Frank Melville Hood

HOOD LOVERIDGE

Posted By: Connie Swearingen (email)
Date: 9/22/2010 at 17:00:23

History of Woodbury County, Iowa 1984

Frank Melville Hood
By Mrs L H Fymbo

Frank Melville Hood was born in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on November 23, 1884. He was the second son of Marshall and Clara Hood (see Watts-Illingsworth Family). The family moved to Sioux City, Iowa, in 1887 because their father was a railroad freight inspector there. As a boy, Frank had a paper route which included Douglas and Pierce Street. His mother tells of driving Frank with horse and buggy across the pontoon bridge to Covington, Nebraska (now South Sioux City) to deliver papers. Frank enjoying telling tales of the boyhood pranks of the ‘Court Street Gang’. He learned to swim in the ‘Y’ pool because his brother Wayne dumped him in the deep end and told him to ‘sink or swim’. As a young man, he worked as a clerk in a grocery store. He was a delivery boy, clerk, and ‘drummer’ (salesman) for the W J McGraw Company.

The family lived in Morningside when Frank met Marie Loveridge. Letters tell that she went to visit friends in Nebraska and seemed to be having too good a time so he thought to hurry her return by writing to her of a ‘moonlight picnic’ up the Big Sioux River that the ‘crowd’ was planning. It brought her home, indeed, but when the picnic did not materialize her ire was justly aroused and he was ‘in the doghouse’ for quite some time. However, they were married March 4, 1905, in Vermillion, South Dakota. They came to Sergeant Bluff and Frank managed the Farmers Coop Store.

Marie Loveridge had come to Sioux City from Ohio when she was sixteen years old to stay with her older brother, Dick, upon the death of her father. However, Dick had moved out west, so neighbors took her in, with their three daughters, until she found a job as clerk in the Pelletier Store.

Frank and Marie seemed to enjoy the social life of the small community. They spoke of many parties and outings. They first roomed and boarded with Mrs Addie Evans. They later moved into a four-room cottage at 10th and Market and then into a very old house on Crockwell Avenue south of Locust Street.

Their first child was stillborn. Their next child, a daughter, Frances Mildred, was born February 18, 1909, in a little cottage on St. Clair Street just north a 4th Street, 1983 – it is 404 D Street. Frank and Marie built a house directly across the street which they occupied while Frank and his younger brother, Leslie, operated ‘The Little White Store’, a few doors down the street. Their third child, Loveridge, was born April 2, 1912.

Records indicate the Hood family moved to Owego, Iowa, where the B M Stoddard owned thousands of acres of gumbo bottom land and had established a small town on the Chicago-Milwaukee Railway Line. It was not a financial success and the Hood family moved to Anoka, Minnesota, to try farming. There they lived on a bend of the Rum River.

The land was beautiful; flags and water lilies grew profusely; hazel nuts and raspberries were abundant. The fishing was good. The neighbors were friendly and very helpful. The family attended the Presbyterian Church. Marie made butter to exchange at the grocery store for flour, sugar, etc. The children remember that the grocer always gave them a little sack of jelly beans which they clutched carefully in their hands until they reached home where the jelly beans were sorted, the black ones for Frances, the red ones for Mama, and Daddy and Loveridge ate the rest of them.

The family returned to Sergeant Bluff in about 1919 and bought the Mattocks restaurant. They lived in a two-room apartment in the remodeled Lutheran Church building until they could remodel the back room of the restaurant. It was at this time at Loveridge came down with the measles followed by pneumonia and died two days before he would have been four years old (March 31, 1916).

Frank was appointed postmaster in 1919. He bought the grocery and dry goods stock from C J Holman and moved the post office in to the north side of that building. He expanded his business to include auto accessories including U S Tires. He sold gas form a pump in front of the store beginning in about 1920. They bought the house just back of the store on Locust Street (4th Street in 1983) next to Dr R M Conmey’s home and office. The house was remodeled to include bath, sleeping porch and sun parlor. It was in this room that Frances entertained school friends with games, music and dancing. Even some of the young teachers came too.

Frances was a Campfire Girl. They had to earn money for a basketball and uniforms, but they started girl’s basketball when they were in the fourth grade. Frances was No. 6 and played running center. She was the first cheerleader but she had to furnish her own megaphone and make up the yells. Frances was also active in debate, declamatory work and dramatics. She remembers the ‘Old Settlers Picnic’ and the stands where they tried so hard to win the plaster Kewpie dolls dressed in gilt and colored feathers or the rings with sets of brightly colored glass. Frances graduated from high school in 1927. She attended the State University of Iowa where she was affiliated with Phi Mu National Sorority, Kappa Phi Methodist Organization and was a member of Erodelphian Literary Society, YWCA, Iowa Dames, University Players, and Freshman Debate Team. On December 31, 1930, she married Lloyd Fymbo (see Lloyd H Fymbo story) in the sun parlor of her parents’ home. W J Wolcott officiated. Their first home was in Iowa City where they both were students.

Mr Hood continued to expand his business enterprises. He bought, packed, sold and shipped both fruits and vegetables. He had an insurance business. He was in the ice business, cutting ice on both the Missouri River and the pit (deep pond of water east of Sergeant Bluff where the clay had been removed to make brick). The ice was then packed in sawdust in the icehouse and then sold in the summer months to make ice cream and lemonade, and to be used in home iceboxes. Next he bought the hardware stock and building from Lou Larson, moved the post office into the front part, with a soda fountain, and the general merchandise and grocery in the back. (Building is now American Legion Building.) Later, he sold the enterprise to Ralph Williams but continued in the Holman Building. Frank owned and operated several farms also. He was postmaster until 1934.

In 1935, he disposed of all the buildings and they moved to the west coast. He was in business with his brother, Wayne, in El Centro, California, until 1943 when they returned to Sergeant Bluff and he died here October 30, 1947. His wife, Marie, died September 27, 1948. Both were active in church and community affairs. Both were members of the Eastern Star and Frank was a member of Abu Bekr Temple of the Masonic Lodge in Sioux City and a Shriner. Many young men have told his daughter of seeking his counsel and their appreciation of his inspiration.