HIDDEN TREASURE
By James von Feldt
All rights reserved
Midwinter is tempered with Valentine’s Day. I wonder who thought that up.
I suppose we should be grateful since it seems to come at a very bleak time of the year; that is unless you’re deeply involved in school sports such as wrestling or basketball.
Professional basketball doesn’t seem to have the excitement in the farmland that high school wrestling has. Maybe you have to throw a calf to understand that. Anyway, time seems to sit still about now and people look around for things to do.
I stopped over to Gramma Laurel’s for a cup of coffee and a chat. You’ve heard me talk about Gramma Laurel; even quote her. She is one of several of our not-so-hidden treasures. We consider our elderly to be an important resource for spiritual guidance, practical knowledge, and wisdom. You don’t come by that by accident. It takes work, a lot of experience and years of hard knocks to develop. Another thing, it seems that they don’t sit idly by watching TV in the corner either. They’re actively involved in family life, in the community, in school activities, in whatever is going on.
Ed Amstutz is up there near 100 now. I saw him the other day at Smitties, our John Deere dealership. Guess what the topic was? You guessed it - the mechanics were grilling Ed on how he keeps his Model T running. It’s famous around here and is always in the 4th of July and Corn Show parades.
But back to Gramma Laurel. She lives on Main Street, in the blue house just west of the Gas & Grill. The house is a one-level bungalow with two bedrooms and a separate garage. It was built in the 1920s but somewhere along the way it was modernized, has a poured basement, a hot-water heating system, a wood-burning fireplace in the parlor, and a water well in the basement. Her vegetable garden is east of the house.
Quiltmaking equipment was set up in the parlor so we sat in the dining room to talk. Seems a few young ladies are learning to hand-stitch quilts this winter. We moved a grow light and seedbeds to make room in the dining room. Gramma Laurel is getting ready to start her early garden seeds on the radiator by the east window.
Once we got settled with a cup of coffee Gramma Laurel started filling me in on her background and experiences.
“Where to begin,” she said.
“My grandfather walked all the way to Iowa from Buffalo New York when he was a young man. He had two boys; my father and his brother. Grampa lived in Bloomfield and had a farm south of town. He was an exceptionally energetic - entrepreneurial type. Started the dry-goods store, the bank, bought and sold horses, and was a traveling salesman. He would take the train from town to town all the way to Denver, Kansas City, even Chicago. Sold all kinds of goods.
I was born on a farm south of town near Lancaster – actually closer to GoSprings in Harry Nation. We moved to a different farm on the outskirts of Mark Iowa when I was about five years old. The old two-story square house is still standing.
My dad farmed but he also did other things. Grampa would involve him in his deals such as buying a herd of horses for him to break and sell. There was always something happening. It was an exciting time to grow up.
There were seven kids in my family four girls and three boys.
My mother taught in the one-room schoolhouse in Mark. Both of my brothers taught school in the area too. I was reading early. We all loved music and played various instruments. In those days you made your own entertainment.
An old Indian would come around twice a year to give us music lessons. He could play anything and taught us what he knew. I was playing the piano in the Bloomfield movie-house for the silent movies by the time I was twelve. The piano was natural for me.
When I was fourteen, I went to live with my music teacher in Albia. She prepared me to go to Iowa University to study music. I was practicing classics every day as I finished high school.
The Great Depression hit when I was in the second year of my music studies at Iowa University. We didn’t have the money for me to continue music but I got a grant to enter nursing school. A few years later I graduated as a Registered Nurse. It was very unusual for a woman to have a university degree in those days but they were very short of nurses.
My dad bought a farm north of Bloomfield when I was in college. After graduation, I moved back in with the folks. I had a job as a nurse in nearby Bloomfield and rode my horse to town. Rural towns didn’t have hospitals in those days, they had clinics where sick people would come to see the doctor. We had the Gilfillan Clinic. It was famous. All five of Homer John’s sons became doctors. If you were sick and couldn’t get to town the doctor would come to you. Doctors made house calls in those days. I can remember many times when we would have to do surgery in homes.
I would ride my horse to the paved highway to get in Dr. John’s Model T. We would go to the farm home. I would assist Doctor John with the surgery on the kitchen table. Instruments were sterilized in the oven. The Dr. would leave me to nurse the patient until they recovered.
One summer I took a train trip to Denver with my grandfather on his sales route, as he called it. I loved the excitement going on at that time. They were having “New Gold Strikes” in the mountains around Denver. The original gold rush was in the 1850s but new equipment and processes brought new life to old mines. When I got back to Bloomfield, I could hardly contain myself, and soon Mary Lee Johnson and I headed for Denver. Mary Lee was my best friend and a Nurse’s Aide at the clinic.
Denver was teeming with people excited because of the new gold strikes and because it was a center for cattle and other commerce. It had paved streets downtown, a public trolly pulled by horses and, a real three-story hospital. It was the most modern hospital I had ever seen. Doctors did surgery in special rooms and there were many beds for patients to convalesce. Mary Lee and I had jobs the first week we were in town.
The hospital was right in the center of town. We lived in a hotel across the street but didn’t spend much time in our room. After work, we went exploring the nightlife. Now, there was no nightlife in Bloomfield, so we really didn’t know what we were doing but Denver was booming. People were walking around town even until late at night. There were so many new things to see and do.
On weekends we would take train rides to the mining-field boomtowns just to see what was going on. Boulder, Black Hawk, Central City, Breckenridge, and others like it were great places to visit and the scenery was gorgeous. The old mines were being re-activated. The new miners were striking it rich. It was like a dream world but it was real and we were having the time of our lives.
It was on one of these trips that I met Dominic. He owned a mine just outside of Breckenridge. It was the old Lomax Placer Mine being re-activated. He had promoted and sold several mines but was developing this new strike himself. He had a crew of miners working for him.
One thing led to another and soon Dominic came courting. About that time, Mary Lee decided to marry a doctor and I said “yes” to Dominic. We moved to the Pacetti hotel in Breckenridge which was as close as Dominic could be to the mine.
My first child was born in the Denver hospital. Everything was going great. The mine had hit small veins of silver and gold. The investors were excited. Then union trouble began. The mine was bombed. Several workers were hurt. Dominic decided to sell out his interests and change careers. The Oil industry was in its infancy.
We moved to Wichita Kansas and he began a career drilling oil wells and buying and selling oil leases. He was one of the first waves of “Wild-Caters” that opened up oil fields in Oklahoma. I went back to nursing and my family grew.
The Great Depression had slowed everything down but Dominic was resourceful and kept us going. His brothers lived with us as they came off the farm in western Kansas.
When World War 2 started it hit us hard. Dominic couldn’t get gas to travel which was essential for his oil business. We also had a juice bottling business. That was closed as we couldn’t get sugar to make the orange drink he was selling to the stores.
We sold our interests in both businesses and moved to where the jobs were: Portland Oregon. The new shipyards on the Columbia River between Portland Oregon and Vancouver Washington were begging for workers and paying top dollar. They needed to fill 40,000 jobs as fast as possible. America needed fleets of new ships for the war effort. Dominic smelled opportunity.
We moved into government emergency housing on the Washington side of the river just outside of Vancouver. I got a job as Superintendent of Nurses at the main hospital in Vancouver. Dominic tried several jobs in the Ship Yards then landed a great job promoting USO Entertainment for the war effort.
When the war was over Dominic was called to Denver to help develop a new lumber business. That lasted for a year. We then moved back to Wichita and re-started his oil business. I continued nursing in the Wichita hospitals and retired after working for Boeing. When Dominic passed away, I moved back to Iowa with my son.
That was twenty years ago. There are lots of friends and relatives still around that I knew from years ago. There are so many interesting things to do here. I keep busy.”
Gramma Laurel paused a bit and I jumped into the conversation.
“What advice do you have for people entering retirement years?” I asked.
Grama Laurel thought for a moment then rattled off a list for me.
“First, I’d say don’t retire. Don’t stop being engaged in meaningful work. Next, look forward. Don’t look back – don’t reminisce about the good old days. After that, Exercise. Get your heart going and spend time with people younger than you. Lastly, and, most importantly, keep close to the Lord.”
“How about that?” She said.
The timing was perfect, the back door was rattling. Someone had come to visit and my time was up. I thanked Grama Laurel and just stood there marveling at her - all five-foot-one inch of her. She is something else.
So that’s it for now.
From where the corn grows tall, and pigs fly.
Take care.
All my love.
Grampa Jim.