LOUISA COUNTY, IOWA

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MEMORIES

Transcribed by Beverly Gerdts, submitted June 10, 2017

       Memories are our most prized possessions, a gift no one can take from us. In many cases, memories are all that is left of incidents or places so dear to us.

        We have received permission to pass on some memories as told to us and hope you will enjoy them as much as we did.

        Mr. Hugh Newell has some very interesting memories of folks in the Fredonia community.

        “In 1890, our town and township was supporting more families than now, and as that should be about the time my memories of neighbors begin I will jot down a few things that come to my mind. The nineties were a period of very low prices for farm product, also some very bad drought years. Money was scare and the democratic party was trying for a chance at carrying all our financial troubles by coining silver.

        Fredonia had a population of 157 in 1880, in 1910-250. Farms were smaller than now and our machinery horse drawn and very simple. Ninety per cent of our field work was done with the driver walking behind the implement. The grain binder was used and corn was husked by hand, one ear at a time.

        One year the Barnum and Bailey circus came to Muscatine, and that called for a celebration. Father drove to Fredonia and took three of us older youngsters, and went into Levi Mickeys store and paid him 25 cents for the right to put the team in his stable for the day We bought tickets and rode on the “Firefly” up in time to see the parade. The coaches were packed, some were sitting on the steps. J. Carr was the first depot agent I remember, his wife taught school. He was postmaster, and operated a store and bought and shipped grain.

        A joke the boys used to tell on him was: A salesman from a tobacco firm came in, finding him out of tobacco, a was anxious to sell him another order. “My goodness no,” Jay replied, “The last order didn't last no time, I want to buy tobacco that will stay in stock longer.”

        One year there was a big corn crop, and Jay and one of the neighbors formed a partnership and bought and sold corn. They carried on all winter and shipped many carloads of corn. When the season was over they got together and settled up. The total profit figured up $14.00 less than nothing. So they each throwed in $7.00 and called it a day.

        I can remember him saying there had been more then 100 carloads of mellons shipped from Fredonia in one season. There were lots of stock shipped in and out of our local stockyard. Farmers drove their stock in on foot for several miles, and while there was bigger and better facilities in Columbus Junction, we considered crossing the bridge a big job, and shipped from this side.

        One time Rudolf Schlichting and I had ordered some stock form Kansas City, Missouri, and when we received a call that they were due in the evening, we went over expecting to drive them home; the train was late, by the time they were unloaded it was getting dark, we debated on trying to drive them home after dark, but finally decided to do so. I posted on the track about 100 yards west if the stock yard, with the idea of turning them south to the wagon road; when the gate was opened, out they came, paying no attention to me and down the track they went. Before I got them ...

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... headed off they were almost to the trestle work on the bridge. Some of the Fredonia folks helped us get them out on the road. George and John Tucker had just got their first new car, and they drove behind them and the lights helped us to see the way. I haven't tried driving cattle after dark since, and it makes me pant just to think of that escapade. And I wonder if I ever got George and John paid back for that service. They were good citizens.

        Another service was the daily local freight train that set cars along the stations to be unloaded. And “Paddys relief,” the hand powered car the section crew used to keep up the repair work. Jim Mickey told me if an amusing incident while he was working with the Fredonia section crew, John Mulligan was foreman, and they were resetting a fence, in the fall the ground was dry and very hard to dig, there were only short handled spades to work with, and the fellows backs would ache, one morning when they opened the tool house, there was a brand new, long handled, spade. Every man made a dive for it. As they started work, John said, “Jim you have the long handled spade and you can dig the last foot of the post hole today,” and that was my job for the rest of the fence setting. Pretty hard to get ahead of John.

        Time marches on and changes many things. When I was a big boy in our country school, a new lady teacher came from Medeoplis, and was hired for the coming year, Minnie Kennedy, by name, father was on the school board and it fell to my lot to meet her when she arrived at the station in Fredonia. I drove down with the team and wagon so I could bring back her luggage. I had trouble getting up sounk enough to walk up and speak to her when she got off the train, and the giggles I drew from some of the loafers, made it worse. Then I had trouble backing the wagon around to the platform to load the luggage, then that long, slow, drive home, trying to think of something to say! Nothing unusual about this except my embarrassment, but it was a lucky incident from our community's point of view, as this lady taught Washington school two years and became the wife of Herbert McCormic, and spent the rest of her life helping to make this a better community in which to live. Her name stands out in a list of country school teachers, during my years as a student.

        Fredonia has always supported a blacksmith shop, which was usually a gathering place to swap yarns, pitch horse shoe, stage boxing matches and generally get acquainted. Ves McDaniel was the first one I remember, he nailed the shoes on our horses, hammered out our plow sheares, and cultivator shovels,set the tires on our wooden wagon wheels, made wagon boxes, and welded no end of farm machinery. Among others there were, Lew Lee, Dutch Smith, Walter Kemp, Jess Wagner, Henry Smidth, Al Aldershoff, and Frank Pierson. The Concord community owes them all more than mere words can express, for their ability and willingness to help when our machinery broke down and we needed repairs.

        In 1890, Willis Dillers family moved to Fredonia, and bought the property where they now live, from Guy Kuder, later adding the Shawnesy property next door. He is one of the oldest residents in town. He and Delsie reared their family here, and during the major portion of the 66 years operated a molasses mill. Crushing the juce from the cane by horse powered mill at first then changed to a gasoline engine. They boiled down the juice down to a thick brown syrup that made housewives' menus better, and cooking easier. My! The memory if the “corn doger,” “soda biscuits,” “pancakes,” covered with molasses, a regular breakfast menu, “ginger bread, “ “popcorn balls” and “taffy,” for extra. What memories they bring up. At different times Bill Dewitt and Walter Kemp operated sorghum mills.

        John Bowman lived in Fredonia where Mr. and Mrs. A. Thompson now reside, and he made his living by laying tile, drain for the farmers; his tolls were a spade and a shovel and a “Jerry.” How sincere and careful he was to keep the grade even. Lots of those tile are still carrying excess water from our fields. George Solomon often worked with him, Hiram Banta and Lon Kulp were carpenters and put up many of our buildings. Those were...

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… the days when farm buildings were put together with mortise, tennon and wooden pins. Bill Brown lived just east of the Blaine Bliven home and did lots of painting, before moving to Des Moines. Bill Skipton was also a good painter.

        My memories of Fredonia, are by no means complete, without a mention of Mark Diller, he lived in Fredonia the better part of his life, and with the coming of woven wire, built lots of farm fence. How carefully braced, straight, and tightly drawn those fences were. How remarkably well they have stood, and how neat they always looked. An able, honest, hardworking man.

The Crull Family

       They threshed our grain, in good years and bad, they sawed lumber out of our good trees and bad, and sawed the tree tops into wood for our heating and cooking stoves, they filled our silos, shredded our fodder, they graded our roads, dug ditches where we needed them. They pulled our hedge fences when we wanted to get rid of them, and grubbed stumps to clear new fields for the plow. At one time they made concrete blocks, and built the store building on the Harlen Reece place. At one time they moved a house for us, they cut fence posts from our trees and put preserving creosote on them to add years to their life supporting our fences. I wonder if we ever appreciated it or remembered to say “thank you.” We turn back the pages of time and remember the names of Isaac Mickey, Levi Mickey, Sam Snyder, (I believe civil war veterans) Hank Wilson, James Lee, Uncle Jim Kemp, A. R. Jones, Dave Cross, John Lowe, Webster Van Dyke, Jack Shaw, Phil Brown, John J. Bliven, George Brown, Charles Shellabarger, Tom Carey, J. Shanning, Mrs. Sadie Shellabarger, Emma Westlake, Mr. and Mrs. Ves McDaniel.