Hon. Arthur F. Janssen

JANSSEN, DEFRIES, IRWIN, HAMRICK

Posted By: Ken Wright (email)
Date: 10/10/2008 at 20:03:35

Biography of Arthur F. Janssen-

Arthur F. Janssen was born Feb. 20, 1905 on the family farm located adjacent to Brush Creek, north of Andrew, adjoining what is now Iowa Highway 62. His parents were Henry and Hattie DeFries Janssen. His mother’s parental home was the large stone house later known as the Robert Dyas residence, located northwest of Andrew.

He had one brother, John, now deceased. One sister, Bertha Janssen Irwin, resides at Crestridge nursing home in Maquoketa. She will observe her 100th birthday this coming April 16.

At the age of 4 Arthur became crippled from tuberculosis of the right hip. This required him to use crutches for the remainder of his life. His right leg was shorter than his left and the knee was immobilized.

His attendance at country school was erratic in his early years because of this handicapped condition. However, his education improved when he was placed in the fifth grade in the Andrew School District at the age of 11.

He continued in the Andrew system through the 10th grade, the highest level offered at that time. Then he transferred to Maquoketa High School, graduating in 1925. He enrolled at Cornell College, where he received a bachelor’s degree in 1929 and a master’s degree in 1931. His majors were in political science, but he also had studied music and played in the school orchestra. The trombone was his principal interest.

Janssen taught instrumental music at Maquoketa High School for one year. In this capacity he directed the municipal band for summer concerts as well as the high school band and orchestra.

The following year he entered the University of Iowa College of Law, graduating in 1934 with a Juris Doctor degree. He was president of the class his senior year.

One summer while in law school Janssen and several fellow law students formed a dance band and performed on a British Cunard liner in trans-Atlantic service. He got to spend some time on the European continent. One highlight was witnessing a typical balcony speech by Dictator Benito Mussolin in Italy.

Upon graduation, Janssen opened a law office in Maquoketa on the second floor of a building on the west side of Main Street now occupied by Max Ray Jewelers. In 1937 he began serving the first of two terms as county attorney. As a Democrat, he had to overcome a then 2-to-1 ratio of Republicans to Democrats in the county voting lists.

He married Helen Hamrick of DeKalb, Ill., in 1937. They had been students together at Cornell College.

In addition to his law practice, Janssen began the first of his many public services. As executive secretary of the Maquoketa Chamber of Commerce for several years, he plated an instrumental part in persuading Art Depue, owner of the Clinton Steel Tube Company facility, to build the facility that later became Clinton Engines. Janssen’s office had the assignment of processing the applications for employment at Clinton Engines for its 1950 opening. He had the responsibility of hiring the first 800 employees.

In his law practice, Janssen established a reputation as an excellent trial lawyer. He built solid cases and had a rapport with juries that usually brought him the desired verdict despite what often seemed to observers to be insurmountable odds.

After practicing law for 20 years, the Jackson County Bar Association nominated him to fill the vacancy on the District Court bench created by the retirement of Judge Walter Keck of Maquoketa. All county bar associations of the 7th Judicial District endorsed the selection and submitted his name to Governor William Beardsley, a Republican.

It was generally accepted at that time that a governor, with rare exceptions, would only name judges of his own political party. Thus Beardsley demurred in accepting the nomination of Janssen. Finally, pressure from the bar associations in the 7th Judicial District prevailed and the Janssen appointment was effective in 1954. His circuit included courts in Muscatine, Scott, Clinton, Cedar and Jackson counties.

During his 17 years as judge he held an enviable record not matched by any of his colleagues. No case he tried was ever called for a retrial or reversed because he improperly ruled on offered testimony or reversed because he improperly instructed the jury.

Two cases he tried were reversed by the Iowa Supreme Court on grounds that the jury failed to follow his instructions and reached the wrong decision.

He retired from the bench in 1971 and both he and Helen devoted a great deal of their energies and resources to the management and continuing improvements to Pearson Memorial Center.

Any biography of Art Janssen would be incomplete without mentioning his other interests and the active sports he participated in despite his lifelong physical handicap. He and Helen were active members in the First Lutheran Church, Maquoketa, and they both continued in other areas of public service.

Also, Janssen’s abilities as a golfer, bowler, fisherman and even as a college intramural baseball pitcher led to numerous newspaper features. He served as an example in overcoming a handicap long before the handicapped were receiving professional assistance or public consideration.

John O’Donnell, the legendary sports editor of the Quad-City Times and namesake of O’Donnell Stadium devoted three consecutive double-width, page-length columns to Janssen’s athletic abilities in the issues of April 21, 22 and 23, 1962.

Despite an immobile right knee and a shorter right leg, Janssen himself analyzed and devised a golf swing to compensate for his disability. He shot in the high 70s or low 80s on courses that included the Davenport Country Club, the Rock Island Arsenal and the Clinton Country Club. He had played at par or better many times on the old Maquoketa course. He was a member of the Maquoketa Country Club’s men’s golf team that won the Eastern Iowa team tournaments.

Twice he was runner-up in the final, championship flight match of the Maquoketa Country Club. He lost to Charles Joiner and to Owen Seamonds. Also, Art and Helen enjoyed many years of playing golf together and with couples who were their friends, long into their retirement years.

In those days before carts, Art would drop his crutches and bag and hit the ball. It led to many great stories related to the astonishment of those who observed him, for the first time, hit such accurate and long drives. Using crutches, Art had developed extraordinary strength in his arms, torso and left leg.

In bowling, as well as in golf, Art had to experiment and perfect his own style. It took long practice but he improved enough to bowl in the top-rated Classic League at Maquoketa. His season average, the year of O’Donnell’s column, was 174, with 269 his high game.

He won the Schmidt Brewing regional tournament in Maquoketa one year with a 634, with no handicap basis. And he placed seventh in a Rock Island Argus tournament.

He hunted, dropping his crutches to shoot. And he and his wife enjoyed many years of fishing together, at northern lakes as well as fishing for bass on the Mississippi River. He had his own bass boat and “fishing car.” When either Helen or some fisherman friend weren’t available to accompany him, Art would launch and load the boat at a Bellevue ramp by himself.

In September 1987, Art and Helen Janssen hosted several hundred friends at a 50th wedding anniversary event held in the Janssen Hall of the Pearson Center. In retirement years they spent winters in Naples, Fla. and the rest of the year in Maquoketa. They kept a boat at Naples and continued to enjoy Florida’s version of fresh water bass fishing, and golfing there, as long as their health permitted, as well as their summer sports while in Iowa.

Among other honors, Art was named to the Jackson County Historical Society’s Hall of Fame. He also was named Man of the Year by the Maquoketa Optimist Club.

Helen died on May 22, 1992, and Art now lives at 900 Arbor Lake Drive, Apartment 205, Naples, Florida.

A son, Richard, resides in Arcadia, Fla., and a daughter, Judy Pooler and her husband, Dell, reside on the ancestral farm, where they recently built a home.

Art has two granddaughters, Kristi Pooler, who is a physician in Naples, and Michele Wilbers, an attorney who recently moved with her husband, Mark, and their three children from Naples back to Bellevue.

When Art’s time comes, he has named his pallbearers and the service will be held at Janssen Hall at the Pearson Center. He has compiled a record as one of Jackson County’s most colorful and accomplished persons in the 150-year span since Ansel Briggs, later Iowa’s first governor, built a Brush Creek mill on what became the Janssen farm.