John H. Scholl (died 1988)

SCHOLL

Posted By: Ken Wright (email)
Date: 7/1/2010 at 22:50:47

Maquoketa Sentinel-Press, May 14, 1988

AUTHOR JOHN H. SCHOLL DIES

John Scholl, a colorful personality and writer who worked for several newspapers and wrote a novel based on Maquoketa, died Wednesday, May 11, 1988, in San Diego, California. He was 65 years of age. A Maquoketa native, Scholl worked for the Stars & Stripes newspaper in Europe during World War II. After the war he worked briefly as editor of the Maquoketa Community Press, then owned by John Robinson, and shortly afterward for the competing Jackson Sentinel under Carlyle Brown. He again worked for the Sentinel and Press selling advertising during the mid-1950s, after the newspapers were sold to Robert Melvold and merged to a twin-weekly operation. Interspersed were stints with large metropolitan newspapers, including the Salt Lake City Tribune and Memphis Commercial Appeal. Scholl may be best remembered by longtime Maquoketans as the author of a book titled “The Changing of the Guard,” a fictional account of the changes and conflict in a small community brought about by the growth of a major industry and employer in the town. The book, published in 1963 by Simon & Schuster, a major New York publishing house was a thinly veiled portrait of Maquoketa at the time, as viewed by Scholl. The book created controversy in the community as readers linked characters in the book to Maquoketans. Scholl later worked for the Dubuque Telegraph Herald writing feature stories on communities in the tri-state region. While in Maquoketa Scholl also worked as a news correspondent for area daily newspapers. He moved to California several years ago to be near other family members. Services will be held at 10 a.m. Monday at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Maquoketa.

Excerpts from "The Changing of the Guard"

"Dedication
For my father, never an Organization Man-and my Mother, never a Status Seeker."

"All of the characters, places and events in this novel are entirely fictional, with the exception of those public figures, necessary locales, and historical matters mentioned by name and related on record to this particular period. Any other similarities are completely coincidental."

"Acknowledgements
To Charlotte Seitlin, Henry Simon, and William Clifford, for assistance in the art, and Drs. Lawrence Williams (M.D., F. I. C. S.), Leo Becker (D. V. M.) and Robert Scholl (O. D.), for assistance in the science, these thanks, articulate ones being away above the ability of the Author."

"They called Omega "Treetown-on-the-Newnile" at that time, but they just called it that. They didn't print it on souvenirs or put it on big billboards that hide what they advertise. It wasn't a Chamber of Commerce sales slogan, either, because Omega didn't even have a Chamber of Commerce then. After all, a thing that's not for sale hardly needs a salesman."

John H. Scholl Grave
 

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