The Dry Flat kids take a field trip

The last Dry Flat country school field trip that I remember happened some time in the 1950s when parents drove students into Des Moines for a day of sight-seeing, then delivered us to the Rock Island depot and we boarded a passenger train for Chariton --- something that still was possible way back then. I think I was in "primary" at the time.

Anyhow, Linden Allard met the train in Chariton and some of us rode home to the Dry Flat neighborhood on the Lucas-Wayne county line with him. Linden smoked, the car smelled of it, this was outside my range of sensory expectations and once home and out of the car, I threw up. I remember that better than the train trip, actually.

Sadly, all of the Allards are gone now, but there are quite a few Dry Flat kids still around and five of us got together Wednesday morning at Doris and Ron Christensen's home near Chariton for a tour of some of the amazing things they have created there, including a scaled version of Doris's homeplace (above).

Doris grew up with her parents, Carl and Margaret Cottrell, on their immaculately maintained hilltop farm perhaps a quarter mile north of the Myers farm, on a rise in the valley to the south. Our farmstead still is there and occupied; sadly, the Cottrell place has vanished without a trace --- other than this reproduction.

The most prominent building on the Cottrell farm was a magnificent red barn --- one of the best in Lucas County --- that was left to deteriorate when the farm passed to other owners, refused to give up, but finally was bulldozed and burned just a few years ago when the land passed into the hands of out-of-state owners.

Here's how the farmstead looked in its glory days with the barn holding pride of place. The recreation is at the top with the addition of the Cottrell windmill, which pumped water from the creek valley to the south in tandem with the Myers windmill nearby and the flagpole that once stood in front of Dry Flat School.

And here's the Cottrell house as I remember it.

And finally, the Dry Flat kids who enjoyed Wednesday morning's tour (from left): Doris, Frank, Jacob Vincent, Dianne (Vincent) Mitchell and Elzan (Vincent) McMurry.

We also were able to walk among and admire several of the pieces of scaled equipment that Ron --- a hugely talented metalworker, welder, mechanic and carpenter --- has created over the years.

Including a hay baler ...

... a hayloader of the sort I remember walking behind ...

... a seeder cart ...

... tractors (Ron favors John Deere) and more.

One of Ron's most recent projects is the bobsled found in the Barker-Vincent barn just a mile south across the fields next to Dry Flat School. He acquired the running gears from the Vincent kids, then built and added the box.

That's Ron (second from left) joined by Harold Mitchell (far left) Dianne, Jake, Elzan and Marilyn Vincent (far right).

It was a great way to spend the morning and I'm glad I was invited to tag along.