LETTER FROM HOME
By James R. von Feldt
All Rights Reserved
Dear Brett.
How are things going? Are you going to be home for Christmas?
Your dad told me you’ve got a new job. Rodney changed jobs this fall too. He’s working as a substitute teacher in Kansas City. A big jump from the cafeteria job. Johnathon is back home for the holidays. Got lots of stories about his first semester in college. Isaac is Isaac.
Well, the Corn Show was a success this year, and Thanksgiving has come and gone too. The turkey leftovers are gone, and hunting season is gearing up.
It's that time of year.
Over north of Bloomfield last week, Cheyanne Burch miscalculated the curve on 159th Trail and went off the road, crashing her car. The resulting injuries of a broken nose and concussion were compounded by the fact that Cheyanne is a hemophiliac. The Bloomfield paper reported that Cole Swaim’s youngest boy Kallen witnessed the crash and assisted in getting help fast.
Sheriff Davis awarded Kallen the Davis County Life-Saving Award. He got his picture in the paper with Sheriff Davis and Cheyanne.
West of town on the outskirts of Troy, a grass fire got out of hand. It burned down the old barn on the O.F. Goddard place. Our volunteer firemen got to the fire at about the same time as Troy’s. They saved the old house, but the horse barn is gone.
O.F. Goddard was probably the most renowned of the graduates of the Troy Academy back in the Day. He read law under his uncle which is to say he apprenticed to become a lawyer. By 1880 he moved to Billings Montana entering into the practice of law there. He served in the Senate and eventually rose to the position of Montana Supreme Court.
He is another Iowa native who made a noteworthy contribution. He lived to be 90 years old. I was three years old when he died.
Let’s see, what else has been going on.
The park Pavillion is rebuilt again.
We hope it stays in place for a while, what with the Christmas fire last year and then the windstorm. The last thing left to do is install the stage curtain. It finally got here last week. The Volunteer Firemen are supposed to hang it in place Thursday after their meeting.
Dannie, our mayor, talked Loren Knight into being the Super on the Pavillion project last summer. He is known as a master builder and has overseen several farm-building projects in the area. He and his boys were in the construction trade before they bought the Rankle dairy fifteen years ago. Since then, they modernized the buildings, upgraded all the equipment, and made it a showplace. He’s a good dairy farmer, to boot.
Anyway, the work team, including a few Amish and Mennonites volunteers got all the construction and painting done before the Corn Show.
The Christmas Float parade was a big hit in the corn show this fall.
Marleen Crebs is causing a stink regarding the Christmas Float judging. It’s her position that the title “Christmas Float Parade” means that the floats should show a Christmas theme of some kind. “After all,” she says, “Christmas is about the birth of Christ.” It’s been an ongoing discussion at the Gas&Grill since Marleen brought it up after the parade.
Emmery, well, you know Emmery; he’s been pushing back, taking the position that Christmas is so secularized nowadays that anything might be thought to be Christmas.
The parade committee gave the first prize-winning ribbon to Jerry Lang and his family. The float was a large angel made of cardboard, beautifully painted, and included live shepherds and sheep, all riding in a hay wagon pulled by a four-wheeler. That certainly met Marleen’s ideal of a Christmas float.
The second prize went to Gabbie whose float consisted of a big box with wheels pulled by Jason’s pony. The box was covered with Christmas paper to look like a present. It had a lid and Gabby, who was hiding in the box, would jump up and wave at the people lined along the parade route. It was, by far, the most popular of all the floats. There were nine in all. They will all be featured on the park grounds as Christmas decorations this year.
The Tractor Pull event was different this year. It started with a Horse Pull. The Chickering boys, the Deaton family, and the Sewall brothers brought their horses. Well, Harry and Larry brought mules. The Chickerings have a matched pair of dapple-grey, English Shire that are truly beautiful animals. The Deatons pure black Percherons were equally beautiful, large, and strong. Harry and Larry Sewall’s red mules were smaller than and the horses, but they showed they could pull a load too.
The horse and mule pulling was spectacular. It brought back old memories: Uncle Mac practicing pulling with his two white draft horses in the evenings after we milked. He took them to the fair in the fall to compete.
You have to see a Horse Pull to appreciate it, and in my opinion, the Tractor Pull with all the noise, dust, and bluster can’t compare.
The Amish still use draft horses to do farm work in our area. We see them in the fields pulling plows and wagons. I don’t know what breeds they use, but they don’t appear to be as large an animal as the Percherons or Shires.
The Jacob Miller family, south of Drakesville, have made a good business raising and training Belgians. They have customers visiting all year long.
One last thing. The Cattlemen Association held a meeting at the Pavillion. Adam Mcintire and Don Phillips, Sheriffs from Wapello and van Buren counties were speakers along with Sheriff Davis. The purpose was to inform us about the current rise in cattle-rustling that’s going on.
The rumor has been around, and from time to time you hear that a cow was slaughtered back in a field somewhere and the meat was taken. I had no idea that so many calves and cows had been stolen right out of the fields.
It appears that organized gangs are roaming several Iowa counties stealing cattle and transporting them to sale barns in other counties. With the price of calves reaching a thousand dollars each that adds up to big losses quickly.
They used to hang horse thieves. I wonder what the penalty is when they catch a cow thief?
Well, that’s it for now.
From where the corn grows tall, and pigs fly.
Take care.
All my love.
Grampa Jim