Check other Lucas County war dead rosters, too

Dedication of Veterans Memorial Park last Memorial Day.

The rosters of Lucas County's war dead --- from Civil to Somalia --- are almost complete, barring additions or corrections from those, perhaps you, who read them and make suggestions. So take a look if you've got the time. I posted the Civil War roster yesterday.

Later on this spring, the names will be inscribed in granite and then placed in Veterans Memorial Park as a lasting tribute. While names can be added later, it certainly would be a positive thing to get them all right the first time. That's a challenge, however.

These are not official lists --- such things divided by county do not exist. And they're intended to be generous, incorporating all who might have considered themselves Lucas Countyans even though they might have been living or working elsewhere when they enlisted or were drafted.

If you have additions or corrections to make, leave a comment on this blog post or on any of the links to it posted on Facebook.

Spanish American War 

Walter E. Black, William T. Black, Benjamin F. Dismore, John W. Mauck 

World War I 

Gerald A. Bowen, John C. Burley, Raymond S. Cain, Carl L. Caviness. Fred A. Culbertson, Joseph A. Dachenbach, Charles F. Dean, Donald O. Duckworth, Lawrence Gookin, Earnest E. Herndon, Henry R. Johnson, Charles C. Lockridge, Harry W. Lykins, Kenneth L. McCoy, Montie W. Norman, Rudolph Otz, William B. Pulley, Stanley H. Rouse, Arnie Ryun, Rudolph E. Sandahl, Oshea J. Strain, Robert Thomas, Roy B. Tickel, Vernon L. Van Loon, Walter West, Forrest D. Youtsey 

World War II 

Mahlon B. Angstead, John E. Baxter Jr., Mark D. Bingaman, Donald L. Blue, Ora E. Cackler Jr., Thomas E. Carr, Beryl L. Clark, James D. Clark, Prosdocimo Della Betta, Walter Eckerman, Roy Ellis, Forrest Exley, Gerald Gathercole, Kenneth Haines, Arlie Hanks, Ellis Hatfield, Ronald Hayes, Wilma Jervis, Robert Keene, Andy Knapp, Lorance Krashowetz, Joseph Larson, Donald Long, Conrad McDonald, Franklin McDonald, William Marshall, James Miller, Fred Mincks, Robert Mitcham, Lyle Morris, Raymond Morrison, Lyle Mosbey, Wayne Needles, Loren Nussbaum, Raymond Nutt, Howard Oden, Jefferson Osenbaugh, Paul Pastovich, Richard Patterson, Vernon Pearcy, Stephen Pesuth, Oscar Peterson, Carlos Poush, Kenneth Ross, Leo Sampson, Herman Skinner, Homer Smith, Robert Smith, Zaccheus Stemm, Gerald Storie, Henry Thompson, Isaac Van Hook, John Vickroy, Charles Walker, Vernon Wells, Gordon Werts, Floyd Zimmer 

Korean War 

Alfred Agan, Donald Halferty, Roy Kirton, George Musick, Jerry Parker, Elmer Rowe, Lyle Shelton, Manuel Spoon, Harold H. Thorne 

Vietnam War 

Dennis Bingham, Leonard Cooper, Dennis Levis, Larry Peterson 

Somalia 

Matthew K. Anderson

Check this list of our Civil War dead for accuracy

This is an invitation to check for accuracy, relying on information you may have that I don't, the following roster of 150 men from Lucas County who died while in service during the Civil War. I've tried to be as careful as possible, but there are all sorts of inconsistencies in 19th century record keeping systems.

Some of these guys have given me fits. James Ratliff, a young man from Jackson Township, for example.  He apparently enlisted at Chariton during 1862 as James "Ratliff" and that was the way the family surname was entered in the 1860 Lucas County census. However, the surname inscribed on his tombstone at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery is "Ratcliff." And it appears in other records variously as Ratliffe and Ratcliffe. I think I may change the name to "Ratcliff" before turning the list over, since that's the name carved into government-issue stone. We'll see.

I'ts a generous list in the sense that I've included the names of some men who also could be attributed to other Iowa counties. Recruiters worked every town and village in Iowa during the war year and a number of Lucas County men crossed the county line into Marion to enlist at Newbern, for example. The names of two of my uncles appear on the list. James M. Rhea, who lived in Cedar Township, went to Iconium in Appanoose County to enlist. A few men from Clarke County rode over to Last Chance to enlist in Lucas County units and some from Monroe enlisted at the county-line village of LaGrange. And so it goes. 

But everyone here is officially attributed to Lucas County in one way or another. If you have a name that you think should be added, please comment on the blog or on whichever Facebook link to this past that you may come across. Thanks!

Remember that Civil War soldiers who died in service were buried near where they died and then in many cases, when the war was over, were disinterred and moved to national cemeteries. Identification often was lost. A few of these men are buried in Lucas County --- they were home on furlough when they died. Rarely --- almost never --- were remains brought home after the war. Many of our cemeteries, however, contain memorial cenotaphs to the dead.

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Lucas County's Civil War Dead

John B. Ables, Theodore Ables, John W. Armstrong 

George W. Bacon, John W. Badger, Verlin Barker, Abraham Bechtol, Nelson Bell, John W. Boyce, Samuel Boyce, Lynas Brockway, Otis P. Brown 

John T. Callahan, Harvey L. Carson, Bailey Chaney, Henry C. Christy, Jonathan Christy. Oliver W. Coffman, George B. Colver 

Nelson Davenport, Zadock Dawson, Amrah Day, James Dixon, Charles L. Dooly, Jonathan Dooly, Jacob A. Duckworth 

Jacob Easter, Abel T. Edwards, Robert Etheredge, James C. Evans, William A. Evans 

Samuel Fansher, David Finley, Joseph Fisher, Milton Fisher, David Fodge, George W. French 

Lambert B. Gardner, Stephen D. Gardner, Joseph Gerthaffer, Cumberland Gartin, George Gilbert, Aaron H. Goltry, William H. Goodpasture, Alexander Gookin, Zebulon J. Gray 

John Hall, William Hannon, James Hanson, Monroe Harden, John G. Harvey, Jennings Hays, Josephus Hays, Robert H. Hester, Andrew Holmes, Fergus G. Holmes, Oscar F. Holmes, William Hughes, Charles Hunt 

Daniel Iseminger 

Lorenzo James 

Hilas L. Kells, John Kneff, Allen W. Knight, Martin Krutsinger 

Lewis L. Lane, Cyrus C. Larimer, Samuel Laugh, David J. Leffler, Anderson Lister, Eurotas C. Lyman 

John A. Maiwald, Alkana Malone, Isaac Marsh, James Marsh, Peter Marts, Amos Mason, Edwin H. Maydole, Daniel McDermott, Carlton McNew, Joseph C. McPheeters, William H.H. Melvin, James Mercer, John A. Mercer, Joseph Mercer, Stanton Millan, Oliver B. Miller, David T. Mitchell, James Mitchell, Littleton R. Moore, Soloman Mundell, John S. Musselman 

Samuel Nettleton 

Joseph Overton 

David R. Parr, Jonathan C. Payne, Daniel Phillips, Benoni Y. Plymate, Newton J. Poston, Cooper Powers, Peter C. Powers, Andrew Prather, Martin Prather 

Gabriel Ragsdale, James Rariden, James Ratliff, Francis M. Reynolds, James M. Rhea, John A. Richards, James D. Roach, Reuben Roberts, Thomas Roberts, Luther Roland, Graham Roney, Martin Roseman, Hugh Runyan 

George Sams, Simon Sams, George Schworm, John B. Seward, William Sheets, Adam S. Slagle, James H. Spurling, John H. Stanley, William Stuart, Lewis Stoneking, Truman A. Story, Elijah Summers 

Oliver Threlkeld, William D. Tull 

Alexander Van Meter, James M. Vincent 

Justice E. Wade. James Wagoner, Simeon B. Warford, William Waterhouse, Elijah M. Wayland, John W. Weaver, Samuel E. Webb, Jesse Wells, Silas Wells, Cyrenus L. Weston, Francis M. Wheeler, James W. White, John Williams, Pleasant Williams, Samuel Williams, Allen J. Wilson, William M. Wise, Isaac C. Wood

With Pvt. Joseph Overton at Cave Hill Cemetery

This is the week I complete --- at last --- that roster of Lucas County's war dead I've been writing about now and then. If I don't, Earl Comstock is going to have my hide and run it up a flagpole --- the roster is scheduled to be inscribed in granite and then installed at Veterans Memorial Park this year; time is growing short.

So I'll finish up the "Ps" and the "Rs" of the Civil War list today and tomorrow and then be done. In all, about 140 Lucas County men gave up their lives during Civil War service and tracking them down has been a little complicated. 

But think about that number, taken from what at the time was a rather small Iowa county population-wise. Although these men are largely forgotten now, nearly everyone living here then would have been related to --- or a friend or neighbor of --- one of more of these men who ranged in age from 17 into their 40s.

Yesterday, while tracking down the gravesite of Pvt. Joseph Overton, I ended up at Cave Hill Cemetery and Arboretum in Louisville, Kentucky. That's a cemetery I'm kind of familiar with (as a Cemetery geek in good standing, I follow its page on Facebook). It has a reputation as one of the most beautiful cemeteries in the United States as well as being among the most innovatively managed --- and presented to the public.

It's also the final resting place of luminaries ranging from George Rogers Clark through Col. Harland Sanders to Muhammad Ali. As well as Lucas County's Pvt. Joseph Overton.

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Joseph and his family actually lived in Lucas County for only a very short time. He was Tennessee born, on April 4, 1832, and moved with his family into Missouri during the 1850s. By 1855, the Overtons had settled not far from Princeton in Mercer County, not far south of the Iowa line, and he was married there on Jan. 31, 1859, to Elizabeth Lindsey.

Shortly after 1860, the couple relocated to a farm in Cedar Township, Lucas County, near the village of LaGrange, where they were living with their two small children, Nancy and Robert, when Joseph enlisted at LaGrange on June 24, 1863, in Company F, 8th Iowa Volunteer Cavalry. Nancy then returned with her children to Mercer County and lived out the remainder of her life there.

On Oct. 30, 1864, the 8th Cavalry and other units were involved in a skirmish with Confederate forces at Mussel Shoals, Alabama --- near Florence --- and Joseph sustained a gunshot wound that shattered his right femur and then was taken prisoner.

He was paroled on Dec. 17 and transported to Louisville, where he was taken for treatment to  Crittenden General Hospital where he remained until his death six months later on May 19, 1865, of complications related to his wound.

By now, Lee had surrendered (on April 9) at Appomattox and the Civil War was winding down across the South.

Cave Hill Cemetery, which takes its name from a spring that emerges in a hillside cave in the cemetery grounds, was dedicated in 1848 as one of the earlier "garden cemeteries" in the United States, intended to be both a burial place and an uplifting spot of natural beauty to engage visitors.

In 1861, the Cave Hill Cemetery Co. donated a section of the cemetery for the burial of Union soldiers who died in and near Louisville and what now is the National Cemetery consists of several Cave Hill sections added to the original section as the years passed. Because there is no room for expansion, the National Cemetery is closed to future burials.

But it was to this lovely spot that Pvt. Joseph Overton's remains were brought and buried during the spring of 1865.

Additional information about Cave Hill Cemetery and Arboretum is available on its web site, which is located here.

Wiring Vilma Banky to New York in short strips ...

Vilma Banky with Ronald Colman in "Two Lovers," 1928

Times were getting tougher in 1928 as the United States plunged toward economic depression. Headlines on the front page of Chariton's Herald-Patriot of April 5 read "Farm Problem Grave" and "Lucas County's Mines are Idle." The centerpiece cartoon featured an unemployed man sitting on a park bench.

But there were lighter stories, too, including one headlined "Movie Sent by Wire: Experiment Shows How News Events May Be Handled" ---

Chicago, April 4 --- An advance in the transmission of pictures by wire was made today when for the first time a motion picture was sent over telephone lines to New York City for display there.

A closeup of Vilma Banky, motion picture star, was taken in the telephone offices of the American Telephone and Telegraph company and transmitted over the wires.

Ten feet of film were used. The film was cut up into short strips and sent as "stills," or ordinary pictures. At the other end of the line the strips were pieced together and photographed on regular motion picture film.

This form of transmission, it was explained, could be used for movies and news events."

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Banky (1901-1991) was an Hungarian-born silent film star, largely forgotten now but widely acclaimed during the late 1920s when she was paired with such male heartthrobs as Rudolph Valentino and Ronald Coleman. Her Hungarian accent was a barrier to a career in the talkies, as was her wish to settle down with husband Rod La Rocque and live a less public life (their marriage endured until his death in 1969).

The technology seems primitive now --- I watched a streaming video last evening. But for the time, it was quite advanced.

Although photographs had been wired from one point to another as early as 1895, Western Union didn't send its first wire photo until 1921; AT&T, its first image via telephone until 1924; and RCA, its first radio-transmitted image until 1926. The Associated Press Wirephoto process was introduced in 1935 when it became practical to send images via regular telephone lines.

When I first entered a newsroom more than 30 years later, stories still arrived via teletype on long strips of paper, adding to the typewriter-produced clatter, and wire photo receivers linked to the Associated Press mothership by telephone still spat out image after image on lightweight coated paper from which halftone engravings could be produced.

Much has changed since, but the thought of Vilma Banky being disassembled in Chicago, transmitted by wire to New York, reassembled and screened much have seemed near miraculous at the time. Who knew what the future might bring.

Birthday boy ...

Initially, I figured I'd find a birthday topic by checking out the old newspapers to see what had happened on this date 72 years ago --- but came away disappointed.

The biggest news of the week in Chariton was arrival of the first two war brides, one from England and the other from Australia. Having no idea how these relationships progressed, it seemed wise not to go there.

Banner headlines in both the morning Register and evening Tribune of March the 27th, 1946, involved a search for the remains of a southwest Iowa farmer named Thomas Worm who, as it turns out, had been dispatched a couple of years earlier by his wife and a neighboring farmer involved in a multi-year adulterous relationship. The gentleman went to the penitentiary for 99 years; the lady, to the reformatory for 25; and the unfortunate Mr. Worm's remains have never been located.

Interesting, but too grim for a celebratory day.

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I've written before about the surprise involved in still being alive.

Many of us, young then, fully expected to be killed in Vietnam. I came home somewhat disoriented but unscratched.

Somewhat later, I anticipated testing positive for HIV and dying of AIDS. But that didn't happen either.

I even survived the prayers of that long-ago Baptist preacher who appeared in my office one morning with a handwritten letter to let me know that his Bible study group, acting as prayer warriors, were petitioning the good lord to take me home if I didn't change my political and social viewpoints. They're dead. I haven't.

Old age, I expect, will prove fatal, however.

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My choice of parents was extraordinarily astute. They were kind and gentle people who loved the land and were careful stewards of it. 

So I grew up in a home where voices were rarely raised, battles never occurred, unkind words about those who differed were not spoken, religion was something other folks fought about and I was free to amuse myself along wild fencerows and in the creek beds and woodlands of southern Iowa.

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I was paid modestly for many years to do in one way or another something I still love to do --- tell stories. And I picked up a number of now obsolete skills in the process. In a pinch, I still can handset type, for example, although my stick now hangs on the garage wall and California Job Cases are few and far between.

Having observed in recent years more violence, name-calling, lying and downright bad manners via the social media than ever before in real life, I'm grateful for grounding experiences that equipped me with a degree of of equanimity.

I'm happy about the hard-won rights now accorded to LGBTQ people, who can (if they wish to) in the West at least live and work in the light, even marry. And only wonder occasionally what might have turned out differently had these opportunities arisen earlier.

But best of all, I have a lot of faith in the younger people, women people, people of color, queer people who now face the daunting prospect of sorting out the residual messes left behind by the older generation --- my generation --- now thrashing around as it passes.

Baptizing Chariton with a jug of whisky

James G. Robinson

The powers that be, some years ago, asked me to compile a brief history of Chariton's founding for the new city web site. 

So I included, briefly, a favorite story: That James G. Robinson, a founding commissioner of Lucas County, arriving late on a September morning in 1849 at the spot (now the southwest corner of the Chariton square) where those assigned to establish a county seat had decided to drive the stake locating it, found these gentlemen relaxing in the grass, having consumed one jug of whisky and preparing to send a boy back to Buck Townsend's cabin for another.

Sadly, the story was considered inappropriate --- and deleted. Oh well.

But here's the source of the story --- a letter written by Mr. Robinson during July of 1899 to newspaper editor Henry Gittinger, published then in The Russell Union and republished 10 years later in The Chariton Leader.

This is the second of two history-related letters that the pioneering Mr. Robinson wrote that July from Farnhamville, in the neighborhood where he had relocated his family in 1872 after leaving Lucas County's LaGrange. He was  78 at the time and planned to write more --- but succumbed to a heart attack on August 19 and that was the end of that. You'll find the text of the first letter here.

To put the following letter in context: Lucas County's first election was held Aug. 6, 1849, at the cabin of William McDermott at "Ireland," just west of what now is Bethel Cemetery in Cedar Township. At that election, Robinson, Jacob Phillips and William T. May were elected county commissioners. The commissioners and others elected that day were to serve a year --- until the next election was held on the first Monday in August, 1850.

Lucas County's official founders met to organize the county on Sept. 10 and 11, 1849, at the Chariton Point cabin of William "Buck" Townsend. Another commission, appointed by the Iowa Legislature, had been touring the county and reached its decision as to where the county seat should be located on Sept. 11. Its decision was affirmed by the county commissioners on the same day the locating stake was driven.

Here's the text of Mr. Robinson's second letter:

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Shortly after the election (Aug. 6, 1849) the officers met and qualified, except the two clerks. A commissioner's clerk was appointed. If there was ever a session of the district court during the first year, I have forgotten it, but I feel very sure there was none.

The commencing of the county business was quite embarrassing to the commissioners; none of them had ever acted in that capacity before and there was no former record to throw light on the line of business belonging to the office.

We had no legal adviser, the law making no provision for a county attorney, and if it had there was not an attorney in the county. We had plenty of advisers, telling how such business was transacted in Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania, but the law must have been different, as they all gave different advice, and with so much jargon we took such as we thought was for the best.

We held rather a secret session, and passed a resolution which we did not have put on the record, but we lived as strictly to it as if it had been recorded. It was that we would do the best we could, let what come, and we would hand the county over to our successors free of debt. Taxes were not heavy, as we had but little property to be taxed --- although the territory included six counties there was not a foot of taxable land within it. There were no monies and credits; no general merchandise. One man sold whisky but it was not taxable in those days, neither did we resort to the dog tax.

We paid no county road or bridge tax, no poor, insane or soldier's relief tax, and, one thing I claim was creditable to those early days, we never paid a bond tax. The assessment had been made by Monroe county, and a part of the tax collected, but the amount was small. The treasurer's balance sheet, when we settled with him on the first of January (1850), showed that from the time he took office up to the time of settlement, he had collected of the county fund about three dollars and fifty cents; the amount paid over by the treasurer of Monroe county I do not remember, but it was small.

To meet the county expenses with so small an amount, and carry out our resolution, was a knotty question. In the first place we reduced our own pay. The commissioners were allowed $2.50 per day, but no mileage --- we took only $1.25. The clerk was allowed $2 and he took $1. And then we insisted on all that had claims against the county to do the same and to a great extent it was done.

The legislature had appointed three commissioners to locate the county seat, Wareham G. Clark of Monroe county, Pardon M. Dodge of Appanoose county, and a Mr. Fisher of Wapello. They came on in September (of 1849); was the county two or three weeks.

I received word from Mr. Clark stating the day they would determine where to drive the stake and wishing the commissioners to meet them. I went to Chariton Point and was told the men were out on the prairie northwest. I went to the corner of sections 19, 20, 29 and 30 and there I found five men and two boys with handkerchiefs spread down on the grass, with a deck of cards. They had drunk one jug of whisky and was putting a boy on a horse to go for another. They told us at that section corner the committee had determined to drive the stake. That afternoon they did so, and as they were all three democrats, and anxious to do honor to the democratic administration that had gone out the March before, named the new county seat "Polk."

Here was another problem to rack the brains of the county commissioners. The county seat had been located on public land and (the county) had not a dollar to pay the government for it. We made a deal with one William Record for a Mexican (War) land warrant, as they were known then, calling for 160 acres. We were to give him $100 as soon as we could raise the money from the sale of lots --- he was to also have two choice lots and had the right to select them anywhere in the town, only they should not be adjoining the public square. We had the town surveyed and platted, a Mr. Bratton, of Appanoose county doing the work, and when the plat was recorded we thought Chariton a more appropriate name and had it thus recorded.

We then determined to have a lot sale and offer each alternate lot for sale, and reserve the others until some time in the future when the town improved and the county became more thickly settled. We thought they would then demand a better price.

The policy of the commissioners was to keep the fund raised by such sale entirely separate from the general county fund, to be used only in paying off the expenses connected with the town. The locating commissioners were to be paid and the land warrant had to be settled for, besides the surveying and platting of the town, and other expenses.

A day was set and the lots were offered for sale at public outcry. W.A. Townsend cried the sale and lots went tolerably brisk but we could never get them to reach what we thought they should, but others thought differently. W.T. May and I held a short consultation, half the lots not yet being sold, but enough had been raised to meet the expense, and we concluded to stop the sale, and started to where Mr Townsend was.

On our way we met Uncle Xury West and told him what we had decided to do. He was on his horse, and raising his hand high in the air and shaking his bony fingers, shouted: "Boys, don't you do it. Go ahead and sell every lot in the town. You may keep these lots for forty years and you will never get a better price than you are getting now."

The lot cornering with the southeast corner of the square brought the highest price of any sold, which was about $31.00. One lot adjoining the square had brought $17. We closed the sale and there were no more lots sold during our term of office.

The warrant had to be laid by an individual and not by the county. I was appointed as a committee to attend to it, went to Fairfield, laid the warrant and at the same time give a bond for a deed when I received a deed from the government. The law was changed and the county business was done by a county judge before I received the deed.

Our general election came the first Monday in August (1850). We had to establish suitable voting precincts to accommodate the electors, and as there were few voters west of Lucas county, no precinct had been asked for, so we concluded all would like to have a good visit on that day, and we established but one precinct and that was at Chariton.

A new board of commissioners was elected which served but one year. The new law had abolished the commissioner's office and the county business passed into the hands of a county judge. The new commissioners thought best to differ with the old, and during their term of office sold the balance of the town lots at about the prices they brought at the former sale. On two sides of the plat the blocks were not full and were known as "out lots." these brought ten dollars per acre. I still think we were right, but others honestly thought not. (signed) J.G. Robinson, Farnhamville, Iowa, July 25th, 1899.

Looking for the risen Jesus --- in the streets

Yolanda Renee King

Those of us who are secular Christians --- generally non-theistic and rarely given to magic thinking --- approach our tradition's Holy Week (commencing today on Palm Sunday and concluding with Easter) from various perspectives.

The death of a man called Jesus and his storied resurrection are at the heart of it, but when viewed in context and considering the mythic story-telling that inflates their significance into a primitive and bizarre atoning blood sacrifice --- only part.

I think about others who have died for our sins --- millions of Jews, demonized for centuries by the church; millions of indigenous people slaughtered or otherwise dispatched by Christian soldiers operating in the spirit of Nicholas V's "doctrine of discovery"; millions who have died in war; the 17 who died Feb. 14 at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School, victims in part of this new turning toward the messianic potential of assault-style rifles and other weaponry now that Jesus has proved such a disappointment.

Searching for the resurrected Jesus, too --- believing that such a miracle occurs only in the hearts and minds of women, men and children when the way he taught --- love and service --- rises within them. Sometimes driven by righteous anger.

Sometimes, the risen Jesus is in the streets --- Saturday's "March for Our Lives."

Finding prophetic vision in the voices of children, including that of 9-year-old Yolanda Renee King, granddaughter of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, on Saturday in Washington, D.C.:

"My grandfather had a dream that his four little children would not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. I have a dream that enough is enough, and that this should be a gun-free world, period."

Amen.

This little log-cabin grease light of mine ...

Some of us develop romantic notions now and then about our Iowa pioneer ancestors gathered by candlelight around supper tables in their cozy log cabins. When, in fact, that rarely occurred. 

Cabins were small, but not necessarily cozy --- and candles were a luxury, even when homemade as most were.

Most of our log cabin forebears, when in need of light at night, gathered around a grease lamp like this one (from the Lucas County Historical Society collection) instead.

This came to mind yesterday while transcribing James G. Robinson's pioneer memoir of life in temporary shelter during 1848 in Cedar Township while log cabin building was in progress. "The wind sometimes made our lard lamp a little troublesome," he wrote, "yet the lights that were hung out at creation's first dawn were never obscured, only by a cloud occasionally."

These little lamps, although smokey, smelly and sometimes dangerous, were inexpensive and powered by household scraps --- bacon drippings, for example, or lard or some other variety of grease.

Operation was very simple --- the reservoir was filled with grease and a twist of grease-impregnated cloth lay along the spout, wicking it up. The cloth then burned to the grease line providing a bright little --- usually smokey --- light.

The hook, which allowed it to be suspended from a chair back or a nail or a peg, usually also incorporated a pick that could be driven into the logs (or chinks) of a cabin wall.

It's hard to say how long these items remained in common use in Lucas County, but my maternal grandfather, born in 1875, remembered his family using a "betty" lamp on the prairies of English Township when he was a child. 

A betty lamp, from the German "besser" or "better," was an improved grease lamp. The reservoirs were lidded and the wick emerged from a hole in the lid, making operation a little less messy and smokey.

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This little lamp came to the historical society during 1978 from Wilma (Sanders) Hollingshead (1900-1979) and had been used in the pioneer log cabins of of Adam M. and Esther S. (Bretz) Noland, maternal grandparents of her husband, Lloyd (1901-1971).

The Nolands didn't arrive in Lucas County until 1897, when they settled in the Bethel Church neighborhood of Cedar Township, so their pioneer cabins would have been located elsewhere. By 1897, grease and betty lamps had for the most part been replaced by more familiar and far brighter glass-chimney lamps fueled first by coal oil, then by kerosene.

The Nolands married in Scott County during 1857, then moved to Hardin County where they lived for many years before relocating in Lucas County. So the lamp most likely was in use in Scott and/or Hardin counties during the early years, then packed and brought along to Lucas County as an heirloom.

Cedar Township's prairie for a living room in 1848 ...

So far as Lucas County's history is concerned, two 1899 letters from James G. Robinson to Henry Gittinger, at the time editor and publisher of The Russell Union, are about as close as we can get to information straight from the horse's mouth. He was the only one of our earliest settlers to have left behind a written memoir, although sadly a short one. That's Robinson and his wife, Francis, above.

Robinson was 78 during July of 1899 and a resident of Farnhamville, on the Calhoun-Webster county line, when he wrote the letters. He had moved his family from Lucas to Calhoun county during 1872 after an apparent excursion into Kansas.

Both letters were written and published in The Union during July of 1899, with more promised. But James died of an apparent heart attack on Aug. 19, 1899, and the story-telling ended. The issues of the Union in which the articles were published no longer exist. But Henry republished the letters on Sept. 2, 1909, in The Chariton Leader, which he then owned and published.

James staked his claim in what became Lucas County during April of 1848 --- just west of where U.S. Highway 34 now crosses the Lucas-Monroe county line --- and brought his family up from Davis County, where they had lived since 1844, during July.

At the time, there were 20-30 families at most living in the county, Chariton did not exist and caravans of Mormon pioneers bound for Utah kept the dust flying (and the ruts deepening when it rained) on the old Mormon Trail as it meandered through the future sites of Russell and Chariton, then turned southwesterly at Chariton Point toward Clarke County bound either for Garden Grove or Mt. Pisgah.

Robinson was a skilled writer. I loved the line, "Although a little circumscribed in our sleeping accommodations, we had for kitchen, dining room and parlors, the south half of Cedar township." It's our loss that he didn't live long enough to write more.

Here's the text of his first letter; I'll transcribe the second another day and have a related side trip or two planned as well:

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Editor Gittinger: An item in your paper a short time ago, stating that a half century ago on July 4th, the county of Lucas, state of Iowa, was organized, brought forcibly to my mind some of the events of that early time, and perhaps I might give some reminiscences that would interest some of your readers.

But having to depend entirely upon memory, having no records at hand, much that would be of interest will have to be left out.

I made a claim in April, 1848, and in the following July brought my family to Lucas County, and settled down in the grass where afterwards sprang up, and then after a hard struggle vanished, the little village of LaGrange. We had to use the bed of our ox-wagon, which was covered with a heavy canvas, in which to store away our household goods that needed protection from the rain and wind storms, and also for sleeping apartments, until I could erect a log cabin.

Although a little circumscribed in our sleeping accommodations, we had for kitchen, dining room and parlors, the south half of Cedar township.

The wind sometimes made our lard lamp a little troublesome, yet the lights that were hung out at creation's first dawn were never obscured, only by a cloud occasionally.

I put some poles under our wagon bed, where it had been placed on posts high enough to prevent any obtrusive rattler from crawling in on us unawares, and on these poles we trained our chickens to go to roost, but while we slept the wolves stole our poultry.

There were but few families living in the county at that time. The first election I attended after coming to the county was at the house of a Mr. Van Cleve, living on the Wells prairie, ten or eleven miles southeast of Albia, or Princeton it was then.

In 1849 an election was held for the purpose of electing the necessary officers to organize the county. Notices of which had been previously posted by the sheriff of Monroe county.

I do not remember the exact date of the election, or time of the first meeting of the officers. Our territory extended to the Missouri river, including the counties of Clarke, Union, Adams, Montgomery and Mills. A few weeks before the election a call was made for a union convention, or caucus, to nominate a ticket to be voted at the coming election.

Iowa had the previous year cast her first vote for president, and party feeling and prejudice ran high, and convictions were deep. A union convention was called not because our party zeal had abated. A few of us had been thrown together, strangers in a strange land, and undergoing alike the harships and privations that attended pioneer life; such surroundings create a sympathy and friendship seldom found in other avenues of life. And another incentive for such a movement was, there were not enough of us to make two tickets and give either of them a respectable vote at the election.

The convetion was held at Chariton Point southeast of the present town of Chariton. I was not present but was told W.A. Townsend, who lived there at the time, had cut down a little scrubby oak tree and had taken the limbs for firewood, and the members of the convention, including the chairman, were all seated on that log.

The ticket nominated was, for recorder and treasurer, Samuel McKinley, democrat (great uncle of Carmi McKinley, present candidate for treasurer on the democratic ticket. -- Ed.); sheriff, Samuel Payne, whig; commissioner's clerk, W.A. Townsend, democrat; clerk of the courts, W.W. Waynick, whig; commissioners: W.T. May, democrat; J.W Phillips, whig; J.G. Robinson, democrat. The entire ticket was elected by sixty or seventy majority, or plurality, just as you may call it. The entire situation at this time proved the fact that this was a day of small things, but they should not be despised.

We were farming like our fathers had done before us, cutting grass with the scythe, and making the hay with a hand rake; the small grain was cut with the old turkey wing cradle, no other kind of harvester thought of. The ground was crossed off and corn dropped by hand and covered with a hoe. No threshing machines, no railraods and none expected. A state road had been laid out from Ottumwa to Council Bluffs, which passed through the county, but no one could follow it five miles, and none tried to; none of the streams were bridged, and in traveling we followed around on the divides, heading the streams where they could not be crossed handily.

There was not a mail route or post office within our borders. The first mail route was from Albia to Chariton, a boy carrying the mail on horseback three times a week. He passed by my house on his beats, and accommodated me much by carrying letters to the Chariton office, and bringing my mail on his return. (signed) J.G. Robison, Farnhamville, Iowa, July 15, 1899.

What in the world happened to Berry F. Halden?

1936 Campaign illustration for Chariton's Berry F. Halden.

Chariton Herald-Patriot editor and publisher Berry F. Halden, a youthful 42, was the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate during mid-October of 1936 when he was the subject of a lengthy WHO-Radio address by Paul H. Cunningham, noted orator and Polk County representative in the Iowa Legislature. This paean to his worthiness then was published statewide.

"He is a new meteor in the political heavens," Cunningham began. "In his lustrous path he leaves a trail of Americanism. Men's hearts are warmed and their souls refreshed by the crusading spirit of this young American who has taken up the cudgel for a defense of the principles in a nation which gave him his opportunity."

Halden, perhaps, was as surprised to find himself a candidate for U.S. Senate that fall as Iowa Republicans had been to have the opportunity to elect him.

Four years earlier, Richard L. Murphy, of Dubuque, had ridden into the Senate on the coat-tails of Franklin D. Roosevelt. He was the first Iowa Democrat elected to the Senate since 1858.

But then a tragedy struck. Driving home to Dubuque from a vacation in Wisconsin on July 16, 1936, a tire blew on the Murphy sedan near Chippewa Falls, it plunged down an embankment and the senator was killed.

Democrats nominated U.S. Rep. Guy M. Gillette to seek the balance of Murphy's unexpired term, but Republicans found themselves at something of a loss.

Then someone remembered Berry F. Halden. He had delivered a highly acclaimed keynote address during the Republican state convention earlier in the year in Des Moines and had all the characteristics of an ideal candidate --- male, young, a World War I veteran, active in the American Legion, a family man, editor of The Herald-Patriot, general manager of both the Leader and Herald-Patriot and author every week of a highly regarded and widely quoted column.

Sadly, for Halden and Iowa Republicans, Gillette went on to win the election. But the man from Chariton had put on a strong showing and obviously had a political future.

+++

A native of Moulton, where he was born April 13, 1894, Halden was a graduate of Moravia High School and of Iowa Wesleyan College. He had gotten his first taste of the newspaper business as a printer's devil in Moravia and, in 1915, commenced work for the Albia Newspapers as printer, then mechanical foreman and finally as news editor.

In 1917, he married Nina Hamilton of Centerville, then went off the next year to fight in World War I and was honorably discharged in 1919. The Haldens had one daughter, Maudetta. He was a Mason, a Methodist, commander of the Albia American Legion Post, vice-commander of the Iowa Legion Department and chairman of its Americanism Committee. Who could have asked for more?

During 1930, Berry was promoted and placed in charge of the Chariton Newspapers and established a record of community service in his new hometown --- Mason, Methodist and Legionnaire again, now a Rotarian, too.

+++

Although Halden was not selected to run against Gillette --- easily re-elected in 1938 --- he continued to rise in state Republican circles by making himself useful and doing what was asked of him, while continuing to edit The Herald-Patriot. He was an able organizer, publicist and campaigner.

During late January of 1939, after having resigned his editorship at mid-month to make it possible, Halden received his political reward --- appointment by Gov. George Wilson as secretary of the Iowa Executive Council, consisting of the governor, secretaries of state and agriculture, state treasurer and state auditor.

The Council had a wide range of duties, including making all purchases for state agencies. It was, in fact, kind of a shadow state government and none too forthcoming about its activities when confidentiality served its needs. Halden himself, as Executive Council secretary, also served as secretary of the Iowa Conservation Commission and of the state Board of Engineering Examiners.

Now positioned at the highest level of state government, Berry's future looked bright.

But within two years, his career crashed and burned, his marriage apparently failed and he receded into obscurity. Some of the circumstances surrounding this remarkable fall remain a trifle obscure.

+++

Iowans learned that trouble was in the air on Friday morning, April 4, 1941, when The Des Moines Register (and other dailies across the state) published the news on their front pages. The Register headline read, "Halden Facing Driving Charge: State Official Posts a $500 Bond."

Here's the text:

ATLANTIC, IA --- Berry F. Halden, 46, secretary of the state executive council and a former Iowa newspaper editor, was released on a $500 bond here early Thursday after his arrest on a charge of driving while intoxicated.

Arrested with Halden, who was driving a state-owned car, was Fred Willis, a statehouse custodian. Willis was charged with being intoxicated and released on a $25 bond.

The arrests were made in the Cass county courthouse yard by Sheriff Harry Jordan, and Halden and Willis were arraigned immediately before Justice of the Peace John Budd.

State Business

The car was driven here from Des Moines Wednesday evening by George Hesalroad, state car dispatcher, who had business here. Halden and Willis rode with him.

According to authorities in the sheriff's office, Halden and Willis apparently took the car while Hesalroad was busy, and went for a ride. Hesalroad was not present at the time of the arrest and was not held.

Test Refused

Authorities also said an attorney acting for Halden refused to allow a blood-alcohol test taken.

Justice Budd set Monday as the date for Halden's and Willis' hearing, but said Thursday night the hearing probably would have to be postponed from that date until the Cass county grand jury could hear evidence in the case.

Halden was a Republican candidate for United States senator in 1936 for the unexpired term of the late/senator Louis Murphy, who died in July, 1936. Halden was defeated in the election by Senator Guy Gillette.

+++

Back in Des Moines on Friday, the Executive Council met and announced that it had "temporarily" suspended both Halden and Willis.

On April 19, Halden's attorney made no protest as his client was bound over to the Cass County Grand Jury for further hearing during its September term. Willis was fined $25 on the intoxication charge. Both men remained on suspension.

Four months later, during late August, Halden avoided an appearance before the grand jury by pleading guilty to the drunk driving charge and was fined $300.

For four months after that, however, the Executive Council for reasons lost to time declined to clarify Halden's status, stating only that he remained on indefinite suspension. Willis, too.

During early December, however, The Register learned from an anonymous informant that Halden had indeed been fired, a replacement selected --- and Willis restored to his custodial position at the Capitol. It reported as follows in its edition of Dec. 11:

The state executive council, meeting in secret session in a Savery hotel room Thursday, was reported to have selected a new secretary to succeed Berry Halden of Chariton.

The office has been vacant since the council suspended Halden last April following his arrest at Atlantic on charges of driving while intoxicated. Halden last August pleaded guilty and paid a $300 fine.

Although the executive council would not confirm the report Thursday, reliable sources said the man selected to succeed Halden is William Brown, Onawa newspaper man.

The council also, it is reported, decided to reinstate Fred Willis, assistant statehouse custodian, who was arrested with Halden in Atlantic last April and charged with intoxication.

Although council members always have insisted Halden merely was under suspension, it was learned Thursday that he actually was discharged some months after the suspension became effective.

State executive council records do not show the discharge. State comptroller's office records show Halden was given a two-week "vacation" pay and his name taken from the payrolls. 

+++

Berry and Nina Halden remained together in Des Moines through the end of World War II. She was employed by the state, too --- as a clerk in the tax department --- and continued in that position for many years to come.

In 1946, Berry moved to Chicago and never returned to Iowa again, except to visit. There is no sign that he ever re-entered public life, nor was I able to find what he did to support himself after that. Although separated, the Haldens seem not to have divorced.

During early February of 1967, The Herald-Patriot published a two-paragraph notice of Halden's death on Jan. 31, identifying him as a former editor. He had been hospitalized, according to the report, at the Edward Hines Jr. Veterans Administration Medical Center in the west Chicago metro area. He was 72. Burial was in the Camp Butler National Cemetery at Springfield, Illinois --- Halden's home seems to have been in southern Illinois at the time of his death.

Nina Halden survived for nearly 30 more years, dying at age 99 in Minneapolis on Feb. 15, 1995. Her remains were taken to Springfield and interred beside those of Berry in the national cemetery. The government-issue stone that marks her grave identifies her as his wife.

Celebrating Mid-century Modern

The Chariton Historic Preservation Commission on Tuesday honored Allen Poush and his West Braden Avenue home --- Allen for helping to preserve the built history of his hometown, the house as a beautifully conserved example of "mid-century modern."

That's Allen, above, with the plaque he received from Alyse Hunter, Preservation Commission chair; and the house, below. Yesterday was gray and chilly and everything looked worn and scruffy, poised now between winter and spring --- so I borrowed the Google "street-view" of the house, photographed during the summer.

It's hard to find in Chariton a home more "mid-century" than what sometimes is called the "Perrin house." Max (1893-1975) and Elsie (1891-1978) Perrin, owners of Perrin Hatchery, commissioned the house during 1951 and during August of that year sold their former home --- a big two-story house immediately to the west --- but retained occupancy rights until Jan. 1, 1952, when they planned to move into the new dwelling.

This is the newest home honored by the Preservation Commission, which presents a plaque like this every couple of years --- and by selecting it we hope not only to recognize Allen and his home, but also to encourage others to look around and become aware that a building need not be multi-story, more than a century old and loaded with gingerbread in order to be considered architecturally significant and worthy of preservation.

We don't know, so far, who the architect was --- but have been told that perhaps five houses that shared similar characteristics were built in town soon after 1950 --- after World War II had ended but before the new Ilion Acres subdivision set off a post-1956 building boom in north Chariton. One of these certainly is the sprawling R.E. Anderson home on east Osage Avenue.

"Mid-century modern" is a very broad term applied to buildings, furniture and decorative trends between 1935 and 1965, weighted heavily in the Midwest to the post-World War II years. One-level homes came into favor and they began to sprawl. They were built with great care and fine materials, but the fussiness of the Victorian years that had waned during the 1920s and 1930s vanished.

The Perrin/Poush house is quite large --- but reflects a different aesthetic and set of perceived needs than those prevailing now. There are only two bedrooms --- very large with custom-built cabinetry --- a generous bathroom and store room in the west wing. The L-shaped living and dining area fills the center of the house with walls of windows facing north and south and a massive stone chimney setting off the stone-flagged foyer. The kitchen-breakfast area is to the east of the foyer and a large utility room beyond that. The double garage opens into the utility room and south of that is a large open porch with a second stone fireplace and chimney. The home is built on a concrete slab.

Allen is the home's third owner and has changed very little other than updating utilities when needed and refreshing, recarpeting, repainting and refurnishing --- maintaining the fabric of the house at a high level.

The idea for this periodic recognition of building owners came from the late Larry Clark, when he served on the Preservation Commission, and Janet Clark continues to contribute.

Keep an eye open for other good mid-century examples as you're out and about. Some will look something like the Perrin/Poush house, others will have flat roofs and/or sleeker lines (although many flat roofs have been modified) and some will channel homes of an earlier era. But there are lot of them out there.

My weekend with Grant Wood

Grant Wood, 1941, Figge Art Museum

The goal wasn't to get stuck here in a Grant Wood-related mode for three days, but a couple of interesting (to me) things happened --- so here's a third post. The last I think for the time being.

It started with a Sunday morning post, Grant Wood and the Story of "Sultry Night," about two current retrospective exhibits of the Iowa artist's work and, specifically, the story of a lithograph entitled "Sultry Night," featured in both. The image of a farm hand bathing by moonlight alongside a stock tank is the most graphic work Wood is known to have produced, penis (gasp) clearly evident.

Quite unexpectedly, that post went --- in the modest terms of this obscure blog --- "viral" --- more than 8,000 views before the link I'd posted to an Iowa history-related site was taken down by its administrators the next morning.

By comparison, the usual number of daily views for the blog is somewhere in the upper hundreds, a thousand-plus on a busy day. That total includes hundreds of views related to earlier posts that have turned up among 12 years of posts as browsers "Googled" for information on one topic or another.

That link was shared, then reshared --- which accounts for the total. And it generated quite a few interesting comments --- nearly all of them productive --- on the Facebook page itself, all gone now.

There were four or five mild complaints about the nudity and/or the fact the post referred to Wood's homosexuality and a couple of funny ones (to me) from folks who contended that art was not related to Iowa history. And finally, a little snarkiness developed among commenters and that probably was what doomed the link, although the aforesaid nudity, etc., may have made some of the administrators nervous, too.

But all in all it was a positive experience and I was happy that that so many people still were interested in Grant Wood and his work and gratified that a few, hopefully, are now more familiar with the lithograph in question.

It's always been one of my favorite Grant Wood works --- not because of the nudity but because of the subject matter. It reminds me of my late father.

Just out of high school in the 1930s, depths of the Depression, and wanting to farm but flat broke, Dad started his independent working life as a hand on the Slater farm, south of Russell. The Slater family --- among the most affluent in the Russell area --- consisted at the time of bachelor brother Ray Slater, maiden sister Mary Slater and sister Elba (Slater) Sikes, who ruled the roost.

My dad really liked Ray, with whom he worked daily, but wasn't especially fond of the sisters. Mary taught school in Des Moines, returning to the farm on weekends and during the summer; Elba also lived in Des Moines, but spent a great deal of time at the farm, too. Dad characterized her as a "battle axe."

In any case, Dad was given a bed in the attic of the big Slater house and allowed to eat in the kitchen, but was forbidden to use the bathroom --- and there weren't that many bathrooms around in rural Iowa back in the 1930s. So he used the old outhouse and bathed during the summer, when farm work was hot and sweaty, by moonlight in a stock tank, using a bucket to douse himself, then rinse off.

A wonderful couple who lived just up the road, Lloyd and Bessie May, kind of adopted Dad and saw  to it that he got a couple of good meals during the week and had someone to talk to. And since he had Sundays off, he could go home then (his mother did his laundry).

I'm a fan of much of Grant Wood's work --- especially those images with people in them. He was very good at conveying character and incorporating thought-provoking detail. If you pay attention. And of course he was a far more sophisticated guy than the aw-shucks, bib-overall-clad public persona he sometimes adopted suggests.

To the commenter who asked, "did farm hands really bathe naked like that?" Yup. And "Why didn't that guy turn his back so we didn't see his, you know what?" One of the many marks of a great artist is the ability to catch his or her subjects unaware.

A couple of Grant Wood-related footnotes

"Appraisal," 1931, Dubuque Carnegie-Stout Public Library, owner; displayed at the Dubuque Museum of Art.

Yesterday's post, Grant Wood and the story of "Sultry Night,"  discussed two retrospective exhibits of the Iowa artist's work, one in progress now at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and the other at the Des Moines Art Center.

"Victorian Survival," 1931, Dubuque Carnegie-Stout Public Library, owner; displayed at the Dubuque Museum of Art.

Here's a link to the Art Center's promotional material for its March 30-June 24 exhibit; and here's another, to the Whitney site, offering a virtual tour of the more than 100 items in the retrospective that will remain on display there through June 10.

"Self-portrait," 1932/1941, Figge Art Museum, Davenport.

Iowa museums and institutions own the largest concentration of Wood works, so many of the items on display now in New York have traveled there from the Hawkeye state. The images here are of major Wood paintings from Iowa collections on display at the Whitney. There's much more in other categories of the exhibit.

"Young Corn," 1931, Cedar Rapids Community School District, owner; displayed at the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art.

Of course all of these works will return home to Iowa when the Whitney exhibit closes, so there's little excuse for Iowans who enjoy Wood's work not to enjoy it first-hand. Other fine works are as nearby as Omaha (the Joslyn) and Minneapolis.

"Spring in the Country," 1941, Cedar Rapids Museum of Art.

In addition, Davenport's Figge Art Museum acquired by purchase, gift and bequest between 1964 and shortly after Nan Wood Graham's 1990 death, an incredible collection of art work, documents, scrapbooks, furniture and personal memorabilia related to the artist. The Figge currently is, in fact, successor to the Grant Wood Estate.

"Woman With Plant," 1929, Cedar Rapids Museum of Art.

A number of documentary items have been digitized and are available via the University of Iowa's Iowa Digital Library. You can access that collection --- and others related to Wood and his work --- by following this link.

Unfortunately, the link to the University of Iowa Grant Wood collection doesn't seem to be working on the Figge page. Here's a link to that collection that does work.

"Appraisal" is among my favorite Wood paintings which, as you might expect, is why it has pride of place at the top of this post.

"Birthplace of Herbert Hoover," 1931, Des Moines Art Center and Minneapolis Institute of Art.

"Plaid Sweater," 1931, University of Iowa Museum of Art.