MUSCATINE COUNTY IOWA

Picture: Atalissa Betterment Committee
Cindy Schmidt, Jan Welsch, Vada Baker, Sheila VanDusen, Gracie Gritton,
Donna Williams, Charlotte Hill, Tami Plank, and Betsy McConnell.

It has been the goal of the Atalissa Betterment Committee (ABC’S) to compile a historical record of the town of Atalissa and the farms surrounding the area. A sincere effort has been made to document, through newspaper articles, deeds, abstracts and interviews, all the information that is presented here. We have gone to great effort to have all information verified but are aware there still could be mistakes and if so we sincerely apologize for this.

We gratefully acknowledge the help of all who made this book possible. Because of the number of people who have contributed to it in so many ways, large and small, we are unable to recognize each one by name. Without the help of the Reference Department of the Musser Public Library, Muscatine, Iowa, the Muscatine County Court House, Joyce Hollenbeck at the Atalissa Post Office, Mail Boxes and Parcel Post, Muscatine we wouldn’t have been able to write this book. The following people gave us vast quantities of information, James Stucker, Jesse Pearl Stewart, Dorothy Garvin, Francis (Perky) Carlisle, Lucille Freyermuth, Richard Weiss, Betty Gatzke and Norma Dickey. Without them this book would not have been possible.

We know this history is not complete. It would take many years of research and several volumes to list all the names and events, all the small businesses that came and went, sometimes in the space of a few months’ time, all the landowners, residences and farms. We only hope to touch upon the lives of those we have met in order to gather the enclosed information and photographs. Those who loved, laughed, sorrowed and built the town and farmed the land that created the town of Atalissa.

We would like to have included everyone’s story, unfortunately, we were not able to do this. We hope to offer the family histories and sketches of some of the men and women who were in business here, some long and continuous, some for a short period. We don’t attempt to say these were the most important people by virtue of their accomplishments. However, the lives that they touched are numerous and the work they did, immeasurable. Our goal is to offer this history, hoping to share the idea of the kind of people who keep a town going for one hundred and forty-two years.

The A.B. C’s take pride in presenting this account of Atalissa’s past and present for the generations that follow. This was published in December, 1999.