Salem Cemetery and other updates

I had intended to stop noting Salem Cemetery updates here and post notices on the cemetery site itself (accessible from the sidebar at left), but hit a snag. As soon as I posted a "2009" entry at Salem, the 2008 archive log which lists all 52 lots plus index, disappeared from the sidebar leaving behind only a "2008" header and I couldn't figure out how to get it back. That made the blog less convenient to use, and use by others is the principal reason for it, so I deleted the update notice and brought it back here.

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I've already complained about the continuing battle against paper elsewhere, so won't go there again --- other than to repeat a warning: If you, like I, have a habit of boxing up stray paperwork a couple of times a year and moving those boxes out of sight into storage, promise yourself never to look in those boxes again. When the time comes to move or downsize, throw them away unopened. I decided to sort the contents of my boxes. Big mistake.

So far as the weather is concerned, we had a thunder ice storm here on Thursday and it's still slippery in places and darned cold. That 10-degree difference between north and south Iowa really does make a difference and I wish I were there right now. But I will be soon enough.

Tuesday was a beautiful day in Chariton with a spring-like afternoon --- ideal weather for dealing with the front-yard trees. Lee came over with the necessary equipment and made quick work of it (thank you very much), leaving the equavalent of another tree piled across the front yard. So I spent most of the afternoon hauling limbs and branches down to the city burn pile --- not a bad way to spend the day, all in all.

On the newspaper front, it seems all who still have jobs are on furlough. In Colorado, the Rocky Mountain News bit the dust entirely. And in Iowa, The (Cedar Rapids-based) Gazette Co., whilst cutting 100 or so jobs, renamed its news chief "local content conductor" or somesuch. Huh? That caused one commentator quicker on the draw that I am to note that The Gazette seemed to be going somewhere, although it wasn't exactly clear where, and it seemed to be going by train.

All this is, of course, another fairly clear sign that daily newspapers haven't a clue about what to do. Most, I suspect, would really like to stop being "papers" entirely, dispose of vast numbers of pesky people who have to be paid plus newsprint and production costs and refocus entirely online. The difficulty is that online doesn't generate that much revenue (especially during hard times)and there's little chance anyone would pay much attention to a newspaper Web site gone adrift from its newsprint moorings. Plus the fact anyone, and I do mean anyone, can start an online news site. While I still value The Des Moines Register for its (online) obituaries, I've discovered I depend for news almost entirely upon WHO, KCCI and MSNBC plus specialty sites, a mix of electronic and digital. Glad I don't have to worry about all of this any more.

But back to the Salem update, which was where I was going when I started.

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Lot No. 47: Ekin and Elizabeth Lovell purchased this lot when their youngest son, Ezra, died during 1882. They were English and among the organizers of what probably was the earliest congregation of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS), now Community of Christ, in Lucas County --- down in the southwest corner of Benton Township where it alternated meeting Sundays in the Palmer Schoolhouse with a long-vanished Seventh-day Adventist congregation. The Lovells moved soon thereafter to Decatur County, where the strengthening RLDS church had established Lamoni as headquarters, a gathering point and the site of Graceland College (now University), which still is there although headquarters long since was relocated to Independence, Missouri. Only Ezra is buried here. That's his tombstone up top.

Lot. No. 37: Charley and Christena Johnson both died young by today's standards, in their mid-40s, but left a rich legacy in children --- nine of them, including my great-uncle, Carl Johnson (who married Minnie Myers). So these Swedish emigrants parented half of Lucas County, or so it sometimes seems.

Lot. No. 36: John William and Williminea (or Whilhelmina) Schreck were natives of Germany and the founders of another vast Lucas County family. I'm lagging on this lot primarily because of my own deplorable photos of the tombstones upon it. I've got to get out there and try it again.

I'm starting work now on the White family lots, No. 8, 9 (both mostly done), 26 (Paris White) and 27 (James and Tobias White). So that's probably where I'll be focusing next week.

Interred With Their Bones, et. al.

OK, so I always lag about five years behind the best-seller list. Then there's my aversion to paying hard-cover prices for any work of fiction published in the last century. And my belief that if I am supposed to read a book, it will speak to me as I walk past the section where it's shelved. And no I haven't yet read "The Da Vinci Code," either, although I have seen the movie (thanks to a $7.50 special at Wal-Mart; what in the world was all the fuss about?).

But I did pick up a paperback copy of Jennifer Lee Carrell's 2007 "Interred With Their Bones" (sometimes with some justification described as "The Da Vinci Code" with Shakespeare instead of Jesus) Sunday and got hooked. So badly hooked I awoke at 4:30 a.m. Tuesday wondering where that copy of "Cardenio," the holy grail of Shakespeare's lost plays, not to mention the letter telling us who really wrote all that stuff, was going to turn up. So I got up at 5 a.m. and finished it off.

Turned out to be a good investment at $15 --- and no, paperbacks aren't cheap any more either.

Carrell is a literary scholar turned mystery writer (this was her first), but don't be discouraged if you're not literary or particularly interested in Shakespeare. There are enough twists and turns in the plot, rapid shifts of scene and wrenching jolts as hero turns villain, then turns again, to give a guy whiplash. And better yet, it is completely implausible. But if you are even slightly interested in Shakespeare, all the lightly touched upon references to controversies surrounding his life and works will be icing on the cake of a good solid thriller.

I just took a look at my three volumes of "The Complete Oxford Shakespeare" on the shelf where they've been gathering dust for several years, and am seriously thinking ....

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Funny you should mention Shakespeare. Wait, I mentioned Shakespeare. In that serendipitous way things have of tumbling into each other, Will Shakespeare also figured large in the book I finished off just before Carrell's thriller: Adam Nicholson's "Quarrel With The King."

I kind of look upon Adam as family, since he's the third generation of Nicholsons I've read. His grandparents were Harold Nicholson, a superlative diarist and correspondent, and Vita Sackville-West, writer and lover of not only the irritating Violet Trefusis but also of the more widely acclaimed, but substantially more talented (and depressed) Virginia Woolf. Vita also was one of world's great gardeners (Google Sissinghurst for more about that).

Their son, Nigel Nicholson, probably is best known for "Portrait of a Marriage," recounting his parents' extraordinary and enduring relationship, although he edited his parents' papers, wrote convincingly about many other topics and finished it off with the brief and autobiographical "Long Life," published in 1998.

Adam's done well for himself, too. His "God's Secretaries," a fascinating account of how the King James version of the Bible came to be, is just superb. The most recent of his books I'd read is over there at left and down a ways in the sidebar, "Sea Room: An Island Life in the Hebrides."

"Quarrel With the King," elegantly written, focuses on the rise (and fall) of the Earls of Pembroke (and Montgomery), the Herberts --- Shakespeare, of course, performed with his players at their great Wiltshire house Wilton and the First Folio of his works was dedicated to Philip and William Herbert, "the most Noble and incomparable paire of Brethren."

"Quarrel with the King," however, has less to do with Shakespeare and more to do with the end of feudal communalism that the Pembrokes, their circle and the people of their estates symbolized as told through the rise and decline of the Arcadian dream.

I enjoyed this greatly, but it may be a bit much for anyone not devoted to English history.

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Finally, among the books I hauled from here to there this week was Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd's and Christopher Simon Sykes' massive 2000 "Great Houses of England and Wales."

This is one of those huge coffee table books that, had it been available in 1327, would have been used rather than a "great mattress" (or table, depending upon whom one believes) to suffocate Edward II before that red-hot iron rod was driven up his, well ... no need to go into all of that here.

So after finishing "Interred With Their Bones," one scene (and one murder) of which is set at today's Wilton House, I decided to check the the "Wilton" entry in "Great Houses" and there, occupying a substantial part of a page, was a photograph of the lifesize statue of Will Shakespeare that is a centerpiece of the Wilton entrance hall and from which an unfortunate housekeeper in "Interred With Their Bones" is left hanging by her neck.

Serendipity once again.

A scalpel of thunderous sound

Newspaper clippings come to light as I sift and sort and shred, including today a lovely tribute to a distant cousin of mine published in The Des Moines Sunday Register during the summer of 1979. The writer was Robert Hullihan, a legendary Register reporter and columnist who could make his typewritten words sing four-part harmony. Few can do that these days.

Hullihan's subject, Burns M. Byram II, was a Lucas County boy, raised on his parents' farm about eight miles north of Chariton in English Township. When he was killed in June of 1978, his family brought him home to the farm --- to Spring Hill Cemetery down a narrow lane south of a pond just west of the barnyard, in sight at chore time. His folks are there now, too. A P-51 is engraved on Doc's tombstone, but I've never seen flowers on any of the Byram graves.

Robert Hullihan met a sad end himself just a few years later, if I remember correctly, but I've forgotten some of the details and had better not go there. Perhaps that clipping will turn up, too.

I wonder how many in Marengo remember Doc Byram 30 years later. How about Robert Hullihan?

But here they are again in words, so look --- a column that has it all: Flawless lead, a web of words that seems effortlessly spun as it captures and conveys something of the character of this small-town physician-adventurer and evokes summer on a small-town Iowa square as evening settles in.

By Robert Hullihan, The Des Moines Register

MARENGO, IA --- The sky above the trees in the square hasn't been ripped apart for more than a year now and it is healed perfectly.

There is no scar to show where Burns Byram so often drew his scalpel of thunderous sound through it, making the incision with his "Tangerine," the blade-like airplane from an old war.

"We'd all look up and shout, 'There's Doc! There's Doc!' " said Larry Kruse, an auctioneer in a black cowboy hat. "He just seemed to part these trees."

They'd come running out from Shaull's Variety, the Old Style Tavern, Peterson Drug Store, Blinkinsop Shoes and the other old buildings around the square to watch Doc come home from his other life far beyond this small Iowa County town.

CAME HOME IN STYLE

Burns Byram, physician, surgeon and knightly presence here for 25 years, always came home in a style that led hardware merchant Dick Brown to fondly remember him as ... "well, kind of swashbuckling."

Byram came home flying his P-51 Mustang, the hot, unforgiving fighter plane that looks more like an act of war than any other aerial weapon built by the United States during World War II.

He would come diving down on the town square, boom across the treetops at 300 miles an hour and roll up and away, the plane's 2,000-horsepower engine announcing that "The Doctor is in."

Then he might be in his downtown office until 10 o'clock at night, or at the hospital even later or he might suddently turn up at a patient's door, making an unexpected house call.

He might be wearing "a shirt with ducks all over it and Wellington boots and not look like a doctor at all," said Dave Fry, the dentist. "But he was a good one, even a great one."

"He saved my wife's life," said George Peterson in the drugstore, looking as though he might come close to ears when he talked about Doc Byram.

"He had an inner obligation toward humanity that drove him along," said Brown. "A sacrificing man. I guess that's what killed him."

KILLED A YEAR AGO

Byram was killed a year ago Monday while flying a P-51 --- not his own --- out of Guatemala for a friend. The plane crashed in Mexico. He was 54.

The feeling around the square is that Doc stayed too long with the plane because he wanted to save it for his friend and because he couldn't bear to lose a craft that was virtually a symbol of life to him.

"He was a great pilot. He had more hours in a P-51 than any man in the world," said Duane Potts, the Buick dealer, for whom nothing is the same since Byram was killed.

Byram was a bombadier-navigator during World War II. He flew on 25 missions over Europe but never as a pilot.

"And he told me he got sick every time he went up in those bombers," said his son, "Butch" Byram, helping around the square where a rebuilt fountain was dedicated to his father's memory Friday afternoon.

It might be that Byram always got sick in the bombers because he was, as Potts described him, "a super-softie who never wanted to hurt anyone."

Byram probably hated dropping bombs on people. Perhaps the keen, dangerous silhouettes of those escorting P-51s caught his mind with the promise of single-handed risk.

"He was his own man," said Brown. "He knew how to live. But he'd risk his life. He'd risk it."

A LIFE BEYOND

Byram bought a P-51 after his medical practice was established in Marengo. The range and speed of the plane gave him a life beyond the small town that some people envied and made other uneasy.

Marengo got a glimpse of that world when several remarkably glamorous strangers from many parts of the world appeared at his funeral.

Byram was divorced. He had two children, a daughter and his son Butch, who sat in the square watching workmen trying to make the rebuilt fountain squirt a respectable jet of water in time for the dedication ceremony.

"I miss him," said Butch. "Every time I hear an airplane come over here I look up and think maybe he's coming home."

The fountain was built in 1898, eventually stopped working, then was filled in with dirt and planted in flowers.

Now it has been rebuilt, mostly with funds left over when the local Optimist Club "went defunct," as Brad Hobbs described the passing of the organization.

Bob Gerard was down in a hole beside the fountain, working among pipes and connections. Max Herrmann was laying in the wiring for the colored lights that were to shine up through the water.

The bronze name plate that once was on the door of Doc Byram's office already had been screwed down to the rim of the fountain.

Gerard and Herrmann had been working for 10 hours.

DOC BOUGHT THE DOG

"Well, I remember years ago when my little sister got hit with a baseball bat and had to be sewed up," said Gerard. "When Doc got finished with her he said, 'I think you need a puppy.' He went out and bought her a little black puppy. We had it for years. We always called it Doc."

Gerard threw a switch and the fountain barely bubbled up. People had to stand on the rim of the fountain to see the water spraying up out of a bowl on top.

So Wes Heller brought his compressed air tank over from the gas station and blew out the pipe. Then it worked. Gerard went home to change his shirt and the people began to gather in the square.

The American Legion brought the colors forward. There was a blessing. A few people said a very few words. There wasn't much that needed to be said. Everyone in the square knew about Doc.

"He couldn't stand much ceremony," said Beth Brown. "This is about as long as he would have wanted it."

Butch Byram came forward to throw the switch that turned on the fountain. The colored lights came on in the basin and the water rose about four feet in a gently spray.

The people turned away to a bake sale and an auction being held in the square after the ceremony.

Bob Gerard stood watching the fountain. The soft spray of water seemed curiously formal as a memorial to a man whose spirit made the town something more than it is now.

"You know," said Gerard. "Every time I hear an airplane I still look up to see if it's Doc."

And he did look up, up through the trees that once seemed to part when Doc came roaring home, opening the sky behind him.

But there was no mark up there, no sign that Doc had ever come or gone. That is the work now of the small fountain.

Wind beneath my wings (but the eagles had their feet up)

So I thought I might do a little eagle-watching Monday, overlooking the fact that when the wind is gusting to 40 mph those intelligent raptors are going to be roosting in sheltered spots with their feet up, not out cavorting above the Des Moines River below Red Rock Dam within view of the Horn's Ferry Bridge observatory --- where I was hanging on for dear life.

Actually there were plenty of eagles around --- a few braving the wind way out of camera range downriver, but more just lolling on the ice above the dam doing nothing in particular, also out of camera range since stopping on the dam or the Highway 14 long bridge upstream and jumping out of the truck to take a photo is something the Army Corps of Engineers frowns on. Also a good way to cause an accident. But it was worth the trip anyway.


The Horn's Ferry Bridge, which is really just a stub of the bridge that was recycled into an observation platform after much of the structure collapsed into the river in 1992, probably is the best place in south central Iowa to eagle-watch. The Gladys Black ("Iowa's Bird Lady") Eagle Refuge is just across the river and the birds like this stretch of water below the dam that usually stays open in the winter because of runoff from Lake Red Rock.

The bridge is located on the north side of the river beside the Howell Station Recreation Area just slightly southwest of Pella, so parking's available. If you're coming off the dam from the south, take the first (and only) east-bound road off this stretch of blacktop a ways north and then turn right at the "T." Left will take you into Pella. If the bridge still functioned, this road would take you over it.

I really like the Howell Station area. It's pretty and uncrowded, right along the river and kind of a relief to see the Des Moines coming back to life after being buried for miles upstream under that big pond. The Volksweg (People's Path) trail comes down from Pella to this area, passes west through it, then climbs up and over to follow the north shore of the lake for several miles. So it's good biking and walking territory, too. There's a footbridge across the river here, too, with a couple of trail stubs on the south side that are fun to explore.

Red Rock's Eagle Day is set for March 7 this year in Pella and down here --- all free of charge. You can find more about that on the Corps of Engineers' Lake Red Rock Web site.


To save you the trouble of clicking and enlarging the plaque at the east end of the bridge describing it, here's the text:

Flowing northwest to southeast, the Des Moines River is Marion County's primary watercourse. A boon to agricultural development the river was also the county's principal impediment to travel. For 25 years after Marion County was organized, the only way to cross the river was by ferry. The first referendum to bridge the river came in 1865. It failed because of location disputes.

Horn's Ferry Bridge was completed in 1881 to form a critical link between Knoxville and Pella. As one of Iowa's most historically and technologically significant vehicular bridges, the importance cannot be overstated. It was Marion County's first wagon bridge over the Des Moines River and a pivotal link in the county's commercial and transportation network development.

After 101 years of service the bridge was closed to vehicular traffic in 1982 but remained open to pedestrians and bicyclists.

In the middle of the night on August 31, 1992, one of the stone piers collapsed and in a long, loud, agonizing groan, 300 feet of the bridge folded into the river. Additional spans were removed for safety reasons. The remainder of the bridge is maintained as an observation vantage point.

Horn's Ferry Bridge was a nine-span, iron/steel structure comprised of six 100-foot, pin-connected Pratt pony trusses, a 12-panel, pinned 200-foot Camelback through truss, a 140-foot, riveted Pratt through truss, and a 90-foot, riveted Warren pony truss. The wrought iron was rolled by Carnegie in Pittsburgh. Cost was $10,259.00.

The rest of the story, at least for those of us who remember this old bridge and its sisters upstream and downstrem in use, is what fun it used to be to cross them. They were, of course, one-lane --- designed for horses and wagons not motorized vehicles --- and quite long. So if you planned to cross, a significant pause was required before driving out onto the bridge because you sure as heck didn't want to meet someone in the middle and have to back off.

Salem Cemetery update, dumpster-diving, etc.

I've added content to Lot No. 40, occupied by Elisabeth (Ross) Hickerson, members of the Noah Roberts family and perhaps an unnamed Hawk infant over at the Salem Cemetery site (which links out of the sidebar at left). Elisabeth is one of the few at Salem whose reason for being there I can't figure out (yet). She was 40 and single, living with her parents, when she married a younger (by a good many years) coal miner named John W. "Jack" Hickerson in 1881 and they seem always to have lived in Chariton until her death in 1899. These were poor people in monetary terms, so it is a sign I suspect of Jack's affection for her that she has such a nice tombstone.

Jack, who sustained serious injuries during 1901 and 1902 in the mines out north of Chariton, entered a disastrous second marriage to a woman some 30 years his junior in 1904, divorced her for desertion in 1909 and then vanishes from the Lucas County record --- but he apparently is not buried at Salem. The only possibility I can think of so far is that Jack may have purchased the Salem lot when his father-in-law, Joseph Ross, died at 77 in 1887 at the Lucas County Poor Farm. A note in the poor farm records states that Joseph was "buried by his children," rather than in the poor farm cemetery, but doesn't say where. Now I've got to go take a look again and see if there's room for additional graves on one or the other side of Elisabeth, which initially I didn't think there was. The Ross family was living outside of Chariton in Lincoln Township, perhaps not far from Salem, when the 1880 census was taken.

There also are additional photos on the Marcus L. Evans lot (No. 30) and the Daniel Ragsdale lot (No. 31). Plus it's finally occurred to me that I should link directly from names in the index to the lots where these people are buried --- a time-consuming and continuing project.

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On the up side of getting ready to move and having plenty of time to do it is the fact items you've misplaced surface as you gradually sift and sort. Yesterday, my Fire-baptized Holiness Association file surfaced and so now I can write about it with notes at hand.

As unlikely as it sounds, a major U.S. pentecostal denomination --- the denomination that produced Oral Roberts --- traces its origin to camp meetings held early in the 20th Century at Olmitz out in Pleasant Township. This was the original Olmitz, by the way, located some distance north of Zion Cemetery; not the "new" and later Olmitz, the legendary mining camp a couple of miles south down in the valley.

The difficulty is the fact I'm not very solidly based in pentecostal theology and quite frankly am struggling with the Wesleyan view of sanctification and the pentecostal concept built upon it of a third "gift," baptism by the Holy Spirit that was experienced as fire (as well as speaking in tongues and other manifestations of pentecostal fervor). But I'm working on it --- not baptism by fire but understanding what it was about.

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The down side to disposing of mountains of paper is that here in Mason City much of it must be shredded before it hits the dumpster that serves this apartment building because the dumpsters along our alley are patroled regularly and nothing goes to waste. Garbage bags are slit open (primarily in a search for recyclable cans) and potentially useful items taken away.

I disposed of what once had been a useful plaid shirt jacket the other day --- but the zipper had broken and it was too old and worn to justify repair. When I drove down the alley about an hour later, one of the dumpster-divers had removed it from its bag, held it up for examination from all angles, then put it in his own garbage bag and carried it away.

A bulky floor fan with little or no thrift shop appeal placed in the dumpster Wednesday was gone by the end of the day.

I don't mind the dumpster-divers --- nearly all of them look as if they need whatever they can find. If it were just a hobby, fine and welcome to it. But the thought that there are folks who need to do this to survive in this still-affluent although somewhat beleaguered state of ours, is disconcerting.

What's in a name

I got to wondering after celebrity Britney Spears began her descent into whatever it was she descended into some time ago just how many young mothers cringed when it became obvious they'd named innocent infants after a major case of dysfunction. Chances are, they'd misspelled poor Britney's name as Brittney (do a Google search and you'll get 140 million hits for "Brittney" and only 131 million for "Britney"), but still ...

Parents do the darndest things when naming their young.

Consider some of the greats in my collection of North Iowa names: Mina Bird, Obed Skogerboe, Emmanuel Hogbin, Grover Stover. And the now sadly diminished string of gems popular early in the 20th century: Pearls and Rubys, Jewels and Opals, even the occasional Emerald and Amethyst.

In my own family, I think of Aunt Zella Hockett (left), a pioneering Friends minister in Kansas and Idaho. Born as No. 11 in a string of 12 children to James Wayne and Elizabeth Rachel (Rhea) Clair, her parents seem to have run out of naming options, dipped at random into the Bible and alighted on two, Hannah (rather nice) and Zipporah (daughter of Jethro and wife of Moses; what were they thinking?). Unfortunately, little Hannah Zipporah (1 October 1875-13 January 1951) had many older brothers who promptly started calling her "Zip." Eventually to head off major family unrest a treaty was reached: Hannah Zipporah henceforth was to be called "Zella" and everyone agreed to abide by that.

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Still, names can tell us a lot about people, although generally more about their parents (who did the naming) than the fortunate or unfortunate child who got a good name or an appalling one.

Take Deming Jarves Thayer, for example. Poor Deming and his stillborn daughter, Louise, interred in separate locations in the Chariton Cemetery, are the sole human reminders in Chariton of Smith Henderson Mallory, the once great Mallory fortune and its influence on Lucas County. After Smith H. Mallory's 1903 death and the great First National Bank collapse of 1907, Smith Mallory's widow, Annie, and daughter, Jessie (Mallory) Thayer, fled to Florida. In the 1920s, Jessie returned to Chariton briefly and had her father's body disinterred from the Chariton Cemetery and cremated and the magnificent Celtic cross that had marked both his and Deming's graves crated up. Both ashes and cross were shipped to Orlando, Florida, where they may be found to this day. Jessie, however, left her daughter Louise and husband Deming behind, Louise in the Stanton Vault (now vanished) and Deming alone on the Mallory lot.

Deming's name comes up often in relation to what my friend Nick and I refer to optimistically as "the book," a lagging attempt by me to put the Mallorys and their Lucas County era into some sort of written perspective. So I know a good deal, but not enough, about him. I do know where his name came from, however.

Deming, now high and dry in Iowa, was born 3 October 1852 at Sandwich on Cape Cod to Harlow Hooker Thayer and his wife, Mary P. (Nye) Thayer. Harlow Hooker, a name that probably sounds odder now than when it was administered early in the 19th century, was named after an uncle of that name who had married his father's sister. Harlow's parents were Solomon Alden Thayer and Abby (Stutson) Thayer. As you might expect, Solomon Alden Thayer was descended from John Alden.

Abby (Stutson) Thayer was widowed quite young and seems to have bounced around a bit, although she never remarried. Fortunately for the Thayer fortunes, her sister, Anna Smith Stutson, married very well indeed. Anna's husband was Deming Jarves, so now you see where that name on a tombstone in the Chariton Cemetery, Deming Jarves Thayer, came from.

Deming's mother died at Sandwich in 1859, when he was 7, and Harlow became increasingly obscure. But Deming trained to become a civil engineer and for many years his star was in the ascendant. He built railroads in Colombia and served as an engineer for James B. Eads' Tehuantepec Ship Railway project, a proposed alternative to the Panama Canal that would have moved fully loaded ships from Atlantic to Pacific oceans by rail. In the 1880s, returned to the United States after a career in South and Central America, he joined Smith H. Mallory as chief engineer for his rail-building projects in the West.

Deming also married the boss's daughter, Jessie, on 9 June 1886 and was apparently swallowed whole by the Mallory family. He and Jessie had no home other than the Ilion, the Mallory mansion in Chariton, although much of his time well into the 1890s was spent away on rail-building projects in Kansas and Colorado.

Finally, a descent into some sort of madness began. It's tempting to apply 20th and 21st century science to 19th century people and conclude he was a victim of manic depression, but that's not clear. After a burst of violence in a Chicago hotel, he was institutionalized at Mt. Pleasant, then released some months later reportedly "much improved." Sent off immediately to Eureka Springs, Arkansas, to benefit from its healing waters, he shot himself to death while heading home to Chariton aboard a sleeper car rumbling through the night between St. Louis and Burlington overnight June 20-21, 1898. I've sometimes wondered if he simply couldn't bring himself to face those overpowering Mallorys.

So that's how Deming Jarves Thayer came to Chariton and, sadly, stayed there.

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Now back to Deming Jarves for a few paragraphs. This is not a name that is widely familiar these days --- unless you are a fan of Sandwich glass. Deming Jarves originated that hugely popular and tremendously expensive collectible.

Deming, a wealthy Boston resident and former agent of the New England Glass Co., founded the Boston & Sandwich Glass Co. at Sandwich with two partners in 1825. The operation he developed there as principal owner and manager became known worldwide for its pressed-glass innovations and the quality of its products. It also became widely known for its benign treatment of company craftsmen and their families.

Perhaps at the behest of Jarves's wife, Anna (Stutson) Jarves, several members of her family came to Sandwich to live and/or work, including her sister, Abby S. (Stutson) Thayer, and nephew, Harlow Hooker Thayer. Harlow acquired and operated for some years a lumber operation founded as part of the Sandwich glass operation. So it must have seemed honorable (and perhaps useful) to Harlow Thayer and his wife, Mary, to name their firstborn in honor of this illustrious great-uncle, Deming Jarves, in 1852.

Deming Jarves got into a fight with the board of the Boston & Sandwich Glass Co. in 1858 and withdrew. With his son, John, he founded the nearby Cape Cod Glass Works which he operated until his death in Boston on 15 April 1869 at the age of 77. John Jarves died a young man, however, and Jarves operations at Sandwich ceased after Deming Jarves' death.

Deming Jarves was buried in Boston's widely renowned Mount Auburn Cemetery, I believe, but his widow --- like his nephew Deming Jarves Thayer --- would find a place of rest far from home. Soon after Jarves' death, Anna (Stutson) Jarves set sail for England to join her daughter, Anna Maria (Jarves) Brewster, then living on the Isle of Wight. She died at Ryde, Isle of Wight, on 19 November 1874 and was buried in its cemetery where she was joined in 1900 by her daughter, Anna Maria; and in 1933, by her grandson, William Brewster.

The family potty chair and other stuff

I present herewith in all its splendor the family potty chair (or invalid chair if you prefer), another of those items I'm trying to figure out where to put when it moves north to south. I'm sure it would have been worth a fortune had I not scrubbed it thoroughly many years ago, touched up the finish and had a friend add the flowers and fruit (Evy was into what is known in some circles as "tole painting").

It has had a long and useful life (although not in my generation), passed from sick bed to sick bed across Lucas County when needed, but always returning to my grandfather's house when its mission was complete. It is a marvel of functionality. The chamber pot was placed on a small platform under the seat, the lid lifted, the invalid placed and all was ready.


I suspect it started life as a plain straight-back armchair, but whoever modified it did a good job. The lid is carefully cut with a neatly inset knob. The only sign that it might not have been designed to serve necessity is the fact the back spindle that would have held the whole thing together a little more securely has been removed to facilitate manipulation of the chamber pot.

It's lived in four of my living rooms over the years, but has never provided very practical seating. I've glued (but never screwed) the lid into place, but it always seems to come loose and slide around under the bottom of whatever unfortunate ends up in it when every other chair is full.

It's always interesting to confront your stuff when preparing for a transition. I like my stuff and don't regret for a minute acquiring it, but figuring out exactly what to do with it is another matter.

The great burden here is paper. I thought the digital age was supposed to lessen the paper load and save trees. Apparently not. My mailbox is a good example of that. Most of my correspondence now is by e-mail, so fewer interesting things arrive, but advertisers see that it's filled regularly any way. Some of this is just silly. Take banks. Some years ago, banks decided they wouldn't return cancelled checks. OK. But then they replaced that once-a-month mailing that included a statement with envelope after envelope full of advertisements for credit cards, car insurance, life insurance and investment opportunities (when there still were investment opportunities). I get at least one a week from two banks. Go figure.

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As it turns out my long-time friend Mary E. is moving from Mason City to southern Iowa, too. Serendipity I think. So we talked about that for a while over coffee in Chariton Monday and then I went down to her 40-acres-and-a-house Tuesday for lunch.

I'm delighted about this. Mary E. is (a) one of the world's great cooks; (b) good company; (c) a good friend although we go months sometimes without talking to each other; and (d) an inspiration because of her eternal optimism.

Neither of us live in the past (I do like to poke around in the past as this blog illustrates, but have no interest in going there), but I live mostly in the present with one foot poised to step gingerly into the future. Mary E. just jumps. One thing you've got to watch out for if you encounter Mary E. and you probably will because, as she says, Iowa is just a small town between two rivers --- she always has plans and one of those plans probably involves you.

I get a kick out this move because I recall well when those 40 acres first entered her family. Who would want to live THERE? she asked. Then she spent more time there, primarily as a caregiver; and then she ended up with it; then she started putting it in order to sell; and then she fell in love with it. Southern Iowa's like that.

So Mary E. and I spent some time talking about our stuff. She has more than I do to confront --- and she has grand piano and I don't, thank goodness!