Nothing new under the sun

That old saw is very old indeed, taken from the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes (1:9, NRSV): "What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun." But I think it's still true although there are many more of us now than then and we communicate, when we choose to do so, with lightning speed --- although with no more clarity or charity.

I came upon my photocopies of the following consecutive entries from the "W" section of the Lucas County "Poor House Register," a bulky bound volume from the county archives, while sorting out a couple of oddities in my online family files this week. They speak for themselves, as old and dusty records sometimes do:

Name: Whitten, Mary
Age: 24
Sex: Female
Nativity: American
Date Settled in County: May 1864
Date Admitted to Poor House: Oct. 1870
Height: 4 Ft. 8 In.
Weight: 90 Lb.
Col. Of Hair: Black
Col. Of Eyes: Dark
Complexion: Dark
Peculiarities: Ordinary
Date Discharged: Jan. 3 1876
Remarks: (None)

Name: Whitten, Matta
Age: (blank)
Sex: Female
Nativity: Born in the County Home
Date Settled in County: Nov. 11, 1870
Date Admitted to Poor House: Nov.11, 1870
Height: (blank)
Weight: (blank)
Col. Of Hair: Black
Col. Of Eyes: Blue
Complexion: Fair
Peculiarities: Ordinary
Date Discharged: Feb. 22, 1872
Remarks: Adopted by Wm. Weberster of Lucas County

Name: Wilson, Jane
Age: 22
Sex: Female
Nativity: American
Date Settled in County: (blank)
Date Admitted to Poor House: Jan. 1, 1872
Height: (blank)
Weight: 100 Lb.
Col. Of Hair: Black
Col. Of Eyes: Hazel
Complexion: Fair
Peculiarities: Deformed and never walked
Date Discharged: Died Aug. 18, 1896
Remarks: Buried at Newburn by her Father

Name: Wallas, Mary
Age: 66
Sex: Female
Nativity: American
Date Settled in County: 1855
Date Admitted to Poor House: Oct. 17, 1872
Height: 5 Ft. 10 In.
Weight: 110 Lb.
Col. Of Hair: Grey
Col. Of Eyes: Blue
Complexion: Fair
Peculiarities: Ordinary
Date Discharged: 1874
Remarks: (blank)

Name: Ward, Nancy
Age: 35
Sex: Female
Nativity: American
Date Settled in County: 1855
Date Admitted to Poor House: Oct. 17, 1872
Height: 5 Ft.
Weight: 110 Lb.
Col. Of Hair: Dark
Col. Of Eyes: Black
Complexion: Dark
Peculiarities: Ordinary
Date Discharged: 1874
Remarks: (blank)

Name: Ward, Martha J.
Age: 3
Sex: Female
Nativity: American
Date Settled in County: 1869
Date Admitted to Poor House: Oct. 17, 1872
Height: (blank)
Weight: 35 Lb.
Col. Of Hair: Brown
Col. Of Eyes: Black
Complexion: Dark
Peculiarities: Ordinary
Date Discharged: 1874
Remarks: Bound to A. D. Minshall

Name: Ward, Ishmal W.
Age: 5
Sex: Male
Nativity: American
Date Settled in County: 1869 (sic)
Date Admitted to Poor House: Oct. 17, 1872
Height: (blank)
Weight: 65 Lb.
Col. Of Hair: Light
Col. Of Eyes: Blue
Complexion: Fair
Peculiarities: Ordinary
Date Discharged: 1874
Remarks: Taken by Jacob Myers

Name: Ward, Samuel D.M.
Age: 1
Sex: Male
Nativity: American
Date Settled in County: 1869 (sic)
Date Admitted to Poor House: Oct. 17, 1872
Height: (blank)
Weight: 35 Lb.
Col. Of Hair: Light
Col. Of Eyes: Dark
Complexion: Fair
Peculiarities: Ordinary
Date Discharged: 1874
Remarks: Adopted by Mr. Walters

There you have it: A probable birth outside of wedlock, to use the old-fashioned term, then separation; disability; families broken by poverty and dispair and circumstance. And here we have it still.

The Jacob Myers who "took" Ishmal W. Ward was my great-great-grandfather. Jacob and his wife, Harriet, raised Ishmel Myers as a son. Ishmel married Elma Redlingshafer, they relocated to central Louisiana (near Alexandria) and he lived a long and useful life --- dying in 1964 at age 97. I know nothing more about his siblings and mother than what the records state.

The photo here of the Lucas County Poor House is not the poor house Ishmel and his family lived in, but its successor built on the county farm just northwest of Chariton during 1904. Although I remember it, the county farm is gone now and Hy-Vee's huge frozen foods distribution warehouse stands on its site.

The only remaining trace is the old poor house cemetery, northwest of the warehouse right along the Burlington Northern tracks, where several of those who did not leave the poor house alive and who had to fathers to bury them were interred.

The lost boys

My cousin, David Johnson, died two weeks ago and it’s a sign of how frayed the family news wire has gotten that I found out at the post office the morning after the funeral.

Death in Chariton announces itself with calling cards --- funeral notices scattered around town by Clark Fielding or John Pierschbacher. So it’s not unusual to glance at the counter while sorting mail --- or at Casey’s while paying for gas --- and see the face of someone you know smiling up at you dead from a neat paper square.

It would be an outright lie to suggest that David and I were close. I hadn’t seen him in years. And although the relationship was fairly close for Lucas County --- our dads were first-cousins --- it would be considered distant elsewhere. Still, David and the other lost boys --- his younger brother, Paul, and Albert Johnson (no kin), my Russell classmate, were part of growing up.

I saw David last, I think, at the last Myers reunion he and his mother, Thelma, attended before she died. We both smoked and no one else did, so around and around the block we went, cigarettes in hand, catching up. After his mom died, David didn’t seem to be able to hold it together on his own, so a place was found for him at the Iowa Veterans Home in Marshalltown. I guess he died there, but don’t really know. It may be there’s no one left to write an obituary. That family circle is closed now --- David, Thelma, Emory and Paul all in a row in the Russell Cemetery.

I kept thinking for years that I should stop in Marshalltown on my trip south some Sunday afternoon and see him, but didn’t. We always think there will be time and, in the end, there isn’t.

David and Paul were orphans and Albert, a foster child --- and that made them unique to those of us who, 50 years ago, were parts of dense family webs. Always slightly outside no matter how hard everyone tried to make it otherwise. And when something went wrong, as it often did with Paul especially, it was always in neighbor eyes and the clatter of relatives the fault of unknown biological parents who had thrown their children away, adoptive or foster parents foolish enough to lovingly borrow trouble, and of course the boys themselves --- somehow flawed because of circumstance.

I don’t remember when David and Paul arrived, brought I think from eastern Iowa, perhaps the Annie Wittenmyer Home at Davenport. They were always there --- built-in playmates.

But I do remember Albert’s arrival --- that first morning we stopped for the first time ever in the old Russell school bus at Charles and Dortha Relph’s farm halfway down the Transformer Road between Russell and the Wayne County line. Born 10 July 1946 at Dubuque, he arrived among us on Jan. 31, 1957, when we both were 10.

David and Paul, biological brothers I think, were adopted by Thelma and Emory and given the Johnson name. Albert never was adopted --- always the foster son. His Johnson surname was original equipment. Although his mother, Grace, still was living and there reportedly were several brothers and sisters, we never saw any indication of their involvement in his life.

Paul was the smallest of the three --- and smart as he could be, but also the most available when trouble made an offer. David was fragile, jumpy. My dad used to adopt every stray pup that wandered up the road. You always could tell when a pup had been kicked around before it was dumped --- fragile, jumpy. Like David.

I think maybe Albert (left) had the best chance of the three --- sweet disposition, a hard worker. He had trouble reading, though; and this was before teachers were smart enough to realize it had something to do with a learning disability --- not intelligence. So teachers were just mean to him sometimes and I’d gladly spit on Pearl Evans’ grave for that ( If you think kids forgive and forget, think again).

Charles and Dorothy kept Albert close to home, so he didn’t get to do some of the foolish and fairly harmless things the rest of us did --- chasing fire trucks out into the state forest rather than sticking with play practice (we got in big trouble for that), jumping the Wolf Creek railroad bridge in Larry Arnold’s car --- just to see if it could fly, seeing how many of us could fit in the Cottingham Cadillac when her folks let Gwen Ann bring it into town.

In the end we all finished high school in one way or another and began the drift apart.

Albert was the first to leave us. On the night of 22 March 1965, less than a year after graduation and near the Highway 34 twin bridges east of Chariton, he tried to pass a car on ice-slick pavement, lost control and slid into an oncoming stock truck. He was thrown from the car and died on the pavement.

Albert had gone to work in Chariton after graduation and was renting the upstairs of a house my mother‘s cousin, Edna West, owned. He had enlisted in the Air Force and would have left for basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio on April 1 had he lived.

Charles and Dortha buried Albert in the Russell Cemetery, then did an odd thing. Instead of having Albert’s wrecked car hauled to the junk yard, they brought it home and stuck it in a ditch southwest of their house, always after that part of the view from their front windows. And a reminder to those of us who drove down the Transformer Road for years after (and I had to because that was the road home) of Albert and how he died. That car rusted in that ditch for years --- until finally the farm was sold and the new owner had it hauled away. We never figured out why Charles and Dortha did that.

Paul, a couple of years younger, had established a promising criminal record for himself in Lucas County before the judge called a come-to-Jesus meeting in 1972 --- when Paul was about 22 --- and told him the next stop was the penitentiary or the Marines. Paul opted for the Marines.

He seemed to do OK there and was home on leave during April of 1973 before heading off to Okinawa. Racing down the pavement one night north of Oakley with two other young men, he lost control of his car and it rolled several times, off the road, then on again. Paul and a 17-year-old were killed. The other passenger survived.

My dad said Paul clipped the rail of the bridge across Whitebreast Creek just below Mount Zion Cemetery and that was what caused him to lose control. The pavement takes a dangerous little turn there so the bridge can cross the creek straight and every time I approach it from the north I think of Paul and treat that kink in the road with respect.

David kept on through the military, jobs, a failed marriage, watching out for his folks, who in turn watched out for him. And now he’s gone, too.

Could be there’s a lesson here, but I can’t find it --- unless it has something to do with the great unfairness of life. But I like to think about these guys, remember them, worry the situation like an old dog with a bone. Maybe one of these days clarity will come.

Postscript: David's obituary finally was published in the Chariton Leader on 6 May. Here it is:

David Howard Johnson, age 61 years, 11 months, died April 10, 2008, at the Iowa Veterans Home in Marshalltown, Iowa.

David was born May 31, 1946, to Emory and Thelma (Hall) Johnson (actually he was adopted later by Emory and Thelma) in Keokuk, Iowa. He was stationed in Korea during his military career. He returned to Chariton, Iowa, after his military experience. David then worked various jobs in the Chariton area, which included farming and other outdoor occupations.

David was preceded in death by his parents, Emory and Thelma (Hall) Johnson, and one brother, Paul Johnson. Several aunts and cousins from Chariton, Iowa, survive him.

David had made his home at the Iowa Veterans Home for the past nine years. The Veterans Home will be honoring him with a memorial service on Wednesday, April 16, 2008, at 11 a.m.

Graveside memorial services with military rites will be held at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, April 15, 2008, at the Russell Cemetery. American Legion, Carl L. Caviness Post No. 102, will be officiating the service. Fielding Funeral Home of Chariton, Iowa, handled the service arrangements. Memorials may be made to the family.

Curmudgeon (cheese with your whine, sir?)

At approximately 6:55 a.m. last Saturday as my cheapskate dial-up modem did battle with the ISP's receptors, it dialed 911 --- and at 7 a.m. two very nice police officers came to the front door to inquire about my welfare. They had never heard of such a thing and neither had I. Whine No. 1, 18 April.

While enjoying toast Monday morning with my Today show friends, my nose began to run and I commenced to cough --- and continued to do so for 24 hours. If I could get my hands on whoever gave me that short and violent cold.... Whine No. 2, 18 April.

I've bought a pound of the same brand of Fair Trade coffee every week at HyVee West for as long as I can remember. For as long as I can remember, no checkout person has been able to find the item in the list of codes for items that do not have scan bars. I have the price memorized ($7.99 a pound); usually that's enough. This morning, it wasn't. The clerk looked and looked; a HyVee sub-manager type looked and looked and looked some more. The line at express check-out lengthened. I lost my temper. Whine No. 3, 18 April.

You think you've got two half-way decent candidates in Hillary and Barack, then find out neither has the sense God gave a goose. How ya gonna end a war if you can't be civil enough to each other long enough to put a Democrat in the White House? Hell, John McCain doesn't need friends to land the presidency; he just needs Clinton and Obama. Whine No. 4, 19 April.

You've all heard it: Is the Pope Catholic? By gum we found someone at the office this week who didn't know that. Honest. Whine No. 5, 19 April.

It's been that kind of week ...

Resurrection of Franklin Baptist Church

I’ve gotten tangled up again in Church-o-mania --- not theology (too destructive) --- but appreciation for the structures our forbears built to speak about their hopes and convictions --- expressing faith architecturally. Sometimes to the greater glory of God and sometimes to the greater glory of themselves.

Iowa is blessed with many survivals, some grand and others not --- and they can restore faith in the power of harmonious design.

I blame some of this new church tangle on Simon Knott, whose “Churches of East Anglia” Web site (also linked under “Anglophilia” at left), offers a chance to visit with him every Anglican and Roman Catholic church in England's Suffolk and Norfolk, depending upon which option you choose. I’ve spent way too many hours doing that.

Fair warning, though, Simon is Roman Catholic --- and therefore sometimes cranky about the Anglicans who, courtesy of Henry XIII, wrested every Roman church in England from the old faith and rebranded them Church of England. He is more justifiably incensed at later English protestants who set out to excise all traces of the old faith, shattering virtually every medieval bit of glass in the country , defacing the saints, dewinging the angels --- and in general behaving very badly.

In Iowa, rural churches especially are endangered as population declines, expenses mount and vandalism increases. Only five are left in Lucas County --- Center Community, Norwood United Methodist, Goshen Baptist, Pleasant Prairie United Methodist (a newer building that replaced an older one) and Bethel United Methodist, which I believe is no longer used although that’s a fairly recent development. None is grand although each reflects the resources and worship practices of the congregation that built it. They come by their simplicity honestly.

But the most common fate of small rural church buildings has been this: Congregation disbands, but cannot bear to tear its building down; the church deteriorates and is vandalized; the building finally is burned or bulldozed when it becomes a hazard.

There are exceptions, however; and I happened upon one of those a couple of years ago in southwest Appanoose County, southeast of Seymour, while looking for the grave of a young man named Albert B. Crouch, who had been killed in Vietnam on the 18th of May 1970, 19 days after he had arrived there.


That took me to Livingson, the ghost town where he is buried; and to the beautifully restored Franklin Baptist Church. This simple church was built in 1881 within the old village of Livingson atop a hill looking down on the cemetery. Extensively remodeled in 1960, it had lost among other things its bell tower and original siding --- and as the years passed it became increasingly endangered.

What happened next is remarkable.


The Historic Livingston Foundation was organized in 2003 by members of the Livingston Cemetery Association, Franklin Township trustees and others to conserve the history of the village and restore the church. They replaced the building’s foundation, installed cedar siding and cedar shingles and built and installed a new bell tower and bell. Now, restoration of the interior is in progress and the goal is to create a living, breathing building that once again can serve its community.

The foundation, which has an excellent Web site here, also hopes to move a one-room schoolhouse to the site and restore it and to construct a museum. Wow!

So thanks to the Historic Livingston Foundation, Franklin Baptist Church still is with us --- standing in for hundreds of other rural churches that have fallen, reminding us of what was and what still is possible.

To reach Livingston from Corydon, drive east on Highway 2 through Promise City to the Seymour turnoff a mile east. From Seymour, drive four miles east on (paved) County Road J46, then turn south onto 135th Avenue (gravel) and drive four more miles.

For more about Albert B. Crouch, who brought me to Livingston in the first place, read on.

Albert B. Crouch, 1948-1970

I first learned of Albert B. Crouch, who brought me to Appanoose County's ghost town of Livingston some 35 years after he died, a few years ago when an old friend of his told me that I’d omitted Albert's name from a list of the Vietnam War dead who had connections to nearby Seymour. I had put that list together for an online memorial dedicated to Jerry Hickerson, a Corydon High School graduate who is buried in Seymour’s South Lawn Cemetery. My omission now has been rectified by that friend at the Virtual Wall.

Albert, an honors student full of promise, had been in Vietnam only 19 days when the UH-1H (Huey) helecopter he was piloting took ground fire on 18 May 1970 and he died at the age of 21.

During January of 2006, I heard via the Virtual Wall from the crew chief of that helicopter. He had witnessed the death and although he did not know Albert well, had carried his memory with him for 35 years. He wanted to know more, where Albert had lived and where he had been buried, all a part of the process of putting his mind to rest.

Looking for that information took me first to the Corydon Public Library, then to Livingston --- carrying a small flag.

I had learned from Albert’s obituary that he was the only son of Floyd and Carma Crouch, born Dec. 6, 1948, in San Diego, Calif., but had called the rolling hills of southwestern Appanoose County, not far from Numa, home. He had two sisters, Sharon and Bonnie.

A 1966 graduate of Seymour High School, Albert was student body president his senior year and salutatorian of his class.

In 1968, he graduated from Centerville Community College (now a campus of Ottumwa-based Indian Hills Community College). While enrolled there, he had served as editor of the yearbook, was a member of the Phi Beta Lambda business fraternity, National Rifle Association and Photo Club and had participated in intra-mural athletics. An academic standout, he was named to “Who’s Who in American Junior Colleges.”

Following his junior college graduation, Albert had enlisted in the U.S. Army for training as a helicopter pilot; had married Pamela Lynn Branz of San Antonio, Texas, on June 23, 1969, at Fort Rucker, Alabama; and had received his wings and the rank of Warrant Officer 1 during October of that year.

Assigned to Troop B, 7th Squadron, 1st Air Cavalry Division, Albert began his tour of duty in Vietnam on 30 April 1970. Eighteen days later, he was dead.

Albert's obituary states that the helicopter he was piloting on 18 May 1970 was being used to evacuate wounded, but that was not the case.

The HU-1H (Huey) was a powerful single-engine craft capable of transporting up to 13 troops at a time and Albert's was being used that day to deliver Vietnamese troops to a landing zone in Kien Hoa Province.

On this flight, troops were dropped off, Albert lifted his craft, did a hovering 180-degree turn low to the ground and while at hover, the craft was struck by small arms fire. A bullet hit Albert in the head, killing him instantly. No one else was injured and the Huey was brought under control and flown away.

In all, during bloody Vietnam, 2,202 Huey pilots were killed.

When Albert’s body was returned to Seymour, funeral services were held at the Fifth Street United Methodist Church, then burial followed on this peaceful hillside at Livingston with a view of the woods beyond.

Quite recently, the war in Iraq claimed its 4,000th U.S. life. Just last night we learned here in North Iowa of the death of a young man from Hampton that was related to wounds he had received in Iraq last year.

It is very odd to look at photographs of Albert Crouch’s grave, ask why he died and speculate about how many lives his death affected adversely and how many lives he might have affected positively had he lived --- then remember that in a few days we’ll be covering the military funeral of another young man, dead in another war, leaving another generation to ask the same questions.

There are no satisfactory answers, not a single one. But may they all --- Albert B. Crouch especially now near the 38th anniversary of his death --- rest in peace, rise in glory and never be forgotten.


This is the government-issue tombstone giving details of Albert's service that has been placed at his feet.