Milford Township and Proud of It

The Roy Van Zee family lived on the south side of Sec 1 about a quarter mile from the southeast corner of that section. Carolyn ‘63N and her brother, Roger ‘65N, lived here with their folks.

Carolyn, along with Geri Pauley, Karen Petersen, Karen Thompson and Dixie Thomas, were the last five Varsity Cheerleaders for the Milford Bulldogs in the school year of 1960-’61.

By Carolyn Van Zee Eggers, Class of 1963N

My parents, Roy K. and E. Irene Van Zee, purchased the 200-acre farm in Milford Township in 1960, and we moved there on March 1st from a farm between McCallsburg and Zearing. Roy raised corn and soy- beans as well as hogs, cattle, and later sheep. We also had a few ponies. Irene worked as a bank teller at Nevada. When Roy retired from active farming in 1969 they both began working at Iowa State University. Roy worked at the College of Veterinary Medicine, and Irene worked in the agricultural engineering department and later at WOI-TV.

Roy died at 61 of a pulmonary embolus on October 8, 1978. Previously, he had a blood clot in his leg after falling off a horse, and this may have led to the pulmonary embolus. In 1979, Irene retired and moved to Ames. In 2000, Irene moved to Waverly to be closer to her daughter, Carolyn. She has lived in several units of Bartels Lutheran Retirement Community since then, currently living in the Evergreen Arbor unit. She celebrated her 91st birthday on December 19, 2007. She continues to rent out the farm land but sold the acreage when she retired in Aug 2008.

When Roy and Irene moved to Milford Township in March of 1960, Carolyn was in the 9th grade and Roger was in the 7th grade. Carolyn and Roger attended Milford Township School the remainder of that year and the following year. Milford Township consolidated with the Nevada School District starting the fall of 1961 and Carolyn and Roger completed high school there. I (Carolyn) recall having a great experience at Milford Township School. I enjoyed being a cheerleader for basketball my sophomore year. With only six students in our class, we received lots of individual attention.

Math was never my easiest subject, and I remember always getting extra help from the teacher in geometry. Even when I was in college and decided to complete a math requirement by correspondence, my then-retired math teacher from Milford provided invaluable tutoring over a summer to get me through the course. I also remember grammar drills and diagramming sentences on the black board in English class, a process that undoubtedly helped me to succeed with writing during my career.

In my sophomore year, I took first-year French, an amazing offering for such a small school. At the end of the year, our French class of four students had a party with French foods, and I remember making cream puffs for the first time for the party. When Milford consolidated with Nevada, I was surprised to find that our Milford French class had actually covered about two years of French. Highlights from my senior year at Nevada include being named Homecoming Queen and graduating in 1963 as salutatorian.

I received a B.A. with distinction in English in 1967 at the University of Iowa and an M.S. in Library and Information Science from the University of Illinois in 1968. I worked as a reference librarian at the University of Iowa Library and later at California State University- Sacramento. I married Daniel B. Eggers from State Center in 1968. He graduated from the University of Iowa College of Medicine in 1969, and we spent five years in California for internship in Sacramento, residency in San Bernadino, and military service at Beale Air Force Base. We then settled in Ashland, Oregon, but relocated to Waverly, Iowa, in 1976, where Dan was in family practice until retiring in 2005.

After being home several years with sons, Scott and Christopher, I became the Waverly correspondent for the Waterloo Courier for two years and then became assistant director of public information at Wartburg College in Waverly, winning four writing awards for work at the Courier and at Wartburg. In 2004, I retired as director of grants and development research at Wartburg. The college received grants totaling $10 million during my last 10 years there. Scott is married with one son and works as a neurologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Christopher has a Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology and is completing a post-doctoral fellowshp at the University of California-San Diego.

My brother, Roger, (Left) was in the Class of 1965 and graduated form the University of Northern Iowa in 1969 with a B.A. in business. He and his family live in Cedar Rapids, where Roger works in the real estate division of Alliant Energy.

A 1910 Farming Accident

One of the most reoccurring events that was ‘discovered’ in the research for this book was the occurrence of serious injuries caused by farm animals, especially horses. Such was the case in the instance of a Milford farmer, Christ Hall, who lived in the northern part of Milford Twp about 4 1/2 miles south of Roland.

While participating in the threshing activities of Aug 1910, he was severely injured when he attempted to calm a neighbor’s (Severt Arneson) horses when they were near the threshing machine. He was in front of the team, holding each animal by one hand on each horse’s bridle when they ‘shied’ at something and charged forward and pinned Mr. Hall between the end of the tongue of the bundle rack and another wagon. This tore a hole in his left side and caused much bruising. Dr Rice was immediately summoned and after a hasty examination and realizing the seriousness of Mr Hall’s injuries he phoned for Dr Haerien (sic) of Story City, who arrived in a very short time and the wounds of Mr Hall were carefully dressed.

The expectation was that he would recover. Recover he did, and by 1920, he had left the farming ‘game’ and was a car salesman living in Roland. He died in 1946 in Roland at age 72.

This Hall family was related to the Hereim, Borwick, Olson, and Rasmusson Families of our community. Christ Hall’s wife was Julia Hereim who died in March of 1926 and was an ?aunt? of Mrs Gilreath, Milford teacher.

Christ’s son, Clarence, was killed in a farm incident in the Fall of 1934 northeast of Roland where he was plowing with a team of six horses when they were struck by lightning. Two of the horses were killed also. See other farm accidents on pages 70 and 310.

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