Recipes for Living Morris (Lula) Gonseth

MRS. MORRIS (LULA) GONSETH

I was born August 20, 1920. I have always lived in Clarke County, in or near Osceola. I am the only child of our original family still living. I lost a little sister in 1936. She had cancer and the doctor sent her to Iowa City. Her cancer was not localized in any organ. They thought she might have had a bruise that caused a tumor, which became cancerous. Dr. Stroy did the autopsy.

I had a twin sister, Ula, who lived in Creston. She died in 1991. My sister, Gertie, married Bill Bloom. While he had a high-level position with General Electric, they lived in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Denver. They moved to Osceola after Bill retired. Gertie was bedridden with osteoporosis for several years before they moved to a care center in Grinnell, Iowa. Gertie died November 14, 2003.

My brother, Bill, was married to Marge Bailey. He had the Phillips 66 Station on the Four

Corners, and was in the Navy in the early 1940s. He served in the South Pacific but he didn't tell us about those years. He chose not to talk about them. He passed away in 2005.

Our parents were Mr. and Mrs. T. H. Lear. From the time I was in second grade until I was married in 1939, we lived at 524 West Cass Street in Osceola. In the 30s, both Mom and Dad were taxi-drivers. In those days the taxi provided a much-needed service. Excelsior Springs, Missouri, was a popular health resort and those en-route would arrive by train in Osceola, then depend upon my parents' taxi service for the rest of the trip. One time I went with my mother to take a man there, so she didn't have to go alone.

Daddy took patients to Iowa City, and every Saturday took a load of teachers to Des Moines for classes at Drake. There were several passenger trains and the Jefferson Bus arriving daily. There would be busy times when the bus came overloaded and they called on my parents to transport passengers. If they needed a second car, Dell Hutchings drove also. This was back in the 30s. During the war years, Mama and Daddy moved to Burlington and Daddy worked as a guard in the ammunition plant. By that time I was married and had moved to the country.

I started school at West Ward, went on to junior high, high school, and graduated in May 1938. In my later high school years, I was on a double-date when I met Morris Gonseth. I don't remember the fellow I was with. He suddenly became unimportant. Morris and I went together nearly a year before we were married on January 1, 1939. We went to shows, but quite a few of our dates centered around attendance at the Methodist Church.

At that time there were two Methodist Churches — the M.P. (Methodist Protestant) on the corner of Webster and Main Streets and the M.E. (Methodist Episcopal) on the corner of Cass and Main. Ours was the M.E. We attended worship service together on Sunday mornings and Christian Endeavor Sunday evenings. We also went to shows. There was, however, some strong feelings about the leadership in the church we attended, and we were married at the M.P. Church. However, we attended there for only a short time. When there was a change of ministers, we went back to the M.E. church. Our children all went to the M.E.

Morris' family was well known in Clarke County. They came to America from the Switzerland area in Europe in a relatively late immigration. In fact, in the generation preceding his, only part of the family came. He had uncles and aunts who weren't born in this country. The family came to Iowa and settled near Peru. Some moved to Oklahoma, and Morris was born there. Some of his aunts and uncles stayed, but others came and settled around Osceola.

Morris' father was Frank B. Gonseth. His mother died of tuberculosis when he was eight years old. His father, left with young children, hired a housekeeper with two children of her own. They eventually married resulting in a family of six children. The parents later divorced.

Morris' siblings were: Frank Jr., whose wife was Ana Del; their children were John who lives in Kansas and Debbie who lives in Denver. L.S. and his wife Barb had two sons, Jim and Steve; and Fern married Bob Pool. They had two sons, Gary who married Carolyn Carter, and Mike, who, with his wife, Kathy, lives in Alabama.

When Morris and I were married, we immediately began farming. For the first two years, we lived on a farm that belonged to Ralph Bell. It is where Helmut Mueller lives now. In the spring of 1942, we moved to a Banker's Life Farm. In the course of our married life, we bought three farms: the Banker's Life farm, the Emmer Gray farm, and one that belonged to Lily McKeever — part of the Touet estate. In 1980, we moved onto land we had bought, built a house and have lived there ever since. At one time we farmed about 600 acres, now we live on 20.

I was a typical farm wife. I had a garden, canned, preserved, and froze the produce. I raised chickens, and I helped milk, which I enjoyed. In fact, when Morris sold the cows, I wanted to keep one — the easiest one to milk. Actually I didn't want to give up the cream. When he said having one cow was ridiculous, I had to let her go.

Our garden this year doesn't look like my former ones, although it is producing well. Ron and I planted two green pepper plants and one little plant had six peppers on it. Last year my peppers didn't even have a bloom! We planted two short rows of green beans, six tomato plants, five cabbage, and two hills of zucchini This is our first year of having zucchini. Last year a neighbor was gone for a month and asked us to take care of their yard and garden while they were away. They had zucchini and I kept picking them and giving them to anybody who would take them. Finally somebody said, "Quit picking them and they will quit!" When I bought these four plants, I was told we could have enough zucchini for Clarke county.
Morris and I had four childrenLachard Janet. Linda and Ron. Janet died of cancer in 1975. Her husband was Milton Davlin, also deceased. She had two sons, Rick and Jay. Richard and his wife, Lois, live in Camdenton, Missouri. They have three children- Phillip, June, and Julie. Phillip was killed in an airplane accident in 1984; June is a Registered Nurse. She and her husband, Scott Crum, live in Gainsville, Florida. Julie's husband is Phil Jones. She lives and teaches in Warrensburg, Missouri; and Linda lives in Des Moines. She and her husband, Jerry John, have a daughter, Jeri Renae, married to Eric Hatfield. They have three children. Linda and Jerry also have a son, Nicholas, his wife is Meg, and he is a commercial pilot in Denver. Ron lives at home and is wonderful company and a help to me.

In 1988, Morris had an intra-cerebral hemorrhage. He was able to function living at home for a number of years. I took over the management of our property, although I had always written the checks so I knew about our business affairs. It must be extremely difficult for widows who are unfamiliar with money management and all that is involved in living in our present-day, complex world. I was fortunate that Morris and I always had that arrangement, so that at his death in 2004, it wasn't all dropped on me. Ron and I have continued to live where we did and have grown very close.

Ron does all the outside work. He has a 755 John Deere tractor, that fully equipped would have a blade for snow removal, a lawn mower, and all. We have a huge lawn, so even with that, it takes Ron two days to mow. In the winter there is lots of snow to move.

We also have two fox hounds. We had more but now we are down to two. They do not require training but instinctively chase fox. They don't attack or harm them. They just bark —much like the dogs in the English sport of fox hunting. There are few fox now, so they chase coyotes. We used to let the dogs run freely, but we have since sold part of our land and know our neighbors don't like the dogs running on their property, so we confined them, but every Monday evening we take them to a place at Albia where they can run and get their exercise.

We usually have our meals at home, but every Friday noon, on "Fried Chicken Day," we have lunch in town at the Community Center. Theirs is the best chicken ever! We used to have a bridge club that met there, but of our two tables of ladies, since the first of the year three of our members passed away. I am not sure how we will continue.

I am a Pink Lady at the Hospital every Wednesday afternoon, delivering mail and saying a cheery word to patients, and I am a Greeter at their reception desk one morning a month. Ron and I help with SHARE, which is a food distribution program that happens in early morning hours of a designated Saturday once a month. It benefits quite a few people and is all handled by volunteers.

I actually am a homebody. Morris and I had a mobile home and went south in the winter but for just a few weeks. When I go to visit the children, I stay a few days and am eager to get home. Ron and I do very well and have a nice life.

I haven't given a great deal of thought to my philosophy of life, but I would sum it up in a few words: In life we get what we work for. It isn't good luck, bad luck, or happenstance. There is cause and effect.