A magnificent desk and a brand new roof

A. Curt and Judie Hass, of Marion, had just pulled into the circle drive late Monday morning in a pickup bearing a beautiful roll-top desk when a considerably larger truck rolled in behind them with a load of shingles for the new Otterbein Church roof. It's been that kind of a week at the Lucas County Historical Society Museum. 

The desk began its association with the Hass family in 1917 when Curt's grandfather, Albert R. Hass (1870-1963), arrived in Chariton and went to work for what then was the Lucas County National Bank, located in that long-vanished three-story building that once stood on the northwest corner of the square.

It continued to serve as his desk through that bank's consolidation into First National Bank & Trust Co. and his service as bank president (1949-1956) and chairman of the board (1956-1963). First National now is Midwest Heritage.

The desk then passed to his son, Judge Albert "Abe" Hass (1909-1996), Chariton attorney and district court judge; and finally to Judge Hass's son, A. Curtis Hass. It left Chariton with Curt and traveled to northeast Iowa, then New Mexico, and finally back to Marion before the family decided to bring it home to Chariton, the task accomplished on Monday.

It took four people to move the desk into the A.J. Stephens House and we're grateful, too, to Darrin and Abram McFarland, board member Mike Smith and Karoline Dittmer for managing that with assists from Curt and Judie.

Curt is standing here among what we called "the ruins" shortly after the desk arrived, but the base has now been positioned and we're ready to reassemble this magnificent piece of furniture, once we round up the four people needed to lift and gently move the top into position.

We've very grateful to the Hass family for bringing this treasure home and look forward to showing it off properly once reassembled.

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The roofers arrived early Friday and by the end of the day Otterbein's new roof was in place. The historical society had gotten its money's worth out of the old roof --- installed in 1976 --- but the shingles were beginning to fail and the roof had developed a couple of small leaks that we just couldn't track to their source. So now that's been taken care of. Many thanks to the South Central Iowa Community Foundation for the grant that matched our own funds to pay for the project.

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Effective next week, the museum will be open --- but by appointment only through the end of July when we'll reasses the situation. A majority of our volunteer attendants are in the "at risk" range for COVID-19 and we just can't ask them to expose themselves when the number of cases in Lucas County, although relatively small, still is on the rise and we've had two deaths.

We will continue our off-season office hours, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday, and ask anyone interested in a tour to call us at (641) 774-4464 to make arrangements. We would appreciate it if guests would consider wearing a face covering --- and will have some on hand.

And be warned that we've been using the weeks we've been closed to undertake many projects thanks largely to Karoline Dittmer and Trae Hall, so it's going to be a while before everything is in order from one end of the campus to the other.