Frank Althoff, Jr

ALTHOFF

Posted By: Connie Swearingen- Volunteer (email)
Date: 4/21/2015 at 19:51:03

Monona County History
1982

Frank Althoff, Jr., p 86 - 87

Frank Althoff, Jr., was born June 3, 1939, at Onawa and died Oct. 13, 1981. His parents were Frank Althoff and Dorothy Althoff. He had one brother John, and one sister Sandra (Althoff) Swain.

He attended Onawa School and was a member of First Christian Church of Onawa. In 1955, at the age of 16, while still in high school, he had a swimming accident that left him paralyzed from the shoulders down but he kept a promise made to his mother. But it wasn’t easy.

Not unlike a lot of teenage boys, Frank was more interested in adventure than in school tests. He didn’t dislike school, but his marks hadn’t been too good. ‘I told mom I would do better’, Frank recalled. ‘I even made it a promise’.

The promise and thoughts of school were far from Frank’s thoughts that Memorial Day in 1955. Summer vacation had barely started. It was a hot day, the kind that lured boys to a favorite ‘swimmin’ hole’.

Frank didn’t fight the temptation to take a cool dip in Blue Lake a few miles west of Onawa. Just thinking about it was refreshing. The trip ended in tragedy for Frank. He would never swim – or walk – again. A slippery dock was the tool of treachery. A friend’s dare to dive was the doorway to disaster.

‘I’ll never forget it,’ Frank said, dragging the words. ‘It was like a bad dream come true.’ There was a stabbing pain when Frank’s head struck the sandy bottom. There was terror, too, compounded by the fear that the watery depths might become a tomb. Frank prayed.

After eight operations, Frank spent most of his time in bed. The paralysis which resulted from a broken neck had never loosened its grip.

‘But I’m lucky, at that’, Frank grinned. ‘I can twist and turn, use my arms and one thumb. And I can sit in a wheelchair’.

The promise? Frank never really forgot. During the 14 months in an Iowa City hospital, he divided his time between studying and ‘thinking about home’. The last two terms, Mrs. Fred Fountain, a former Onawa teacher, tutored him.

Frank said it wasn’t easy. Hands closed in a vice-like grip were taught to again use pen and pencil. He even mastered the typewriter. A wooden peg strapped to Frank’s hand served as fingers and thumbs.

Then Frank graduated from high school. Strapped in a wheelchair, he joined Onawa’s largest group of seniors in the auditorium for the awarding of diplomas. His mother watched with pride, for Frank’s grades had improved. She said beaming, ‘His highest mark won’t be on a report card. They don’t grade courage.’

The voice of Frank Althoff, Jr. was well known in Monona and adjoining counties. Twenty-four hours a day, Frank’s voice reached out by radio or telephone, giving general information, locating doctors, dispatching ambulances, fire trucks, and police cars. Frank started Onawa Answering Service in 1959 with one client. Dr. William P. Garred of Onawa. In 1965 other radios were added to the already existing telephone service.

Frank, from his bedside, took care of 14 or more clients who subscribed to the telephone service, in addition to taking radio calls for the Monona County Sheriff’s Office, Onawa Police and Fire Departments, Burgess Memorial Hospital and the Monona County R.E.C.

Frank’s job, though exciting, did have a drawback, that being the fact that he knew most of the person with whom he worked daily only by voice along. He found his job of operating the Onawa Answering Service not only exciting, but also quite self-satisfying especially when messages from persons in trouble were relayed with the speed and efficiency that Frank was noted for, to get the proper aid to its destination.

He will be missed by the citizens and all of Western Iowa.