The following are excerpts from the book
My Family in Iowa, 1878-1949
Page 3
The School
Page 23
The town grew more toward the east and the west than toward the south so that although the schoolhouse was only about three long blocks from us, it was on the edge of
town and beyond it were the pastures. It was built on a hill with a great deal of open space around it, a three-story pinkish brick building with a cupola on the top
and gabled upper floor windows. The lower floors, including the basement, which was partially above ground and light, were given over to the grades, and the top floor
was for the high school, so one went to the same school all the way through the grades and high school. The front door was used for all when we left school, but on going to school the teachers entered by the main doorway and the north entrance was for the boys and
the south entrance for the girls. In front of these side entrances on each side, there were half a dozen small wooden stands and on each one was a tin pail full of
water and a dipper. That was where we were supposed to get our drinks when we were playing outside, before the bell rang for us to come in. There were indoor toilets,
ever since I can remember, at least and I think the school was very new when I started there because I have a very dim memory of having attended first grade in a
private home which later became the Erickson home, diagonally across the street from the school.
One thing that I've often thought about was how very respectful all of the children were. It didn't occur to us to have anything but the greatest respect for our teachers. I know that in the lower grades, after the teacher came in and was were seated, we stood and sang, "Good morning, dear teacher, good morning to you." And we were not only respectful but somewhat in awe of the teacher, or, in fact, of any adult. The grade school pupils stayed in the same room for all of their study and recitations, but in the high school they went from one room to the other, and our permanent desks were in a large assembly hall, with a platform.
This assembly hall was used for special programs, usually on Friday afternoons. As we marched from one classroom to another we either marched to the piano which was on the platform in the assembly room and could be fairly well heard, or to the beat of a triangle. One of the pieces played fairly often was "Glow Little Glowworm, Glimmer" which I will never forget because of the numerous times I marched to it. I remember one time being jerked out of the line because I ventured to whisper to someone who was passing me in another line. I think now that it was a good idea for them to have us go from one class to another with so little delay and confusion. We expected to conform to whatever the rules were and didn't question, although I used to wonder why it wasn't all right to smile at someone as you passed. It seemed to me only the natural thing to do.
In the grades as well as in high school, we had fifteen minutes in the morning and fifteen minutes in the afternoon, before regular classes started, for what they called "Opening Exercises." In the morning we had readings from the Bible and then sometimes some singing, often a patriotic song, or a speaker. Whenever there was no special program of that sort, we had to devote the time to memorizing poems. I know that I didn't like to do it very well, but I'm very thankful that we did have to do that. We learned, "Oh Why Should the Spirit of Mortal Be Proud?," "The Psalm of Life," "The Village Blacksmith," and a great many other poems which I enjoy to this day as I recall snatches of them when I am waiting in a station or somewhere else where there is nothing to do but think or watch the people.
There were no facilities for getting lunch at the schoolhouse. The country children were allowed to bring their own lunches and to eat in a room in the basement which was presided over by one of the teachers. The only chance of doing so for the others was if there would be a very stormy day, or a blizzard, and I remember almost praying that it would get so bad that my mother would say, "I believe I'll have to let you take your lunch today." But that occurred maybe once or twice a winter, if that often.
However, there was always the hope of its storming so badly that some country friend, some girl with whom I played, could not go back and forth, and then I could ask her to spend the night with me. This happened very many times and made a red-letter occasion for me, to have someone from the country spend the night at our house because of a storm.
There was very little problem of discipline in the schools. I think one reason was because the children knew that if they were punished at school they would also be punished at home. The parents backed the teachers, at least as far as I knew, without any hesitation. The chief offenses were whispering, making paper wads, or passing notes. The worst thing, we thought, that any child could do was to "sass" the teacher; that is, talk back. It was seldom done. One thing which perhaps aided the discipline was that the superintendent was supposed to have a rubber hose in his office which he could use if necessary. On occasion children did get their hands slapped with a ruler and they knew the teacher could use corporal punishment if it were considered necessary. I think it must have been much easier to teach in those days than it is now, when the children are so much more inclined to have their own way and pay so much less respect to the teachers.
We had very little opportunity for music. We had a period a week, perhaps, in which we learned something about the scale and how music was composed and we sang such songs as "Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean," and "Flow Gently, Sweet Afton," and "Annie Laurie," and other oldtime songs. But there were no opportunities to learn to play a musical instrument or have any part with a band or orchestra, or become a drum major, or anything of that sort. However, a great many of the children did take music lessons at home under their family's supervision, from a music teacher . I know I took for years from Julia Lester, and I must say that I wasn't very good at practicing. I did learn to read notes rapidly and to play a piece the first time I saw it about as well as I would ever play it, because I apparently had no musical ability, although I always did like music and wished so much that I could sing. I don't believe that I could even have carried a tune unless someone was standing beside me to more or less carry me along.
Sidewalks
Page 26
The streets in those days were just dirt, part of the time muddy and part of the time rough and frozen, and in the summer, very dusty. And the sidewalks were
generally made of wooden planks, with a few brick walks such as the one we had around our house. My mother sent me downtown many times with a nickel-usually it was to
buy a spool of thread-and she would tell me to get number 60, perhaps, and I would find that number so mysterious. I would run all the way to town clutching the
nickel and trying to remember the number, and so many times by the time I got into the store to the counter where the clerk was selling thread I would suddenly forget
what the number was. It sounded so mysterious to me. I've often wondered why my mother didn't explain to me what I've learned since, that there are just certain
numbers for thread, whether you wanted coarse-40 or 50-or finer, 60 or 70. But it was always a mystery, just a certain number, and a color. And the clerk was usually,
in fact always helpful, and would say, "She probably wants 60." And I always found that whatever I brought was all right with my mother.
But one thing sometimes happened, and it became a tiny tragedy. I would drop the nickel and sure enough it would go down the crack between two of the wooden planks; and I would stop and spend a great deal of time trying to get it out with a couple of sticks or anything I could devise, but it was really almost impossible to do. And that happened to ever so many other children; the pennies or nickels or dimes they dropped would invariably go down one of those cracks.
So when they started to build cement sidewalks about the town the workmen would tear up the wooden walks and, of course, when the children heard that someone's wooden walk was to be torn up we would hurry over there to be on hand when the boards were lifted to find the pennies and sometimes even nickels or dimes, that some unhappy person had lost down the crack. That was really an exciting time. There were a number of days and weeks when almost daily you could go where you might be able to find a penny because they were pulling up the sidewalks.
It really was a relief to me not to have to worry about those cracks any more. There was a saying among the many sayings we had, "Step on a crack, break your mother's back," so I often spent my time trying to skip on the boards between the cracks, when the cracks happened to be on my mind, so as not to step on one, which is quite a delay when you're trying to run somewhere.
So nigh is grandeur to our dust,
So near is God to man
When Duty whispers low, Thou Must
The youth replies, I Can.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Others came from Lake County, Indiana to Odebolt
Page 29
…..he [Dr. Groman] went out to Odebolt in 1878, and those were really pioneer days. But he was impressed with the possibilities of the country, good black dirt and
the land not too hilly but nice and rolling, and he wrote this back to the people in Indiana and quite a few of the neighbors also went out there. All during the
years some of his most faithful patients were those people who had come as early settlers from that part of Indiana, Lake County, or their children, or even their
children's children. He took care of four generations.
Page 37
After my father went out to Odebolt, John Einspahr, from the same little region in Lake County, Indiana, and a friend of my father's, came out and they roomed
together over a store. Mr. Einspahr was a cabinetmaker. One of the things he made, I remember, was the bobsled that we enjoyed so much when we were children, and he
made a darling little bureau with four drawers that was every bit as nice as the one in the playroom at Mount Vernon. In fact, I think it was nicer.
Presbyterian Church
Page 38
…They built it on Main Street, several blocks beyond the downtown area. ….Then later they bought the lot directly across the street
from our house and built a new, larger, nicer, church. I remember that they tore down a house there that was lived in by people called the Shanks family…. [corner
of Maple and Third Streets]
"Dens of Iniquity"
Page 42
In those days livery barns were in the same category as pool halls, where men with no special duties at the time would congregate, play cards, and drink, and they
were supposed to be somewhat "dens of iniquity," if you could call what they did there evil. The men would sit out in front of the livery barns and I
suppose they talked about the crops and politics and exchanged town gossip and swapped stories.
I remember being a little timid to go by these idlers when I was going on an errand for my mother. But one time as I walked by a row of men seated, Bill Horan, who owned one of the livery barns, offered me a nickel. He certainly got a lot of gratitude for that nickel. I wasn't allowed to take money from people and I didn't take it, but all the years afterward I felt grateful to him because he was willing to give me a nickel unsolicited. I thought that was real generosity.
(click on picture for an enlargement)
L to R: Dorothy Groman, Hope Sutton, __ McGeachy, Rachel Coy, Gertrude Johnston,
Mary Reynolds, Grace Fisher, Mabel Krusenstjerna, Josephine Oursler
[as identified in the centennial book]
Memorial Day
Page 51
… The cemetery was on the edge of town almost a mile out, but there was a sidewalk all the way for everyone's convenience, and there were quite a few soldiers
from the Civil War and the Spanish War buried in the cemetery. Their graves were marked by an iron holder for a flag. On Memorial Day small new flags were put in
the holders. Patriotic organizations would have seats put in hay-racks which had been decorated with red, white and blue bunting for all the young girls of the
town to ride out to the cemetery. All dressed in white dresses with our hair long, in order to decorate the graves. Now each of us was supposed to assemble as
many flowers as we possibly could. At that time of the year we counted on having snowballs, peonies, sometimes roses; if there weren't any roses, there were
usually lilacs still in bloom, and a few other flowers. Each of us would get an armful of those flowers. …..
We would climb up into those hayracks decorated with red, white and blue bunting. I wish I had some colored pictures of that. It really must have been a rather colorful sight to see all these small girls with their white dresses and arms full of lowers. When we got out of the cemetery gates we got down from the hayrack and lined up two by two to march through the cemetery. At the first soldier's grave we came to, the first girl would put her flowers down. Her partner would put hers on the next grave, and so it would go until we had marched in and out all around the cemetery and had all placed our flowers. Then we, with a great many townspeople, would gather in the center and have a little program of patriotic speeches expressing our gratitude to these men who had been willing to give their lives for their country. It was quite impressive.
Fourth of July
Page 53
My father used to say how he dreaded Fourth of July. He was really kept busy that day, there were so many runaways. The explosives would scare the horses and
somebody would be victim of a runaway, and, of course, a certain number of people received burns. I remember one year there was a runaway right in front of our
house, and Mr. Siebrecht was thrown out onto the curb and broke his leg and had internal injuries. My father had him carried into our house. He lived out in the
country and it didn't seem wise for him to go home; so they fixed up a bed for him in our back parlor and my mother had him on her hands for what seemed to me
quite a while. It must have been at least a week, perhaps longer, and she had to carry his meals to him and everything because there was no hospital in our town
then. Years later, the old Sayer home [originally the H.C. Wheeler home] on the west edge of town was converted into an eight or ten-bed hospital - but in those
days the nearest hospital was Ida Grove, twelve miles away, and if Mr. Siebrecht couldn't travel to his own home six miles out, he couldn't travel to Ida Grove.
We didn't have ambulances or any easy way to make the trip.
Sunday School Picnic
Page 56
Another red-letter day was the day we had the Sunday School picnic at the lake nearby, called Wall Lake [now called Black Hawk Lake], near the town of Lakeview
[sic]. It was about ten or twelve miles east of town, and it was very exciting to go there.
The day of the picnic we gathered at the church, and the children and the parents who went with them were assigned to different vehicles; but what you most desired was to ride on the livery bus. It was a very long bus, horse-drawn, with a seat all along each side. The door to board it was at the back, with three steps up to get into the bus and take a seat along the side. That was the exciting way to go because the horses didn't go so very fast and one could jump off the back and run and pick flowers and come back and get on again. When we reached a certain farm where they raised some sugar cane we could even run and break off a piece of sugar cane, catch up with the bus, and get on again.
…I know the exact spot on the road, about two or three miles before we reached the town of Lakeview, where the road rose high enough that you could look ahead and get a glimpse of the lake
The First Automobiles
Page 65
I well recall the excitement in our little town when we heard that Mr. Chandler had bought an automobile. He lived about a mile out of town in the country, but
when he came to town you could hear him a block or two away and everyone would run out to have a look at the car as it went by. It was almost unbelievable to see
something going up and down the street without any horse to pull it. Mr. Chandler's car, and also the car which the Adams got not long after - a bright red
Columbia with straw baskets along the side - had a door in the center of the back with a step up, and in order to enter the back seat one had to open the door in
the back and climb in. Later when my father got his car, they opened on the side as they do now.
… In those days one was delighted if someone was kind enough to invite one to go for a ride. So for several years I kept a book in which I wrote down every trip I took and the estimated mileage, and I was very proud of the fact that I was adding many miles to my record.
The roads were a problem, too. City streets were paved, but none of them in the small towns or in the country. Even as late as 1917, when [we] drove East, there wasn't a mile of paved road except about fifteen miles of brick paving near Cleveland…
… Nor were the roads marked except some stretches of Highway No. 30, the Lincoln Highway, which had three stripes painted at intervals on telephone poles.
Moving Pictures!
Page 69
On another red-letter day that I recall, my father came home at noon and announced that that evening in the Opera House they were going to show a moving picture
and he was going to take all of us to see it. It was hard to believe that such a thing was possible, that someone had been able to invent a camera, which would
take pictures of people and show them moving. But we got ready in our Sunday best and went to the Opera Hall. The chairs were all arranged for people to face the
platform in front. They had put a large white screen up there and the program opened with pictures of the New York City Fire Department - great white horses or
dappled grey, galloping as they hauled great fire engines to a fire. That was certainly exciting. And that was followed by something equally exciting, a story of
the Great Train Robbery. …. We were so excited and carried away that it seemed something that just couldn't be true.
(click on picture for an enlargement)
The Opera House was located on the top floor of the building on the far right.
After that we were talking about moving pictures all the time, and eventually someone in town who had an eye for business transformed one of the long, narrow stores on Main Street into a moving picture place. There was a ticket window at the front and you walked down into this place on two aisles with the seats in the center and a few on each side, and in the front there were a screen and a piano to one side, and someone was hired to play what was supposed to be appropriate music. As I recall, the piano was very "tinny" but it was quite exciting because it became louder when something exciting was happening on the screen and whoever was hired to play it tried very hard, I think, to make the music appropriate for what was being shown on the screen.
This marvelous place was called "The Cozy", and I think when it opened the admission was five cents, though later it was changed to ten cents.
The Adams Ranch
Page 72-73
…One of my friends, whose mother washed and ironed for us, named Gertrude Fleck, had an uncle, Mr.
Plautz, who lived on one of the sheep farms and we were
invited to spend several days with them one summer.
I was impressed by the Biblical quotation over the huge dark red bard, in quotation marks, "Feed my sheep".
In the fall they would bring from the western range large flocks of sheep and drive them from the freight cars in town, out to the sheep barns and turn them out into the fields that had been harvested to glean what had been left.
The Adamses owned dozens of maroon-colored wagons, larger and sturdier than an ordinary farm wagon and late in the summer, after the oats and other grains were harvested, and in the fall, after the corn had been husked, one wagon after another would come through town, each drawn by four mules, bringing the grain to the depot to be loaded onto freight cars for shipment to Chicago or other markets.
Illness and the "Pest House"
Page 90
One of the things that caused excitement in those days was the appearance of a bright red or yellow card on a home, which indicated that it was under quarantine
because someone inside had a contagious disease. This sign was put up for diphtheria, whooping cough, measles, scarlet fever, small pox, mumps and perhaps one or
two other things.
My father often said that he was never so thankful for anything in his life as when they got a treatment that could save people from diphtheria. One of the hardest things in his medical career was trying to bring a child safely through diphtheria when the odds were so much against his survival. And this new serum, or whatever it was, did away with the terrific loss of life which diphtheria once caused.
Page 91
There was on tiny building down in the middle of the pastures on the edge of town that I imagine had only one room though I was never in it, called "the pest
house." This is where transients, or people in town who had no home to go to while they were ill, were put when they had some contagious illness. I often
wondered how they were fed or cared for. I know I've heard my father come home and say some workman at the Adams ranch had come down with a contagious illness and
they had put him in the pest house. It really seemed sad to me.
Chautauqua (click for enlargement)
Chautauqua
Page 96
…In the summer the Chautauqua would spend a week in each town with morning, afternoon and evening programs. They traveled with tents. They hired college boys,
eager for summer jobs, to put up and maintain these tents. In our town the tents would be put up on the schoolhouse grounds. The programs were good, giving rural
people a chance to hear the celebrities of the day, both from the political and musical world. Goldman's band was greatly enjoyed. And Sousa's band created
memorable occasions. One of the biggest crowds came to hear William Jennings Bryan, truly an enthralling speaker.
Gypsies
Page 108
I haven't mentioned the furor that would go through town when gypsies were sighted. One or two wagonloads of them would arrive in town and word would be passed
around like wildfire. Everyone was afraid of their kidnapping children. I don't know whether they ever did, but there was alarm that they might. I know too that
they would fan out into the business district and my father would come home and say the gypsies had been in his office, and he said, "Do you know, they stole
things right while I was looking at them." It really was unbelievable how they were able to take things without people catching them. … it made several
days of excitement because they would camp, perhaps, first on one side of town, and then the other, before moving on to the next place.
Some County Schools
Page 117
My father, of course, had many friends in the country and one of them, Mr.
Hoefling, supervised what was called the McCorkindale School, five miles from town, and
I was given a position there, for which I would be paid $44.46 a month. I was told that I was the highest paid country schoolteacher in the county and I was asked
not to tell anyone what I was going to receive. Of course, I had had two years of college, which gave the excuse for a little more pay.
Page 118
…the Currie School, was three miles straight east of town on what we called the Lake Road
Alarms
Page 122
All through the years the town was made aware of 7:00 a.m. by the bell of the Catholic Church and 12:00 noon by a blood-curdling siren from the Town Hall. One was
always thankful to note that it was noon. At any other time of the day the siren was the fire alarm calling for volunteers to rush to the Hall to pull the fire
hose and other fire-fighting paraphernalia to the scene of the fire, causing great excitement.
[more to be added in the future]
"My Family in Iowa, 1878-1949", by Dorothy Hermine Groman Ellis, can be found at the Odebolt Public Library and also at the Arthur, Iowa Library.
(transcribed by B. Horak and B. Ekse, December 2002 to August, 2003)
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