John Scholl (1922-1988)

SCHOLL

Posted By: Ken Wright (email)
Date: 12/25/2012 at 20:37:03

Omaha World Herald, May 15, 1964

Iowa Writer Offers Body To Creighton

Iowa writer John Scholl, author of the much-acclaimed novel, "The Changing of the Guard," has made arrangements to donate his body after his death to the Creighton University School of Medicine. i called Mr. Scholl at his home in Maquoketa. He said he had long ago decided to give up his body for medical research. He designated Creighton for several reasons: He knew some good doctors who went there; an uncle, Paul Weber, of Beech Grove, Indiana, attended Creighton in the early 1930's, and Harry Dolphin, the University Public Relations Director, is a native of Maquoketa. Mr. Scholl noted that the hero of his book is a doctor who donated his body to a medical school. "But don't make it sound like I'm doing this for publicity for the book," he said. "I went through channels on this in the usual way. I didn't call you, you called me."
Along with the necessary form returned to Creighton, Mr. Scholl sent a note which he asked be given to the medical students in whose hands his body will be received. Explaining to them the purpose of the note, he wrote: "I ... would welcome any reading audience, even a captive audience, as in you case." Referring to his body, he advised that "this old bus has a lot of miles on it, most of them rough ones." And he expressed the hope, in the note to the students, that "you'll learn a little from me." The hero of the book, he wrote, is the kind of doctor I hope you'll be."
Mr. Scholl also donated, without comment, the first draft and the revised manuscript of his book to the Creighton English Department.
"Changing of the Guard," which was nominated last year for the Pulitzer Prize, describes the evolution of a small Midwest farm community from an isolated town of rugged individualists to a booming industrial city. One critic hailed the 42 year old author as a "Midwest Moses thundering against humanity's more vicious hypocrisies." Mr. Dolphin says the book has sold briskly in Maquoketa ever since it came out. But a lot of the citizens don't know quite what to make of it. Many of them think they recognize themselves, their town and some of the alleged vicious hypocrisies in the book.
Mr. Scholl maintains that Omega, the locale of the book"is not Maquoketa."

John Scholl grave
 

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