Recipes for Living Katie Morgan

I was born on the second floor of Dr. Stroy's hospital in Osceola, Iowa. At that time our family lived north of town, on what is presently known as the "I.P.M." (Inner Peace Movement) property. My parents were Gordon and Theresa Rowland Kerr. I had one brother, James (fun), who was born on July 4, 1935, and I was born July 3, 1937. We always had a big celebration over the 4th for our birthdays. I can remember, when we were very young, my mother had dressed us especially nice as we had lots of company coming for the 4th. My brother and I decided to go to a muddy spring and play. Needless to say, she had to dress us again.

For eight years of my childhood, we lived where Helen Cooley now lives. My father rented the ground with his brother, Guy Kerr, and his wife Evah, who was a nurse in the local school system until her retirement. They are both now deceased. Ronald and Doris, their children, were very close to my family. My brother and I thought Ron and Doris were our brother and sister, also.

At that time the place where we lived had been the "County Farm", which, before social security was instituted, was the provision made by the government to house people who couldn't afford to live otherwise or who couldn't care for themselves. The ultimate humiliation for proud, independent people of Iowa was to be threatened with the possibility of going to the '"poor farm."

Although it was not serving its original purpose, the huge house was still standing when we lived there. There were living quarters at each end, and across the upstairs were individual rooms. Doris and I made all of these into different playrooms and absolutely had a ball.

They bought a farm and moved south of town when I was six or seven years old. Guy was killed by lightning on that farm in 1951. Our two families had much in common as both our fathers died at early ages of 50 and 49. To this day Doris is like a sister to me. She lives in California with her husband, a structural engineer. They live in San Francisco during the week and Sonoma on weekends. Ronald Kerr lives in Altoona.

When my grandfather died, Grandmother Kerr moved in with us and Guy and Evah, and she lived with us until she was in her 80's. At that time she had to move to where she could get more care. A lady in town cared for her.

I went to country schools from kindergarten through 8th grade. From kindergarten through 2nd, I went to Osceola #4 and Pauline Miller was my teacher. For a reason I don't know, I changed from there and went to 3rd grade to Fremont School north of town, where Charlotte Kelley taught, and went back to Osceola #4 through 5th grade. When I was about 10, my dad and mother bought a farm eight miles east of Osceola and I attended Jackson #5 through 8th grade with Glida Boor as my teacher. All three teachers were very special to me.

Before I started to high school, at age 13, I went to work for Shad at the Osceola Drug Store and worked through the summers and part of the school year. I came to Osceola for high school, which was an exciting time. I loved sports. I played lots of basketball and was the majorette in the band. I still love sports, probably getting my love of football from my father, who played semi-pro ball for awhile.

When I was a sophomore, my brother had started his freshman year at Iowa State. He was playing basketball there. He was very tall, 6'7". Over Christmas vacation, I had started dating his friend, Charlie Morgan. They had been to Leon to watch me play basketball and on the way home a drunk driver ran them off the road. That caused a terrible accident. My brother was killed at age 18. This was December 20, 1953, and on Christmas Day of that year my Grandmother Kerr passed away, also.

When I was a junior, I fell in love with Charlie Morgan. Charlie was a grade ahead of me, graduating in 1954. Charlie had been born in Leon, to Margery Stiles. His mother worked in Osceola and lived here most of the time, while Charlie lived with his grandparents, Glen and Bessie Stiles, in the Leon area and also with aunts and uncles on their farms. He had no brothers or sisters.

At a very young age, Charlie learned to work. Even as a small child he worked terribly hard. His grandfather did custom threshing for farmers throughout Decatur County and, when Charlie was five-years-old, his grandfather made him a harness so that he could drive the tractor without falling off if he went to sleep.

It would have been understandable if Charlie had developed an attitude of self-pity but he never did that. Those early years became formative. He learned to use his ingenuity and work management to attain his position and did it without resentment of what life had done to him. The lessons had a lasting effect and he has continued to work hard all his life. He has always known where his money came from. Everything he has or has achieved, he has earned for himself He is a very self-made man.

Charlie went to country school until he was in the 6th grade. At that time his grandfather had a stroke, which left him paralyzed, and they moved to Osceola. Charlie was in the 7th grade, when his mother married his step-father, Clifford Throckmorton, and he moved in with them. By then his grandfather had passed away.

Charlie was a very good football player in high school. Whitey Kuhlman was his coach and mentor and they still keep in touch. Charlie was a senior and had been named for All-State, when he broke his ankle, which put an end to his participation in football. Through the years he had saved money toward college and went on to Iowa State University for one year. Deciding he would prefer a smaller school, he changed to Simpson College. Because of his interest in land, he took geology courses. He lacked just one semester of graduating when he ran out of money and decided to give it up. I have never been able to persuade him to finish.

When I was a senior in high school, in April before I graduated another blow hit our family. My father had a severe heart attack and died on Good Friday, 1955, at the age of 49. After a short while, my mother sold the farm and we moved to Osceola.

After I graduated from high school, I enrolled in Thompson's Beauty School in Des Moines to become a beautician. When I finished, I opened my own shop at 106 East Jefferson Street in Osceola.At that time we were planning our wedding. We were married by Rev. Azel Smith in the old Methodist Church on the corner of Cass and Main Streets on July 12, 1957.

We lived in two rooms at the back of the beauty shop, and I continued to operate my business for a couple of years, until I became pregnant with our twins. For the first three months I was deathly ill. I had to quit working and closed the shop. We were delighted to leave our cramped living quarters and moved to an acreage which we were buying on East Ayers. We also bought 80 acres behind the county yard from Dr. Paul. I had always said I never wanted to be a farmer's wife but I was getting closer every day. Charlie put cattle on the land and from the proceeds we were able to buy a truck and he began hauling rock and sand for the construction of I-35. We also started the garbage and trash collection for the city of Osceola.

On April18, 1959, we had identical twin daughters, Theresa Jill and Jennifer Jan. My nurses at the hospital were my aunt Evah and my cousin Doris. The twins were so identical (the only identifying mark was that one has a little tiny mole on her nose) that one night I fed the same one twice. It was a very trying time because for three months they both had colic and cried all day and all night long. My mother and Grandmother Rowland helped me with the twins. In later years it has proved that identical twins have a bond between them. They send me cards alike and send each other the same sister cards although they live in different cities.

Three and one half years later we bought the farm east of town, where we now live. We traded our acreage as the down payment. We then had a big baby boy, whom we named James Paul after my brother James and Charlie's Uncle Paul. He has ever since been called J.P. While I was in the hospital, Charlie was making the final arrangements for buying the farm. At that time Charlie had enlarged his operations. We were farming, spreading lime and fertilizer for farmers, and hauling garbage. Our friend Casey Canavan used to call him "Dr. of Garbology." We have been in the garbage and trash business and farming for 40 years. ·

Fifteen months after J.P.'s birth, our youngest daughter, Joni Kay, was born. Somehow, I didn't seem to think that having four children age five years and under was a problem. I guess I tend to take life in stride. Charlie didn't want me to work away from home and so, in addition to taking care of the children, I did the bookkeeping for the garbage and trash business. Forty years ago we didn’t have a billing procedure. Charlie hauled trash during the day in the afternoons and evenings, once a month, went door to door collecting. During the time when we were trying to pay off the mortgage and farming wasn't good, there were occasions at the end of the month when I would collect bills so I could buy groceries. I always helped, also, with field work and chores-whatever it took to help out. Mother or Grandmother Rowland would come to watch children when I was helping.

All our children went to Clarke Community School and all were involved in sports. I spent a lot of time sitting on benches. I attended more of their activities than Charlie unless they were in the evening, because he would never let work go undone to be at some event. I was also home room mother several times and did the things interested, loving parents normally do.

All three girls graduated from Iowa State University, where J.P. also went for two years before he transferred to Ankeny and went into criminology. He continued in that career and for 12 years has been in the narcotics division of the Omaha Police Department. He lives in Omaha with wife, Kassy, and three children-Macey, Delaney, and James Charles. He is also 6'7" as my brother was. One would never know from seeing him today that at age nine he had one of his kidneys removed. We had discovered that one had been dormant since birth but it did not hamper his ability to play football or wrestle.

Jill lives in Cedar Rapids with her husband Mell Taets and their daughter, Emma. Mell is employed in banking, as Jill was, but now stays home with Emma. They recently transferred to Cedar Rapids from Dakota Dunes, South Dakota.

Jan lives in West Des Moines and works for an insurance company in Des Moines. We are delighted that none of them are more than three hours away.

Joni and husband, Chris Goulding, also live in West Des Moines. Joni is a pharmaceutical sales rep out of Des Moines and her husband works for City Supply Wholesale Plumbing.

We as parents have to be very proud to have four successful children. We have lots of fun with our grandchildren when they come to the farm or when we go to see them. I spent this past week with Jill and Emma in Cedar Rapids. We are excited that our six-year-old and our fiveyear-old granddaughters from Omaha are coming to spend several days. It will be the first
summer for them to spend that much time alone with us.

I mentioned that Mother had been widowed when I was a senior in high school. She had taken a normal training course in high school which qualified her to teach country school which she did before and after her marriage to my father. She taught in many country schools but mainly Osceola #4. When country schools closed, she didn't have enough education to teach in town and began working at Robinsons Store and Osceola Drug Store. Then she decided to follow in my footsteps, and go to beauty school. She made use of all my equipment and started her own shop. She was a beautician for 25 years. She worked until she was 73 years old and still looked young. She was a gracious, gracious lady.

After she retired, she sold her property and moved to West Ward Community Housing. While she was there, she developed Parkinson's disease. It was a shock because, as far as we knew, there had been no one with this disease in our family. She faithfully took her medication and got along really well with it.

During the time she had her beauty shop and after she retired, she did a lot of traveling with Maxine Woods, Florence Paul and Margaret Mitchell. They had such fun and they were very kind to my mother. Twice I took the four of them to the Ozarks. We spent the daytime hours traveling around, seeing the area, and played cards at night. The last two years I have taken these same ladies, who were some of Mother's special friends, back to the Ozarks.

In my early years, I had been closer to my dad because I liked working outside but, after his death, Mother and I became very close. It was a sad time when she died suddenly of a brain aneurism at the age of 78. Mother and I had been all that was left of my family, and now I am the only one living. Mother's only sibling left is her oldest sister, Twyla Cline, who lives in Osceola.

Another of Mother's close friends was her sister-in-law, Evah Kerr Hagie. She died of a heart attack at a family reunion in Corning. She was very special, also, to me. With her son and daughter living far away I did a lot of things with and for Evah, and this summer I went to her family's reunion in Mahoney State Park in Nebraska with her daughter, Doris, and her relatives. Also this summer, I got to help Doris celebrate her 60th birthday with a surprise party in Seattle, Washington. That is where her daughter lives and she had planned the party. Doris is a year younger than I and we love getting together. We fax each other letters weekly.

Our family has taken yearly summer vacations at the Lake of the Ozarks. It has made a very special time with all or part of our families.

This year Charlie and I have been on our place for 36 years. We enjoy country life and hope someday to travel and spend more time with our families. We just celebrated our 41st anniversary. I keep very busy with a special group of coffee friends called the Hardee girls. What fun we have. I am serving on the Board of Trustees at the United Methodist Church. I am a charter member of Beta Sigma Phi, a social sorority which started 36 years ago. I am a member of the advisory board of American State Bank and I serve as vice president of the Community Housing Board.

If I had any part of my life to live over, I would get more education. I have always conceded that life is fragile, "handle with care", and my childhood has made me a believer in this.