Virgil John & Muriel Catherine Winterringer Meyer

MEYER WINTERRINGER TIMMERMAN

Posted By: Connie Swearingen (email)
Date: 9/6/2010 at 23:29:15

History of Woobury County, Iowa 1984

Virgil John and Muriel Catherine Winterringer Meyer
By Muriel C Meyer

I, Muriel Catherine Winterringer, was born 2 December 1923, on a farm two miles south of Salix, just across Sandhill Lake. I was delivered by my great grandmother, Catherine Zerfing Winterringer , from whom I received my middle name. Muriel Brooster, an authoress, is credited for my first name. My parents were Elsie Alvina Timmerman and John Wesley Winterringer. This was a renter farm in Sec 11 of Lakeport Township, Woodbury County, Iowa.

On my second birthday, my Granddad Winterringer died. We then moved ½ mile south to his farm in Sec 14 of Lakeport Township. We shared the house with Grandma until I was seven years old; she then moved to the hotel in Salix.

In the fall of 1928, a few months short of five years of age, I started to school at Lakeport #2 (LaCroix School). That was a one and one-quarter mile walk, but other modes of getting there were: horse and buggy, car, bobsled, team and wagon, and bicycle. The school was a one room schoolhouse with one teacher for all eight grades. There was no kindergarten.

Summers were spent helping with the garden. At different times Grandmother Henderson, Mom’s mother, would stay with us. My cousin, Gale Mead, spent part of any school vacations at our house. The school teacher boarded at our house for several years too.

My mother had a breast removed by radical surgery because of cancer on March 17, 1934. The streets were icy that Saturday morning; when Dad stepped on the brakes by Cooper School on Leech Avenue we made a complete circle, luckily not hitting anything, and continued on to the hospital.

Soon after that we got a washer with a gasoline motor on it. Before that we had a washer with a handle which had to be moved back and forth by hand to turn the dolly around inside the machine to wash the clothes. The wringer also had to be turned by hand. We had a hired girl; in fact we had several different ones. I remember one that got so homesick one rainy day, Dad had to take her home down by Whiting, on muddy roads.

When in the eighth grade, we had to take exams for admittance to high school. We took them at Sloan and that was quite a frightening experience. (That was no one-room schoolhouse!) In September of 1936 I went to Salix to high school. There every grade had as many in it as I was used to having in the entire school. We either walked the 2 ½ miles or I rode with my brother on his bike in nice weather. Come winter, Dad took us in the 1925 Buick we had. In 1938, the LaCroix school closed, and from then on we only had one long lane to walk, or run to get on the school bus. About then I started to play the violin. I can’t say I ever learned how, but I tried and played in the school orchestra. I also sang in the Girls Glee Club.

When Rev M L Metcalf came to Salix Community Church, we started attending church regularly. He had been a long-time family friend, originally form Peiro. Regular attendance meant Sunday School, church, Epworth League, and choir practice.

Graduation form high school was in May of 1940. I worked out for a time, after that, doing housework. In March 1941 we moved to the Graham place in Section 12 of Lakeport Township.

In September 1942, Jean Jorgensen, Betty Arnold and I went to the big city (Sioux City) to seek our fortunes. I got a copy of my birth certificate and my Social Security Number. Then I found a job, mending nylon, silk and rayon hosiery at Benjamin’s. My pay was $5 a week. Betty and I shared a sleeping room at 1510 Nebraska St. It cost us each $2; there was hot water for baths on Wednesday and Saturday nights. My workday started at 8:30 and with an hour lunch, I quit at 5:30; that was six days a week. At a later date, I shared different apartments with Mary Topf. In 1945 I was in charge of the lease department at Davidsons. I went home in October because of my mother’s illness. She died on March 1, 1946, and I returned to Benjamin’s, working at the shop in the Commerce Building.

I spent many evenings at the Skylon Ballroom, dancing, as well as the USO at Sergeant Bluff, where a group of us went every Thursday night, by bus. Sometimes we even went to USO dances at the Air Base. I also spent a lot of time bowling duck pins, three lines for a quarter, first at the alleys in Morningside, run by Roscoe Parker and his wife, and later at the alleys next to the Mayfair Hotel, between third and fourth on Nebraska Street.

I met Virgil Meyer the first night the Tomba Ballroom opened. Our first date was when Lawrence Welk played there. We were married on 18 May 1948 at the parsonage of Salix Community Church by Rev Roy Beisemeyer. My dad and brother, Dean, along with his girlfriend, Betty Mook, were present.

We had already purchased a home at 1301 South St Aubin Street in Sioux City. I continued to work at Benjamin’s until the summer of 1949; our first daughter, Charlotte Kay, was born September 20, 1949. Our other daughter, is Carol Jean who was born April 29, on the anniversary of her Aunt Marian’s birthday.

Virgil John Meyer was born December 22, 1921, at Andover, Day County, South Dakota. His parents were Edward G Meyer and Anna M Mack. When Virgil was one year old, the family moved to LeMars, Iowa, where he grew up and carried newspapers, later working in grocery stores there, too. He played on the LeMars Bulldogs Basketball team. He graduated in 1939 and continued to work in stores there, until the family moved to Sioux City in the fall of 1942.. Here, he was employed at the A & P Grocery until going into the Army in October 1942. His overseas duty was in Ireland for seven months, then right after D-Day, entered the coast of France and went through France to Germany, with the 8th Infantry Division. In October 1945, after being discharged from the Army, he returned to Sioux City. He returned to working for A & P Grocery, advancing to manager of the dairy department and alter to assistant store manager. He went to work for the U S Post Office in August 1956, as a letter carrier; he retired in September 1983.

Virg likes to watch baseball, football and basketball games. He bowled in a league for ten years. He has learned to live with cats; we have had two, only one at a time, but at first he did not like them at all. Tiger, our first cat, took a walk down the sidewalk one night, and never returned; he was twelve. Snoopy, our present cat, is nearly sixteen years old.

We moved to 1107 South Newton on Thanksgiving Day 1957; it was a beautiful day, the sun was shining and the temperature was above 70 degrees.

I have done a variety of things: I worked at Younkers, printing names on napkins, pencils and Christmas Cards for twenty years; rolled beeswax candles, and set foundation in frames, for the bees to store their honey; helped a neighbor paint their house and fence. I sewed nearly all the girls’ clothing, as well as mine, before it was ‘the’ thing to do. I worked with Girl Scouts and after that, was active in Y-wives. I do some craft work, tatting, crocheting, counted cross-stitch embroidery, make pine-cone wreaths, and needlepoint. I have enough projects lined up to last the rest of my life. I hope to finish some quilts my mother pieced, but never got quilted. I enjoy growing houseplants and try to raise a few plants for my garden each year. I assembled and finished the cupboards we put in our kitchen, and refinished the woodwork in our living-room, besides building a closet in an upstairs room and put double sliding doors on a bedroom closet. I have upholstered furniture, layed linoleum, installed water heaters and water softeners at our house.

We hope to do more traveling in the next few years, some for genealogical research.