A Journey Due North

This article appeared in the Centerville (Iowa) Citizen on November 23, 1872

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“If the reader will trace on a county map of the United States the lines of longitude which passes through Centerville north to where it intersects the Mississippi river he will find that it passes through Goodham county, Minnesota. Just west of this is the county of Rice the “objective point” of our journey, nearly enough “due north” to answer this title.

But our journey was not pursued over the line of longitude in question. If it had been, regardless of railroad facilities, we should scarcely have been back here to report at this day. We are not too perpendicular in our notions to travel by rail, albeit the railway zigzag somewhat in its course, provided there are a pair of rails, that they are of iron or steel, securely spiked down, and between us and them is a comfortable car on wheels. As for that primitive mode of traveling “by rail” where the traveler is brought into rude contact with the rail as a vehicle, we have no anxiety to try its accommodations, even with a free pass.

From Centerville to Columbus Junction, over the Southwestern Road the route is so familiar to our readers, either by travel or report, that we need not dwell upon it. When we left, November first, the forests along the line which a few weeks before were gorgeous in their autumn hues of brown and russet and scarlet and crimson, were now already becoming stripped of their leaves and some of their glories. Our mellow and splendid October had come to a close, and a pre-election storm (Reader’s Note: In 1872 President Grant was re-elected), designed to test the mettle of lukewarm voters, had set in. No more mild summer days now, no more time for deliberate argument, whether high or inspiring, or merely clap-trap and demagogic, no more spread-eagle spouting, no time now, if ever, for wavering and indecision; in short it was November.

Of that storm of ballots on the fifth of November which “came down as still as snowflakes fall upon the sod” (Reader’s Note: The writer is quoting a poem called “The Ballot” by the American poet, John Pierpont’s ) we do not need to write now. Under the brightening skies of renewed concord, firmly maintained faith and financial disaster exerted, we trust it will be seen of all that it was like the blessed rain of Providence falling alike upon the just and upon the unjust. It will be understood that our journey was not all continuous; but for present purposes we may speak of it as one.

From Columbus Junction we travel northward over the line of the Burlington, Cedar Rapids and Minnesota Railway, which carries us almost entirely across the State of Iowa into the State of Minnesota. The principal towns along its lines are Cedar Rapids, with its fine waterpower mills and factories; its four lines of railway, its railroad men  and their headquarters; its Normal School (a private institution); its daily newspaper and enterprising businessmen who instead of waiting for something to “turn up” go to work and turn it up; its extensive pork packing establishments, which promises to be an important addition to the business of the town, and other industries which we have no space to specify.

Shellsburg a town of perhaps 500 inhabitants, nearly destroyed some months since by fire, but rising again; (Reader’s Note: On April 12th of 1872 a fire in Shellsburg destroyed eighteen buildings, with a loss of about $30,000. The fire began in a saloon owned by J. Drefahl); Vinton, county seat of Benton with a valuable water power lying dormant in the volume of the Cedar River waiting for capital and enterprise to coin it into wealth and increased population; its State College for the Blind, under the able and excellent superintendency of Prof. S. A. Knapp, a cultured gentleman, admirably fitted for his post; its branch railway now building westward into northern Tama, where the new towns of Dysart and Traer are preparing to welcome the locomotive; its fine residences and business structures; and above all its intelligent and hospitable people of whom this writer retains many a pleasant remembrance;

Laporte (Reader’s Note: Presently called La Porte), a portal to Blackhawk county, a thriving place of a thousand people with a valuable mill-stream and mill and other industries; Waterloo county seat of Blackhawk, the queen city of the upper Cedar, firmly encamped on both banks of that noble stream, which turns the city’s mill-wheels on the way to the Mississippi; and asks no pay; it’s beautiful and substantial iron bridge, connecting the two Waterloos; its numerous and substantial business houses and its business men of widely known enterprise; its two railroads, the BCR&M and the Illinois Central which has also its machine shops here. We tarried a few hours here and visited the well-equipped offices of these two model papers, the Courier and Reporter, the last-named of which has a new and costly building of its own, and connected with it an extensive bindery and blank book manufactory. Five miles further up is Cedar Falls a formidable rival to Waterloo, in fact the older town, with large mills and other industries, evidently a very flourishing and wealthy city. But we have no time to tary.

The remainder of this article was apparently published the next week on November 30, 1872. Unfortunately, this paper is currently unavailable on-line and therefore we will end our journey here for now and hope that at a later date the November 30 edition can be located.

Thank God, I Have Better Things To Do With My Time

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Lord, as I rise this morning, I want to thank you for all the life you have given me.

I thank you for allowing me to have a wide range of interests and relationships to fill my days with joy.

I thank you that at the end of each day, I have more that I want to learn, do and teach in the following day if it is given to me. 

When I started my website, I had no idea that in addition to setting up a place where I could share my writing with others, I was also providing a space where people who are so lonely and desperate and devoid of joy could spend their days trolling and trying to ruin it for me and everyone else. On a weekly basis now, I remove dozens of vulgar messages (and when I say vulgar, I mean vulgar) from others who I can only assume are not blessed with a joyous existence or meaningful activity. I can do something about that by installing a spam blocker but I confess this type of thing has become a real buzz kill to my creativity and motivation.

These trolls are also ruining Facebook where I was posting my stories. With their never-ending posts about Justin Beiber’s death (has anyone told the Beib he is dead?), duct cleaning and work from home opportunities they have supplanted any type of meaningful content.  Facebook was one of my primary motivations to write content. So, it has become a cyclical thing. I don’t want to visit my website because of the vulgar comments and I don’t want to visit Facebook because it has become a place where only the trolls live.

I feel sorry for trolls. Their lives must be very sad indeed and I know at some point, I will have the strength to fight them again but for now, I am thankful that I have better things to do with my time. Enjoy your temporary win, trolls.

 

 

 

The News From Dysart and Central Iowa Mid-July To The End Of September 1914

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Wars and Rumors of War

After the people of Dysart hosted their Fourth of July Celebration and first ever Chautauqua which brought thousands of locals and visitors to town, life should have settled back into a more normal pace for her residents and area farmers. Summer is a short-term affair in the Midwest and Iowans like to make the most of the weather. There was farming, gardening, commerce, and recreation to be pursued. Soon, though, the outside world began to infiltrate their lives with news of the spreading war in Europe.  War which was happening in the very lands many of these people had immigrated from. Places where many of them still had parents, siblings, and extended family as well as financial interests.

August 6, 1914

Across the nation, Americans tried to understand the situation. A headline in the Reporter read, “Explanation of European Crisis is Hard to Find – Diplomats and Observers Unable to Understand the Attitude of Austria”. Soon, the war started to impact the daily lives of Tama County residents. The week after this was posted in the paper, a man named Fred Baur informed the Dysart Reporter that he had “army fever” and would be leaving for Germany within a few weeks to join his countrymen in battle. News began arriving of Americans stranded in Europe. Three Tama County residents found themselves in this circumstance. Herman Boettcher of Traer and his daughter, Marie, where stranded in Germany where they had gone to visit family. H.J. Stiger of Toledo was similarly stranded in London. In response, the United States sent the warship Tennessee and a cruiser, the North Carolina, loaded with gold to Europe to help these citizens return to the states. E.J. Stayskal of Carroll township made an unsuccessful attempt to return to his native Bohemia on a steamer, but the ship was turned back and narrowly escaped being captured.

At the Brick and Tile Yard in Dysart, city marshal, George Geyer, was summoned to break up a fight which erupted between foreign workers with differing nationalist views on the situation in Europe. This, of course, was only the beginning of a war that would take it’s toll on the citizens in very personal ways in the years to come. At the time, though, they had no idea what was coming.

The Death of George Wood

In 1914, the town of Dysart was in its forties and her founding citizens were beginning to pass away. One such pioneer was George Wood. Born in 1834 in Pennsylvania, George’s family had followed a common path of westward expansion having moved from Pennsylvania to Ohio and then on to Illinois. He was a veteran of the Civil War who initially moved to Benton County. By 1873, George was farming in Benton County and had opened a cobbler’s shop in Dysart which quickly expanded into the retail shoe business. His biography in the “History of Tama County” portrays his shop as a place where men gathered to discuss politics, news, religion, and mythology as well as play chess. He remained in business until 1911 when he moved to Albert Lee, Minnesota, to be near his sisters. After his death in July, his body was transported back to Dysart by train and he is interred at the cemetery there. From all accounts he was a strong leader for his community and a well-loved member of the town he helped found. Below is an excerpt from his obituary in the Reporter.

 

Car Versus Buggy

On a Thursday night, Ed Christian and John Pippert were riding in a buggy headed for town. Two and a half miles northwest of town they were struck by an automobile driven by Rowan Dysart. The car hit the rear end of the buggy which sent Christian and Pippert to the ground. Both men were badly bruised and unable to work for several days but not seriously injured. Mr. Dysart and his passenger, Kenneth von Lackum, stated that the dust and fog were so thick that they did not see the buggy until they bumped into it. The car sustained minor damage; the buggy was a total wreck. These types of car versus horse incidents were fairly common in the early days of automobiles.

A Stern Warning to Dysart Reporter’s Readers

 

The “Back Road” To Cedar Rapids

The Lincoln Highway was proposed in 1912 and construction on the new transcontinental road began in 1913. Now known as Highway 30 in Iowa, this route eventually traversed the nation from New York to California. Realizing that the road was going to bypass their towns, the commercial interests north of the road banded together to create a new auto route between Cedar Rapids and Marshalltown which ran through their respective communities. Many people who live in the area would now consider this the “back way” or detour route to get from southern Tama County to Cedar Rapids.

 

Meanwhile, construction of the Lincoln Highway continued. Two couples from Traer, Burt Aldrich and his mother along with Ira Beecher and his wife made a trip to Dewitt, Iowa which was chronicled in the paper. They reported that they made the drive on the Lincoln Highway after leaving Cedar Rapids and the road was in bad shape with a maximum speed of fifteen to twenty miles per hour.

Land Deals and Land Scams

 

The newspapers of the day had several ads offering cheap farmable lands in other states. Many of the farmers in the Dysart area owned farms in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and the Dakotas. Others moved to these new lands. The exodus from Iowa was real. In the previous five-year period, Iowa had lost about 22,000 adult male citizens, a large portion of their working force. In response, in early 1914, Iowa businessmen created the Greater Iowa Association to promote the state. In the fall of 1914, the Reporter told cautionary tales of land deal scams throughout the country. The first scam was being run out of Chicago and was aimed at pastors in the Midwest. The perpetrators claimed to have 75,000 acres of land available in Missouri. For just $15 a pastor could enter the lottery and possibly be allotted a farm or a share in a yet to be planted orchard.  The second story was published by the newly formed Greater Iowa Association ran in papers throughout the state. In a heavily redacted letter from an alleged Iowan in Texas they told the story of 600 families stranded there without money or food after buying worthless land which they purchased sight unseen. The Association threated legal action against the land company and filed a suit with the US Postal service for mail fraud. The real estate board of Texas responded quickly in defense of their state and the whole matter seems to have disappeared from the papers by early in 1915 when their attention was focused on the Panama Exhibit.

Baseball and The Circus – Labor Day 1914

 

 

Fair Season in Iowa

DEALS IN DIRT

According to the Dysart Reporter, the residence was sold to George Schreiber for $950 who then sold it to H.W. Beilke for $1,000. John Klar purchased the vacant lot for $400 who then sold the lot of Mr. Beilke at a profit of $50. Mr. Beilke planned to have the property improved and move his family there the following March.

According to the Reporter, a good crowd was present for this auction. “The household goods sold readily at fair prices. The horses did not bring what they should, a three-year-old horse going for $110 and a dandy two-year-old colt for $77.50.” The car was sold to George Kersten for $980. The house and lots were sold to C. Brandau for $2975 who then sold the place to Will Kline for $3000.

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Iowa Tornado – May 31, 1958

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Cedar Rapids Gazette

On Saturday, May 31, 1958 two separate storm systems raced across Iowa causing a wide range of destruction. The headline from the Cedar Rapids Gazette on the day after the storms is shown above. According to the Gazette, “A howling windstorm, accompanied by rain and hail swept across Eastern Iowa…” The winds caught boaters and swimmers at Rock Creek Lake between Newton and Grinnell unaware and at least one person was drowned. Hailstones the size of baseballs struck Oelwein, Edgewood and the surrounding areas. Dysart, Walker and the rural area around Toledo suffered tornado damage. Strawberry Point reported 4.5 inches of rain in a two hour period. In the Norma Anders Library in Dysart, there is set of newspaper clippings showing how the storm affected this small town. It is not clear what paper these clippings are from. What follows is a retelling of their account of that day.

“Dysart Hit Hard as Tornado Winds Rip Building, Fell Trees”

Map of Dysart With Writers Best Recall of Location of Homes and Businesses

Paul Wieck Gives His Eyewitness Report

“There wasn’t time to get scared said Paul Wieck after he witnessed the cyclonic fury of the Saturday noon storm which ripped open two Dysart business building as he stood in the office of one of them. Paul was in the driveway of the Wieck Feed and Livestock building at the height of the storm and saw the roof lifted off the long Farmers Lumber company building across the street. He then stepped into the Wieck office building and found himself looking out of an office without a front.”

“In those few seconds of devastation, the front of the Wieck office was torn loose and flattened on west Wilson street. Paul heard nothing of its going as the roar of the winds drowned all other sounds. Had he been sitting at his desk, he might have been dumped outside with the broken boards of the front. Total damage to the building and stock was estimated at about $2,000 by Ernest Wieck.”

The Storm Came From the West

“It was 15 days short of a year since a similar twister swooped into Dysart on practically the same path and damaged some of the same buildings. This year’s disaster struck on a Saturday too. It was shortly after 12:30 p.m. when the storm hurtled in from the west. Cutting a swath of destruction down Highway 8 from Traer…”

Cedar Rapid Gazette June 2, 1958

 

 

 

 

Des Moines Register June 1, 1958

Traveling Down Clark and Wilson Streets

“…the wind struck first at the Mrs. Martha Schulz home and roared on down Wilson street. Huge trees were twisted in a giant grip, torn from their moorings and tossed aside. Felled were friendly shade trees at the F.C. Lewis, Ernest Wieck, Alvin Schutt, and John Burhenn homes. A massive tree crushed the vacant house on west Wilson owned by Mrs. Gertie Cone.

The Bob Bohnsack family saw the black clouds close in, accompanied by a driving rain. As they headed for the their basement, a giant tree toppled against the front porch of their home, tearing it from the house and snapping the posts. Their garage rose straight in the air for about 10 feet, then was whipped east and dashed against the neighboring homes of Floyd Tuttle and Jack Fordice.”

 

“In the same vicinity, three big trees crashed to the ground at Ed Gleim residence and one in front of Gerald Dunlavey’s. A television aerial was ripped from atop the Roy Hahn home and deposited several blocks away on the roof of the Bader grocery. The garage was flattened on the Bill Schultz property. A metal awning was torn from the Mrs. Hilda Jansen home and dropped behind the Stein Tavern.”

Cedar Rapids Gazette June 2, 1958

Moving Into the Business District

“Total destruction was the fate of the cement block building on west Wilson owned by the Evergreen Hatchery. This structure simply exploded, cutting wires at the adjoining electrical sub-station that sputtered dangerously.”

“Ray Baker was caught in this building as it was demolished. He had just driven a truck inside and dived under the truck when the storm unleased its power. Blocks and beams tumbled around and on the pickup, but Mr. Baker was unhurt. ‘It sounded like a freight train,’ said Baker. ‘I never did find where the wind carried my cap.’ A small portion of the door of the Evergreen building was found near the Barnes Hardware more than 2 blocks away.”

The hatchery suffered considerable loss on the building and contents stored there. At the hatchery plant, an auxiliary generator again kept the incubators going during the 12-hour period of power outage.”

Cedar Rapids Gazette June 2, 1958

“Next in line was the build building of the Farmers Lumber Company. The west driveway door was ripped off and flung a block east near the D-X bulk storage tanks. About four-fifths of the roof was striped away and dumped helter-skelter over a wide area.

Evidence of the storms might was a heavy hog ringing chute which stood on the south side of the lumber yard. It was whirled through the air until it struck the side of the Evergreen Elevator office, leaving red paint marks for a trail, then carried on 20 0r more yards to the north. Two large portable hog houses were shattered.

Manager R.L. McMurray had a crew of about 20 men at work Sunday laying a new roof to protect the contents of the yard from rain. ‘I was really sick,’ he said, ‘when I saw the damage.’ The wind freakishly burst downward through the ceiling tiles of the office, then pushed the scale window out. In the path of all this, not a paper on the office desk was moved.”

Cedar Rapids Gazette June 2, 1958

“The large neon sign atop the Evergreen Elevator office was bent double. Across the street, a gaping hole was torn in the roof of the coal sheds of the Townsend-Merrill company. The Barnes Hardware building badly damaged in the 1957 tornado, suffered again. A gaping hole was gouged in the brick wall of the building along east Wilson street. The cap on the false front of the Village Inn was raised. The decorative brickwork atop the three-story Keidel building was pushed backward onto the roof.”

More Damage As The Storm Leaves Town

The north edges of Dysart was badly bruised. A new double garage built by Richard Bednar was demolished. A tile workshop behind Bill Mattheisen home collapsed. The garage went down at the Ray Larsen home. The porch of the Mrs. Mary Barta residence was severely damaged by a falling tree.

There was damage in south Dysart also. A branch from a tree in the high school yard was flung against the John Theile home to rip away siding. Trees fell at the Dick Moeller, John Loeb, D.C. Wunder, Herman Lenaburg, Rev. J.E. Albertson, Leonard Siemens homes. Harland Downs lost his garage and William Hilmer’s car was damaged when the garage tumbled around it. ”

Cedar Rapids Gazette June 2, 1958

 

Charlie’s Depression Wedding – Part 2

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August 1935 

He completely lost track of time sitting out there in Hayward’s Grove that day. In the same way he had been unaware how he had gotten there; he was equally unaware how he got home. Eventually, he had gone back to the house that he and Margaret had recently rented. You couldn’t really call it a home. They had not had time to establish it as such. The next day, Charlie did what people with troubled lives do, he got through the day. Charlie managed his basic physical needs, he met his financial responsibilities, he took breaths in and let breaths out. He got through that day and then did the same on the following days.

Just as he had so zealously invited everyone he met to the wedding; he started quizzing everyone about Margaret. Had she said anything to them about why she might leave? What cues had she left about where she went? The answers he got were as unsatisfactory as the one he got from Postmaster Schroeder. Most people said they did not know anything, and others refused to betray her confidence.

Charlie Begins to See Things Differently

Slowly, though enough hints had been dropped that Charlie was forced to see some things that his anger and disappointment had hidden from him. Perhaps, the glorious wedding event he had planned for them, was not quite so glorious for her. Possibly, he had overwhelmed her or worse scared her. He felt a little foolish now that he had not seen that as a possibility before. Margaret had ridden a thousand miles on a hot bus to start a new life in foreign place with a strange man. She and eleven-year-old Jarvis had barely gotten into his car, when she had been swept up in his unusual schemes and expectations. He had not even given her time to breath in the clean Iowa air before he started sucking most of it out the automobile with his exuberance.

They had not spent any time together before she was expected to stand in front of 200 strangers and pledge her fidelity to him. She had not been given an opportunity to plan any of the details of her own wedding. There had been no question what  traditions she wanted to honor. He had done it all. What he had initially seen as taking care of business now looked more like taking control and although he did not understand women well, he understood this might not be desirable.

On the day of the wedding, she only had two people present who knew her while Charlie had two hundred. If he had gone about the whole thing in a more reasonable fashion, she might have seen the guests as potential friends instead of spectators who had purchased a ticket to watch her perform like a circus act, but he hadn’t. The newspaper said that after the minister pronounced them man and wife, he had insisted on kissing her and she had resisted this. It appeared everyone had seen that. Everyone except Charlie.

From the moment she met him on that Tuesday and on through Friday night, it had been a constant whirlwind of activities and people, Charlie’s people. When all that was over, she found herself alone in an unfamiliar place with him. Nothing was the same for her. She had never been outside of New York before, and she certainly had never seen so much corn and flat land. White Falls was a  small city in New York with access to public transportation and shopping so unlike this one-mile-square town with limited business options and no freedom to travel outside its boundaries.

Charlie had never been much for sentimentality but in retrospect, he could see how things might have been for her and regretted his lack of insight. He thought he might be able to do better if he was given another chance.  And then, one week later, he got his chance. As mysteriously as she had disappeared, Margaret and the boys returned.  No explanation was offered regarding where she had gone or what she had been doing. She let him know that his fight with Bill was completely unnecessary and unfounded. Charlie was a fool for making such a big deal out of her leaving and once again getting their names in the papers. This did not seem to be something they could avoid. After her return, her name appeared in the paper again as a one sentence update: Charlie’s depression bride had returned.

Margaret’s Return

By the time she returned, it was late August and two months had passed since their wedding. She enrolled Jarvis in the fifth grade in Dysart where he joined his new classmates, Dean Klinzing and Bob Knupp as well as others. The weather that Fall was warm and sunny. Margaret watched as the crops were harvested and brought into town to the grain elevator. Jarvis participated in school activities. All around them everyone was busy getting ready for the winter ahead. They managed to stay  out of the spotlight. James finished the canning season in Vinton. The nation was still in the grips of the Great Depression so he and Charlie both tried to find what work they could. They celebrated their first Thanksgiving and Christmas together.

Starting in January, the weather across Iowa became quite brutal. After several smaller blizzards, Tama County was hit by a major storm in mid-February that completely overwhelmed the available equipment and manpower for snow removal. Most of the small towns and farmers were cut off from the outside world as many roads throughout the county were declared “closed until Spring”. Trains were unable to pass through the twenty feet high snowbanks and so supplies coming into town were cut-off for days. Daily temperature averaged nine degrees adding to the feeling of confinement everyone experienced. The winter of 1936 was one of the worst ever experienced by the state of Iowa. The new family were basically trapped in their rented home seeking whatever warmth and comfort they could. They forged a bond and weathered the winter together. Storms continued until very early in March when hope started to return to the landscape.  The snow melted, roads opened, and little signs of Spring started to return to the area.

It All Falls Apart Again

Everything seemed to be moving along well for them until April 5, 1936, when Charlie somehow discovered something about his wife, that he could not reconcile. For the second time, she was about to make him the object of ridicule and gossip and that damnable pity he had sensed before. After six months of relative peace and harmony everything was about to come crashing down around them again and he would not have it.  The realization that she and her two sons had conspired to deceive him day after day in his own house enraged him. He ordered her to pack her bags and take her sons and go. He assured her that this time, he would not look for her. There would be no fights with people in town over her honor. They were through.

He drove the nine miles to the Traer office of Bordewick and Powell, Attorneys at Law, where he engaged their services to file for an annulment as quickly as possible. Not only did he want the marriage annulled, he wanted whatever protection the state could give him over his money and properties. She was to get nothing further from him. His decision was final, he told the lawyers because Margaret was never really his wife. Margaret already had a husband and the boys already had a father back in White Falls, New York.

It did not take the lawyers long to help Charlie fill in the gaps. Margaret had been married to a man named, Chauncey, a junk dealer, since she was nineteen. They were the parents of two boys, Jarvis and Chauncey D.R. who had gone by the name James while in Iowa. They had all lived together up until the time that Margaret left for Iowa and her marriage to Charles. In fact, Chauncey was still living at the address in Little Falls that Margaret had used in her letters to Charlie.

The state’s newspapers snatched up this new twist to Charlie’s story and for a brief period between September and November of 1936, Iowans were once again privy to the details of Charlie’s life and annulment proceedings. Facts, however, don’t provide insight into people’s motives. The reasons she had chosen to commit bigamy were never made clear. By the time the annulment was decreed in November of 1936, he no longer cared. It was over. Charlie sold the household possessions and moved out of town, never to live in Dysart again. The papers and Charlie presumed that Margaret had returned to White Falls.

Writer’s Notes

When I first set out to the tell the story of Charlie and Margaret, I confess, my sympathies were primarily with Charlie. Initially, I did not use his last name in an effort to protect his surviving family. I used hers because, I reasoned, she had committed a crime. She knew what she was doing. It did not seem necessary to try and protect her identity. But, to write a good non-fiction story, you need to immerse yourself in the people you are writing about. Using whatever resources are at your disposal you try to get the broadest picture you can of their life. This helps you represent the individuals better to a reader.  For the writer, the “characters” become much more personal. Getting to know Charlie, Margaret and to some extent her children had an impact on me and I became  more sympathetic to both of them. I saw Margaret in a much different light and have since removed her last name from the story.

Charlie seems to be one of those guys who despite his best efforts, never really seemed to get anywhere. He worked for a lot of different people and moved around a lot even within Tama County. Granted, the depression was going, and everyone was forced to do what they had to do to survive but there is a pattern to his movements and decisions that left me wondering about his ability to stick with things. He was also someone who did not mind drawing attention to himself as seen by this advertisement he put in the Dysart Reporter the year before his marriage to Margaret.

Over time, I came to feel that his scheme to get money from the wedding was consistent with who he was as a person and less of a quirky move by a guy who just got excited.

There is no way to find out how Charlie learned of her bigamy. Did Jarvis slip and say something? Did they have an argument and Margaret blurted it out? Did something arrive in their mail from Chauncey? It’s interesting to speculate.

There is hardly any information available about Margaret or her husband, Chauncey so any conclusions about her are purely speculation. I found myself wondering why had she started answering matrimonial ads? Why would she agree to come to a place she had never been before and marry a stranger? Why would “James” and Jarvis help her in this ruse? Charlie was not a successful farmer with a great fortune for her to secure. Even if he represented himself as such in his letters, once she got to Iowa the truth was self-evident. The fact that she enrolled Jarvis in school and stayed through that horrible winter caused me to believe that she meant to stay and see it through. That she was building a new life and identity for herself.  It also made me wonder what was going on in New York that she was willing to do all that? There is no way to know but I like to think she was a mom living through a rough time in this country’s history and she was looking for a better life for her boys.

Epilogue

Charlie

Charlie moved to Keystone, Iowa, sometime after Margaret left in April of 1936. He continued his pattern of advertising himself out for work and appears to have maintained a close relationship with his son, Leonard. In 1940, while riding in a car with Leonard, Leonard’s wife and young child they were rear-ended by a young couple and their infant from Waterloo. The accident happened four mile west of Cedar Rapids on Highway 30. Charlie spent some time in St. Luke’s hospital with stomach and chest wounds. He was fifty years old. In October of that year this clipping appeared in the Des Moines Register.

Whether he ever made it to Oklahoma is unknown. By 1942, Charlie was living in the Baltimore, Maryland, area. He was remarried to a woman who was 20 years his junior. Interestingly her name was also Wilhelmine. He was engaged in farming with her family until his death in 1958 and ran several ads in the Baltimore Sun selling farm related items over the years. It appears he finally found a woman who loved him and a measure of success. The obituary his family posted in the newspaper partially reads:

On September 17, 1958, Charles E., beloved husband of Wilhelmine (died) 

Margaret 

Census records tell us that Chauncey was eight years older than she Margaret and that she only had  a fifth grade education which would not provide her with a lot of options. It is clear from those same records that she returned to live with Chauncey after she left Iowa and as far as I can tell, that is where she stayed until his death in 1948. Where she went from there, is not clear. It appears that she stayed close to her sons. She died in 1968 and is buried in the same cemetery as her sons in Norwich, New York. Chauncey Sr. is buried in Little Falls.

Charlie’s Depression Wedding Part I

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As Charlie started to return to consciousness, he recognized the buildings of his small Iowa town on that mid-August day in 1935. From his position, flat on his back in the middle of the main street, he noted the sky was clear, without evidence of rain. Despite this, his farmer’s bones knew that rain was on its way. If only his mind were as intuitive as his bones, it might have warned him of the impending danger he was in last Spring when all of this could have been avoided. The temperature was in the mid 80’s, but for the first time in a long time, he felt relatively cool down here in the dirt. It had been a hot summer with many days over 90 degrees and the entire state needed a break from the oppressiveness of it all. Charlie, more than most. His head slowly began to clear and he noticed  a crowd had gathered to gawk. I hate all of them, and this town, and everything that had happened to me here, he suddenly thought to himself. He would leave, he vowed to himself. Maybe go back to Wisconsin where he had lived for a time as a younger man.

Rolling over on his right side he saw his unwilling sparring partner, Bill, also lying in the dirt. Charlie couldn’t quite make out the details, but he knew that Dr. C.S. Stoakes was tending to his face. With great satisfaction he remembered clocking the older man right outside the post office. A clear case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Charlie already had a full head of steam built up after his unsuccessful confrontation with the postmaster.  How dare he refuse to give him his wife’s forwarding address. She was HIS wife. He had a right to know. Upon leaving the post office, he saw Bill, his former employer and friend. The rumors that he had helped her leave town rang in his head and his anger boiled over. Quickly and deliberately he marched over to him and without warning, swung three roundhouse rights at the 59-year-old until the man went down to the ground with Charlie on top of him, still pummeling him with his fists.

His momentary revery over those punches did not last long. He heard the crunch of footsteps in his left ear, rolled in that direction, and realized that C.D. Kontz, the town’s marshal, was coming for him. Behind him, he could see Olin Smith, manager of the telephone company, who had intervened in the fight to defend Bill. Olin’s right hand was bandaged with blood seeping through the rags. The stain formed the shape of a mouth, Charlie’s mouth. Normally, he would have recognized the seriousness of striking one person and biting another, but the last few months had depleted his sense of reason. Like a caged animal, he was looking for any outlet for the rage that consumed his insides.

Kontz and a few other men jerked Charlie to a standing position. They half walked; half dragged him to the jail. Mercifully, the Marshal shewed the other men away once Charlie was safely in his cell muttering something about leaving rabid dogs alone. Jail can be a time of reflection but not so in Charlie’s case; not yet anyway. When Mayor B.E.Barkdoll, arrived a couple of hours later to conduct the hearing, he found a man still so full of rage that instead of admitting his own guilt, he insisted on filing charges against Olin for knocking him down and stopping his path to justice. Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed. Barkdoll and Kontz who knew better than most the events of the summer, agreed to leave Charlie in jail overnight and reconvene in the morning when perhaps their old friend’s sense of reason might return to him.

Although he was more subdued in the morning, it did not necessarily bring a return to complete sanity. They let him out of jail anyway. Bill, either as an admission of his own guilt or for another reason, agreed not to press charges. Olin did the same and Charlie walked out into the bright morning sunshine. He headed down the street to his car which was still parked where he left it yesterday. Passing the post office he exchanged glances with postmaster Ralph Schroeder. It occurred to him that Ralph’s face revealed something he had not seen before. For the past two months, the citizens of this town had looked at him with unveiled amusement, pity, and ridicule. He had seen them whispering about him behind cupped hands and newspapers. Ralph’s face had not shown outright fear exactly, but the kind of wariness one wears when encountering an unknown dog and it occurred to him that maybe people were afraid of him now.

He got in the car, started the engine, and began to drive. Where should he go? Anywhere but home. In July, he and his new bride, Margaret, had rented the former Kennedy Studio building from Mrs. Claus Andresen which was far too public for him now. Driving to the eastern edge of town he paused and debated whether he should go south which would take him to his original hometown just a few miles away or north toward the Mooreville area where he had previously rented a farm.

So lost in thought he was surprised when he found himself at Hayward’s Grove sitting in his parked car with no recall of the four mile drive. He sat there now looking at the trees and hills which two months ago had been a patchwork of green and delicate Spring flowers but now was beginning to take on that tired look that the Midwest gets when Fall is near.

For the thousandth time he wondered how things had gone so wrong. In four years, he would be fifty and yet he made a fool of himself like a naïve schoolboy. Being a fool in a small town is like a slow walk to the gallows from which there is no return. Everyone watches and either jeers or cries, but you never get the sweet release of death. You just keep walking; secretly hoping all the while that someone else will do something worse and draw the attention away from you.

Once again, he let his mind drift off to the land of “what ifs”, fully aware how pointless this exercise is. Humans are creatures of habit and Charlie’s habit was to return to that horrible day in 1923 when his world really had shifted off its axis. He had married Minnie on Christmas Eve day in 1912. They were young and the world seemed so full of possibilities then. Charlie met Minnie though her older brother, Alfred, who had married Charlie’s sister, Addie in 1908. The two men had gone into farming together, renting the Stevenson farm five miles north of town in 1909. One big happy extended family.

About three years after their marriage, Charlie and Minnie left Iowa for Clark County, Wisconsin, where he had managed to purchase a farm. Their family grew quickly and within eleven years they had seven children: a new child being born about every year to year and a half.  But then, in a heartbeat, everything changed. Minnie died eleven days after giving birth. Overwhelmed with the responsibility of parenting seven children between the ages of 9 and a few days old, Charlie sold the farm, packed Minnie’s body in ice for burial in the Newhall cemetery and returned to Iowa and the support of his family and friends. From that day until now, his life consisted of rented farms and odd jobs all of which was a hard step back from the life they had been building in Wisconsin.

Then, as if all of that had not been enough, came the Great Depression. Charlie had managed to purchase ten acres of land from the former Charles Hill farm where he and his son, Leonard, raised vegetables. They sold the vegetables from their truck garden and took what odd jobs they could find. His children grew up and on to their own lives. In March, Charlie’s dad, Sam, was hospitalized at the University of Iowa Hospital in Iowa City. Two of his brother’s, Albert, and Clarence, went to Iowa City to see their father. When they arrived, they were informed that the old man had already passed away. In a moment of impulse, they decided to jump a train back home and while trying to board the train, Albert slipped under the wheels which severed one of his legs completely and mangled the other. All of that worked together to push Charlie into action to grab a better life for himself before it was too late.

 

Back in 1912 when he had unexpectedly taken the train to Vinton to marry Minnie, the local paper had said he was one of the town’s most prosperous young farmers, insinuating that he was a good catch. He was painfully aware that no one saw him like anymore. He was 46, alone and had limited prospects. Charlie had wanted what everyone else wanted, the love and companionship of another person. So, Charlie pursued what seemed to him the most logical solution to his problem. Answering a newspaper ad for a matrimonial service out of Missouri, he sent them $10 and received a list of twenty prospective brides. Responding to all  twenty, he heard back from three women in different parts of the country. Of these, he had chosen a widow, Mrs. Margaret Ferguson of Little Falls, New York, to be his wife. He proposed to her sight unseen. She had consented and the couple set June 26 as their wedding day.

Sitting here now, he remembers the feeling of elation he had that maybe, finally, his life was going to get better. He became so enthusiastic about his prospects that he placed an ad in the local paper inviting everyone in the area to come to the wedding. It was true that he had wanted the love and companionship of a good wife, but he also had an almost desperate need for some financial security . So, in another completely unexpected move, he decided to raise some cash by charging admission to his wedding. Knowing that people would not want to pay to attend an ordinary wedding, he became determined to turn it into more of an event with games, food and prizes. He printed up handbills and started handing them out all over town.

How could he have known that his novel idea would grab the attention of newspapers across the state? Soon, editors were telling the story of Charlie’s “Depression Wedding” from Des Moines to Davenport. Suddenly, Charlie had committed the second most deadly sin of small town living in the Midwest. The one right after making a fool of yourself or being made a fool; he drew attention to himself. A lot of attention.

On the day before the wedding, Charlie traveled to Vinton to secure a marriage license. He gave his age as 46 and Mrs. Ferguson’s as 40. He showed a picture of her to the clerk, handed him a handbill, and offered him free admission if he might come to the wedding. From Vinton, he traveled to Iowa City’s bus station where he met Margaret and her eleven-year-old son, Jarvis, and brought them back home. Her older son, James, age 17, hitchhiked the 1000 miles and arrived just in time for the scheduled wedding day. Had she mentioned she was bringing two sons? He could not remember now.

It was a good thing that Charlie had set a contingency plan because on the 26th, it did indeed rain. Finally, at 11 a.m. on the 27th under a bright sunny sky, Charlie and Margaret were married in Hayward’s Grove in front of about 200 people. They had marched through knee-high blue grass to the sounds of the “Bridal Chorus” played by Mrs. Harry Heisler on her accordion. Little Ms. Ramona Reimer acted as ringbearer while her parents Waldo and Viola looked on. All the important people in there lives were there. Charlie’s daughter, Wilma, served as a bridesmaid and Margaret’s son, James, stood up for him as best man. Still, the turnout was much lower than he had hoped for and the take disappointedly small as many did not pay the 25-50 cents he had asked.  With his expectations having been so high, he could not hide his disappointment well and this upset many in the town who had never heard of anything so outlandish as paying to attend a wedding. After they had said their “I dos”, Woodrow Pettit and Leo Gulick played their instruments while Katherine Shafer and Mabel Aschenbrenner sang “When the Bluebirds Sing in June” as well as several other favorite tunes. The free cigars and ice cream eventually arrived from town and overall, Charlie thought they had a nice day, although not profitable.

On Friday, a free dance was held in town in their honor after which, Charlie felt that he and Margaret could really start their life together. He rented a house in town where they could be more comfortable. Margaret seemed to be settling in. She spent a few days with Charlie’s daughter in Vinton where James had secured a job at the canning plant. He believed he was finally going to be happy but that was not the case. Shortly after the wedding, he and Margaret had begun to fight. Then, just four weeks after that golden day in Hayward’s Grove, a mysterious car drove up to their house before dawn on a Monday morning. Margaret, James and Jarvis slipped out a side door and into the car which was seen driving out of town at the break of dawn. The rumor mill immediately kicked into high gear with reports that Margaret had received money in the mail and/or been given money by someone locally and Charlie believed that person was Bill. There were rumors that they had moved to Vinton or Indiana or back to New York.

Rumors and insinuations were not what Charlie needed right now. She had made a fool of him. He needed to know where she had gone and why. He needed to know the truth. As he sat looking at the grove of trees which had held so much promise just two months ago, he began to devise a plan to get to the bottom of it. He felt confident that some people in this town knew where she had gone, including the postmaster and Bill, and he was going to find out no matter what.

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