The West Clay House

The West Clay house was in a nice neighborhood. It was within walking distance, about three blocks, of downtown Mt. Pleasant. The hospital was even closer and just on the other side of part of Saunders Park. The city swimming pool was just down the hill about a block from our house. Later, in the 80s I taught school for several years at Manning school that was just on the other side of the park, past the hospital, and about four blocks from the house. It made walking to and from work a pleasure!

The Shappell’s lived in the house just west of our house. The two lots were once one and the Shappell house was part of a much bigger house that was on the lot years before. When they tore part of the larger house down they used a lot of the material to build our house. Through the years we were in that house we found old cisterns and foundation materials from the older building. I think that our basement was the original and you could see where stones had been used to fill in where it formerly joined the other.

Behind our house was a large lot that covered at least a quarter of the block. The Van Allen family owned it. Actually, the Van Allen’s owned everything on the block except our lot and the Shappell’s. My Dad said traveling circuses and other performance groups used that lot when they came through town. My plat said that there had once been a schoolhouse in the northwest corner of the lot and there were some foundation type stones in that area. We liked having the lot as a buffer between us and Washington Street, which was also Highway 34.

The east half of the block had two houses on it. Facing Washington Street was the old Van Allen house. It is now a museum. Directly across the alley from us was the new Van Allen house. My cousin, Bob Mendenhall and his wife live in that house now. While we were there, Winfred Van Allen lived there. She was the wife of Judge George Van Allen who was a brother to James. She sometimes had me come over and change light bulbs in her house because she couldn’t reach then.

Directly across the street south of our house lived the Deckers. Charlie was a retired salesman and always volunteered as a conductor for the railroad at Old Threshers. His wife, Joanne, was best known for her Miss Kitty (from the Gunsmoke TV show) costume that she loved to wear at Old Threshers and other community events.

Dr. Poulter and his wife lived east of the Deckers. We didn’t see them often because their house faced away from us. The Wings lived in the next house south of them. On the west side of the Deckers was a house that was owned by Glen Hoffman and his wife. They built and lived in a newer house behind and down near the swimming pool. The Grandson Bob Jennings and his wife Bonnie lived in the older house.

Deer Hunting

Growing up I did a lot of hunting and fishing. I hunted rabbits, squirrels, pheasants, and quail, but never deer. My mother, of course, thought deer were beautiful animals and didn’t think they should be hunted. I, too, thought they were pretty amazing animals. I still do.

Deer were almost totally hunted out of Iowa by the turn of the century. That would be 1900 for you readers. It was only through conservation efforts that they were re-introduced in Iowa. I have seen early Iowa newspaper articles from the 1920s about the excitement of spotting a deer. Over the years the population grew unchecked. By the 1970s deer hunting was a popular outdoor activity.

My neighbor, Charlie Shappell, invited me to hunt with his group soon after we moved into our house on West Clay. I passed that year but took him up on the offer the next year. I hunted with them for several years.

I learned that storytelling is a huge part of hunting deer. The hunters easily spend as much time talking about the hunt as they do hunting. Stories from previous years have to be told. It is truly a social event for the participants. At its heart, deer hunting is more about being out in the woods than killing anything. The hunt is just as satisfying even if you don’t shoot a deer.

The first year I hunted I didn’t see a live deer. I saw a couple dead ones that other members of the group shot but that was it. The second year I saw a couple from a great distance but nothing anywhere close enough to shoot at. The third year the group placed me on a hill that looked out over a big valley.

From that vantage point I watched in amazement as deer ran from one side of the valley to the other. When they reached one side there would be a volley of 10 or 20 shots and the deer would run to the other side where they would encounter more hunters. They would fire away and the deer would run back the other way. This went on for some time as the hunters on each side moved down the valley. It was amazing! It was even more amazing considering that hundreds of shots must have been fired and not one single deer was hit. The two-dozen or so deer escaped unscathed. They must have gone off somewhere and laughed about the cross-eyed hunters who shot at them.

Often we finished the season with only one or two deer to show for all of our time and energy. We usually split up the meat between all of the hunters and so sometimes I only got a package or two. Other times we did better but always missed more deer than we hit.

It was four years before I even fired a shot and seven years before I got my first deer. He as a huge buck that probably would have ran over me if I hadn’t shot him. His rack is still on the shelf in the garage. When I finally broke the ice that year I seemed to get one every year for several years in a row.

Smoking

I am embarrassed to admit that I was a smoker. While I was never a heavy smoker, I was a smoker non-the less. It is hard for me to believe now, that I did it for so long. Now, I don’t even like to be in smoky places.

My smoking started out innocent enough. I think I first tried it under a bridge on West Madison Street. Then I think maybe a couple times with the boys in the neighborhood. David or Billy, who both had parents who smoked, would steal a few from them and we would get together someplace secretly and smoke them. I was probably 10 to 12 years old.

Later, we would send Billy to the gas station to buy a pack. We would all smoke one or two and then hid them someplace. Many times we would lose interest and never go back to find the hidden pack. I suppose some of them could still be out there somewhere? A few times Billy bought cigarettes for us to sell at Boy Scout camp. In the black market our camp cigarettes would sell for as much as one dollar a piece. As I have written before, I often came home from camp with more money than I took.

By the time I was a freshman in high school I was having a cigarette or two almost every weekend when I was out with the guys or on a date. By then I could buy my own at a vending machine somewhere. They were about 35 cents a pack, I think. Athletes had to be careful they didn’t get caught smoking because they would be punished. I recall only a few who didn’t smoke at one time or another.

With each year I seemed to smoke a little more. In its peak in my high school years I probably smoked as many as five cigarettes a day. That’s not many but it was still becoming a habit. In continued into college even when I was on the swimming team where oxygen is a premium. I guess it didn’t help that the coach smoked, too.

When I became a teacher I could only smoke at certain times. I had to go to the boiler room of the building to do it. I began to plan my whole day around when I could smoke and my consumption increased to about 10 cigarettes a day. It never got much higher than that. Along the way I smoked a pipe for a while and often would have a cigar or two if I was out fishing or hunting.

I quit smoking cold turkey on April 29, 1978. I would have to say it has been the most difficult thing I have done in my life. I smoked my last cigarette that Friday night. I have not had another smoke of any kind since that day. Sometimes, now, almost thirty years later the urge is still there but I haven’t given in.

The power of the addiction is huge and I am afraid if I would have just one it would lead to another. You should never yield to anything that powerful except God! You have to take charge of your body.

The Trabert Place

I wrote about this place in my “Secret Places” piece last year but it is worthy of a little more. The Trabert Place is located in Jefferson County and at one time or another visited by every member of my family except my granddaughters. My mother and father were there many times. My sisters, Nancy and Loretta hunted arrowheads there with my father. Angie and Heather were there with us hunting more than once, too.

It was one of my father’s favorite spots for several reasons. He took a group from the State Archeologists office there and a lot of others. A dirt road cuts across the ridge above the spot. If the road wasn’t muddy the site was accessible. If it was muddy we sometimes walked in. That wasn’t easy but sometimes very worth it.

The site has much to offer. Standing on the dirt road and looking east you can see across the Skunk River valley into Henry County. It is a magnificent view! From there you can see the farm where Dad grew up. About a mile the other way, west, is where Dad was born in Christian Egli’s house, his grandfather.

Facing east again and following the ridge we are on to the right we come to a spot were several Native American babies were buried. They were buried in shallow rock lined graves with large flat stones on top. Dad was very sad and reverent when we came across them. He reported the site to the State Archeologist Office and they came and excavated them and took the bones and reburied them somewhere else where they wouldn’t be disturbed.

Still on that road, the field directly in front of us was full of artifacts. It was an ancient site and yielded several axes, spear points and other material. After the deep mole board plowing, ancient fire pits were evident. That deep plowing isn’t done anymore because it led to so much erosion.

The more recent sites were much farther down close to where Walnut Creek goes into the river. Dad assisted in identifying one of the spots as Hopewell because of the type of artifacts we found there. We found points and large amounts of pottery there.

It was easy for us to spend an entire day there walking the rows of corn or beans and still not cover everything. We did that many times. Often Dad would bring along delicious sandwiches that Mom made and we would have them for lunch along with some sorghum cookies.

One summer day we had an unusual experience while sitting along the dirt road eating our sandwiches. While we were eating and talking we suddenly heard a huge roar to the West and looking up saw three huge airplanes approaching us at what seemed like treetop level. They passed right over us and were gone in seconds. We were speechless for a moment. Later we read that Air Force bombers for Offutt Air Force base near Omaha were practicing strafing runs in the less populated areas of Jefferson and other counties.