Tinker, Helen Goodenow

TINKER, GOODENOW

Posted By: Ken Wright (email)
Date: 3/17/2008 at 22:54:43

Jackson Sentinel
Centennial Edition, 1938

Helen Tinker

“He was a wonderful father,” says Mrs. Helen Tinker, only surviving daughter of J. E. Goodenow, as she sits at her rug loom, working and thinking of Maquoketa’s early days. “There were eight of us, so there always was a baby, and father always held the youngest one on his lap at meal time, feeding it from his own plate.” Remarking that such procedure today would not be deemed at all polite, he seemed to thrive on it.

Sliding down the walnut stair railing which ran continuously up three flights of stairs in the Goodenow hotel is another of Mrs. Tinker’s memories of the early days. She was the fifth child in the family, and by that time orchards had been set out in Maquoketa. Apples were plentiful and the Goodenow children were “Brought up on them.”

Mrs. Tinker, very stylish in spite of her 82 years, lives in New Jersey with a son each winter, but she always returns to her home in Maquoketa during the summer months. She has been active in preparation for the Centennial and went along on the booster trip to other towns in the county. When not engaged in this way, she visits with her many friends who call to see her, or works on the rugs she makes.