The stories Lucas County's Freedom Rock tells

I've been stalking Lucas County's new "Freedom Rock" lately, waiting for the sun to strike each of its painted surfaces in the right way to illuminate the stories it tells.

For the uninitiated --- and these rocks are very much an Iowa thing --- this recent addition to Veterans Memorial Park in Chariton, completed by Greenfield-based muralist Ray Sorensen II (known as "Bubba") during early August, is the 90th in what the artist calls his Iowa Freedom Rock Tour.

Sorensen painted the first Freedom Rock near Menlo in west-central Iowa during 1999 and continues to repaint it every May. That rock led to the idea of creating a similar Freedom Rock in each of Iowa's 99 counties. Twenty years later, the tour is nearing its end. Sorensen expects to complete the 99th rock this year.

Each of the rocks lifts specific stories from the histories of the counties where they are located and depicts them. Together, they are intended as a salute to Iowa veterans of all eras from both the artist and the individuals and agencies that commission him.

Lucas County's stories begin on the northwest face with a depiction of a Civil War soldier accompanied by a mourning ribbon of Chariton's Daniel Iseminger Post No. 18, Grand Army of the Republic. Approximately 800 young men from Lucas County enlisted for Civil War service; approximately 150 died. 

Company B, 6th Iowa Volunteer Infantry, was the first Civil War unit raised in Lucas County --- during the summer of 1861 --- and its captain, Daniel Iseminger, probably was the best known among Lucas County veterans although he did not survive the war. 

Daniel was Chariton’s first mayor, a Mexican War veteran and was pushing 50 when he lied about this age and spiffed himself up to look younger in order to enlist. Having been placed in battlefield command of the entire regiment, Iseminger was killed on bloody Sunday, April 6, 1862, while leading his men in battle at Shiloh. 

After the war, Chariton veterans honored him by naming Daniel Iseminger Post No. 18, Grand Army of the Republic, in his honor. 

Moving around the rock to the northeast, the next panel commemorates Lucas County’s most recent combat loss, Specialist Matthew K. Anderson, 21, who was one of two crewmen killed Sept 25, 1993, at Mogadishu, Somalia, when their Black Hawk helicopter was shot down by a rocket-propelled grenade.

Continuing to the southeast panel, the depiction of Sgt. George Musick commemorates one of three among the nine Lucas Countyans who died in service to their country during the Korean War whose remains never have been recovered. The others are Elmer A. Rowe and Roy R. Kirton. Musick, 33, was killed in action on Sept. 3, 1950, at Yongsan.

The final specific depiction commemorates perhaps the most widely known World War II veteran who returned home safely to Chariton --- attorney Leo Hoegh, who resigned from the Iowa Legislature when called up for duty as a junior officer in the Iowa National Guard in 1942. Rising quickly in the regular Army to the rank of lieutenant colonel he was named operations officer for the 104th Infantry division, nicknamed the Timberwolf Division, and wrote the operations orders that carried the 104th through to the Rhine and into Germany. He returned to his Chariton law practice after the war and during 1955 was elected Iowa’s 33rd governor.

The final panel, facing the street, is a generic American Eagle bearing the U.S. flag. Note the artist's signature at ground-level.

The Freedom Rock anchors the southeast corner of Veterans Memorial Park, located a block south and a half block west of the southwest corner of the Chariton square --- the former county jail site. Plans call for a shelter to be built above the rock as work on the park continues.