This is a Blog site created by Bob Reed (in Florida) for folks who live--or used to live--in Marcus, Iowa. Its purpose is to exchange notes, news, remembrances, and thoughts about life in and about Marcus, or news about one's family, friends or acquaintances.
As we start a new month with this blog, I’ve been reviewing some of the wonderful previous postings. Lotsa’ folk have commented on the blizzard of 1975 and the pics of the last passenger train to come through Marcus. There was an earlier big blow in which trains also played a part.
The year of 1936 came in with a bang in Iowa. According to writer Carl Hamilton, one great blizzard after another raged across the state for five solid weeks, from January 18 to February 22. They left many farms cut off from mail, fuel, and sometimes, food.
Little towns were almost equally isolated. It was the “single greatest concentration of continuous snow and below-zero temperatures recorded in that century of Iowa history,” according to the writer. A blanket of cold settled across the state with temperatures reaching 25 degrees below in the daytime, and dropping to 40 degrees below at night.
Five- and ten-foot snowdrifts were common. Schools and traffic were at a standstill. Towns ran out of coal and food. Livestock froze, and trains stalled in deep drifts. This was important, because at that time nearly all of a town’s goods and supplies came into the place by train. Roads were small and impassable and there were no helicopters.
In Marcus, my dad, Carl Reed, was the Illinois Central Railroad depot agent. As I understand it, he spent most of the month at the brick depot at the north end of Main Street—often sleeping there all night while manning the telegraph and helping coordinate emergency efforts. The yard was full of box cars and mail cars stuck in drifts twelve feet high. The blizzards outside the structure were evidently terrible to hear, for the wind blew and shrieked. But the strong building easily withstood the fury, according to my mom.
If the wind had blown itself out by morning, the section crew—led by Foreman Bill Witter—would try to clear the tracks. A big, strong engine sent out from Cherokee or Fort Dodge pushed a large wedge plow and pulled a caboose carrying section workers from other towns. The engine would go until it was stopped by the big drifts on the track. The engineer would back it up about a half a mile, and then go as fast as he could to plunge the plow into the deep drift. The snow was often so deep that there was no place for the snow to go except straight out—and up.
The plow would maybe make it into the drift about 100 feet, and then become wedged again in the snow. The crew would climb down and uncouple the engine from the plow and back it away. The section men would clear the plow by shoveling the snow and tossing it to men above them, midway up the drift. They, in turn, would toss it to the top of the drift on the side. The drift was often so high that you could step onto it from the top of the caboose.
When the plow was cleared, they would hook it up to the engine again and back it up to slam into the drift again at full speed. It was awfully slow going, for some drifts were said to be over 2000 feet long. And often, just as soon as they cleared a section of track, another storm would bury it.
The whole effort near Marcus was complicated by a train wreck. A plow smashed into the back of a relief train, and while no lives were lost, some coal and box cars with food and supplies were demolished and the cars had to be cleared off the track as well.
Iowa weather is, of course, unpredictable, and the folks in Marcus also had to survive a long, hot summer and drought later that year. It was the steamiest summer on record. The corn burned up.
And nearby Remsen darned near burned down when some kid’s firecrackers set off a blaze on the day (July 4, 1936) that Marcus was dedicating its new American Legion Building. My mom spoke to a diminishing crowd, many of whom abandoned the ceremonies to rush to the aid of their neighbors in Remsen. Our local firemen were the leaders in that effort.
I was just four and don’t really remember the big blow or the big fire. But they say that everyone in the area just shook their heads as the year ended, wondering what in the world they had done to deserve all this attention.
(The above was adapted from a little contribution that I wrote for the remarkable tome that a great committee of the Marcus Quasiquiencentenial organization published in 1996. That big volume is a wonderful compilation of Marcus history, written by the folk who lived there. Some copies may be still available. Contact Nancy Hier or Thelma Gravanish).
Bob, the fire in Remsen was started by the young daughter of a local tavern owner. Their last name, as I recall, was Dunn. That fire, and one in Spencer, caused the State Legislature to make fireworks illegal. Regarding blizzards, I remember most vividly the Armistice Day Blizzard of 1941. A freight train loaded with cattle, for delivery to Chicago, settled into the drifts by the Homer Weimer farm. Locals took scoop shovels and headed for the country, digging the train out so it could continue. I have done a watercolor of my recollection of the incident, which I titled, "I Think I Can". One day when I am feeling intelligent, I will attempt to post it on this blog. Earl Rae
Dear Bob, I can not believe what has happened since I contacted you after seeing the article about Marcus in the Des Moines Register recently! Your wife was kind enough to post a comment for me and the results have been not only life affirming but life changing! I don't have words to express my heart felt appreciation. Several people have responded to me and wrote me the most beatiful letters. They mean so much to me that I carry them with me in my purse. Not only do I have a chance to actually find out my family history but I have found that I have real live family!!! I have a cousin Nancy who I can remember playing with as a child- I had no idea where she even would be or if she would even remember me. Also I heard from Kyle who I remember my grandmother talked about so often as she was his babysitter. In fact I tell my own children funny things he said as a child that I remember Grandma telling me! I so look forward to contacting them this week-end when I have more time- I have been so busy lately as my oldest child just graduated from high school. Please extend my thanks to your wife and Please keep in touch. Thank you for all you do. May God Bless You, Diane Burkert
Yes I remember Tommy Lasorda. I remember him in the early 50's when he was with the Dodgers minor league club in Montreal. He did pretty well there but did not cut it in the majors. He was a lefthander and I think he won 18 games with Montreal one of those years.
I have always been a fan of his with his enthusiasm and positive attitude. He was and still is great with young players. When he managed the Dodgers and went on the road he was very good at visiting children hospitals and talking to young people instilling his views on life no matter what you pursue.
I got to see him in 1988 in Dodger Stadium. Belive it or not Fern and I were guests of Peter O'Malley. I used to write to Mr. O'Malley and he would alway get back to me. He once told me if we ever got to LA to let him know. Well you know what we did and he sent us tickets for two games. We sat in his box right behind home plate. Before the game I saw Tommy. As a Dodger fan it was quite a thrill for me. Back in the 50's my Dodger hero was Duke Snider. When our son Bob was in Florida Fern and I were visiting him along with our other son Al so we took a trip to Vero Beach the Dodgers traing camp. The Fantasy Camp was on at that time and I got to meet Duke in the broadcast booth. Had great visit with him and Carl Erskine. I could go on about my Dodgers experiences but one more is I got to meet and talk to Sandy Koufax in St. Louis in 1964. Very nice guy.
So Phil you asked so you got both barrels. Nice seeing you in Marcus last time you were here. Best wishes from Marcus and take care...
Boy, June is barely two days old and I've already learned so much from this blog! Interesting that you mentioned Carl Hamilton. When I worked at the Alumni Office while at ISU, Mr. Hamilton headed (? I'll have to check that) the office and I have a signed copy of one of his books on Iowa State history ... of course now I have to track it down.
I can really appreciate those stories but being a GIANT'S fan and having experienced a Dodger's game in L.A. with my daughter and Cali cousins last summer I can now understand why these two teams dislike each other. It will be fun to compare notes when I get to Marcus later this month but we will probably have to sit at opposite ends of the table at the Family Table or the rivalry might flair up!!!!
Speaking of baseball.......Mr. Benton was a great baseball coach and taught me a ton of great life lessons. He always told me I don't need someone who can pitch hard---just someone who can pitch strikes. Remember you have 7 guys behind you to take care of the rest of the business and most of those other little kids aren't going to hit home runs. Between Mr. Benton and Brian Hogue as our swim team coach they were hard to beat. BTW.....I would wager our swim teams of the early 70's coached by Brian Hogue were the best to ever come through Marcus. Someone correct me if I am wrong. But with Bucky-Dicky-and Rusty diving and the Lennox boys and sister Kim diving and then having the rest of us swimming our hearts out we were hard to beat. Those boys from Laurens sure wished they had never pelted the school bus with rocks (Jack Dunn was the driver)when the above mentioned got off and settled the score!
The writing on this bogspot is incredible. I vote for Bob Reed and Julia Meylor Simpson collaborating on an Iowa history work. It could focus on small towns, but the collective experiences you have had and the manner in which you express yourselves is something all Iowans, present or expats, (and others of similar backgrounds) can appreciate. If our state can put a Writers' Workshop author (Gilead: Marilynne Robinson) at the number one spot on the national bestseller fiction list, I know the two of you have the potential. Maybe I'm overstepping my bounds here, but I think one of you should pick up the phone and call the other. The richness of your expressions is the bait. Your stories are the hook. Your reading public awaits. Fred
We've gained a reciprocal link on the official Marcus website http://www.marcusiowa.com/ which may help to draw even more interested and interesting traffic this way! Thank you Kara Spieler of midlands.net.
Perhaps some of you don't know that Earl Rae--a retired art educator--is also a very accomplished, and talented artist with many imaginative, beautiful paintings. So Earl---please figure out how to do it and post your watercolor of the train stuck in the snow near Marcus in 1941! (If you run into trouble, contact our son--Baritone Bob--who really manages the computer aspects of this blog).
And Fred Dorr--thanks much for the gracious compliments on the writing on this blog and the suggestion that Julie Simpson and I get together to do some nonfiction writing of small towns in Iowa. Great idea! Problem. I'm curently knee deep in a full plate (how's that for a mixed metaphor?) of writing projects and pushing a next book deadline.
But 6 of the 7 humorous short stories in my last book ("The Choir That Couldn't Sing--and Other Merry Tales")were set in small midwest towns. One of them takes place in a thinly disguised Cherokee and tells of my brother's antics there in the '50s. Another is set in a Marcus--albeit with a nearby river--in the '30s. As they say, write what you know. Thanks for the great suggestion! Bob
Would anyone on this board please identify the handsome graduating Marcus Class of 2005 Seniors on the front page of the May 26 edition of the Marcus News? I don't get out like I use to and have no clue who have of these young people are in the paper. Please go left to right and bottom row to the top row like then norm usually is in matters such as this. Thanking whoever for their generousity in advance.
Do you have fond memories of swimming in the Marcus City swimming pool? Did you dive in some days when the water would chill you to the bone and turn your lips blue? Unfortunately young people in Marcus had that experience again last year when the heater gave out on a cooler than normal summer.
The good news is that a new pool heater has been installed and the temperature of the water is kept between 73 and 77 degrees. A fund drive has been underway and has been very successful however there is still time if you'd like to contribute to this project in fond memory of hours spent there in your youth. Checks may be mailed to the Marcus City Clerk, Marcus, IA 51035. Your donations would be greatly appreciated.
There was a very odd article in the Marcus New a few weeks back about the pool. It was a very long article, had no identification of who wrote it and why. There was a picture above the article with no identification of who the people in the picture were and how they were connected to the pool and/or Marcus. The article rambled on forever and I never did get the point of the article. What happened to the editor? Can someone tell me what it was all about?
Would like to see you at the Family Table. So you are a Giants Fan, eh? I will alert the Dodger Fans here in Marcus and we will get out the 'tar & feathers".
We have a lot of great baseball fans around. Coach Benton, Charley Addy, Marty Irwin Cardinal fans, Mr. Roese, Lenny Dreckman, Joe Rosener, Brian Nelson Yankee fans. They still have their 'black arm bands' on, Jim Hoefling, Chuck Knudson, Leo Brady, Cub fans. Myself Jeff Spieler, Jerry Dunn are Dodger fans. I could go on but all of these guys are great baseball fans. We have a lot of fun talking baseball. Sorry Phil the only Giant Fans I knew of were Gib Evans and Carl Letsche but they have passed on. My wife Fern was a Giant fan but in our wedding vows she had to become a Dodger fan or no wedding. That was 46 years ago. I am not speaking to the Cub fans after they swept my Dodgers last weekend.
Okay, do I sit quietly by and twiddle my thumbs as no mention is made of the ... hmmmm ... Red Sox? I may never be a true New Englander, but that is one thing that kind of seeps into the blood up here ... I think they put something in the water.
Marcus Pool!! Swimming lessons early in the morning (it seems like the farm kids always got the earliest times for lessons) where blue lips and goose pimples were par for the course. Then back later in the afternoon after a few hours of walking beans. With seven kids (my oldest sister was 19 when the youngest, Bob, showed up), we were rarely allowed to sit inside with the TV on. So the Marcus Pool in the 60s and 70s (at the height of the baby boom) was the place to be. Rock music blaring from the speakers and frozen Dr. Pepper and Snickers bars from the candy stand and life was simply good. That's where we were when man landed on the moon ... although I think we were in front of the tube at Grandma's house when they took their first steps. Of course, in recent years, I have taken children there, and it was much less crowded. One thing I wish they did have now is some kind of shade somewhere ... trees or awnings. It's hard to sit there in the bright sun inside or outside without a little shade. Oh well...if wishes were beggars ... By the way, Fred, your comments were kind, but I am no way a historian of any merit. I am a teacher who loves words and a wannabe poet that tries to play with words. The Dorr family (all of you) are much more attuned to the stories and glories of Marcus past. I have enjoyed all of that at this site. As I look at your photos, I realize how few photos I actually have of the town ... tons of family photos ... but very few of the place. And that comes as quite a shock. I think I will be taking photos around town this summer when I return. On another note, I just received info from the Iowa State Fair on their photography contest and this year the special topic is hometowns. Maybe we could make sure Marcus is among the photos at the Iowa State Fair!! Any photographers out there?
My apologies for not signing the Marcus swimming pool article regarding sending a contribution for the pool heater. It was a result of not really knowing how I was to do this. Elaine (Mrs. Roger) Leavitt
I, too, was wondering who wrote the article in the Marcus News. I sense it might have been a member of the Dunn family ... not John Dunn's family, but another Dunn family? Can anyone offer something more concrete?
Elaine: It is great to have you identified as an official "BLOGGER." Welcome! I appreciate your comments re the Marcus pool. Would you please ask the official "Pool Heater Fundraiser" how much money is still needed and even if they would log on and post on here what the status is re the balance still needed?
Also, Julia "Meylor" my experience from using the pool over the past few summers with my daughter tells me that you hit on a topic that many of the Marcus Mothers have been discussing amongst themselves....that is there is no shade at the pool for anyone while sitting around the immediate pool area and it would be great if someone can help resolve this issue.
Mrs. Leavitt, would you be so kind to ask the town leadership to visit this matter and see if they can resolve this matter and if they need to raise the funds to provide the apporpriate shade at the pool why not add this to the fund drive for the water heater?
Julia, I like the way you think and appreciate your spurring good ideas to enhance the community for current residents and those of us who still trek back to enjoy it when we can!!!!
How interesting is this? I haven't had time to go back through all the comments, but this is great! Thanks to you, Bob Reed. My mother, Sue Dorr, asked if you remember all the kids that gathered at your house because you had the only record player around. Also seeing the name of Jack Clarkson brought back memories. In addition to being a close friend to my father, Craig, I got to work with him for several years at Sand Seed Service. Jack was an influential little league coach. I have a photo from the Marcus News titled "Wells Blue Bunny Baseball-1963." Team members were Jon Dorr, Gary Bork, Bob Dorr, Dan Johnson, Wyman Irwin, Larry Alesch, Denny Pearson, Todd Schlenger, Marty Irwin and Gene Dorr. Jack coached us to the championship that year. I also notice Marcia Steffen Pavey has posted several comments. If you have any phone numbers and/or E-mail addresses from previous class reunions, let me know. I saw Marty at the Mothers Day brunch at the golf course and he thought we should place an ad in the News announcing an informal get together during the Marcus Fair for the class of '70. Just let me know. I'll continue reading.. Bob Dorr
Bob Dorr, it was good to see your name on this site. I've really enjoyed it. I've got addresses and some e-mails addresses from our last reunion of the Class of 70. My e-mail address is: mlpavey@iowatelecom.net if you would like to contact me. An informal get together sounds great! Somehow this year got away from me. I broke my ankle right before Christmas and had my gall bladder out this spring. Between those events I didn't get around to getting anything organized. We finished up school last Friday, so I'm home for a couple of months. We got out just in time to miss the high temps. I'm sure the hometown pools are pretty busy this week. Julie,I think my favorite time to hit the pool was after supper. It wasn't as crowded then, but just as much fun. Marcia Steffen Pavey
Anyone on here enjoying Margaret Dorr's lovely writing in the Cherokee paper as much as I have over the past few months? To think I almost quit getting the paper. Margaret, sure glad to see you have come out of retirement after such a long sabbatical. Wonder what Tom Miller is thinking looking down from heaven and seeing you hard at work again? Keep up the great work and just know you are such an inspiration to so many of us older people throughout the community with your keen sense of humor and eloquent ways!
What a wonderful site! Thanks Kurt Door for turning me on to the Blogspot! I was a true farm kid from south of town... Grand Meadow. Started swimming lessons when I was six at the Marcus Pool, my skinny little sister Jill was always with me and talk about blue lips!!! I went through all the levels in lessons and when old enough took the Jr. Life Saving course under Brian Hogue. He was so dreamy to a 13 year old in 1973. On the day of our final testing to get our cards, he greased himself up with oil and went in to be "the victim." The two before me, I can't remember who, could not hold on to him and were drug down to the bottom of the 12 foot, and had to return the next day to try again... I was third and determined not to go down and suffer the humiliation of having to return to "re-test", so I went in, I remember being dunked and thinking this is it, now or never, slipped down below his death grip around behind reached over his shoulder threw a cross-face and reached for his armpit and grabbed hold... Needless to say, Mr. Hogue went limp as a kitten and I side-stroked to the edge of the pool where I was rewarded with a rounding cheer from the rest of the kids for conquering the beast!!! I went on to work as a lifeguard throughout college at ISU worked at the YMCA during nursing school and as Aquatics Director at the State 4-H Camping Center. I owe it all to the Marcus Pool (and Brian Hogue for being such a hottie making me want to succeed)! Fondly, Joan Bryant-Kennedy
Boy, I wonder if Mr. Brian Hogue knew he caused such a stir among the young females of Marcus! How funny! He'd probably turn five shades of red if he read this now. I remember almost the same scenario of that sneaky victim routine he pulled. (I love that you remembered that he oiled himself up!! That slippery devil!)He really did prepare us well though, didn't he? Mary Bird, Kathy Dunn, Kathy Knudson, my sister Nancy and I all dragged him out of that pool, but I know I went under at least once before I made it over to the side of the pool with him. Joan, I think you were in my brother Ken's class?
Julie, I was a year behind Kenny and Jill was in Mike's class. Yes, I have a sisters Carol, Jill and Julie and brothers John and Steve. We are spread all over the country. Carol is in Lincoln, Neb. last name Hein. It is crazy how we all spread out but are still so close. Joan Bryant-Kennedy
I got on today to offer a website by one of my former students who is hiking 7,700-mile on a "Sea-to-Sea Route" across the northern United States from east to west, yes, hiking! He is somewhere in Montana as we speak (almost finished) and his website is packed with incredible photos about his experience. His purpose is to give some exposure to the existence of these cross-country trails and to call attention to the need to take care of our environment. I'm sure there will be a book from this at some point, but for now I am just amazed at Andy's passion and drive to complete this incredible feat.
With school fast approaching the final days, I'm wondering if anyone is reading anything they really have enjoyed. I'm looking for ideas and recommendations.
Julia: David McCullough's new bestseller - 1776 - if you like history. I love his stuff. Also, Tom Friedman's "The World is Flat" is a great read about globalization and what it means for this country. Well researched and well written.
If you want fiction, you'll have to ask my mother, Margaret, that's her genre. Fred
p.s. I enjoyed your hiker friend's website. That kid will have lots of memories. Kind of a modern day Jack Kerouac. (Have you ever read "Blue Highways" by William Least Heat Moon? He's a Missouri prof who took time off to travel the "blue highways" (backroads) of our country and wrote about his experiences along the way. He's a great author. He did the same thing by boat, traversing the northern U.S. riverways from east to west, writing about his journey in a book called, "River-Horse". Interesting perspective on cross country travel. Kind of his own Lewis & Clark adventure.)
Gilead is next on my summer reading list. Finished My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult just yesterday. So powerful. The Kite Runner was RI's book of the year and quite a page turner for me. If anyone is into poetry, Ted Kooser, US poet laureate born in Ames and Nebraska raised, has several collections that are quite accessible to all. He was a breath of fresh air to encounter ... no snobbish, hoity-toity fa-de-lah, just crisp insights into everyday life. My list will grow in days to come...
P.S. I do know Blue Highways, quite good. Andy's first encounter with hiker books was Bill Bryce's (born and raised in Des Moines ... who knew!) A Walk in the Woods about his escapades on the Appalachian Trail. Have you read Bryce? ... so dry and hilarious. He has another out ... A Short History of the World ... something like that ... so readable.
Yes there are two very big Boston Red Sox Fans here in Marcus. Father Murray who sports a nice Boston Red Sox cap and Jerry Moser. There is no bigger Boston Fan in the whole country than Jerry.
Jack Clarkson Dodger Fan
Now Bob Dorr,
Yes Bob we had some great times during the little league days. In fact in getting ready to move I found a box with Wells Blue Bunny shirts and caps from back then. Also the box scores from 1963. You played 1st base and hit .290 for the season. We beat Hagey's Decorator's 1-0 in the final's. Remember that Bob, a very tense game....... Wyman Irwin got a triple to drive in the winning run.
Then we would play the Blue Bunny team from LeMars and Wells would furnish hot dogs, hamburgers, pop and all the ice cream you could eat.
I can see I have to check this blog more than what I do. Don't want to miss anything.
Julia: Bryson doesn't get high marks here in Des Moines. He's become "very important" on leaving town. Not many I know even read his stuff as they don't want to financially benefit him. Unfortunate how that success thing impacts certain people. It probably doesn't help that he writes about his years growing up here in relatively negative terms. Sounds like he was unhappy as a kid. It must be payback time in his mind now. Fred
Bryson, sorry, I knew Bryce didn't sound right this morning. Hmmm, didn't know he had burned so many bridges back there. I do remember reading something he'd written about growing up in DM, but it sounded like the spiel of any disaffected surburban youth from any small city in the U.S. Is there any more specific reasons locals are so ready to boil him in oil?
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Jack Clarkson, my long-ago and far-away CCD teacher, how did I not remember that my friend Jerry Moser is a Red Sox fan!! He must have been a crazy man when they won last fall.
From another Wells Blue Bunny Fan
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Let's see, I think it's time for another topic of conversation. I think I've mentioned it before, but does anyone have any memories of the library? I remember that the library used to be right in the municipal building downtown. I also remember getting to walk to the "new" library from Holy Name one day a week after lunch. I loved doing that ... made me feel so grown up to go with a group of friends. I remember reading all of the litlte house on the prairie books by third grade, and how some girls took out a serioes of Perry Mason books just to be cool.
Julia, I have memories of the "library". It was housed in the north side of a wood frame building located on the east side of Main Street, I believe next to the blacksmith shop. As I recall the building also was the fire hall. The young fellows were, unfortunately, ahead of the Little House on the Prairie books, but we had paperback books at the library that featured little boxed drawings in the corner of the page; when you flipped the pages fast enough you created an action auatomation that resembled a movie. What would they think of next? But that was back in the days when the Swimming Pool was known as the Sandpit, and was located about three miles southeast of Marcus. To reflect, how fortunate Marcus was to have been the home to the Gund family. Ethel Gund, to my knowledge, left the funds for building the new library after her untimely death aboard a commercial airliner, when some deranged passenger exploaded a bomb in flight over rural Indiana. Earl Rae
What?! A bomb? Over Indiana? Now these are the details I never heard about ... and I even took out a Gund College Loan in college. Bless the Gunds, but who knew? I think I remember going to an auction at the Gund family house in town when I was young, but that is the only connection I ever had to the name.
THE PLANE THAT MRS.GUND WAS ON THAT CRASHED BY TELL CITY, IND WAS A NORTHWEST AIRLINES ELECTRA JET. IT WENT DOWN ON A FLIGHT FROM MINNEAPOLIS TO MIAMI.
SHE WAS A GREAT LADY AND AND A VERY GOOD FRIEND OF MINE. I DELIVERED THE S.C. JOURNAL AND A LOT OF GROCERIES TO HER. I STILL HAVE THE GRADUATION GIFT SHE GAVE ME.
Baritone Bob and Margaret, I stand corrected. Julia, my apologies; I should have included the disclaimer that my information on the incident dated back to the popular theory at the time of the crash. I have never been exposed to the official investigation findings due to my long absence from Marcus. That is a fine example of bad reporting. I am sure the airline and manufacturer prefered the bomb theory. There is a memorial in the middle of a farm field where the plane crashed. Another positive is that I was not sure, previously, that anyone read what I wrote. My cousin Roger Rae and I raised pigeons, and sold squabs to the Gunds as a delicacy. We ussed the money from the sales to buy exotic pigeons from a farmer at Cleghorn. Such is life; we spent our youth looking for ways to collect pigeons and our old age searching for ways to get rid of them. Earl Rae
Roger: I raised pigeons as a kid, too. I'm not sure why, looking back on it, but my mom and dad let me have homing pigeons. I'm at a stage in my life now where I look at a pigeon and think "flying rat" or histoplasmosis. I appreciated your comment about perspective and age. At the time, though, it was a great feeling to take a bunch of them 30 or 40 miles away from Marcus and have them all beat us home. That experience and Lassie being able to find Timmy, across all those miles, always left me wondering...? Fred
Not a problem Fred. I respond to almost any term of address. By the way, I met a gentleman at our last homeowners association meeting who served with you on the West Des Moines school board. His name, George Brehm. He apparently was in the bowling supply business. He came with a request for support of a project affecting residents of our community. As a director in the association I did not feel I could approve that support, so I made a point to visit with him after the meeting to clarify my reasoning. It was at that time I learned of his West Des Moines background. Inasmuch as I lived on Lincoln Drive along the pretty, but infamous, Walnut Creek in Clive, we found ground for visiting on other topics. He has been a "Snow Bird" until moving to the Valley a year ago. Earl
Earl: Ah, George (and Darlene) Bradner. George served mostly before my time. He was appointed one or two times later to fill out the balance of a departing board member's term. (One guy was transferred overseas by Pioneer and the other got transferred to North Carolina.) I served briefly with George on those occasions. Great guy. Tell him hi for me the next time you run into him. Tell him that you understand he and his wife caused quite a stir one year at the "Oldies Show" at the Iowa State Fair - being the first to get up and snake around the crowd, dancing to Little Eva's "Locomotion". He and Darlene started what turned into many, many people grabbing on and following them around the audience. The crowd loved it. I don't know if George even knows this, but the Chicago author, Bob Greene, later wrote in one of his books about attending the Iowa State Fair that very night, being in the audience and watching people get up and move when "Not-So-Little Eva-Anymore" came on stage. It was George and Darlene who started it all. (Don't tell him I told you about it, just ask him if it's true. It'll drive him crazy trying to figure out how you know.)
Also, on another small world note - I live in Clive near Lincoln. What hundred block did you live on? We may have been neighbors at one point and not been aware. (I live near the intersection of Lincoln and 101st Street.) Fred
There is a history of the many locations of the Marcus Library in the 1976 Centenial book, but I can't find my copy of it. As I recall, some ladies of a literary bent started a "loaning" library by lending books from their collection soon after the town was born. After much urging, the village fathers were persuaded to set aside some public money for it--probably in the early part of the 20th century.
The first one I remember was above the hardware or furniture store in the middle of the west side of Main street. In the '30s it was dark, dusty, and smelled wonderfully of books. I worked my way through all of "The Wizard Of Oz" books there. It was great fun to read the cards that listed who had checked a book out before you. You sorta felt you were particpating in history.
When the new Municpal Building was constructed in 1940, the library was moved there. It was clean, modern, and well-lit, but the new location diminished that wonderful smell.
Anna Mossman, the gracious librarian then, was a good friend of my mother and watched my reading habits closly. During our weekly visits, I would arrive at her desk, with 6 or 7 books to check out. She would put some aside with a quiet--but firm, "I don't think you'd like this one" comment. Many of the books she put aside were by Jack London and Ernest Hemingway, whom I had discovered had written some sexy scenes.
So, thwarted at that post, I was forced into discovering the new paperbacks in the rack at Fred Knox's Place. With splashy, colorful covers, featuring damsels in distress, they were the original bodice-ripper, historical novels. I learned a lot of history while enjoying the somewhat risque parts. And the publishers were also reissueing some of the classics by Faulkner and Steinbeck in the new small "pocketbook" format--with equally provocative covers. While they say "you can't judge a book by its cover," those covers introduced me to a lot of good literature.
And the new marvels were available for only 25 cents! Life was good. A fella could get a pretty good literary education and have a good time by spending his weekly allowance of $1.00 on a paperback ($.25), a piece of sheet music ($.25) and one of Fred's sinfully thick malts ($.25)--and still have money left over to spend later in the week.
On one occassion my much older sister saw me reading my latest purchase--a translation of "Nana" by Emile Zola. She held up the book--the story of a Parisian prostitute, with its provocative cover--at dinner that night, asking my parents to prohibit me from reading such stories. My dad glanced up, looked at the book and dismissed the suggestion by saying "No one has ever been ruined by a book." Bob Reed
Did you ever have a 500 mile day bird? I had one while raising and racing pigeons growing up in Marcus. The late Carlyle Peterson introduced me to his son-in-law Bob Jones out of the Sloan area (I believe)and a bunch of us Marcus boys started racing "BIRDS." Well my first 500 mile day bird made it from Ogallala, Nebraska to the farm northeast of town by 6 p.m....6 a.m. to 6 p.m. in 500 miles.......man that was an amazing bird!!!! Bob Jones is now one of the premiere racing pigeon individuals in the country!!!
By the way Denny Peterson from Odebolt, Iowa was one of the ALL-TIME great racing guys anywhere..........he use to take his birds to South America and let them fly back to Odebolt, Iowa from numerous points in South America.........Homing Pigeons are amazing animals. Denny's wife was a teacher in Marcus at one time by the name of Eleanor (?) who ultimately became Eleanor Peterson!
Jack Clarkson.........keep your eye on the Baylor Bears this weekend in OMAHA at the CWS!!!! We start out against "texas....the tea sips we call them" on Saturday night. Our ace "Mark McCormick" is on the mound for us aginst "tu." Mark was just drafted in the supplemental first round by the St. Louis Cardinals BTW! Mark pitched into the 9th inning in the superregionals last Saturday against Clemson and was still throwing 90+ mile an hour HEAT.......he was pitching 98+ mph stuff to start the game!!! Mark comes out of Clear Creek High School........HOUSTON area. This is the same school that produced the "ROCKET"......Roger Clemons..........should be fun. 3 out of the 8 teams playing this weekend are from the Big 12 so I think we are well tested and now just have to go out and play the game! Roger Clemons was my dad's favorite as he watched him pitch while he was at "tu" and could tell then the kid could throw some nasty stuff!!!!
Fred: We lived at 9373 Lincoln, so we were probably five minutes apart. Perhaps you knew Steve and Michele Duwelius Whitty. Michele's dad and I worked for the same company for a lifetime. He and his wife both graduated from Drake with me. About george Bradner, our residents are required to sign in prior to meeting time if they wish to speak on an agenda or non-agenda topic. When George got up to speak I understood him to say he was George Brandon. I asked the director seated beside me what he had recorded for a name, and he said George Brandel. the next day I asked the general manager to read me the name he had recorded on the sign-in sheet, and she said George Brehm. It would appear our association is in trouble as the directors can't hear and the General Manager can't read. I desperately hope the problem is that George is a poor penman who speaks with a lisp. Phil: Never had a 500 mile a day pigeon, but I did havve an acquaintance with a white pigeon tht took up residence on the outside window sill of my daughter's bedroom window. He, or she, would sit in the window and stare at my daughter while she was in bed. My daughter was in elementary school, and when she went to school in the morning the pigeon would fly and dive at her. By evening the bird would be perched back at the window and staring. I don't know how the bird felt about all of this, but my daughter was beside herself and convinced the feathery creaature was possessed by some demon force that was out to get her. One evening I took my flashlight and captured the demon by shining the light in it's eyes. I placed the bird in a plain brown paper sack. so tht if any members of the local Humane Society saw me they would think I had a problem with Demon Wine, and not be aware of my true mission. Anyway, I transported the culprit five miles south of town where I deposited the sack in a ditch along a dirt road. When I got back to town the dirty bird was perched in the window staring at my terrified daughter. I captured the intruder one last time, but there my story must end for I do not know what the statutes of limitation are in Iowa, or if any of the Humane Society people are still alive. A 500 a mile a day pigeon, NO, but a 5 mile an evening wisp of frenzy, YES. [my story is true] Earl Rae
Great pigeon story, Earl. And yes, Steve and Michele are in a dinner group we belong to here in Des Moines. My wife and I know them very well. Before they moved to D.C. a few years back I considered them probably our closest friends. Once they returned, they moved to another neighborhood, their kids went to the Catholic H.S. and our's were in the public system, and we saw less and less of each other. We still get together about once every 6 weeks or so. I've been with Michele's parents on several occasions. They are both gems. I presume her dad was a great guy to work with. Was it Farmers Mutual Hail? This blog makes my world smaller by the minute... Fred
I happened to stumble across this blog today and couldn't stop reading! The early June posts about RAGBRAI were particulary interesting to me as i'll be riding my second full RAGBRAI this summer. Am actually going to bike from Vermillion, South Dakota, where i live now, back to Marcus tomorrow. Also was surprised and entertained to read the "pigeon" postings as Carlyle Peterson was my grandfather and Bob Jones, who is also mentioned is my uncle. This is a great site and i'll be checking back often. Thanks so much to those who are keeping it active! --Joe Rainboth
Joe Rainboth......what a treat to see you on here! Now r u the magician or the artist? My mother's house is filled with a bunch of neat art work done by one of the Rainboth boys! Carlyle taught me a ton of neat things regarding homing pigeons and he and your uncle kept a bunch of us Marcus boys from getting into to much trouble! Is Bob living in Onawa or Sloan......either way I highly recommend anyone who is in your uncle Bob's neighborhood to go by and see his PIGEON PALACE.....it is amazing how those pigeons are treated. Bob truly has some of the top racing pigeons in the area if not America if memory serves me correct.
Julia, you are always asking for new topics for discussion on this blog. Well I would like to ask for anyone to reflect on the top "MUSCLE CARS" of Marcus. Personally I have to vote for Tim and Tom Schlenger as having the all time great cars. Tom's T-Bird could TEAR the town up......he alone was responsible for the "New Stop Sign" going up at the Nieman/Bancroft corner.........way too much street for him to keep his car from going 100 mph...so it SOUNDED....between the high school and the Catholic church corner. Close runner ups were Rocky Fey with his souped up Chevy or Ford....the Rasmussen (SP) boys of the Faith Lutheran preacher family had some awesome '57 Chevy's and then you had Denny Pierson----think I have the name correct---who was Tim Schlenger's age and his hot car as well if I remember correctly. Julia........ask Kurt and me to tell you about our friendly competition to see who could go faster through Cleghorn and how I blew the record away to "NEVER" be broken by anyone when we are back for the fair in August. If the cops had nailed me that night I would be typing from the Cherokee County Jail still to this day! Sibling rivalries can make you do some stupid stuff but at least I can go to my grave knowing that is one record that even the Schlenger boys will never break.........on the other hand they have to still have the fastest "QUARTER" times that ever came out of Marcus starting at the Kohn corner. Enough for now but as you can see I prefer speed as much to reading books.....LOL!!!!
OK Phil. I see where Nebraska won yesterday and Baylor plays tonight.
We use to go to Omaha to see the games but have not been there the last several years. When our kids were still home we would go. When Ray Robison was head trainer at Arizona State and they were in the World Series he would be there and that was a lot of fun. I know a lot of you knew Ray and what a great guy he was. We still keep in touch with his wife Mary. She still lives in Tempe, Az.
Hope the Dodgers can draft a few good ones. After seeing them play in Kansas City they need some help. The stadium in KC holds about 47,000 I think and there were only 16,175 there and I am guessing a third were Dodger Fans.
Good topic, Phil! Funny about cars ... the male ego trip that it is. I'm so bad at knowing the makes and models ... maybe I remember the colors? I remember that Dave Schreier had a dark green something or other that was jacked up so very high and you could hear it from a mile away out in the country. It seems I could pick out a few different cars that were prowling the country roads in the summer when the windows were open and sound carried. It seems Novas and Monte Carlos were the car of choice in the 70s. Right? Of course, Mustangs and Camaros were primo, but out of reach, I suppose, for many. I remember our travails with old bombs that were supposed to get us to school and back but not much farther. I remember urging Mary Bird's car into the school parking lot ... literally screaming to keep ... it ... going ... and coasting down any slight rise. I remember our old Bel Air dying between our house and Bird's on a freezing cold night after a basketball game. We weren't dressed to walk home in that cold, so I honked the horn until someone must have heard it and we were rescued. I remember going to the Exorcist (or something like that) with Pat and Steve Snyder (against the wishes of our parents) and when we came home that night the car simply stopped on a dark road on the way home -- no lights, nothing. We thought it was the hand of God meting out his judgment. After a few minutes of pure terror, the car started right up. I remember driving back and forth to ISU in Bruce Mayer's little Gremlin and, later on, a hot red Camaro. Once Bruce had to creep through a horrible snowstorm and we finally got to Storm Lake and stopped for the night at BV. Bruce and I still reminisce about those car rides. I know cars are important to teens out here too, but cars have a whole different culture in the Midwest ... or at least that's my perspective. I guess kids still prove themselves by driving fast or pulling crazy stunts out here too, but maybe it's just not as accessible or cars are too expensive to mess up or insurance is too high. "Riding in cars with boys" (movie title) is just not as cool as it used to be. Whatever, I probably spent much of my teen-age life driving back and forth to somewhere to do something with someone or just wasting endless tanks of gas tooling around town. The old cars that got us around are rusting away, but the memories last forever.
Just so you know, Tom Schlenger had a black 1957 Ford in the fall of 1969 but shortly thereafter was driving a new Plymouth Road Runner. The stock Road Runner was a beautiful blue (almost turqouise color), but was soon transformed into a black beast that could outrun everything around. I suspect this is the car that you remember. Kevin Flanagan
Hi kevin and Phil. Tim Schlenger had a navy blue '57 T-Bird for a while while his brother Tom was driving the Road runner. If I remember that RR ended up painted silver at one point. Does anyone remember Larry Hagey's '68 Charger with the custom paint?
Phil- Larry Rossman was the son of the Faith Lutheran minister, his brother Glen had a late 40's Plymouth that Glen painted by mixing half JD Greene and half JD Yellow and then painted flowers all over it. No one could miss it. I know a picture of it ended up in the LeMars Sentinel at one point.
Another car a few may remember was Denny Delaney's 'vette. I think it was a 64 model, it was more of a drag car, custom paint (lots of lace), slicks, parachute, but still street licensed.
Thanks for the memeory Kurt, I can barely remember the kid wearing number 31, but I do remember that it was a great deal of fun playing on that team. I also remember a few ego ballons popping when we hit high school the next year and found out that we really were not perfect any longer. I think that was the year that Marcus lost to Kingsley-Pierson 92 to 0. Supposedly made the national news. Dan Steffen
Julia: I think the whole teen dating thing has changed in the past generation or so. Group dating or "hanging out" somewhere with a mixed set of friends seems to be more the case then it used to be. In that sense cars may not be as central to all of that as they once were.There are still lots of spots, though, not exclusive to the midwest, where cars are king. Nascar is huge and getting bigger - most everywhere now. My assistant at work, and her crew, go a couple times a year to the new Kansas Speedway or Darlington. Newton, Iowa is now getting a track. It started, of course, in the North Carolina and Georgia backwoods where the Pettys and Ernhardts of those generations were running to keep their "white lightning" from "revenuers". Latino kids still "low-ride" all over southern California and from Montana to Texas, kids and fast pickups are everywhere. One of the most popular shows on cable last year was "Pimp My Ride" - a show about detailing or "tricking out" (as we used to call it) a car, pickup or van for some teen or early 20's age kid.
The astronaut wannabees used to, and still may, race up and down Daytona's beach at night while in training around the Cape Canaveral/Kennedy Space Center. If it wasn't cars and trucks, it was motorcycles. If not that, it was/is wave runners. If I remember right, Chuck Yeager (West Virginia) injured his ribs - fell off a horse he was racing - just a few nights before he crawled into an underwing craft and broke the sound barrier.
My favorite story about small town Iowa kids and speed, relates to a friend of mine here in Des Moines. Her brother - who the local teachers weren't sure would ever amount to much - grew up in and around farms and small towns near Blue Grass, Iowa. It's a town about the size of Marcus. He ended up, after college in Iowa City, in the Air Force. A couple of years ago he was featured on the cover of the Lockheed Martin Annual Report, blazing a trail across the sky in the Raptor/F-22. Turns out he did okay after all - flew in the first wave into Baghdad during Gulf War I and later a test pilot for the newest and fastest "X-planes" at Edwards Air Force base in Nevada. He's now retired and "drives a bus" (747 I think) for FedEx in and out of Memphis, although he is back living and farming near Davenport.
Driving those pickups fast and running those tractors around, combined with that sense of personal responsibility and reliance on yourself, which farm and small town life instills, is precisely what forges that kind of person. And these stories are legion. There are lots of these kinds of kids that come out of rural America. It's a heritage which is underappreciated, not often even recognized, but very real. When I tell my friends that my dad stuck me up on a little Ford tractor when I was barely strong enough to hold the foot clutch down, they are shocked. Being apprehensive about taking a drivers test at 16 - ha, most of us had been driving for several years before that ever happened. All part of that experience many of us had growing up like we did.
My kids have grown up "fast" in a sense different from me. They know about drugs, sex, varying lifestyles and diseases in a way I didn't until much later in life. On the other hand, I grew up much "faster" than they did when it came to driving, working, figuring things out on my own, and being independent, for example. Not their "fault". It simply is not as easy or as safe to let your kids grow up now, as we did earlier. We took off and ran all over town. Nobody locked cars or houses. Many people looked after the children of other's. Hard to do now. The standards aren't the same. The behaviors of adults and other kids, is oftentimes significantly different than we experienced.
Kids and cars - still around lots of places. Many times newer and nicer than we had,if we had them, and oftentimes used differently - but still very much a part of the landscape. In "Top Gun" Tom Cruise called it a "need for speed". It's still very real for lots of kids. Scary for parents - yes. No longer out there - no. The only difference I see is that more young girls are drawn to it now. More often than not, when some blur cruises past me on the way to work it is a young girl/woman about 20-30. All the attention given the competitive female driver in the Indy 500 this year will soon be the norm. There are many daring, cat-reflex quick and competitive young women out there looking for their shot. Fred
That 92-0 loss to Kingsley-Pierson was the first game of the 1968 season in coach Harry Kitts' last year at Marcus, the same year that your junior high team was undefeated. Bruce Letner became Marcus' high school coach in 1969. And a few years later, Letner's team beat Anthon-Oto 94-0 with the A-O team walking off the field with 4:03 left in the game. That game might not have made national news, but it did make the Omaha paper.
I should have been in that 1968 Jr. High football picture, but at the last minute my mother changed her mind and didn't allow me to transfer from Holy Name that year. I don't think I ever forgave her for that.
Oooohhh, I was at the 94-0 Anthon-Oto game ... more worried about fights in the stands than the score at the end. Quite a night!!!
Interesting comments about cars and the need for speed, Fred. The season has already started at the Seekonk Speedway, our local Nascar hotspot, just down Rte. 6 from my house and I can hear the engines revving up every Saturday night.
What ... could we get our permits at 14 back then? My daughter won't get her permit until she's 16 1/2 years old and her driver's license until 17. Then after that, there are more regulations about who she can have in the car with her and when. That's what's different out here, that age delay -- which seems to keep creeping up every legislative session with more rules.
I know my sister Nancy's children (live in W. Des Moines) had their permits and licenses long before my oldest did. (And she was fuming!) By the time I was a freshman I was getting rides from other older kids (mostly Bird kids) and I remember taking classes for my permit between freshman and sophomore year. Kim Alesch was the first in my class to get her license and she was driving a car load of girls around by November of sophomore year!
I teach juniors and most of them are just getting their MA licenses in the spring, so it's quite different out here. The parking lot starts filling up then with junior and senior cars, but no one else can drive, and we have a long line of parents dropping off kids in the morning (students have to pay to ride buses in our school district now).
So, instead, I have been and still am the chauffeur for my girls and their friends way into their high school years. I liked your comments about how children are "older" today in different ways than we were. Totally agree. Some days when I feel like I'm the only mom home to drive (you know those school teachers and their summers off) I wish Emily could just take the car and go ... but it doesn't look like the driving age is going to drop any time soon around here ... or gas prices, for that matter!
James ...?, Love the memory about Spring Lake. I guess swimming was off limits by the time I remember going over there to feed the ducks. Did anyone ever go to any other lakes around the area? How about Paullina? I guess because we lived north of town, we went there a lot to go fishing and to swim. Nice little place. And then there was the grand old lady: Okiboji!!! When dad hadn't planned any major road trips (New York, Colorado or the Great Iowa Ancester tour) with five or six kids in tow, we spent several days at a rented cottage on the lake. Always a great time. Too young for the Roof Garden, but does anyone remember the Fun House? I remember burns on the slide and getting slammed around in the monkey barrel. Anyone else? I'm celebrating today because it's the LAST DAY OF SCHOOL!! Whoo-hoo!! (Tad bit unprofessional, but it's been a long year ... still no contract.)
Kinglsy football has evidently always been a thorn in the Marcus behind. We lost to them 62-0 in my freshman year in 1945. They were the "Bombers" with solid black uniforms who looked enourmous to our little blue and gold eyes. We improved the next year, losing only 7-6, but they tromped us 34-0 in my junior year. We finally beat them 13-6 in my senior year--the first victory over them in 10 years. Bob Reed
I am up for a discussion and perspective from others on who was the best softball hurler to come out of the Marcus summer softball program? Bob Brady, Larry Slagter, or someone else?
Bob Brady and Larry were amazing and I can still see them throwing some wicked stuff.......THOTS?
I feel the need to enter the softball evaluation conversation. Larry Slagter was a good friend and teammate, but not the best pitcher to play on a Marcus softball team. Ev Mueller [sp] was probably the best softball pitcher in the state of Iowa. Ev grew up on a farm northwest of Marcus, played ball at Teachers College and was a high school coach in northeast Iowa. We beat Salsness Motors of Sioux city 9-0 a couple of nights before they won the Iowa softball championship. They beat us by one run on the tournament trail. Everett was a phenom. I played against and with Leroy Carlson and against Johnnie Bright [Drake All-American football player and pitching whiz] and Ev was better than any of them. That goes back to the years of 1946-1951 when the team was known as Sands Seeds. Eddie Hagey, Jerry Rae, Orville Chin played the outfield. Junior Franck on third, Leon Ebert shortsop, Bob Hagey at second, Fred Hoover and Lyle Weicht caught and I played firstbase. Larry and his older brother Bob Slagter pitched, along with Ev. We hired some pitching when we went to tournaments. While on football and Kingsley; when I was a freshman Kingsley called themselves the Black Knights. They beat us 58-0 the night before Notre Dame beat Iowa 58-0. We didn't feel any better Saturday than we did Friday night. I was a ninety-seven pound stallion minding my own business running one end of the measurement chain when one of the Kingsley fans hollered, "hey Shorty, what would you do if they wanted to put you in the game?" I answered authoritatively, "Don't worry!!" I had no more made my quuick response than play was halted on the field. Jerry Peters had been injured and Dale Young ran across the field to take my place on the chain with the comment that coach wants you to go in at quarterback. To you neophite sports experts, in the single wing formation that equates to "blocking back". I played the entire second half putting the fear of God into the Black Knights, as Jerry apparently felt no need to get well. The fear I imparted on this band of lousy hosts was the fear they were going to kill me. Carl Mayer got hit in the head that game and explained to Coach Zender how he got to Kingsley. That was so bad he spent the rest of the game sitting on the bench with a distant smile on his face. Again my senior year we lost only one game; to Kingsley. They were having a bad season, we were cocky, they played with more intensity than we did, and one of the lessons life teaches was evident in the outcome. Back to softball; Larry was a good thrower, everett was a great pitcher. Earl Rae
The Henry "Hank" Vogelman years were good ones for Marcus football, too. (Hank is now in the Iowa Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame as of year 2000.)We were undefeated -one tie, the rest wins - my Junior year (fall of 1964). Names out of the past - Denny "no pain threshhold" Boots was at quarterback. He used to put on his helmet and run into trees during summers, before two-a-days started, so the story went. We had speed in the backfield - Gary Sanow, Larry Galvin, Mike Schmillen come to mind. Great all around athletes like Rocky Bork. Size(by the standards of that day) - Steve Hagey. Toughness at the guard positions - Leonard Hansen and Danny Ohlendorf. But most of all we had Coach Hank Vogelman. Was he ever tough. He was not long out of college himself and a physical specimen. He would take on two, three or four of us at a time if we dared. Us in pads, him not. I think he came out of Ohio coal country, via the Marines and the Iowa State "Dirty Thirty" crew, if I have my facts straight. He would paint yellow stripes down our backs in practice if we didn't hit hard enough or ducked a head-on, open field tackle. Practices were hell - games were a picnic. I guess that's what made it work for us. In any case, we never lost that year. I have one particularly funny memory of that year. Lemars Gehlen had a good team and a montster lineman who loved to play dirty and try to intimidate people. When you were down he'd step on you with his cleats, or threaten you at that bottom of a pile or try to sucker punch one of us if he thought he could get away with it. We complained in the huddle all game long about the stunts he was pulling. The refs never called him on it which made it worse. So, the last play of the game , with victory asssured, Denny told our center to hike the ball to him, he would run around the backfield and everyone else should jump on the big guy and engage in a little "payback". It caught him totally off guard and was oh so sweet revenge. It was a great year for Eagle football with many wonderful memories. Coach Hank moved on after that year, as people know, and the program, unfortunately promptly took a dive. Fred
Kevin Flanagan........who was the fastest "sprinter" to come out of Marcus High............was it you or Gary Sanow or someone else I am not aware of at this time? All I know is that Gary was a freak by Iowa standards and you weren't too far behind but I could have my facts wrong.
Back to softball........wasn't Bob Brady just about as good as they get at pitching and didn't he go on to lead some Sioux City teams to some big time success?
Oh Yeah........last night my Baylor Bears spotted the number 1 team in the nation "Tulane" 7 runs and then beat them in the bottom of the 9th.....8-7............now back to dealing with "tu" out of Austin........we have to win 2 out of 2 to get to the title series agianst Florida or Arizona State.
And speaking of TI - until his death about 10 years ago the President/CEO of Texas Instruments was Jerry Junkins, a small town Iowa boy from around Ft. Madison. The list goes on and on... Fred
p.s. If the Junkins name sounds familiar to resident Iowans, his brother, Lowell, ran for governor of our state a few years back.
We've discussed snow storms before at this site. Have there been any tornadoes, fires, bank robberies, murders or similar events in Marcus' past? I have a recollection of a movie theatre burning, but it's non-specific. Can any of you older hands help with this one? Odd topic to be sure, but I'm curious. (The James Gang, Bonnie & Clyde, and those types didn't come through town ever, to my knowledge. Is that correct? Those of you who know about the old Marcus Hotel on the south end of Main Street may be able to pass on some stories about some of the famous and infamous guests who overnighted there.) Fred
I was interested in Fred asking if the James boys were ever near Marcus. I was just reading in the Marcus Centennial Book about Galen's great-grandfather, Sven Sjostrom. It said he lived on 240 acres of virgin land between Marcus and Cleghorn on Highway 3. That would be the farm on the east side of the West Fork bridge on the south side of the road. In the article it said Frank James of the famous Jesse and Frank James stopped at the Sjostrom farm and watered his horse one evening about dark.
During the 1950s, a tornado from the southwest and one fom the northwest came together on one of the building sites of our family farm in Amherst Township, one mile east and two and one half miles south of Marcus. My parents watched the southwest tornado uproot giant cottonwood trees on the Ricker farm abutting our south property line. They made it into the storm cellar just before the two funnels joined and headed off to the northest. When the storm had passed one of the outbuildings had been desstroyed, fences were torn down and the corn crop had been sucked from the ground [ the corn being about nine leaf stage]. Additionally, the contents of the upper floor of the house now resided on the first floor and the contents of the first floor were now on second floor. Strange things occur during one of these storms, as you all know. Earl Rae
Some great stuff here! I'll have to read my Marcus history book a little more carefully. My dad has some old b/w photos of a house that was totally destroyed by a tornado. I've always known it was from the area, but I don't think it was Cherokee County. I'll have to find out where it was. One whole outer wall is peeled away and you can see the insides just like a gigantic dollhouse.
I was also in the cave when the tornado hit the farm. You wonder if there will be anything left. I believe that the tornado went all the way to the Iowa great lakes. I remember we drove for miles looking at the damaged farms.
Interesting to think that I drove over that bridge all these years and had no idea that one of the James brothers had once been there. Thanks for the information, Pat.
Thanks for the link, Kurt. The part I found fascinating there was the Northfield, Minnesota townspeople arming themselves and going after the bad guys. Reminds me of the Texas tower sniper (Charles Whitman - 1966) case. The story I heard was that as the radio reports of the shootings on the UT campus started to air locals grabbed their guns, went to the school, and started to shoot back at Whitman, even before the Texas Rangers and local police showed up. There is a whole "self reliance" piece to that type of community response that is often missing now.
Love learning about the history of Marcus. Thanks to all who are contributing. Fred
p.s. Did the theatre (second level) on mainstreet burn or is it just a case of "oldtimers" that I'm experiencing?
Julia, Sorry, but Gayle and family will not be able to make the Marcus Fair and the 30th class reunion. We will be seeing them in July when our entire family is meeting in Branson, MO to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary. I'll tell you asked about her.
I want to add a little about the tornado that has been discussed. It happened in 1952 as I was going to college at Buena Vista College (then) that summer. I went to Sioux City on the bus from Storm Lake the weekend after the tornado and saw all the ruined houses and Goodrich's station at Cleghorn. Galen said he remembered it started around Eric Carlson's place SE of Marcus. It also cut a path from SW of Larrabee and on NE of Larrabee (my home town).
Today in the Past Files of the Marcus News there is an item from 1930 that says, "Walter Clarkson and Louie Seeger recalled the 1885 tornado that struck Marcus, causing 2 deaths,a Mrs. Gano and baby. It struck about 10:00 PM and came from the west."
Hi, Just found this site and boy did it bring back memories. I was there at the Kingsley football game and was a senior in 1969. What really griped me was that Kingsley kept the score up for a full week after the game. This was a topic of discussion at our 35th high school renunion last year.I also remember the undefeated team in 1964. Do you all remember that there was also an undefeated team in 1928(I think that was the year)My dad (Vance)and uncle (Joe) played for Marcus back then. My Dad told some great stories of my uncle on the football field as he was on of the biggest players in the county at that time. Vana Marquis Bris-Bois
Vana Marquis Bris-Bois: I never knew your father, Vance, but I have fond memories of your Uncle Joe. Joe was not just one of the biggest football players FOR HIS Day, in the county, he was big for ANYDAY in any county. I never saw him play football as he was about twenty years older than me, but I heard stories ohis tackling, blocking, or falling on a Le Mars player and brreaking several limbs and a number of ribs for the unfortunate Le Mars lad. I doubt Joe even wore a helmet when he played football for the simple reason I do not think they made helmets that large in the 1920s. I was 6' 2 1/2" when I knew Joe and he towered over me. Additionally, he weighed at least 350 pounds. I was told he was the same size in high school. Rumor also had it that by the time Joe graduated from high school he had read every book in the school library. Joe and your Grandfather, Frank, came to town every Saturday night to fill the back of their pick-up with groceries. Every Saturday night they ate steak at Lage's Cafe. Joe had a nice ribeye, but Frank, who was about 5' 7" and 125 pounds after a big meal, weighed in on a T-bone steak that leaked over the edges of his plate. They were both gentle, and gentlemen. Joe was an accomplished billiard and snooker player, playing with a soft touch that belied his physical appearance. Unfortunately, his untimely death on a fishing trip to South Dakota removed a true sportsman from our humble community. Earl Rae
Vana: Your dad "Col. Marquis" as I always heard him called, was my little league baseball coach. I was lucky enough to pitch for one of the teams in the All-Star game that year. Rocky Bork, Timmy Beaver and a tough crew like that was on the other team. We were up one run in the final inning. Your dad told me to walk Timmy. Our catcher stepped out to take my intentional "walk pitches". I didn't want to surrender to Timmy that way, so he was expecting me to throw balls as I threw two strikes past him. When I tried it one too many times he lined the third attempt hard past my left ear. But for Tommy Gates, playing second base for us (who was also a good athlete, like Bork and Beaver) and who caught the line drive, we would have lost the game. Your dad went easy on me when we walked off the field, as we won the game. Had it turned out otherwise, I probably would have never heard the end of it.
I remember your uncle too. I didn't know him but I remember seeing him drive to and from town. I remember him so well, as like others have mentioned, he was a very big guy. Your dad was the consumate gentleman. Apparently your uncle was the same. Fred
Vana--It was sooo good to see your name on this site. It has been great for bringing back memories. And do I have a lot with you from SS, church camp at Okoboji to bb practice and games. I don't remember a lot about cars as do some people on this site, but I do certainly remember rides home from practice in an old grey car you drove. What was the year and make of that car? We certainly had some good times together. And Julia, ask your sister Mary about a summer night when she drove a car load of us to Remsen. We had a flat tire, and having the car full of girls and probably just not paying attention, we didn't realize we had a flat until we were driving on the rim! I'm sure your dad wasn't happy about that. Marcia Steffen Pavey
Oh Marcia, you bet that I passed on that little gem to Mary. With four girls and three boys, my father has more stories about cars and their assorted troubles than he would care to repeat. But my worst was probably the day I backed out of the drive with one of the cars and rear-ended the pickup, thus racking up two ugly dents in two Meylor vehicles in one day. Needless to say, I forked over my change jar and subsequent tips at the R&E Cafe ...
Which brings up another topic: Marcus cafes past and present. Any stories?
P.S. I get the Marcus News a little later than normal, so I know this isn't from the current edition, but in the paper I got today Velma seems to be a bit upset about comments on this blog. That saddens me because I would hope that Marcus doesn't see anything on this website as derogatory towards any community effort. I read the Marcus News from cover to cover and have been a faithful subscriber for almost 30 years now, ever since my parents first sent it to me as a freshman at Iowa State. I humbly apologize if any remarks were taken negatively from anything said here. Again, I know keeping a community newspaper alive is a daunting task, but it must survive as the pulse of the town.
Uncle Joe died in 1968 from a fishing accident. Marcia is great to hear from you also. Do I ever remember that car. It was a gray 1948 Dodge. Dad didn't like me driving it too far but it sure got around town and out to the farm a lot. Remember how we would pile all the basketball players in the car to drive to the old gym during basketball season. I remember getting stuck in some snow drifts and everyone would get out and help push me out. That old car was built like a tank. I don't think the heater worked that well and if I remeber right a passenger door would fly open every once in awhile if you didn't get it shut just right. Teresa Kaufman drove and old Chevy and she and I thought we were tough stuff because we were one of the few girls that had cars but you sure won't have called them muscle cars. Vana Marquis Bris-Bois
As we start a new month with this blog, I’ve been reviewing some of the wonderful previous postings. Lotsa’ folk have commented on the blizzard of 1975 and the pics of the last passenger train to come through Marcus. There was an earlier big blow in which trains also played a part.
ReplyDeleteThe year of 1936 came in with a bang in Iowa. According to writer Carl Hamilton, one great blizzard after another raged across the state for five solid weeks, from January 18 to February 22. They left many farms cut off from mail, fuel, and sometimes, food.
Little towns were almost equally isolated. It was the “single greatest concentration of continuous snow and below-zero temperatures recorded in that century of Iowa history,”
according to the writer. A blanket of cold settled across the state with temperatures reaching 25 degrees below in the daytime, and dropping to 40 degrees below at night.
Five- and ten-foot snowdrifts were common. Schools and traffic were at a standstill. Towns ran out of coal and food. Livestock froze, and trains stalled in deep drifts. This was important, because at that time nearly all of a town’s goods and supplies came into the place by train. Roads were small and impassable and there were no helicopters.
In Marcus, my dad, Carl Reed, was the Illinois Central Railroad depot agent. As I understand it, he spent most of the month at the brick depot at the north end of Main Street—often sleeping there all night while manning the telegraph and helping coordinate emergency efforts. The yard was full of box cars and mail cars stuck in drifts twelve feet high. The blizzards outside the structure were evidently terrible to hear, for the wind blew and shrieked. But the strong building easily withstood the fury, according to my mom.
If the wind had blown itself out by morning, the section crew—led by Foreman Bill Witter—would try to clear the tracks. A big, strong engine sent out from Cherokee or Fort Dodge pushed a large wedge plow and pulled a caboose carrying section workers from other towns. The engine would go until it was stopped by the big drifts on the track. The engineer would back it up about a half a mile, and then go as fast as he could to plunge the plow into the deep drift. The snow was often so deep that there was no place for the snow to go except straight out—and up.
The plow would maybe make it into the drift about 100 feet, and then become wedged again in the snow. The crew would climb down and uncouple the engine from the plow and back it away. The section men would clear the plow by shoveling the snow and tossing it to men above them, midway up the drift. They, in turn, would toss it to the top of the drift on the side. The drift was often so high that you could step onto it from the top of the caboose.
When the plow was cleared, they would hook it up to the engine again and back it up to slam into the drift again at full speed. It was awfully slow going, for some drifts were said to be over 2000 feet long. And often, just as soon as they cleared a section of track, another storm would bury it.
The whole effort near Marcus was complicated by a train wreck. A plow smashed into the back of a relief train, and while no lives were lost, some coal and box cars with food and supplies were demolished and the cars had to be cleared off the track as well.
Iowa weather is, of course, unpredictable, and the folks in Marcus also had to survive a long, hot summer and drought later that year. It was the steamiest summer on record. The corn burned up.
And nearby Remsen darned near burned down when some kid’s firecrackers set off a blaze on the day (July 4, 1936) that Marcus was dedicating its new American Legion Building. My mom spoke to a diminishing crowd, many of whom abandoned the ceremonies to rush to the aid of their neighbors in Remsen. Our local firemen were the leaders in that effort.
I was just four and don’t really remember the big blow or the big fire. But they say that everyone in the area just shook their heads as the year ended, wondering what in the world they had done to deserve all this attention.
(The above was adapted from a little contribution that I wrote for the remarkable tome that a great committee of the Marcus Quasiquiencentenial organization published in 1996. That big volume is a wonderful compilation of Marcus history, written by the folk who lived there. Some copies may be still available. Contact Nancy Hier or Thelma Gravanish).
Bob Reed
Bob, the fire in Remsen was started by the young daughter of a local tavern owner. Their last name, as I recall, was Dunn. That fire, and one in Spencer, caused the State Legislature to make fireworks illegal. Regarding blizzards, I remember most vividly the Armistice Day Blizzard of 1941. A freight train loaded with cattle, for delivery to Chicago, settled into the drifts by the Homer Weimer farm. Locals took scoop shovels and headed for the country, digging the train out so it could continue. I have done a watercolor of my recollection of the incident, which I titled, "I Think I Can". One day when I am feeling intelligent, I will attempt to post it on this blog. Earl Rae
ReplyDeleteDear Bob,
ReplyDeleteI can not believe what has happened since I contacted you after seeing the article about Marcus in the Des Moines Register recently! Your wife was kind enough to post a comment for me and the results have been not only life affirming but life changing! I don't have words to express my heart felt appreciation. Several people have responded to me and wrote me the most beatiful letters. They mean so much to me that I carry them with me in my purse. Not only do I have a chance to actually find out my family history but I have found that I have real live family!!! I have a cousin Nancy who I can remember playing with as a child- I had no idea where she even would be or if she would even remember me. Also I heard from Kyle who I remember my grandmother talked about so often as she was his babysitter. In fact I tell my own children funny things he said as a child that I remember Grandma telling me! I so look forward to contacting them this week-end when I have more time- I have been so busy lately as my oldest child just graduated from high school. Please extend my thanks to your wife and Please keep in touch. Thank you for all you do. May God Bless You, Diane Burkert
Phil Dorr,
ReplyDeleteYes I remember Tommy Lasorda. I remember him in the early 50's when he was with the Dodgers minor league club in Montreal. He did pretty well there but did not cut it in the majors. He was a lefthander and I think he won 18 games with Montreal one of those years.
I have always been a fan of his with his enthusiasm and positive attitude. He was and still is great with young players. When he managed the Dodgers and went on the road he was very good at visiting children hospitals and talking to young people instilling his views on life no matter what you pursue.
I got to see him in 1988 in Dodger Stadium. Belive it or not Fern and I were guests of Peter O'Malley. I used to write to Mr. O'Malley and he would alway get back to me. He once told me if we ever got to LA to let him know. Well you know what we did and he sent us tickets for two games. We sat in his box right behind home plate. Before the game I saw Tommy. As a Dodger fan it was quite a thrill for me. Back in the 50's my Dodger hero was Duke Snider. When our son Bob was in Florida Fern and I were visiting him along with our other son Al so we took a trip to Vero Beach the Dodgers traing camp. The Fantasy Camp was on at that time and I got to meet Duke in the broadcast booth. Had great visit with him and Carl Erskine. I could go on about my Dodgers experiences but one more is I got to meet and talk to Sandy Koufax in St. Louis in 1964. Very nice guy.
So Phil you asked so you got both barrels. Nice seeing you in Marcus last time you were here.
Best wishes from Marcus and take care...
Jack Clarkson
Dodger Fan
Boy, June is barely two days old and I've already learned so much from this blog! Interesting that you mentioned Carl Hamilton. When I worked at the Alumni Office while at ISU, Mr. Hamilton headed (? I'll have to check that) the office and I have a signed copy of one of his books on Iowa State history ... of course now I have to track it down.
ReplyDeleteJack:
ReplyDeleteI can really appreciate those stories but being a GIANT'S fan and having experienced a Dodger's game in L.A. with my daughter and Cali cousins last summer I can now understand why these two teams dislike each other. It will be fun to compare notes when I get to Marcus later this month but we will probably have to sit at opposite ends of the table at the Family Table or the rivalry might flair up!!!!
Speaking of baseball.......Mr. Benton was a great baseball coach and taught me a ton of great life lessons. He always told me I don't need someone who can pitch hard---just someone who can pitch strikes. Remember you have 7 guys behind you to take care of the rest of the business and most of those other little kids aren't going to hit home runs. Between Mr. Benton and Brian Hogue as our swim team coach they were hard to beat.
BTW.....I would wager our swim teams of the early 70's coached by Brian Hogue were the best to ever come through Marcus. Someone correct me if I am wrong. But with Bucky-Dicky-and Rusty diving and the Lennox boys and sister Kim diving and then having the rest of us swimming our hearts out we were hard to beat.
Those boys from Laurens sure wished they had never pelted the school bus with rocks (Jack Dunn was the driver)when the above mentioned got off and settled the score!
The writing on this bogspot is incredible. I vote for Bob Reed and Julia Meylor Simpson collaborating on an Iowa history work. It could focus on small towns, but the collective experiences you have had and the manner in which you express yourselves is something all Iowans, present or expats, (and others of similar backgrounds) can appreciate. If our state can put a Writers' Workshop author (Gilead: Marilynne Robinson) at the number one spot on the national bestseller fiction list, I know the two of you have the potential. Maybe I'm overstepping my bounds here, but I think one of you should pick up the phone and call the other. The richness of your expressions is the bait. Your stories are the hook. Your reading public awaits. Fred
ReplyDeleteWe've gained a reciprocal link on the official Marcus website http://www.marcusiowa.com/ which may help to draw even more interested and interesting traffic this way! Thank you Kara Spieler
ReplyDeleteof midlands.net.
Perhaps some of you don't know that Earl Rae--a retired art educator--is also a very accomplished, and talented artist with many imaginative, beautiful paintings. So Earl---please figure out how to do it and post your watercolor of the train stuck in the snow near Marcus in 1941! (If you run into trouble, contact our son--Baritone Bob--who really manages the computer aspects of this blog).
ReplyDeleteAnd Fred Dorr--thanks much for the gracious compliments on the writing on this blog and the suggestion that Julie Simpson and I get together to do some nonfiction writing of small towns in Iowa. Great idea! Problem. I'm curently knee deep in a full plate (how's that for a mixed metaphor?) of writing projects and pushing a next book deadline.
But 6 of the 7 humorous short stories in my last book ("The Choir That Couldn't Sing--and Other Merry Tales")were set in small midwest towns. One of them takes place in a thinly disguised Cherokee and tells of my brother's antics there in the '50s. Another is set in a Marcus--albeit with a nearby river--in the '30s. As they say, write what you know. Thanks for the great suggestion!
Bob
Would anyone on this board please identify the handsome graduating Marcus Class of 2005 Seniors on the front page of the May 26 edition of the Marcus News? I don't get out like I use to and have no clue who have of these young people are in the paper. Please go left to right and bottom row to the top row like then norm usually is in matters such as this. Thanking whoever for their generousity in advance.
ReplyDeleteDo you have fond memories of swimming in the Marcus City swimming pool? Did you dive in some days when the water would chill you to the bone and turn your lips blue? Unfortunately young people in Marcus had that experience again last year when the heater gave out on a cooler than normal summer.
ReplyDeleteThe good news is that a new pool heater has been installed and the temperature of the water is kept between 73 and 77 degrees. A fund drive has been underway and has been very successful however there is still time if you'd like to contribute to this project in fond memory of hours spent there in your youth. Checks may be mailed to the Marcus City Clerk, Marcus, IA 51035. Your donations would be greatly appreciated.
There was a very odd article in the Marcus New a few weeks back about the pool. It was a very long article, had no identification of who wrote it and why. There was a picture above the article with no identification of who the people in the picture were and how they were connected to the pool and/or Marcus. The article rambled on forever and I never did get the point of the article. What happened to the editor? Can someone tell me what it was all about?
ReplyDeletePhil Dorr,
ReplyDeleteWould like to see you at the Family Table. So you are a Giants Fan, eh? I will alert the Dodger Fans here in Marcus and we will get out the 'tar & feathers".
We have a lot of great baseball fans around. Coach Benton, Charley Addy, Marty Irwin Cardinal fans, Mr. Roese, Lenny Dreckman, Joe Rosener, Brian Nelson Yankee fans. They still have their 'black arm bands' on, Jim Hoefling, Chuck Knudson, Leo Brady, Cub fans. Myself Jeff Spieler, Jerry Dunn are Dodger fans. I could go on but all of these guys are great baseball fans. We have a lot of fun talking baseball. Sorry Phil the only Giant Fans I knew of were Gib Evans and Carl Letsche but they have passed on. My wife Fern was a Giant fan but in our wedding vows she had to become a Dodger fan or no wedding. That was 46 years ago.
I am not speaking to the Cub fans after they swept my Dodgers last weekend.
Phil see you in Marcus.
Jack Clarkson
Dodger Fan
Okay, do I sit quietly by and twiddle my thumbs as no mention is made of the ... hmmmm ... Red Sox? I may never be a true New Englander, but that is one thing that kind of seeps into the blood up here ... I think they put something in the water.
ReplyDeleteMarcus Pool!! Swimming lessons early in the morning (it seems like the farm kids always got the earliest times for lessons) where blue lips and goose pimples were par for the course. Then back later in the afternoon after a few hours of walking beans. With seven kids (my oldest sister was 19 when the youngest, Bob, showed up), we were rarely allowed to sit inside with the TV on. So the Marcus Pool in the 60s and 70s (at the height of the baby boom) was the place to be. Rock music blaring from the speakers and frozen Dr. Pepper and Snickers bars from the candy stand and life was simply good. That's where we were when man landed on the moon ... although I think we were in front of the tube at Grandma's house when they took their first steps. Of course, in recent years, I have taken children there, and it was much less crowded. One thing I wish they did have now is some kind of shade somewhere ... trees or awnings. It's hard to sit there in the bright sun inside or outside without a little shade. Oh well...if wishes were beggars ...
ReplyDeleteBy the way, Fred, your comments were kind, but I am no way a historian of any merit. I am a teacher who loves words and a wannabe poet that tries to play with words. The Dorr family (all of you) are much more attuned to the stories and glories of Marcus past. I have enjoyed all of that at this site. As I look at your photos, I realize how few photos I actually have of the town ... tons of family photos ... but very few of the place. And that comes as quite a shock. I think I will be taking photos around town this summer when I return. On another note, I just received info from the Iowa State Fair on their photography contest and this year the special topic is hometowns. Maybe we could make sure Marcus is among the photos at the Iowa State Fair!! Any photographers out there?
My apologies for not signing the Marcus swimming pool article regarding sending a contribution for the pool heater. It was a result of not really knowing how I was to do this. Elaine (Mrs. Roger) Leavitt
ReplyDeleteI, too, was wondering who wrote the article in the Marcus News. I sense it might have been a member of the Dunn family ... not John Dunn's family, but another Dunn family? Can anyone offer something more concrete?
ReplyDeleteElaine:
ReplyDeleteIt is great to have you identified as an official "BLOGGER." Welcome!
I appreciate your comments re the Marcus pool. Would you please ask the official "Pool Heater Fundraiser" how much money is still needed and even if they would log on and post on here what the status is re the balance still needed?
Also, Julia "Meylor" my experience from using the pool over the past few summers with my daughter tells me that you hit on a topic that many of the Marcus Mothers have been discussing amongst themselves....that is there is no shade at the pool for anyone while sitting around the immediate pool area and it would be great if someone can help resolve this issue.
Mrs. Leavitt, would you be so kind to ask the town leadership to visit this matter and see if they can resolve this matter and if they need to raise the funds to provide the apporpriate shade at the pool why not add this to the fund drive for the water heater?
Julia, I like the way you think and appreciate your spurring good ideas to enhance the community for current residents and those of us who still trek back to enjoy it when we can!!!!
How interesting is this? I haven't had time to go back through all the comments, but this is great!
ReplyDeleteThanks to you, Bob Reed. My mother, Sue Dorr, asked if you remember all the kids that gathered at your house because you had the only record player around.
Also seeing the name of Jack Clarkson brought back memories. In addition to being a close friend to my father, Craig, I got to work with him for several years at Sand Seed Service. Jack was an influential little league coach. I have a photo from the Marcus News titled "Wells Blue Bunny Baseball-1963." Team members were Jon Dorr, Gary Bork, Bob Dorr, Dan Johnson, Wyman Irwin, Larry Alesch, Denny Pearson, Todd Schlenger, Marty Irwin and Gene Dorr. Jack coached us to the championship that year.
I also notice Marcia Steffen Pavey has posted several comments. If you have any phone numbers and/or E-mail addresses from previous class reunions, let me know. I saw Marty at the Mothers Day brunch at the golf course and he thought we should place an ad in the News announcing an informal get together during the Marcus Fair for the class of '70. Just let me know.
I'll continue reading..
Bob Dorr
Bob Dorr, it was good to see your name on this site. I've really enjoyed it. I've got addresses and some e-mails addresses from our last reunion of the Class of 70. My e-mail address is: mlpavey@iowatelecom.net if you would like to contact me. An informal get together sounds great! Somehow this year got away from me. I broke my ankle right before Christmas and had my gall bladder out this spring. Between those events I didn't get around to getting anything organized. We finished up school last Friday, so I'm home for a couple of months. We got out just in time to miss the high temps. I'm sure the hometown pools are pretty busy this week. Julie,I think my favorite time to hit the pool was after supper. It wasn't as crowded then, but just as much fun. Marcia Steffen Pavey
ReplyDeleteAnyone on here enjoying Margaret Dorr's lovely writing in the Cherokee paper as much as I have over the past few months? To think I almost quit getting the paper. Margaret, sure glad to see you have come out of retirement after such a long sabbatical. Wonder what Tom Miller is thinking looking down from heaven and seeing you hard at work again? Keep up the great work and just know you are such an inspiration to so many of us older people throughout the community with your keen sense of humor and eloquent ways!
ReplyDeleteWhat a wonderful site! Thanks Kurt Door for turning me on to the Blogspot! I was a true farm kid from south of town... Grand Meadow. Started swimming lessons when I was six at the Marcus Pool, my skinny little sister Jill was always with me and talk about blue lips!!! I went through all the levels in lessons and when old enough took the Jr. Life Saving course under Brian Hogue. He was so dreamy to a 13 year old in 1973. On the day of our final testing to get our cards, he greased himself up with oil and went in to be "the victim." The two before me, I can't remember who, could not hold on to him and were drug down to the bottom of the 12 foot, and had to return the next day to try again... I was third and determined not to go down and suffer the humiliation of having to return to "re-test", so I went in, I remember being dunked and thinking this is it, now or never, slipped down below his death grip around behind reached over his shoulder threw a cross-face and reached for his armpit and grabbed hold... Needless to say, Mr. Hogue went limp as a kitten and I side-stroked to the edge of the pool where I was rewarded with a rounding cheer from the rest of the kids for conquering the beast!!! I went on to work as a lifeguard throughout college at ISU worked at the YMCA during nursing school and as Aquatics Director at the State 4-H Camping Center. I owe it all to the Marcus Pool (and Brian Hogue for being such a hottie making me want to succeed)!
ReplyDeleteFondly, Joan Bryant-Kennedy
Boy, I wonder if Mr. Brian Hogue knew he caused such a stir among the young females of Marcus! How funny! He'd probably turn five shades of red if he read this now. I remember almost the same scenario of that sneaky victim routine he pulled. (I love that you remembered that he oiled himself up!! That slippery devil!)He really did prepare us well though, didn't he? Mary Bird, Kathy Dunn, Kathy Knudson, my sister Nancy and I all dragged him out of that pool, but I know I went under at least once before I made it over to the side of the pool with him. Joan, I think you were in my brother Ken's class?
ReplyDeleteJulie,
ReplyDeleteI was a year behind Kenny and Jill was in Mike's class. Yes, I have a sisters Carol, Jill and Julie and brothers John and Steve. We are spread all over the country. Carol is in Lincoln, Neb. last name Hein. It is crazy how we all spread out but are still so close.
Joan Bryant-Kennedy
Hey "little" brother Bob!
ReplyDeleteWhat a sweet surprise!
I got on today to offer a website by one of my former students who is hiking 7,700-mile on a "Sea-to-Sea Route" across the northern United States from east to west, yes, hiking! He is somewhere in Montana as we speak (almost finished) and his website is packed with incredible photos about his experience. His purpose is to give some exposure to the existence of these cross-country trails and to call attention to the need to take care of our environment. I'm sure there will be a book from this at some point, but for now I am just amazed at Andy's passion and drive to complete this incredible feat.
www.andrewskurka.com
Check it out!
With school fast approaching the final days, I'm wondering if anyone is reading anything they really have enjoyed. I'm looking for ideas and recommendations.
ReplyDeleteJulia: David McCullough's new bestseller - 1776 - if you like history. I love his stuff. Also, Tom Friedman's "The World is Flat" is a great read about globalization and what it means for this country. Well researched and well written.
ReplyDeleteIf you want fiction, you'll have to ask my mother, Margaret, that's her genre. Fred
p.s. I enjoyed your hiker friend's website. That kid will have lots of memories. Kind of a modern day Jack Kerouac. (Have you ever read "Blue Highways" by William Least Heat Moon? He's a Missouri prof who took time off to travel the "blue highways" (backroads) of our country and wrote about his experiences along the way. He's a great author. He did the same thing by boat, traversing the northern U.S. riverways from east to west, writing about his journey in a book called, "River-Horse". Interesting perspective on cross country travel. Kind of his own Lewis & Clark adventure.)
Let us know what you've read recently.
Gilead is next on my summer reading list.
ReplyDeleteFinished My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult just yesterday. So powerful. The Kite Runner was RI's book of the year and quite a page turner for me. If anyone is into poetry, Ted Kooser, US poet laureate born in Ames and Nebraska raised, has several collections that are quite accessible to all. He was a breath of fresh air to encounter ... no snobbish, hoity-toity fa-de-lah, just crisp insights into everyday life. My list will grow in days to come...
P.S. I do know Blue Highways, quite good. Andy's first encounter with hiker books was Bill Bryce's (born and raised in Des Moines ... who knew!) A Walk in the Woods about his escapades on the Appalachian Trail. Have you read Bryce? ... so dry and hilarious. He has another out ... A Short History of the World ... something like that ... so readable.
ReplyDeleteJulie Meylor Simpson,
ReplyDeleteYes there are two very big Boston Red Sox Fans here in Marcus. Father Murray who sports a nice Boston Red Sox cap and Jerry Moser. There is no bigger Boston Fan in the whole country than Jerry.
Jack Clarkson
Dodger Fan
Now Bob Dorr,
Yes Bob we had some great times during the little league days. In fact in getting ready to move I found a box with Wells Blue Bunny shirts and caps from back then. Also the box scores from 1963. You played 1st base and hit .290 for the season. We beat Hagey's Decorator's 1-0 in the final's. Remember that Bob, a very tense game....... Wyman Irwin got a triple to drive in the winning run.
Then we would play the Blue Bunny team from LeMars and Wells would furnish hot dogs, hamburgers, pop and all the ice cream you could eat.
I can see I have to check this blog more than what I do. Don't want to miss anything.
Jack Clarkson
Wells Blue Bunny Fan..
Julia: Bryson doesn't get high marks here in Des Moines. He's become "very important" on leaving town. Not many I know even read his stuff as they don't want to financially benefit him. Unfortunate how that success thing impacts certain people. It probably doesn't help that he writes about his years growing up here in relatively negative terms. Sounds like he was unhappy as a kid. It must be payback time in his mind now. Fred
ReplyDeleteBryson, sorry, I knew Bryce didn't sound right this morning. Hmmm, didn't know he had burned so many bridges back there. I do remember reading something he'd written about growing up in DM, but it sounded like the spiel of any disaffected surburban youth from any small city in the U.S. Is there any more specific reasons locals are so ready to boil him in oil?
ReplyDelete****
Jack Clarkson, my long-ago and far-away CCD teacher, how did I not remember that my friend Jerry Moser is a Red Sox fan!! He must have been a crazy man when they won last fall.
From another Wells Blue Bunny Fan
****
Let's see, I think it's time for another topic of conversation. I think I've mentioned it before, but does anyone have any memories of the library?
I remember that the library used to be right in the municipal building downtown. I also remember getting to walk to the "new" library from Holy Name one day a week after lunch. I loved doing that ... made me feel so grown up to go with a group of friends. I remember reading all of the litlte house on the prairie books by third grade, and how some girls took out a serioes of Perry Mason books just to be cool.
Julia, I have memories of the "library". It was housed in the north side of a wood frame building located on the east side of Main Street, I believe next to the blacksmith shop. As I recall the building also was the fire hall. The young fellows were, unfortunately, ahead of the Little House on the Prairie books, but we had paperback books at the library that featured little boxed drawings in the corner of the page; when you flipped the pages fast enough you created an action auatomation that resembled a movie. What would they think of next? But that was back in the days when the Swimming Pool was known as the Sandpit, and was located about three miles southeast of Marcus. To reflect, how fortunate Marcus was to have been the home to the Gund family. Ethel Gund, to my knowledge, left the funds for building the new library after her untimely death aboard a commercial airliner, when some deranged passenger exploaded a bomb in flight over rural Indiana. Earl Rae
ReplyDeleteWhat?! A bomb? Over Indiana? Now these are the details I never heard about ... and I even took out a Gund College Loan in college. Bless the Gunds, but who knew? I think I remember going to an auction at the Gund family house in town when I was young, but that is the only connection I ever had to the name.
ReplyDeleteJULIE AND EARL,
ReplyDeleteTHE PLANE THAT MRS.GUND WAS ON THAT CRASHED BY TELL CITY, IND WAS A NORTHWEST AIRLINES ELECTRA JET. IT WENT DOWN ON A FLIGHT FROM MINNEAPOLIS TO MIAMI.
SHE WAS A GREAT LADY AND AND A VERY GOOD FRIEND OF MINE. I DELIVERED THE S.C. JOURNAL AND A LOT OF GROCERIES TO HER. I STILL HAVE THE GRADUATION GIFT SHE GAVE ME.
JACK CLARKSON
Here's an official account of the 1960 accident from http://aviation-safety.net/
ReplyDeleteAnd an interesting article about the causes and the furor surrounding the flawed Lockheed Electra aircraft:
Part 1
Part 2
Baritone Bob and Margaret, I stand corrected. Julia, my apologies; I should have included the disclaimer that my information on the incident dated back to the popular theory at the time of the crash. I have never been exposed to the official investigation findings due to my long absence from Marcus. That is a fine example of bad reporting. I am sure the airline and manufacturer prefered the bomb theory. There is a memorial in the middle of a farm field where the plane crashed. Another positive is that I was not sure, previously, that anyone read what I wrote. My cousin Roger Rae and I raised pigeons, and sold squabs to the Gunds as a delicacy. We ussed the money from the sales to buy exotic pigeons from a farmer at Cleghorn. Such is life; we spent our youth looking for ways to collect pigeons and our old age searching for ways to get rid of them. Earl Rae
ReplyDeleteRoger: I raised pigeons as a kid, too. I'm not sure why, looking back on it, but my mom and dad let me have homing pigeons. I'm at a stage in my life now where I look at a pigeon and think "flying rat" or histoplasmosis. I appreciated your comment about perspective and age. At the time, though, it was a great feeling to take a bunch of them 30 or 40 miles away from Marcus and have them all beat us home. That experience and Lassie being able to find Timmy, across all those miles, always left me wondering...? Fred
ReplyDeleteEarl: Sorry. I had your cousin Roger Rae on my mind when I sent the last post. I intended that it be addressed to you. Fred
ReplyDeleteNot a problem Fred. I respond to almost any term of address. By the way, I met a gentleman at our last homeowners association meeting who served with you on the West Des Moines school board. His name, George Brehm. He apparently was in the bowling supply business. He came with a request for support of a project affecting residents of our community. As a director in the association I did not feel I could approve that support, so I made a point to visit with him after the meeting to clarify my reasoning. It was at that time I learned of his West Des Moines background. Inasmuch as I lived on Lincoln Drive along the pretty, but infamous, Walnut Creek in Clive, we found ground for visiting on other topics. He has been a "Snow Bird" until moving to the Valley a year ago. Earl
ReplyDeleteEarl: Ah, George (and Darlene) Bradner. George served mostly before my time. He was appointed one or two times later to fill out the balance of a departing board member's term. (One guy was transferred overseas by Pioneer and the other got transferred to North Carolina.) I served briefly with George on those occasions. Great guy. Tell him hi for me the next time you run into him. Tell him that you understand he and his wife caused quite a stir one year at the "Oldies Show" at the Iowa State Fair - being the first to get up and snake around the crowd, dancing to Little Eva's "Locomotion". He and Darlene started what turned into many, many people grabbing on and following them around the audience. The crowd loved it. I don't know if George even knows this, but the Chicago author, Bob Greene, later wrote in one of his books about attending the Iowa State Fair that very night, being in the audience and watching people get up and move when "Not-So-Little Eva-Anymore" came on stage. It was George and Darlene who started it all. (Don't tell him I told you about it, just ask him if it's true. It'll drive him crazy trying to figure out how you know.)
ReplyDeleteAlso, on another small world note - I live in Clive near Lincoln. What hundred block did you live on? We may have been neighbors at one point and not been aware. (I live near the intersection of Lincoln and 101st Street.) Fred
There is a history of the many locations of the Marcus Library in the 1976 Centenial book, but I can't find my copy of it. As I recall, some ladies of a literary bent started a "loaning" library by lending books from their collection soon after the town was born. After much urging, the village fathers were persuaded to set aside some public money for it--probably in the early part of the 20th century.
ReplyDeleteThe first one I remember was above the hardware or furniture store in the middle of the west side of Main street. In the '30s it was dark, dusty, and smelled wonderfully of books. I worked my way through all of "The Wizard Of Oz" books there. It was great fun to read the cards that listed who had checked a book out before you. You sorta felt you were particpating in history.
When the new Municpal Building was constructed in 1940, the library was moved there. It was clean, modern, and well-lit, but the new location diminished that wonderful smell.
Anna Mossman, the gracious librarian then, was a good friend of my mother and watched my reading habits closly. During our weekly visits, I would arrive at her desk, with 6 or 7 books to check out. She would put some aside with a quiet--but firm, "I don't think you'd like this one" comment. Many of the books she put aside were by Jack London and Ernest Hemingway, whom I had discovered had written some sexy scenes.
So, thwarted at that post, I was forced into discovering the new paperbacks in the rack at Fred Knox's Place. With splashy, colorful covers, featuring damsels in distress, they were the original bodice-ripper, historical novels. I learned a lot of history while enjoying the somewhat risque parts. And the publishers were also reissueing some of the classics by Faulkner and Steinbeck in the new small "pocketbook" format--with equally provocative covers. While they say "you can't judge a book by its cover," those covers introduced me to a lot of good literature.
And the new marvels were available for only 25 cents! Life was good. A fella could get a pretty good literary education and have a good time by spending his weekly allowance of $1.00 on a paperback ($.25), a piece of sheet music ($.25) and one of Fred's sinfully thick malts ($.25)--and still have money left over to spend later in the week.
On one occassion my much older sister saw me reading my latest purchase--a translation of "Nana" by Emile Zola. She held up the book--the story of a Parisian prostitute, with its provocative cover--at dinner that night, asking my parents to prohibit me from reading such stories. My dad glanced up, looked at the book and dismissed the suggestion by saying "No one has ever been ruined by a book."
Bob Reed
Earl:
ReplyDeleteDid you ever have a 500 mile day bird? I had one while raising and racing pigeons growing up in Marcus. The late Carlyle Peterson introduced me to his son-in-law Bob Jones out of the Sloan area (I believe)and a bunch of us Marcus boys started racing "BIRDS." Well my first 500 mile day bird made it from Ogallala, Nebraska to the farm northeast of town by 6 p.m....6 a.m. to 6 p.m. in 500 miles.......man that was an amazing bird!!!! Bob Jones is now one of the premiere racing pigeon individuals in the country!!!
By the way Denny Peterson from Odebolt, Iowa was one of the ALL-TIME great racing guys anywhere..........he use to take his birds to South America and let them fly back to Odebolt, Iowa from numerous points in South America.........Homing Pigeons are amazing animals.
Denny's wife was a teacher in Marcus at one time by the name of Eleanor (?) who ultimately became Eleanor Peterson!
Jack Clarkson.........keep your eye on the Baylor Bears this weekend in OMAHA at the CWS!!!!
ReplyDeleteWe start out against "texas....the tea sips we call them" on Saturday night. Our ace "Mark McCormick" is on the mound for us aginst "tu."
Mark was just drafted in the supplemental first round by the St. Louis Cardinals BTW!
Mark pitched into the 9th inning in the superregionals last Saturday against Clemson and was still throwing 90+ mile an hour HEAT.......he was pitching 98+ mph stuff to start the game!!!
Mark comes out of Clear Creek High School........HOUSTON area. This is the same school that produced the "ROCKET"......Roger Clemons..........should be fun. 3 out of the 8 teams playing this weekend are from the Big 12 so I think we are well tested and now just have to go out and play the game! Roger Clemons was my dad's favorite as he watched him pitch while he was at "tu" and could tell then the kid could throw some nasty stuff!!!!
Fred: We lived at 9373 Lincoln, so we were probably five minutes apart. Perhaps you knew Steve and Michele Duwelius Whitty. Michele's dad and I worked for the same company for a lifetime. He and his wife both graduated from Drake with me. About george Bradner, our residents are required to sign in prior to meeting time if they wish to speak on an agenda or non-agenda topic. When George got up to speak I understood him to say he was George Brandon. I asked the director seated beside me what he had recorded for a name, and he said George Brandel. the next day I asked the general manager to read me the name he had recorded on the sign-in sheet, and she said George Brehm. It would appear our association is in trouble as the directors can't hear and the General Manager can't read. I desperately hope the problem is that George is a poor penman who speaks with a lisp. Phil: Never had a 500 mile a day pigeon, but I did havve an acquaintance with a white pigeon tht took up residence on the outside window sill of my daughter's bedroom window. He, or she, would sit in the window and stare at my daughter while she was in bed. My daughter was in elementary school, and when she went to school in the morning the pigeon would fly and dive at her. By evening the bird would be perched back at the window and staring. I don't know how the bird felt about all of this, but my daughter was beside herself and convinced the feathery creaature was possessed by some demon force that was out to get her. One evening I took my flashlight and captured the demon by shining the light in it's eyes. I placed the bird in a plain brown paper sack. so tht if any members of the local Humane Society saw me they would think I had a problem with Demon Wine, and not be aware of my true mission. Anyway, I transported the culprit five miles south of town where I deposited the sack in a ditch along a dirt road. When I got back to town the dirty bird was perched in the window staring at my terrified daughter. I captured the intruder one last time, but there my story must end for I do not know what the statutes of limitation are in Iowa, or if any of the Humane Society people are still alive. A 500 a mile a day pigeon, NO, but a 5 mile an evening wisp of frenzy, YES. [my story is true] Earl Rae
ReplyDeleteGreat pigeon story, Earl. And yes, Steve and Michele are in a dinner group we belong to here in Des Moines. My wife and I know them very well. Before they moved to D.C. a few years back I considered them probably our closest friends. Once they returned, they moved to another neighborhood, their kids went to the Catholic H.S. and our's were in the public system, and we saw less and less of each other. We still get together about once every 6 weeks or so. I've been with Michele's parents on several occasions. They are both gems. I presume her dad was a great guy to work with. Was it Farmers Mutual Hail? This blog makes my world smaller by the minute... Fred
ReplyDeleteI happened to stumble across this blog today and couldn't stop reading! The early June posts about RAGBRAI were particulary interesting to me as i'll be riding my second full RAGBRAI this summer. Am actually going to bike from Vermillion, South Dakota, where i live now, back to Marcus tomorrow. Also was surprised and entertained to read the "pigeon" postings as Carlyle Peterson was my grandfather and Bob Jones, who is also mentioned is my uncle. This is a great site and i'll be checking back often. Thanks so much to those who are keeping it active! --Joe Rainboth
ReplyDeleteJoe Rainboth......what a treat to see you on here! Now r u the magician or the artist? My mother's house is filled with a bunch of neat art work done by one of the Rainboth boys! Carlyle taught me a ton of neat things regarding homing pigeons and he and your uncle kept a bunch of us Marcus boys from getting into to much trouble!
ReplyDeleteIs Bob living in Onawa or Sloan......either way I highly recommend anyone who is in your uncle Bob's neighborhood to go by and see his PIGEON PALACE.....it is amazing how those pigeons are treated. Bob truly has some of the top racing pigeons in the area if not America if memory serves me correct.
Julia, you are always asking for new topics for discussion on this blog. Well I would like to ask for anyone to reflect on the top "MUSCLE CARS" of Marcus. Personally I have to vote for Tim and Tom Schlenger as having the all time great cars. Tom's T-Bird could TEAR the town up......he alone was responsible for the "New Stop Sign" going up at the Nieman/Bancroft corner.........way too much street for him to keep his car from going 100 mph...so it SOUNDED....between the high school and the Catholic church corner.
ReplyDeleteClose runner ups were Rocky Fey with his souped up Chevy or Ford....the Rasmussen (SP) boys of the Faith Lutheran preacher family had some awesome '57 Chevy's and then you had Denny Pierson----think I have the name correct---who was Tim Schlenger's age and his hot car as well if I remember correctly.
Julia........ask Kurt and me to tell you about our friendly competition to see who could go faster through Cleghorn and how I blew the record away to "NEVER" be broken by anyone when we are back for the fair in August. If the cops had nailed me that night I would be typing from the Cherokee County Jail still to this day! Sibling rivalries can make you do some stupid stuff but at least I can go to my grave knowing that is one record that even the Schlenger boys will never break.........on the other hand they have to still have the fastest "QUARTER" times that ever came out of Marcus starting at the Kohn corner.
Enough for now but as you can see I prefer speed as much to reading books.....LOL!!!!
Phil Dorr,
ReplyDeleteOK Phil. I see where Nebraska won yesterday and Baylor plays tonight.
We use to go to Omaha to see the games but have not been there the last several years. When our kids were still home we would go. When Ray Robison was head trainer at Arizona State and they were in the World Series he would be there and that was a lot of fun. I know a lot of you knew Ray and what a great guy he was. We still keep in touch with his wife Mary. She still lives in Tempe, Az.
Hope the Dodgers can draft a few good ones. After seeing them play in Kansas City they need some help. The stadium in KC holds about 47,000 I think and there were only 16,175 there and I am guessing a third were Dodger Fans.
Jack Clarkson
Good topic, Phil!
ReplyDeleteFunny about cars ... the male ego trip that it is. I'm so bad at knowing the makes and models ... maybe I remember the colors?
I remember that Dave Schreier had a dark green something or other that was jacked up so very high and you could hear it from a mile away out in the country. It seems I could pick out a few different cars that were prowling the country roads in the summer when the windows were open and sound carried.
It seems Novas and Monte Carlos were the car of choice in the 70s. Right? Of course, Mustangs and Camaros were primo, but out of reach, I suppose, for many.
I remember our travails with old bombs that were supposed to get us to school and back but not much farther.
I remember urging Mary Bird's car into the school parking lot ... literally screaming to keep ... it ... going ... and coasting down any slight rise.
I remember our old Bel Air dying between our house and Bird's on a freezing cold night after a basketball game. We weren't dressed to walk home in that cold, so I honked the horn until someone must have heard it and we were rescued.
I remember going to the Exorcist (or something like that) with Pat and Steve Snyder (against the wishes of our parents) and when we came home that night the car simply stopped on a dark road on the way home -- no lights, nothing. We thought it was the hand of God meting out his judgment. After a few minutes of pure terror, the car started right up.
I remember driving back and forth to ISU in Bruce Mayer's little Gremlin and, later on, a hot red Camaro. Once Bruce had to creep through a horrible snowstorm and we finally got to Storm Lake and stopped for the night at BV. Bruce and I still reminisce about those car rides.
I know cars are important to teens out here too, but cars have a whole different culture in the Midwest ... or at least that's my perspective.
I guess kids still prove themselves by driving fast or pulling crazy stunts out here too, but maybe it's just not as accessible or cars are too expensive to mess up or insurance is too high. "Riding in cars with boys" (movie title) is just not as cool as it used to be.
Whatever, I probably spent much of my teen-age life driving back and forth to somewhere to do something with someone or just wasting endless tanks of gas tooling around town. The old cars that got us around are rusting away, but the memories last forever.
Phil,
ReplyDeleteJust so you know, Tom Schlenger had a black 1957 Ford in the fall of 1969 but shortly thereafter was driving a new Plymouth Road Runner. The stock Road Runner was a beautiful blue (almost turqouise color), but was soon transformed into a black beast that could outrun everything around. I suspect this is the car that you remember. Kevin Flanagan
Hi kevin and Phil. Tim Schlenger had a navy blue '57 T-Bird for a while while his brother Tom was driving the Road runner. If I remember that RR ended up painted silver at one point. Does anyone remember Larry Hagey's '68 Charger with the custom paint?
ReplyDeletePhil- Larry Rossman was the son of the Faith Lutheran minister, his brother Glen had a late 40's Plymouth that Glen painted by mixing half JD Greene and half JD Yellow and then painted flowers all over it. No one could miss it. I know a picture of it ended up in the LeMars Sentinel at one point.
Another car a few may remember was Denny Delaney's 'vette. I think it was a 64 model, it was more of a drag car, custom paint (lots of lace), slicks, parachute, but still street licensed.
Dan Steffen
I understand Loren Stowater passed away last Friday.
ReplyDeleteKevin Flanagan
Very sorry to hear Loren Stowater passed away. He was a great guy and so kind to all. My condolences to his family.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the memeory Kurt, I can barely remember the kid wearing number 31, but I do remember that it was a great deal of fun playing on that team. I also remember a few ego ballons popping when we hit high school the next year and found out that we really were not perfect any longer. I think that was the year that Marcus lost to Kingsley-Pierson 92 to 0. Supposedly made the national news.
ReplyDeleteDan Steffen
Julia: I think the whole teen dating thing has changed in the past generation or so. Group dating or "hanging out" somewhere with a mixed set of friends seems to be more the case then it used to be. In that sense cars may not be as central to all of that as they once were.There are still lots of spots, though, not exclusive to the midwest, where cars are king. Nascar is huge and getting bigger - most everywhere now. My assistant at work, and her crew, go a couple times a year to the new Kansas Speedway or Darlington. Newton, Iowa is now getting a track. It started, of course, in the North Carolina and Georgia backwoods where the Pettys and Ernhardts of those generations were running to keep their "white lightning" from "revenuers". Latino kids still "low-ride" all over southern California and from Montana to Texas, kids and fast pickups are everywhere. One of the most popular shows on cable last year was "Pimp My Ride" - a show about detailing or "tricking out" (as we used to call it) a car, pickup or van for some teen or early 20's age kid.
ReplyDeleteThe astronaut wannabees used to, and still may, race up and down Daytona's beach at night while in training around the Cape Canaveral/Kennedy Space Center. If it wasn't cars and trucks, it was motorcycles. If not that, it was/is wave runners. If I remember right, Chuck Yeager (West Virginia) injured his ribs - fell off a horse he was racing - just a few nights before he crawled into an underwing craft and broke the sound barrier.
My favorite story about small town Iowa kids and speed, relates to a friend of mine here in Des Moines. Her brother - who the local teachers weren't sure would ever amount to much - grew up in and around farms and small towns near Blue Grass, Iowa. It's a town about the size of Marcus. He ended up, after college in Iowa City, in the Air Force. A couple of years ago he was featured on the cover of the Lockheed Martin Annual Report, blazing a trail across the sky in the Raptor/F-22. Turns out he did okay after all - flew in the first wave into Baghdad during Gulf War I and later a test pilot for the newest and fastest "X-planes" at Edwards Air Force base in Nevada. He's now retired and "drives a bus" (747 I think) for FedEx in and out of Memphis, although he is back living and farming near Davenport.
Driving those pickups fast and running those tractors around, combined with that sense of personal responsibility and reliance on yourself, which farm and small town life instills, is precisely what forges that kind of person. And these stories are legion. There are lots of these kinds of kids that come out of rural America. It's a heritage which is underappreciated, not often even recognized, but very real. When I tell my friends that my dad stuck me up on a little Ford tractor when I was barely strong enough to hold the foot clutch down, they are shocked. Being apprehensive about taking a drivers test at 16 - ha, most of us had been driving for several years before that ever happened. All part of that experience many of us had growing up like we did.
My kids have grown up "fast" in a sense different from me. They know about drugs, sex, varying lifestyles and diseases in a way I didn't until much later in life. On the other hand, I grew up much "faster" than they did when it came to driving, working, figuring things out on my own, and being independent, for example. Not their "fault". It simply is not as easy or as safe to let your kids grow up now, as we did earlier. We took off and ran all over town. Nobody locked cars or houses. Many people looked after the children of other's. Hard to do now. The standards aren't the same. The behaviors of adults and other kids, is oftentimes significantly different than we experienced.
Kids and cars - still around lots of places. Many times newer and nicer than we had,if we had them, and oftentimes used differently - but still very much a part of the landscape. In "Top Gun" Tom Cruise called it a "need for speed". It's still very real for lots of kids. Scary for parents - yes. No longer out there - no. The only difference I see is that more young girls are drawn to it now. More often than not, when some blur cruises past me on the way to work it is a young girl/woman about 20-30. All the attention given the competitive female driver in the Indy 500 this year will soon be the norm. There are many daring, cat-reflex quick and competitive young women out there looking for their shot. Fred
That 92-0 loss to Kingsley-Pierson was the first game of the 1968 season in coach Harry Kitts' last year at Marcus, the same year that your junior high team was undefeated.
ReplyDeleteBruce Letner became Marcus' high school coach in 1969. And a few years later, Letner's team beat Anthon-Oto 94-0 with the A-O team walking off the field with 4:03 left in the game. That game might not have made national news, but it did make the Omaha paper.
I should have been in that 1968 Jr. High football picture, but at the last minute my mother changed her mind and didn't allow me to transfer from Holy Name that year. I don't think I ever forgave her for that.
Kevin Flanagan
Oooohhh, I was at the 94-0 Anthon-Oto game ... more worried about fights in the stands than the score at the end. Quite a night!!!
ReplyDeleteInteresting comments about cars and the need for speed, Fred. The season has already started at the Seekonk Speedway, our local Nascar hotspot, just down Rte. 6 from my house and I can hear the engines revving up every Saturday night.
What ... could we get our permits at 14 back then? My daughter won't get her permit until she's 16 1/2 years old and her driver's license until 17. Then after that, there are more regulations about who she can have in the car with her and when. That's what's different out here, that age delay -- which seems to keep creeping up every legislative session with more rules.
I know my sister Nancy's children (live in W. Des Moines) had their permits and licenses long before my oldest did. (And she was fuming!) By the time I was a freshman I was getting rides from other older kids (mostly Bird kids) and I remember taking classes for my permit between freshman and sophomore year. Kim Alesch was the first in my class to get her license and she was driving a car load of girls around by November of sophomore year!
I teach juniors and most of them are just getting their MA licenses in the spring, so it's quite different out here. The parking lot starts filling up then with junior and senior cars, but no one else can drive, and we have a long line of parents dropping off kids in the morning (students have to pay to ride buses in our school district now).
So, instead, I have been and still am the chauffeur for my girls and their friends way into their high school years. I liked your comments about how children are "older" today in different ways than we were. Totally agree. Some days when I feel like I'm the only mom home to drive (you know those school teachers and their summers off) I wish Emily could just take the car and go ... but it doesn't look like the driving age is going to drop any time soon around here ... or gas prices, for that matter!
James ...?,
ReplyDeleteLove the memory about Spring Lake. I guess swimming was off limits by the time I remember going over there to feed the ducks. Did anyone ever go to any other lakes around the area? How about Paullina? I guess because we lived north of town, we went there a lot to go fishing and to swim. Nice little place. And then there was the grand old lady: Okiboji!!! When dad hadn't planned any major road trips (New York, Colorado or the Great Iowa Ancester tour) with five or six kids in tow, we spent several days at a rented cottage on the lake. Always a great time. Too young for the Roof Garden, but does anyone remember the Fun House? I remember burns on the slide and getting slammed around in the monkey barrel. Anyone else?
I'm celebrating today because it's the LAST DAY OF SCHOOL!! Whoo-hoo!! (Tad bit unprofessional, but it's been a long year ... still no contract.)
Kinglsy football has evidently always been a thorn in the Marcus behind. We lost to them 62-0 in my freshman year in 1945. They were the "Bombers" with solid black uniforms who looked enourmous to our little blue and gold eyes. We improved the next year, losing only 7-6, but they tromped us 34-0 in my junior year. We finally beat them 13-6 in my senior year--the first victory over them in 10 years.
ReplyDeleteBob Reed
I am up for a discussion and perspective from others on who was the best softball hurler to come out of the Marcus summer softball program? Bob Brady, Larry Slagter, or someone else?
ReplyDeleteBob Brady and Larry were amazing and I can still see them throwing some wicked stuff.......THOTS?
Phil, I think Larry Slaghter would have to win that one hands down.
ReplyDeleteDan
I feel the need to enter the softball evaluation conversation. Larry Slagter was a good friend and teammate, but not the best pitcher to play on a Marcus softball team. Ev Mueller [sp] was probably the best softball pitcher in the state of Iowa. Ev grew up on a farm northwest of Marcus, played ball at Teachers College and was a high school coach in northeast Iowa. We beat Salsness Motors of Sioux city 9-0 a couple of nights before they won the Iowa softball championship. They beat us by one run on the tournament trail. Everett was a phenom. I played against and with Leroy Carlson and against Johnnie Bright [Drake All-American football player and pitching whiz] and Ev was better than any of them. That goes back to the years of 1946-1951 when the team was known as Sands Seeds. Eddie Hagey, Jerry Rae, Orville Chin played the outfield. Junior Franck on third, Leon Ebert shortsop, Bob Hagey at second, Fred Hoover and Lyle Weicht caught and I played firstbase. Larry and his older brother Bob Slagter pitched, along with Ev. We hired some pitching when we went to tournaments. While on football and Kingsley; when I was a freshman Kingsley called themselves the Black Knights. They beat us 58-0 the night before Notre Dame beat Iowa 58-0. We didn't feel any better Saturday than we did Friday night. I was a ninety-seven pound stallion minding my own business running one end of the measurement chain when one of the Kingsley fans hollered, "hey Shorty, what would you do if they wanted to put you in the game?" I answered authoritatively, "Don't worry!!" I had no more made my quuick response than play was halted on the field. Jerry Peters had been injured and Dale Young ran across the field to take my place on the chain with the comment that coach wants you to go in at quarterback. To you neophite sports experts, in the single wing formation that equates to "blocking back". I played the entire second half putting the fear of God into the Black Knights, as Jerry apparently felt no need to get well. The fear I imparted on this band of lousy hosts was the fear they were going to kill me. Carl Mayer got hit in the head that game and explained to Coach Zender how he got to Kingsley. That was so bad he spent the rest of the game sitting on the bench with a distant smile on his face. Again my senior year we lost only one game; to Kingsley. They were having a bad season, we were cocky, they played with more intensity than we did, and one of the lessons life teaches was evident in the outcome. Back to softball; Larry was a good thrower, everett was a great pitcher. Earl Rae
ReplyDeleteNeed to clean up a senior moment; Junior Slagter's older brother was Art Slagter, not Bob. Earl Rae
ReplyDeleteThe Henry "Hank" Vogelman years were good ones for Marcus football, too. (Hank is now in the Iowa Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame as of year 2000.)We were undefeated -one tie, the rest wins - my Junior year (fall of 1964). Names out of the past - Denny "no pain threshhold" Boots was at quarterback. He used to put on his helmet and run into trees during summers, before two-a-days started, so the story went. We had speed in the backfield - Gary Sanow, Larry Galvin, Mike Schmillen come to mind. Great all around athletes like Rocky Bork. Size(by the standards of that day) - Steve Hagey. Toughness at the guard positions - Leonard Hansen and Danny Ohlendorf. But most of all we had Coach Hank Vogelman. Was he ever tough. He was not long out of college himself and a physical specimen. He would take on two, three or four of us at a time if we dared. Us in pads, him not. I think he came out of Ohio coal country, via the Marines and the Iowa State "Dirty Thirty" crew, if I have my facts straight. He would paint yellow stripes down our backs in practice if we didn't hit hard enough or ducked a head-on, open field tackle. Practices were hell - games were a picnic. I guess that's what made it work for us. In any case, we never lost that year. I have one particularly funny memory of that year. Lemars Gehlen had a good team and a montster lineman who loved to play dirty and try to intimidate people. When you were down he'd step on you with his cleats, or threaten you at that bottom of a pile or try to sucker punch one of us if he thought he could get away with it. We complained in the huddle all game long about the stunts he was pulling. The refs never called him on it which made it worse. So, the last play of the game , with victory asssured, Denny told our center to hike the ball to him, he would run around the backfield and everyone else should jump on the big guy and engage in a little "payback". It caught him totally off guard and was oh so sweet revenge. It was a great year for Eagle football with many wonderful memories. Coach Hank moved on after that year, as people know, and the program, unfortunately promptly took a dive. Fred
ReplyDeleteKevin Flanagan........who was the fastest "sprinter" to come out of Marcus High............was it you or Gary Sanow or someone else I am not aware of at this time? All I know is that Gary was a freak by Iowa standards and you weren't too far behind but I could have my facts wrong.
ReplyDeleteBack to softball........wasn't Bob Brady just about as good as they get at pitching and didn't he go on to lead some Sioux City teams to some big time success?
Oh Yeah........last night my Baylor Bears spotted the number 1 team in the nation "Tulane" 7 runs and then beat them in the bottom of the 9th.....8-7............now back to dealing with "tu" out of Austin........we have to win 2 out of 2 to get to the title series agianst Florida or Arizona State.
And speaking of TI - until his death about 10 years ago the President/CEO of Texas Instruments was Jerry Junkins, a small town Iowa boy from around Ft. Madison. The list goes on and on... Fred
ReplyDeletep.s. If the Junkins name sounds familiar to resident Iowans, his brother, Lowell, ran for governor of our state a few years back.
What an incredible story to share ... thank you ... should go in The Marcus News... people need to know how important these connections are.
ReplyDeleteThis blog is a success if only for tale of Dane Curry Burkert!
ReplyDeleteBob Reed
Opps! I meant of course--DIANE Curry Berkurt! Sorry!
ReplyDeleteBob Reed
It's been a hellava morning!
ReplyDeleteI, of course meant
DIANE CURRY BURKERT!
(gotta stop drinkin' this decaffinated coffee.)
Bob
We've discussed snow storms before at this site. Have there been any tornadoes, fires, bank robberies, murders or similar events in Marcus' past? I have a recollection of a movie theatre burning, but it's non-specific. Can any of you older hands help with this one? Odd topic to be sure, but I'm curious. (The James Gang, Bonnie & Clyde, and those types didn't come through town ever, to my knowledge. Is that correct? Those of you who know about the old Marcus Hotel on the south end of Main Street may be able to pass on some stories about some of the famous and infamous guests who overnighted there.) Fred
ReplyDeleteI was interested in Fred asking if the James boys were ever near Marcus. I was just reading in the Marcus Centennial Book about Galen's great-grandfather, Sven Sjostrom. It said he lived on 240 acres of virgin land between Marcus and Cleghorn on Highway 3. That would be the farm on the east side of the West Fork bridge on the south side of the road. In the article it said Frank James of the famous Jesse and Frank James stopped at the Sjostrom farm and watered his horse one evening about dark.
ReplyDeletePat Ducommun
A tornado went did damage south east of Marcus in the l940s
ReplyDeleteDuring the 1950s, a tornado from the southwest and one fom the northwest came together on one of the building sites of our family farm in Amherst Township, one mile east and two and one half miles south of Marcus. My parents watched the southwest tornado uproot giant cottonwood trees on the Ricker farm abutting our south property line. They made it into the storm cellar just before the two funnels joined and headed off to the northest. When the storm had passed one of the outbuildings had been desstroyed, fences were torn down and the corn crop had been sucked from the ground [ the corn being about nine leaf stage]. Additionally, the contents of the upper floor of the house now resided on the first floor and the contents of the first floor were now on second floor. Strange things occur during one of these storms, as you all know. Earl Rae
ReplyDeleteHello Mrs. Ducommun,
ReplyDeleteWill Gayle and family be home for the fair?
Some great stuff here! I'll have to read my Marcus history book a little more carefully. My dad has some old b/w photos of a house that was totally destroyed by a tornado. I've always known it was from the area, but I don't think it was Cherokee County. I'll have to find out where it was. One whole outer wall is peeled away and you can see the insides just like a gigantic dollhouse.
ReplyDeleteKurt, Thanks for posting the link to the article about the Younger-James brothers. Very interesting.
ReplyDeletePat Ducommun
I was also in the cave when the tornado hit the farm. You wonder if there will be anything left. I believe that the tornado went all the way to the Iowa great lakes. I remember we drove for miles looking at the damaged farms.
ReplyDeleteInteresting to think that I drove over that bridge all these years and had no idea that one of the James brothers had once been there. Thanks for the information, Pat.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link, Kurt. The part I found fascinating there was the Northfield, Minnesota townspeople arming themselves and going after the bad guys. Reminds me of the Texas tower sniper (Charles Whitman - 1966) case. The story I heard was that as the radio reports of the shootings on the UT campus started to air locals grabbed their guns, went to the school, and started to shoot back at Whitman, even before the Texas Rangers and local police showed up. There is a whole "self reliance" piece to that type of community response that is often missing now.
Love learning about the history of Marcus. Thanks to all who are contributing. Fred
p.s. Did the theatre (second level) on mainstreet burn or is it just a case of "oldtimers" that I'm experiencing?
Julia,
ReplyDeleteSorry, but Gayle and family will not be able to make the Marcus Fair and the 30th class reunion. We will be seeing them in July when our entire family is meeting in Branson, MO to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary. I'll tell you asked about her.
I want to add a little about the tornado that has been discussed. It happened in 1952 as I was going to college at Buena Vista College (then) that summer. I went to Sioux City on the bus from Storm Lake the weekend after the tornado and saw all the ruined houses and Goodrich's station at Cleghorn. Galen said he remembered it started around Eric Carlson's place SE of Marcus. It also cut a path from SW of Larrabee and on NE of Larrabee (my home town).
Today in the Past Files of the Marcus News there is an item from 1930 that says, "Walter Clarkson and Louie Seeger recalled the 1885 tornado that struck Marcus, causing 2 deaths,a Mrs. Gano and baby. It struck about 10:00 PM and came from the west."
Pat,
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on your 50th. I know you'll enjoy time with everyone in Branson!
Hi,
ReplyDeleteJust found this site and boy did it bring back memories. I was there at the Kingsley football game and was a senior in 1969. What really griped me was that Kingsley kept the score up for a full week after the game. This was a topic of discussion at our 35th high school renunion last year.I also remember the undefeated team in 1964. Do you all remember that there was also an undefeated team in 1928(I think that was the year)My dad (Vance)and uncle (Joe) played for Marcus back then. My Dad told some great stories of my uncle on the football field as he was on of the biggest players in the county at that time.
Vana Marquis Bris-Bois
Vana Marquis Bris-Bois: I never knew your father, Vance, but I have fond memories of your Uncle Joe. Joe was not just one of the biggest football players FOR HIS Day, in the county, he was big for ANYDAY in any county. I never saw him play football as he was about twenty years older than me, but I heard stories ohis tackling, blocking, or falling on a Le Mars player and brreaking several limbs and a number of ribs for the unfortunate Le Mars lad. I doubt Joe even wore a helmet when he played football for the simple reason I do not think they made helmets that large in the 1920s. I was 6' 2 1/2" when I knew Joe and he towered over me. Additionally, he weighed at least 350 pounds. I was told he was the same size in high school. Rumor also had it that by the time Joe graduated from high school he had read every book in the school library. Joe and your Grandfather, Frank, came to town every Saturday night to fill the back of their pick-up with groceries. Every Saturday night they ate steak at Lage's Cafe. Joe had a nice ribeye, but Frank, who was about 5' 7" and 125 pounds after a big meal, weighed in on a T-bone steak that leaked over the edges of his plate. They were both gentle, and gentlemen. Joe was an accomplished billiard and snooker player, playing with a soft touch that belied his physical appearance. Unfortunately, his untimely death on a fishing trip to South Dakota removed a true sportsman from our humble community. Earl Rae
ReplyDeleteVana: Your dad "Col. Marquis" as I always heard him called, was my little league baseball coach. I was lucky enough to pitch for one of the teams in the All-Star game that year. Rocky Bork, Timmy Beaver and a tough crew like that was on the other team. We were up one run in the final inning. Your dad told me to walk Timmy. Our catcher stepped out to take my intentional "walk pitches". I didn't want to surrender to Timmy that way, so he was expecting me to throw balls as I threw two strikes past him. When I tried it one too many times he lined the third attempt hard past my left ear. But for Tommy Gates, playing second base for us (who was also a good athlete, like Bork and Beaver) and who caught the line drive, we would have lost the game. Your dad went easy on me when we walked off the field, as we won the game. Had it turned out otherwise, I probably would have never heard the end of it.
ReplyDeleteI remember your uncle too. I didn't know him but I remember seeing him drive to and from town. I remember him so well, as like others have mentioned, he was a very big guy. Your dad was the consumate gentleman. Apparently your uncle was the same. Fred
Vana--It was sooo good to see your name on this site. It has been great for bringing back memories. And do I have a lot with you from SS, church camp at Okoboji to bb practice and games. I don't remember a lot about cars as do some people on this site, but I do certainly remember rides home from practice in an old grey car you drove. What was the year and make of that car? We certainly had some good times together. And Julia, ask your sister Mary about a summer night when she drove a car load of us to Remsen. We had a flat tire, and having the car full of girls and probably just not paying attention, we didn't realize we had a flat until we were driving on the rim! I'm sure your dad wasn't happy about that. Marcia Steffen Pavey
ReplyDeleteOh Marcia, you bet that I passed on that little gem to Mary. With four girls and three boys, my father has more stories about cars and their assorted troubles than he would care to repeat. But my worst was probably the day I backed out of the drive with one of the cars and rear-ended the pickup, thus racking up two ugly dents in two Meylor vehicles in one day. Needless to say, I forked over my change jar and subsequent tips at the R&E Cafe ...
ReplyDeleteWhich brings up another topic: Marcus cafes past and present. Any stories?
P.S. I get the Marcus News a little later than normal, so I know this isn't from the current edition, but in the paper I got today Velma seems to be a bit upset about comments on this blog. That saddens me because I would hope that Marcus doesn't see anything on this website as derogatory towards any community effort. I read the Marcus News from cover to cover and have been a faithful subscriber for almost 30 years now, ever since my parents first sent it to me as a freshman at Iowa State. I humbly apologize if any remarks were taken negatively from anything said here. Again, I know keeping a community newspaper alive is a daunting task, but it must survive as the pulse of the town.
Uncle Joe died in 1968 from a fishing accident.
ReplyDeleteMarcia is great to hear from you also. Do I ever remember that car. It was a gray 1948 Dodge. Dad didn't like me driving it too far but it sure got around town and out to the farm a lot. Remember how we would pile all the basketball players in the car to drive to the old gym during basketball season. I remember getting stuck in some snow drifts and everyone would get out and help push me out. That old car was built like a tank. I don't think the heater worked that well and if I remeber right a passenger door would fly open every once in awhile if you didn't get it shut just right. Teresa Kaufman drove and old Chevy and she and I thought we were tough stuff because we were one of the few girls that had cars but you sure won't have called them muscle cars.
Vana Marquis Bris-Bois