Robert Forrest & Emily Hunter

HUNTER SHORT LUENSE CUMMINGS MORSE

Posted By: Connie Swearingen (email)
Date: 9/22/2010 at 17:48:17

History of Woodbury County, Iowa 1984

Robert Forrest and Emily Vesta (Short) Hunter
By Robert Hunter

Robert’s parents, George Albert and Clara (Luense) Hunter, were born in Delaware County, Iowa, and married December 29, 1898. Robert’s paternal grandparents, Robert and Mary (Cummings) Hunter, came to Delaware County, from New York and Ohio respectively. George and Clara farmed near Greeley until they moved to Mount Vernon, Iowa, about 1920 because of Clara’s poor health. She died in 1924. They raised five children, Ruth, Robert (born April 14, 1906), Wayne, Lawrence, Edith, all of whom were born in Delaware County and graduated from Cornell College in Mount Vernon.

Emily’s parents, Wallace Merton and Mary Eliza (Morse) Short, were married July 8, 1896, in Racine, Wisconsin. Wallace was a minister and their first pastorate was in Evansville, Wisconsin. They moved to Kansas City, Missouri, where Emily was born on June 9, 1908, coming to Woodbury County in 1910. Emily graduated from Central High School in 1924 and Yankton College, Yankton, South Dakota, in 1928.

As a child, Robert was frail and when quite young, was not expected to live, according to his aunts Addie and Minnie, who kept house for George after Clara died. He had yellow jaundice at an early age, but except for the fact that he could not be a blood donor, it seemed to have no ill effects. He loved the outdoors and became an excellent hunter, stalking game in northern Minnesota and Wyoming until his first heart attack in 1975. He was not tall until his third year in college, when he shot up to his adult height of six feet two inches. In his junior and senior years in Cornell College, he participated in track and won medals in hurdles events.

In 1925, Robert began summer work with Northwestern Bell Telephone Company, a firm he stayed with for forty-four years. His first job was in the plant department, climbing poles, etc. Some of the equipment he used is on display in the N.W. Bell telephone Pioneer Historical display in Sioux City. Records show that his starting pay was $15 per week plus board, lodging, and travel expense. One of the forms he was given to study was titled ‘General instructions to employees about tree trimming’. He was always noted as being knowledgeable about trimming and pruning trees and that pamphlet may have helped. There are many trees around Sioux City which are better for his tree-trimming.

June 11, 1928, he received his BA degree in Business Administration from Cornell College. May 1, 1929, he was transferred to Des Moines and promoted to ‘Engineer’. June 1, 1929, he was transferred to Sioux City to the District Engineer’s Office, later becoming Project Engineer, where he worked until his retirement in 1969.

Emily and her father took long walks. One day in the summer of about 1918, they packed a lunch, took the trolley to the end of the line, near Crystal Lake in Nebraska, and started out along dirt roads toward Ponca to visit relatives. Mother and the two adopted boys, John born November 23, 1916, and Burton, born September 24, 1911, were to come later in a friend’s auto. A few cars stopped to offer rides but his father had decided on a hike and hike to Ponca they did. About noon they looked for a place to eat their sack lunch, finally stepping inside a tavern at Jackson, Nebraska where they could sit. A few days later, father and Emily took another walk, along the bluffs above the Missouri River. Emily’s camera, which she had purchased with the first money she had earned, rolled down into the river, from which it was rescued and to this day it is usable.

Emily writes: ‘We always had a big garden at 511-13th Street and a big one at 1524 Isabella. I learned much about gardening and won many prizes for vegetables at theTri-State Fair held each summer at the Fairgrounds south of what is now Riverside Park. I did not always enjoy gardening but was grateful for I gardened on an acreage north of Sioux City, during the depression in the early 30s.’ Robert and Emily met when he was transferred to Sioux City in June of 1929. They married October 26, 1929, the week of the Wall Street crash, and lived for a few months in an upper duplex at 1418 West 16th Street.

In June 1931 they rented about twenty acres in Plymouth County on which were a good house, barn, chicken house, lots of garden space and pasture for a milk cow which they soon purchased. Robert was out of town a good deal so Emily learned to milk the cow and would take the two small daughters with her to the barn where they played in the hay. Margaret was born June 10, 1930, and Esther January 31, 1933. The four years there were pleasant, with walks into the woods, gathering mushrooms, berries and wildflowers in season and caring for a very large garden which provided all their vegetables in the summer and fresh canned food for the winter. The rabbits caused Emily to learn to shoot a 410 gun which Robert purchased for her, teaching her how to use it. In season, Robert kept the family supplied with game and Emily and Robert had many memorable week-end trips pheasant hunting and later deer hunting in Wyoming. Emily writes: ‘We lived well during the depression, but we worked hard, too.’

In 1935, the Hunters purchased a house at 2014 George Street, Sioux City, where they lived until 1974. Another daughter, Mary Caroline, was born August 21, 1945. Robert died January 15, 1980.