Journal Lessons

My journals chronicle events and experiences that first year or so after I took the writing project. Reading some of them sometimes takes me back to the moment or experience as if it just happened yesterday. I am amazed by the experience and find it hard to pull myself away from the entries just the way it is when I read Dad’s journals.

One entry caught my interest especially after a conversation with Becky and Heather. It goes back to the fall of 1979 and happened in an unexpected way. I tell in this entry of helping a friend do some work on his acreage. We cut wood in his woods while Becky and his wife socialized and prepared a supper for us back at the house.

This friend had recently undergone a huge transformation in his life. He had been a “rounder” as my Dad would say. That simply meant he was running around a lot and not faithful in relationships with his wife and others. He “got religion” and was a different person. I was impressed with his change but not so impressed with the zealous way he tried to bring others to Jesus. Many of us had been there all along and were now wondering why he didn’t realize that.

He was several years older than I was. We had grown up in the same church as I had but it must have not meant much to him. His parents were friends with mine so even with the age difference we had a lot in common.

I was a little uncomfortable when he would brag about the things he did before he was “saved.” Somehow that just didn’t seem right. I wouldn’t say he actually regretted it. It was as though he thought his past life gave more credibility to his transformation. I thought he was wrong before and wasn’t sure he was totally legit now.

After the dinner the ladies had prepared for us we went out to the yard and played catch with one of his teenage sons. We each took turns going out for a long pass and snagging a difficult catch.

I was taken aback when the boy missed a long one and his Dad yelled out “woman!” in a very negative way. It happened every time the kid would miss a pass and then the son started calling his father a “woman” when he missed one. I was speechless! It was shockingly and blatantly sexiest. It was strong evidence that this cad was no more respectful of females than before.

To me, being Christian means that you have a profound respect for all God’s creation and using the word “woman” in a disrespectful way was a clear indication of his true colors. I don’t see that guy very often. I do believe he has grown as a person and a Christian since then but, somehow, I still don’t feel he is totally genuine. I guess it is not for me to judge.

Journaling and Time Traveling

I still have all of the journals that I have filled up over the years. Reading them now transports me back to the time I wrote each one. I suddenly remember a lot of things I had totally forgotten about. It is both good and bad. There are some things you would rather not be reminded of but for the most part it’s good. In just the first three months of the first journal I kept I am astounded at all of the things we were doing.

In all begins around August of 1979. I was about to start my eighth year of teaching. Becky and I were in our 12th year of marriage. Angie was 11 years old and Heather was 6. We were active in their lives and our own.

I was writing about teaching a lot. It included both the preparation for lessons and units of study and reflections on how lessons went. The journal is where my first thoughts about students doing letter writing were formulated. I knew kids needed a reason to write and letter writing could be that reason and editing could be built right in. The bonus was that the kids could get a response from someone and that spurred them to write again.

In those first months I tell about directing traffic for the Police Reserve during Old Threshers. I wrote about Loretta’s visit at the same time. Taking the girls out to the event and working for the church youth group parking cars on the church grounds.

My house painting was finished for the summer with the exception of one job. It was painting a small porch on Mrs. Rockwell’s house south of town. I wrote about finishing up that job.

I wrote about Becky’s back porch craft business that was in full swing at that time. She was busy with that and also doing well doing Better Homes and Gardens parties at the same time. On top of that she was working at Lauser’s again and I was doing picture framing there, too.

I was on the board of directors at Hope Haven and served on the personnel sub committee. The latter required extra meetings at the time because we were firing the chief administrator. It was an ugly time there! I remember going to the administrator’s home with another board member and telling him he was fired and to not come in the next day. That was very hard but it had to be done.

At the same time all this was happening there was much more! I was doing a lot of woodcarving, we cleaned out our basement, we were selling fishing worms, and active in our church.

I was beginning the school year with a student teacher. His name was Bill McKenzie and he was about 6’8” and must have weighed 400 lbs. Having a student teacher was considerable more work than not and always took up a lot of time.

That early fall I was active in the Tri-Area Reading Council and helped shingle Virgil Trabert’s house.

How we found time to do all of this stuff I don’t know? There is a lot more to tell!

More On Writing

A couple months ago, near the end of the “Becoming a Better Teacher” series, I wrote about I told about my initial participation in what was then called the Southeast Iowa Writing Project. That was really only the beginning to the transformation I was to undergo as a teacher.

Lately, I have looked back in a folder that has many of the pieces I wrote during that time. They are pretty much horrible and I plan to destroy most of them after I finish this piece. Don’t worry you aren’t missing anything. I will keep the all of the journals I have written and there is plenty of lousy writing in them, too, but there are also little seeds of pieces, a turn of a phrase, or a provocative thought so they will still be around. Don’t take any of the journals too seriously, though.

I will describe a few of the pieces before they disappear. I do have to say that for me (a save everything guy) that it is hard for me to throw things away. That is not the case with these!

Included is a rambling treatise on my early thoughts about the class and hunting fossils. I don’t know why I went that direction but I did. Another is a short poem:

Yard Sale
Slightly used
Grown out of clothes
Shade less lamps
Some who-know?
A delicate teacup
Without a saucer…

Hmmm... Ok, I think I just ran out of ideas or energy on that one. There are some more attempts at poetry. None any better than this one.

The folder includes a hand written draft of the first major piece I wrote, Beautiful Big Thompson. It is about us being involved in the catastrophic flood in the Big Thompson Canyon during one of the summer trips. It still has all of the positive response to it that the members of the class wrote on the attached piece of paper. I’ll keep it for that reason.

There is a piece of paper titled “Random Thoughts.” Nothing much to them except maybe one thought, “Maybe we don’t write often enough to speak or speak often enough to write.”

There is an attempt at describing the experience of climbing Longs Peak and a rambling tongue in cheek piece about night crawlers. There is the mention that I should use letter writing in my classroom. I ended up doing that and had tremendous success! I’ll tell more about that later.

“And retreating to more tested ground, I have lost what I had found.” Don’t remember what I was thinking with that one?

More poems and prayers and promising ideas. And, finally, typed on a cut out piece of a paper grocery bag:

Confused by the complexities of the cornered conscience
I search and sort and tabulate
And again I cannot find the word that eludes my mind
And so I sort and calculate
And find the rhythms wrong.
So what? You say did you do next
To elevate the absurd?
I left out the word.

Maybe I should have left out a lot more words? I will tell you a little about journaling next time.

Rides XII

At the southeast corner of the square we turn south for a block. On the left we first come to what was the site of David Jeffery’s home, harness shop and Pat Jeffery’s barbershop. Next are the Herman Newkum’s store, home, hotel, saloon and livery stable.

On the right would have been Taylor’s blacksmith shop. Next to it, and across the street from the Newkum Store, was the Goldsmith Store and home. Mr. Goldsmith had his own still and produced his own brand of whiskey.

We turn left and head east for a couple blocks. At the end of the first block on the right was the location of Joe Ross’s Boarding House and Dairy. Susie Hite Ross lived there. We Dad worked in Trenton he often went to her house for lunch. She told him many stories about the births. Dad said she was a kind and generous person who was very loyal to her friends. She was well known for helping out boys and girls who got in trouble.

The Methodist Church is on the right in the next block and then the location of Dr. Jay’s home and office. Later it was the location of John Deck’s home and blacksmith shop. Across the street north was Peter Hull’s blacksmith shop.

At the corner the building on the northeast part of the intersection is the Henry County Institute of Science. It was built in 1869 by George Miller and given to the people of Trenton. Miller died before the building was finished. The library on the second floor contained about 1200 volumes when it was discontinued in 1957. The first floor was used for public gatherings, elections, plays, and dances. The old records of the meetings state that they had trouble maintaining order at meetings and that in 1888 they purchased six spittoons from Goldsmith’s store for 35 cents each.

Dad and I entered this building once shortly before it was torn down. It was in bad shape by then and we were afraid to go upstairs because we thought it might fall in. It was clear, though, that this was a magnificent brick structure in its day. Dad had a picket from the wooden fence that had been around the building at one time and a brick from the structure itself. Both are still in the basement of my mother’s home.

We turn right and head south. On the immediate left is the location of Independence Square. It is the spot where our ancestor, Elder Joseph Goldsmith held the first Mennonite Church service in the home of Daniel Conard. The church was organized around 1852 or 1853.

We head south now out of Trenton. On the right we pass yet another home and office of one of Trenton’s early doctors. Then the big open area on the right owned by the Carpers for generations is the site of the only airplane landing in Trenton. A mail plane was forced to land there to make repairs. People from all over the area came to see it. It was fixed in a few hours and took off and then made one pass over the large crowd with an acknowledging dip of the wing.

In the open country now, we go down Brewster’s hill. Dad talks about how difficult it was for people to make it up the hill sometimes in the days when it was a mud road. On occasion, if nightfall came on, they had to spend the night at the Brewsters.

We head south on the blacktop past White Oak Church and cousin Russell’s house. We reach old highway 34 we turn left and head into Mt. Pleasant past the Country Club. This ride is over. We will go on a different ride another time. There are several others to tell about.

Rides XI

As we get to Trenton we come to a church on the south side of the road. It is now called the United Missionary Church. Prior to 1947 it was a Mennonite Church. Dads family occasionally attended this church when he was a little boy. I think this building was actually moved onto this lot at one time but don’t know the details. Dad recalled attending a giant tent meeting on the grounds of the church and he remembered there being someone there that had a wonderful singing voice.

We turn right at the corner and head south into town. On the left we pass the location of the home of one of the many doctors that practiced in Trenton over the years. This was where Dr. Gilfillan lived and practiced in a building just south of the house

At the next corner on the right is the location of G.M. Noel’s hotel and later on was Dr. Long’s home. On the left across the street is the location of Wilson’s Cabinet Shop. Dad adds that the guy also made caskets.

Across the street south is the Trenton square. The first building on the right is Jacob Morrison’s Store. It was also the post office, a restaurant and a hotel. The building is still there and it’s easy to imagine what it might have been like in the early 1900s.

Next, on the right is the location of the Presbyterian Church. It was built in 1841 and was replaced by a large structure in 1868. It is all gone now and not even a memory except in the minds of historians.

The place just south of the church lot was Hiram Deck’s blacksmith shop. It was a prosperous business until horses were replaced with cars and then it eventually was a gas station for a while owned by Fred and Ed Burkey.

On the far southwest corner of the square was the Leeper home and a doctor lived in that home at one time, too. South across the street was the location of the first school in Trenton. It was a log cabin built in 1839 or 1840.

Across the street east on the south side of the square is Jim Ackles barber shop. Then we come to Frank Johnson’s store and home. Right next door to the east Mr. Johnson had a saloon. Dad says it was a pretty unsavory place. On the southwest corner of the square was the building used as a restaurant, yet another doctor’s office and a spot where a medicine show often set up and Dad even remembers them showing silent movies in a tent on this lot.

Across the street on the southeast side at one time there was a post office and a store. The store was built by John Morrow. He sold it to the Felgers. They operated it for a while and sold it to Sam and Stacy Carper. A couple owners later Fred Pulver owned it. I can remember when there was a Pulver’s sign on the side of the building. Dad says there was a livery stable just north of the store.

Rides X

Merrimac had no church or cemeteries. For worship community members would have to go to Mt Ayr, Green Mound or one of the churches in Trenton. All of the churches in the area did use the easy river access at Merrimac for immersion baptisms from time to time. As our ride heads east we go up a long gradual hill. It is mostly made of sand deposited there over thousands of years.

A few miles down the road we come to Green Mound. The church is on the north side of the road and the cemetery is on the other. The white country church is a little larger than most and, I believe still has services. Dad has a three-ring notebook full of stories and history of all the old churches in the area.

Sometimes we stop here and walk through the cemetery just looking at stones and talking about the people who were there. My grandparents, Wilburn and Anna Ross are buried there along with uncles and one aunt. I am sure there are lots of cousins there, too.

One of our ancestors, John Stout, is buried here, too. It’s a simple small stone in the back of the cemetery. It’s significant because he is one of the very few Revolutionary solders buried in Henry County. The Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) approached us at one time about the females of the family joining since they qualified but don’t think Loretta or Nancy ever did. I guess our daughters and granddaughters could join if they ever wanted too. It was a status symbol at one time to be a member but I haven’t heard much about them for along time.

This is where the boy, David Zear, is buried. He was the one who died in the horrible accident in the mill at Merrimac. We stop at his broken stone and think of what horror he must have felt in those last moments. We send up a prayer for his soul and move on.

We pass the graves of the small children who were victims of diphtheria and wonder how things might have been different had they survived. We pass the graves of the children from the family that allegedly was cursed by the Merrimac Witch and think of how superstitious people can be.

It seems like Dad has known many of the people here. I ask him if he would want to be buried here and to my surprise he says no. He says all of his friends are in Mt. Pleasant and besides him and Mom have already paid for a spot there. Then he says he’d rather not think about stuff like that, anyway.

We walk back to the car and head east toward Trenton. Just west of town he points to a small grove of trees on the right and says that’s Ben’s thicket. It was much larger years ago. Dad says it was a congregating spot years ago for many of the men of Trenton. It is where they went to smoke, drink and gamble. He has many stories about that spot although he says he was never personally there.

Trenton is the next stop.

Rides IX

Before we leave Merrimac there are a couple more stories to tell and many that will have to wait for another time. Merrimac once had a blacksmith shop, two hotels, a carpenter house, a millinery shop, a photography shop, a general store and many other houses and buildings as well as the mill that I have written about already.

My Dad grew up hearing stories about the Merrimac Witch. She was a real person who lived near the community. She came from Germany and was sometimes called Granny Dutch. They claimed she had the gift of second sight and could tell people where to find things they had lost. She died at the age of 99 years in 1879. That was long before my Dad was born in 1908 but many people remembered her and told him stories about her when he was young.

Among other things, they said Granny Dutch had the ability to put a hex on people and did so to a family with five children. There were four boys and one beautiful blond girl. The parents were very proud of their children but all of them got diphtheria. Three of the boys and the girl died. People blamed it on the Merrimac Witch. When that family moved to a farm their barn burned. That, too, they blamed on the witch. They eventually moved away.

Of course the woman was really not a witch but stories about her were told for generations. Overtime, as with all stories, I am sure they were greatly embellished.

* * *

The land around Merrimac is low and wet in the spring. It was sometimes very difficult for farmers to get crops in because the equipment was primitive compared to what they have today. Just southeast of Merrimac a small stream meandered through the bottom ground. (The old streambed is actually still evident if you look at the area with Google Earth.)

The landowner decided that straightening the stream would allow the water to get away from the area quicker and allow him to farm it much easier and timely. He tried to do it himself but it was just too big of a task. He eventually hired a man who had a steam engine and a dragline.

Even with that equipment the work was slow and muddy. After about six months the fellow gave up with the job half finished but wanted paid for what he had done. The landowner refused and there was quite a dispute about the issue. Dad thought it actually went to court but didn’t know how it turned out. The equipment sat in the field until spring when it was finally removed.

A second man with similar equipment was hired to finish the job. After a great struggle he did and the straight channel is evident today. In more recent years the fields have been tiled and drain to that ditch.

As we head out of Merrimac that is usually the last story Dad tells about the place. Green Mound Cemetery is the next stop.

Rides VIII

My father was a deeply religious person and although we attended the Presbyterian Church in Mt. Pleasant, he maintained close ties with his Mennonite roots. He visited family members and friends in the church and had a great respect for their beliefs. The gentleness and compassion of the followers had a great influence on Dad.

He didn’t have much respect, however, for what he called the hell, fire and brimstone ministers that we sometimes saw on TV and occasionally in person. He didn’t think it was in any way Christian to scare people into following Jesus.

In Merrimac there was a large area south of the houses that served as a park, campground for travelers, and the site of many tent revival meetings. For years families from miles around would gather to hear the evangelists speak. They would sometimes have a nightly service for weeks. When he was young, Dad’s family attended many of these.

He said the kids often played outside until after dark while the services went on and on. He remember peeking under the tent and seeing and hearing the shouting and raving of the passionate speakers. It terrified him! I think that had a lot to do with the way he felt about that type of religion when he grew up. That and for years we were on the same block with a Baptist parsonage and witnessed some pretty unchristian behavior.

Stories about tent evangelist’s visits to Merrimac are well documented. Sometimes they stayed for weeks.

Here is an interesting account from the August 15, 1894 edition of the Fairfield Tribune.

“We attended the camp meeting Sunday afternoon at Merrimac. There was a large crowd of people to hear the lady evangelist, and quite a number claim to have been cured of bodily diseases. The meeting is creating quite an excitement. The banks of the Skunk River present a variety of scenes. There are a lot of Gipsy campers in all their filth and dirt, and then next are those who have pitched their tents to take an outdoor recreation. Everything looks clean and nice. Then on the opposite side of the river, is the large tabernacle. This is one of the finest tents we ever saw, well seated, with a large platform for the ministers.”

This article apparently prompted others to visit Merrimac and a later edition of the Tribune (August 22) carries an amusing account.

“Tuesday of this week Messrs. George Dahlman and Alex Easton, accompanied by their wives, drove over to Merrimac to visit the faith curing evangelist, Mrs. M. B. Woodworth, who had been holding forth there for the past two weeks. Their opinion is that there is a good deal of buncombe about the cures, and that Mrs. Woodworth is a good deal more interested in coaxing people to part with their dollars than causing them to part with their diseases.”

And then there is Mrs. Art Salzman’s account of this same evangelist.”

“There were tent meetings for several years, but the most popular evangelist was this Mrs. Woodworth in 1894 She was a healer and everyone has his special story of her miracles. One night she announced that on a certain day, she would part the waters of the Skunk and walk over on dry land. The day arrived, and so did everyone from miles around. The mill yard was filled and horses tied to the fences for at least a half-mile in every direction. The man in charge of the store had sent to Oskaloosa for pop in bottle with corks that pushed in instead of pulling out. He had other supplies and was ready to feed the multitude. It was just as well that something had been provided, for Mrs. Woodworth came out with all her dramatic fervor and announced, according to my reporter that the spirits weren’t right, and she would not be able to part the waters that day.”

Dad said the next morning the evangelist, tent and all, was gone.

Rides VII

Dad said the Merrimac area was the Wild West even by the time he was born and for sometime after. They were some pretty surly characters in the area and Dad had stories to tell about some of them. It is hard to imagine but there are some interesting evidence to indicate many of the stories are true.

Dad told me a story he heard about an island in the river just south of Merrimac. It seems that some bootleggers built a two-room shanty on the island. It had a door on each end. The rooms were not joined except buy a strange arrangement. A hole had been cut in the wall between and a large barrel just the size of the opening was placed upright in the center. It turned one way or the other on an axel right down the middle. The barrel had an opening on the side with a shelf.

Buyers would come in one door, place their money in the opening and the barrel would turn. Soon the barrel would turn again and their whiskey would appear in the opening. The buyer and seller never saw one another. Seems like an awful lot of work to get a drink.

The Fairfield Ledger of March 12, 1890 printed this story about the place:

"The sheriff of Jefferson County discovered a veritable ‘hole in the wall’ on a small island in the Skunk River a short distance south of Merrimac, Friday. The building was a rude shanty of two rooms, and in the partition dividing it was a revolving barrel with a shelf in it where money could be exchanged for a drink of liquor without the purchaser or seller seeing one another. It was locked up and abandoned, but the officer burst the doors and seized twelve bottles of beer and a small quantity of whiskey he found inside. Although liquor and tobacco were undoubtedly sold in the place, no government licenses were to be seen. The place was operated by a gang of toughs who have given the Federal and Henry County authorities no little trouble for a number of years past, and a dozen or more of them have been arrested by United States Marshals. Members of this same gang are the fellows who thought when they sold liquor on a boat in the river that they were amenable to neither state nor federal law. The liquor will be tried before a justice of this county."

I am a little puzzled by the last sentence? Did that mean “tried” as in tasted or “tried” as in court? How do you try a liquid? If that old shanty could talk think of the stories it could tell! Hmmm… It is clear that this area was as wild as Dad had said.

Sometimes when we would float down the river from Merrimac I would wonder about that island. Because of the constant changing of the river, islands come and go over time. We found some large sand bars but no islands in that area on our trips so the actual spot will probably never be found.

Rides VI

Early accounts describe Merrimac as one of the most picturesque spots for miles around. Even by the turn of the century it was still described as the “wilderness.” That was hard for me to grasp as I looked out across farm fields. Early accounts said the area was covered with hardwoods…oak and walnut among others.

But I have only begun to touch on the stories of Merrimac. Let’s go back, way back about twelve thousand years. The last glacier in Iowa was the western lobe of the Illinois glacier that had pushed the Mississippi out of it’s banks near the Quad Cities forming a large swamp like lake, now referred to as Lake Calvin, that extended west to the bluffs in what is now Iowa City. The water drained from the lake in a number of ways. One of those being southwest from around Columbus Junction to the channel of the present day Crooked Creek, on to the Skunk River and then south right over the top of Merrimac. When the glacier receded it left large deposits of sand and debris that had been carried by the torrent.

An account in the June 2, 1900, Brighton Enterprise (page 4, column 4) provides some interesting evidence.

"Dr. A. Dietz of Merrimac, last Friday brought to the office pieces of wood chipped from a large log found while digging at a depth of 128 feet. The wood retains its grain and exterior appearance, but is not in a state of perfect preservation. It is thought to be walnut, and the length of time it has been buried cannot even be surmised. For all anyone knows it has been buried for hundreds of years. The doctor thinks the wood has come in contact with copper and believes that ore of this metal is stored in the depths of the earth around Merrimac."

Dad speculated that the log must have been deposited there during the time of the glacier. He had no explanation for the notion that there was copper ore in the area and that has never been collaborated. It was known that copper acted as a preservative even back then and, perhaps, that is what the doctor thought contributed to the condition of the wood. The whole idea brought a sense of wonder to Dad and me, too. Just imagining what the place must have been like thousands of years ago occupied our minds on many occasions.

On two or three occasions we floated by canoe from Merrimac to Rome. We got in at the location of the old Merrimac Bridge where there was a boat ramp. It was a great joy for us to take these float trips and sometimes a new story or two would come up. The area and the river fascinated Dad. Telling and retelling the stories was a way to recall the days when he heard them for the first time. As I have said many times, storytelling is how we make sense of our experience. That was very true for Dad.

Rides V

(Continued)

Over the years Dad spent countless hours researching historical sites and events. Once he set out to find out about something he was insatiable until he satisfied his curiosity. He spent countless hours in the basement of the public library painstaking going through old records and books. He poured through the microfiche files at newspaper offices in Henry and Jefferson counties. He often visited seniors and talked with them about things from long ago that they remembered.

He collected his notes and documents in three-ring binders, folders and notebooks. We still have over 30 of them. They are chock full of all kinds of stories and information.

So it wasn’t so unusual that he would try to find out whether the gory story of the boy in the mill was true. He started with his living sources. Most had no recollection of any such story. A few had heard it before but knew few details that were new to Dad about it. One of his best sources said it absolutely didn’t happen.

Somewhere in his memory or in one of the conversations the name Zear came up. Dad thought that was the last name of the young man. So where do you go if you think you have a name? The cemetery. We have many relatives buried in Green Mound Cemetery so one day on one of our rides we stopped to visit some of the graves. That is when Dad thought we should try systematically walking through the cemetery looking for the name Zear on one of the stones.

Sound like looking for a needle in a haystack? Well it wasn’t as hard as you might think. In less than an hour I came across a broken stone that had the name David Zear on it. He died May 1, 1867 at 22years, 10 months, and 25 days. That could be him but how could we know for sure.

Dad went to the archives of the newspapers in the area. He found the following account in the Thursday, May 9, 1867 edition of the Fairfield Ledger. (Stop here if you are squimish!)

"Horrible Accident – David Zaher, Zear, or Zeher (names and even words were often spelled different ways before 1900, even sometimes in the same document) a young man about 20 years of age met with a horrible death at the Merrimac Mills on the Skunk River on the evening of May 1st. He had gone to the fourth story of the mill for the purpose of oiling the journals of some large wheels. Not returning as soon as he should have done, his brother went after him. He found him crushed and ground between the cogs of the wheels in a terrible manner, there being scarcely an unbroken bone in his body.

One of his legs was found about eighteen feet from the wheel. It is supposed that the cogs caught his coat and drew him between the wheels causing his instantaneous death. The floor for some distance around the wheels was covered with blood. His remains were buried the Friday following."

The story was true! Dad was elated that his research was successful, but deeply saddened by what had happened to the young man.

(To be Continued)

Rides IV

(Continued)

Merrimac, Oh Merrimac! I hardly know where to start! My Dad had so many stories about Merrimac that I don’t think I can ever do it justice. Nevertheless, I’ll give it a try but it might take a couple installments.

Before we are across the bridge Dad starts talking about the Merrimac mills. He talks about Silas Deeds who built the first dam on the west side of the river in 1840 and a sawmill and gristmill followed in a few years. He calls it a crib dam and says logs were used to form a crib (rectangle) and then were filled with rocks. The river eventually provided the silt and debris that made the dam watertight. The little village around the dam became known a Deedsville.

Since the Skunk River was considered navigable to Brighton, Deeds was required to build a lock and had plans and specifications at the location. It is not clear as to whether it was ever built. By 1843 the government had approved the use of “slopes”, board slides on the lower side of the dam in lieu of locks. Dad had heard stories of boats shooting the dam and even told about one that sank not far down river. He speculated that it was probably still there preserved in the muck.

If you think that is unlikely, think again. During low water one year we found clear evidence of the cribs of the original dam including boards and spikes that were put there 150 years earlier. We still have some of both.

Dad interrupts the mill discussion to say that people were first attracted to the site because there was a ford there where Indian trails crossed the river. An early settler named Yorke built a ferry to get travelers across the river there. He says, too, that at one time there was a suspended footbridge across the river. It is not well documented but is mentioned in some historical accounts.

The gristmill on the west side of the river burned in 1865 and was rebuilt on the east side of the river. It was owned by W.J. and J.S. Rogers and was named Merrimac Mills and eventually included a sawmill, gristmill and carding and spinning mill. It was a three-story structure. Part of it was moved to a nearby location in 1924 when the mill was torn down and serves as a barn to this day. The present owner, Peter Salzman, once pulled out several of the old gears and, of course, Dad and I took several pictures of them. They are probably still there.

The gears of the old mill bring up another story. Growing up Dad had heard a gruesome tale about there being a large red stain on the floor of the third story of the mill where all of the big gears were. He even sort of remembered seeing it when he was a child. He said he was told that a young man was sent up there to oil the gears and apparently somehow got caught in them and was torn to pieces. In the early 1980s Dad set out to find out if this could be true.
(To be continued)

Rides III

(Continued)

Back on the gravel going north the road swings west and Dad talks of a small-unnamed community that existed there. The road turns back north and crosses a stream. “There was a grist mill here,” he says. Farmers from as far away as Mt. Pleasant would sometimes bring there grain here.

At the next corner we follow the road left. We could go straight but it is dirt. It’s the Trabert Place. I have written about this spot before. We go west to the blacktop past Eagle School (a one room school long ago boarded up) and then take the first right about a mile down the road.

On the left, out in the field is a lone dilapidated windmill and nothing else. “I was born there.” Dad says it’s where his Grandfather, Christian Egli, lived. He talks about what a kind man he was and I am sure he greatly influenced my father. He talks, too, of “buckets” of arrowheads that he used to see sitting around the farm. He wonders what happened to all of them.

On the right side of the road is Harold Hinkle’s farm. He is our cousin and we almost always stop and talk with him for a while. Harold’s wife, Helen, is a teacher in the Fairfield district. We talk education while Dad and Harold swap stories. Their son Dwain joins in the discussion now and then. After awhile we excuse ourselves and head on down the gravel.

We cross the creek and on the left is one of Dad’s cherished arrowhead hunting spots. Harold doesn’t let anyone else hunt it. There, a drainage ditch has bisected a large mound in the center of the field. It’s a rich spot. The soil on the mound has a different color and texture. Dad speculates that it is because people occupied the site for hundreds of years. I think we have walked every inch of that field many times. Dad says this is where many of the arrowheads that he saw at his Grandfather Christian house came from. Dad has many in his collection from here, too.

The deep plowing and freezing and thawing of the ground forced the stones and artifacts to the surface. It was occupied so long that it is littered with hundreds of campfire stones and chips and artifacts of the former residents. Dad and I spent countless hours walking over every inch of this field after every big rain or anytime the ground had been worked. We spent long hours, too, during these hunts, just talking about everything under the sun. They were special times with my Dad. I miss those long discussions.

From this spot we head up over the hill and then down past “The Real Thing.” It is a youth church of some kind out in the middle of nowhere. The road winds around through the Skunk River bottom. This whole area floods a lot in the spring when the river gets out of its banks. We come to an intersection. We turn right and head across the Merrimac bridge.
(To be Continued)

Rides II

(Continued from Rides I)

Then up the hill on the other side. The Indian mounds that were up there were destroyed when they built the highway. A right turn would take you to Jennings’s Dairy and Cholera Hill. Victims of the Cholera epidemic in the 1800s are buried there. Straight ahead down the hill we see the Skunk River across the bottom. Scott’s farm is on the right. The house was flooded so many times that they moved it to higher ground.

Crossing the Skunk River prompts stories of buried gold to the north (I’ll get to that story later) and south, a story about Uncle Lew and the time he met an old Indian while building fence. The Indian, on a horse, told him his people came from that area and were now in Kansas. He wanted to come back to this place before he died.

Rome is next on the right. It was always known for tough guys and taverns. There may still be one or two of both there? The Rome stories occupy us almost all the way to Lockridge. Then we talk about our cousins, the Eglis and stop in the local café for breakfast. Amazingly, Dad seems to know everyone in the place.

From the café on old Highway 34 we head past the cemetery where a lot of my relatives rest and then north. “Coalport,” Dad says as we pass under the railroad. You can see the outcropping of coal in the ditch on the west side of the road. We go north to Four Corners. Only a tavern and a house remain there. Dad talks about what a rough place that is and that I should stay out of there. We did go in once together for a soda. It was the middle of the day and we were the only ones in the place besides the bartender.

We head north again now on gravel. The missing gold comes up again as we go forward. He tells of the Indians receiving a government allotment and the money never showing up in circulation. Camp Golden Valley got its name for that reason. I will chronicle that story in more detail another time. The gold could still be out there.

Next, at a curve in the gravel road he talks about the evidence found that indicated Spanish explorers were in the area 400 hundred years ago. Artifacts, crosses, and the foundation of a fortification have been found as well as references in Spanish documents. Looking out the car window you can only imagine what fascinating things have transpired here.

At the corner that leads to McCoon’s Landing there is what remains of an old steam engine in the corner of a field. Dad tells of the sawmill and how someone had poured water into what must have been a dry boiler. It exploded and killed both of the men who were working there. The large barrel portion of the engine with a gaping hole remains as a solemn reminder. Down the hill to the east is the campground and what used to be a ford in the river. Across from that spot is a farmstead where Dad spent much of his childhood.
(To Be Continued)

Rides I

I grew up going on rides with my family. It continued when I married and had my own family. We went on rides all the time. It was a simpler time, I think, and gas was much cheaper so it was actually a form of entertainment in those days. I continued to go on rides with my father, too.

My Dad was like a tour guide when we went for a ride. He gave an ongoing narrative as we moved along. He got so good at it that he gave tours for the County Historical Society and for school groups. They had three distinct tours in the county. One trip was to the Northwest, one to the Southwest and one to the East. They would load up a school bus and take kids or adults on one of the routes. It took most of the day. Along the way he pointed out spots of historical significance and told stories of human interest.

The trips with the family were just the same. A spot along the road would prompt him and he would start in. He even did it on our jaunts to hunt arrowheads. If we headed west on Highway 34 he would talk about how the railroad was built by crews and one of their camps was west of town and he would point off to the northwest. The landowner had taken him out there once and there was still evidence of the camp after over a hundred years. You could see where the sod houses were and some of the cave like holes they had dug into the side of hills.

Cresting the hill on Highway 34, Westwood is on the left. When I was in high school an ancient bundle burial was found when they were digging the sewage lagoon for the community. They called Dad and he called the State Archeologist’s Office. They came to see it and Terry and I went out that day with them. I remember Terry found a perfect spear point there that day.

Four or five native Americans were buried in one spot there. It was called a bundle burial because they were all piled up together. It was conjectured that they were a hunting party or a war party and were all killed far from their home. You can read about it if you go to the State Archeologist’s Office.

North of the highway and almost right across from the Westwood, high on a rise are three large Indian mounds. You can’t see them from the road. Dad and I visited them a couple times, measured and photographed them, and sent the information to the State Archeologist’s Office. There is another mound about a mile southwest across the Skunk. You can see the bluff from these mounds.

Still going west we drop into Jennings’s bottom. Usually it was too wet and silted in for arrowhead hunting. It flooded many times in the spring. Nancy did find a hematite celt where they cut a drainage ditch on the west side. We never found much else there.

(To Be Continued)

Becoming a Teacher X

The Southeast Iowa Writing Project (SIWP) class started on July 30, 1979. It met each day from 8:00 to 4:00 in the basement of the library at Iowa Wesleyan College. The air-conditioner went out for a few days of the three-week course and we moved to the basement of Henry County Savings Bank until it was repaired. I liked the campus setting much better.

The mornings were devoted to reading research and professional opinions about effective instruction in general and writing specifically. There was a large collection of articles and books to read. We also spent a lot of time talking about our own teaching and discussing the reading material both in large and small groups. It was an incredible learning opportunity. Talking about your professional practice and reading and hearing about that of others was rich experience.

In the afternoons we wrote and shared our own writing. Suddenly, we were all in the position we placed our students in all the time. That was very intimidating! Sharing something as personal as your writing is risk taking. It made many of us all very nervous. Some very brave ones did it right away and that made it harder for everyone concerned because the pieces were very good and I remember thinking that I was way out of my league with this group.

There were rules. We followed a response process that was called PQP. The first P was for Praise. The second letter was for Question and the last for Polish. We were to first tell the writer what we liked about their piece, then ask any questions we had about the piece and last, make any suggestions we might have.

Writers could choose to have their writing only seen by the instructors, shared anonymously or identified in the small or large group. Each afternoon we learned a new way to share and respond to writing using the writing generated by the group. Up to that time most knew of only one way to respond to student writing. Write corrections and suggestions with a red pen on the paper and hand it back.

For most of us this model was revolutionary! We soon realized its power! The response to our writing was always very positive. We were motivated to write a lot more and could see that overtime we were getting better at doing it. The principle was very simple. If you want to be a good writer, write a lot. The teacher’s role was to make that happen with the student. We began to ponder about how this would work in our own classrooms.

By responding positively to student writing the student is motivated to write more. Slowly the writer learns the complex skills of writing. Most of us came from classroom where grammar and punctuation were drilled into students day in and day out and they seldom got to do any writing. With this approach the skill instruction came using the actual student writing. That method, of course, ran contrary to traditionalists and the publishers of textbooks and workbooks.

Becoming a Teacher IX

Teachers usually don’t think much about leaving the profession until about February each year. That is when the school year seems like it will never end and they are stressed and tired. After about eight years at teaching I began to think about my options.

I was really comfortable with what I was doing although never quite satisfied with my lessons and student performance. I felt I understood the curriculum and could modify instruction to meet the needs of my students. I had grown tired of trying to buck a system that seemed to stifle innovation and stopped change dead in its tracks.

I thought about graduate school but doubted I could get in. I looked at my friends and saw that they were making a lot more money than I was and their families were a lot better off. I didn’t feel like their jobs were all that appealing and could see that most worked solely for the money. That is something educators obviously don’t do. I wasn’t sure what else I could do and make a living.

In late winter of 1979 I read in the Area Education Agency newsletter about an interesting opportunity. It changed my life! The article encouraged teachers to apply for admittance to something called the Southeast Iowa Writing Project (SWIP). Enrollment was limited and interested teachers needed to fill out an application and write an essay to get in. There were great incentives! Those accepted would get four hours of University of Iowa graduate credit free and a stipend of $500. I didn’t think I would get in but thought it was too good to pass up trying.

I filled out the form and wrote the essay. It was about how I used writing in science to help my students learn. I sent it all off to the AEA and waited. I still have the letter I got back saying I had been accepted! I was giddy with excitement! I didn’t know where it would lead me but I was ready for the adventure.

In March I was invited to an orientation meeting at the Ft. Madison office of the AEA. There I met Chris Rauscher and Jim Davis. They were the two people who would be teaching the class. The other participants intimidated me. Most were high school English teachers. I pinched myself and wondered how I got accepted with this group.

Chris and Jim gave an overview of what to expect and gave us some articles to read before the class that was scheduled for three weeks that summer. I was pleased to learn that it would be offered in the library at Iowa Wesleyan College. They told us we would be reading and journaling a lot. They said we would all need a journal and showed us a couple examples.

At one point during the orientation Chris and Jim came around and talked to us individually. I was surprised at how much they knew about me! Jim talked about the piece I had written and my background as a science teacher. I was impressed!

And, so, began the adventure that would change my life in ways I could never have imagined.

Becoming a Teacher VIII

70s39 Becoming a Teacher

In the seventies and eighties teacher’s were required to write lesson plans and turn a copy in each week. The idea was that if something happened to you, whoever took your place would be able to start where you left off. It was useful for substitutes if you didn’t get a chance to write up specific plans. Many teachers resented having to turn a copy in because they felt the administration didn’t trust them.

I really didn’t have a problem with making a copy and turning it in. In those days we used a piece of carbon paper so it was just remembering to use it and put it in the right way when you did it. A few times I put the carbon in backwards and the copy ended up on the back of the page. I found my own lesson plans very useful and didn’t feel I could teach well without them.

I still have every one I wrote, even the ones I did when I was a student teacher. They are full of all kinds of interesting things. I wrote detailed plans about what I would do each day of the week in each subject. There are also notes and comments about specific students or events. I usually crossed out things when I completed them and drew arrows to the next day if I didn’t get to it.

I also had a full school year plan for each subject I taught. It laid out what I would do each month for the year. I never got everything I thought I would do done because I tended to over plan. I didn’t want to not have enough to do when I wrote the daily and yearly plans so I always put in more than I knew I could get done.

Writing the lesson plan required me to look very carefully at the material I was using to determine how best to present it to the students. Most of the reader and math series were scripted and told you exactly what to do and say. You really only needed to know how to read to teach that way. Many times the scripts were way off and written by someone who didn’t know kids, learning, or hadn’t been in a classroom for a long time.

I have heard of principals that expected teachers to follow those scripts and to be exactly where they said they would be each day in their lesson plans. I never had an administrator like that and I don’t think too many of that type exist anymore, at least in Iowa. That practice is still prevalent, unfortunately, in some states. Generally, they are places where teachers typically are not highly trained.

Most training now focuses on teaching teachers to be instructional decision makers and how to tailor instruction to meet the needs of all of their students. Sometimes teachers can do that as they plan the lesson and sometimes they do it on the fly if they feel the need to make adjustments to help the students learn.

Becoming a Teacher VII

I had some great success with difficult students early on in my career and as I have said, that meant that I got almost every difficult one that came along. Most of those kids would be in a behavior disorder classroom now but there wasn’t such a place back then. Several times the district transferred a difficult kid in town to be in my room. On one occasion a student from the Salem Elementary school was bused to my building to be in my room. Twice students from the Trenton area who would have gone to Pleasant Lawn were bused to my classroom.

These were kids who generally brought terror to the eyes of teachers in the building and students on the playground. Somehow, with patience, I was able to calm everyone including the kid. Sometimes the kid would come and there wouldn’t be any problems at all. The change and having a male teacher had been enough to influence the behavior. Other times it wasn’t so easy! Then it was a journey.

Negative behavior usually just doesn’t go away overnight. It takes time and persistence. Even the smallest gain must be celebrated and rewarded. The goal is to constantly reframe every situation so the student is ready to learn. Some of my colleagues wanted the kid to be contrite while I wanted the kid to be back in the room with a positive attitude. That meant that he/she didn’t carry the punishment, whatever it was, on his shoulders for long. There is a strong psychological foundation for that approach but some of my colleagues were more into punishment until it hurts.

Many parents believed in the latter philosophy. If their child was involved in some kind of a problem they always wanted to make sure everyone got the same punishment. If it was clearly the other kids fault they wanted to make sure his punishment was severe. They always pressed me for details but the consequences for someone else’s child is really done of their business. I usually assured them the child was punished and left it at that.

I had a particularly challenging kid who was very violent during my time at Harlan. His family background was horrible. He had witnessed a great deal of violence and inappropriate behavior in his ten years of life. Some of the stories related to him made me physically ill.

I tried every trick in the book to manage him with little success. His father told me to “just whup his butt!” and the principal actually did that once. I was a witness to it and found it very sobering. It worked for a while.

What really finally worked was developing a relationship with the kid…eventually playing with him and others on the playground. The better I knew him and he knew me the more I could reason with him. That was an important point in my emerging belief that relationships are everything. I have held fast to that since.

Once, I had to ask this student to leave the room. In the hall I chastised him severely and shaking my finger backed him into the wall. Suddenly, I saw a tear run down his cheek. I couldn’t believe my words had that kind of effect and, bewildered, I said, “Why are you crying?” He meekly responded, “I backed in to the wall heater!”

Becoming a Teacher VI

Teaching is a sacred trust! Families place their most prized things in your trust…their children. They trust that you will nurture them and keep them safe. It is something not to be taken lightly by educators. Because they do that, they are sometimes cautious. Probably more so today than in the 1970s when I first started teaching.

When I started some parents were a little leery of me. One, because I was a male in a field dominated by females and two, because I was a local boy with a not so great academic reputation. I got lots of questions and I am sure the school administration did to.

I was asked similar questions so many times that they began to annoy me! “Why would a male want to go into elementary education?” Do you plan to continue your education so you can be a high school teacher? And “Are you going to become an administrator?” There was/is the perception by some of the clueless that “People who can, do. People who can’t, teach”

Nothing has been heavier on my mind than safety in my entire career as an educator. I have had this terrible fear that someone would be seriously hurt or die on my watch. I took what some thought were extreme measures to see that didn’t happen.

In the first few years of my career and occasionally after that I had parents volunteer in my classroom. Actually, that first year a couple insisted on it. One wanted to organize the books in the classroom library. Given the small size of the library that took about 15 minutes. They were all obviously concerned about what I might do to their children. By Thanksgiving I had won them over and they disappeared. I guess they decided I could be trusted after all.

Because I was the first male the kids had encountered as a teacher there were other problems, too. My voice was too loud for some and others thought I was mean. I worked hard to win the kids over by over compensating. I learned to speak softly and to joke around with the kids. When we all began to have fun it made it easier for us all.

Overtime it became clear to me that being positive created an environment where kids were ready to learn. That stayed with me during my entire career whether I was teaching kindergarteners or senior citizens. A positive supportive environment is ten times more effective that a stern critical one… something some of my colleagues never learned. I have seen many coaches fall into the negative pattern of only criticizing and belittling their players and then wondering why they have such a poor record. They usually end up blaming the players. I have seen others that build on the strengths of their players and have great success. It seems so simple yet so hard for some.

Becoming a Teacher V

During my childhood and the early years of my teacher career I think education was a more powerful source and influence in the lives of kids than it is now. I have seen a dramatic change that seemed to begin in the 1970s. It could have been earlier and I just wasn’t aware of it. I don’t mean to say that education isn’t a powerful influence now but that there are other equally, or more powerful, forces now.

In my early years parents rarely questioned educators. They almost always supported the teacher in issues of discipline and curriculum. Teachers were highly revered people, although underpaid. Teachers begged for more parent and state involvement in education issues and funding. They raised concerns about the inadequate curriculum and support.

At Saunders we struggled to keep a viable district parent teacher organization. I served as vice president for a time. Only teachers showed up at the meetings. Parents didn’t see the urgency we felt and they were content to let things go along as they always had.

In the mid seventies Iowa passed collective bargaining for public school teachers. That meant we could negotiate with the school board about salaries. I got involved in that for a while as chair of the teacher negotiation team and then chief negotiator. It is a thankless job with lots of hours outside the school day. At least we were able to negotiate a good contract that served as a model for many other districts.

The bad part is that it set up an adversarial relationship between the teachers and the board and administration. The board and administration then slowly begin to convince the community that the teachers were bad because they were taking their tax dollars. Public sentiment began to shift.

Another problem was on the horizon. Fundamentalism was on the rise across the world. Americans were held hostage in Iran. Locally, religious fundamentals jumped on the bandwagon and condemned public education for the evils of the world. They were against values education, evolution, and generally anything else that might teach their children to think. It was scary! These critics really had no idea what went on in a typical classroom.

A small group from a local church refused to send their kids to public school. The kids were truant, parents were charged, and eventually the group opened their own school. A public forum was held in the community room of a local bank and leaders of the group chastised us for being evil. Our own pastor, Ron McMenimen, rose and spoke passionately in rebuttal and our defense. He made me proud to be a Presbyterian that day! The critics were speechless when he was he finished. He knew their brand of Christianity better than they did, but the damage was done.

The irony is that most of the Sunday school teachers in all of the churches in town were “evil” public school teachers during the week.
I read this week of the teacher in the Middle East that was to be flogged for letting students name a teddy bear Mohammad and I was immediately reminded of the intolerance of our own far right. Scary!

Becoming a Teacher IV

In my 50s and 60s pieces I wrote about my struggles as a student and so I won’t repeat it all again. Let it suffice to say I struggled as an elementary student and certainly wasn’t a stellar high school student either. It wasn’t until my junior year in college that things began to fit together.

Many experts believe that the biggest influence on the way teachers teach is how they were taught as students. I would tend to agree with that. If they felt they were really successful in school, teachers tend to teach like their teachers did. On the other hand, if they struggled they might choose methods they think might be more effective. I would be in the latter group.

I was fortunate to student teach with a teacher who was open minded and encouraged innovation. She modeled effective instruction for me everyday and was a big influence on me. I adapted many of her ideas and techniques for my own classroom.

Marsha Cammack also heavily influenced me. Marsha taught special education in the room right next to mine. She was an incredibly positive person and had a big impact on me as well as her students. Marsha and I were doing mainstreaming (now called inclusion) of her students in my regular education classroom in 1971. We were pioneers for what is now commonplace. One unintended side effect of the success we were having with special needs kids was that for the rest of my teaching career I was the person that got the special needs kids and the discipline problems when they got to my grade level.

John Becker, the person who hired me and was the principal of the building, also influenced me. John was a progressive educator who was open to new ideas. He had a reputation as an outstanding teacher, himself, and that added credibility. He encouraged me and had confidence in my skills as a teacher.

I would have to say that my own daughters had a big impression on me, too, as I formulated my ideas about learning. They had some of the same struggles I had at their age and I could see what worked for them and what didn’t. I even experimented on them sometimes, probably more with Heather because my thoughts were not as formulated when Angie was younger. I tried different things to immerse them in language as they grew up. I watched as they had different kinds of teachers and could easily see where they prospered.

In the spring of 1972 I took Supervision of Primary Grade Reading at the urging of some colleagues in the building. I really had no business doing it in my first year but I did. It was a University of Iowa extension course offered in Mt. Pleasant. Although I only got a “C” in the course I did get a lot out of it and it bolstered my emerging beliefs about learning. The teacher wrote me a note at the end of the course saying she couldn’t recommend me for graduate school. I hadn’t asked her to? Her comment haunted me for years.

Becoming a Teacher III

Not having a viable alternative I followed along with other teachers and used the basal reading program and the language arts book. I hated it but I did it for a while at least. Then things begin to happen. Things I loved and the kids loved began to creep in to the day. I started reading aloud to the kids more, using poetry more, and letting the kids do their self-selection of literature from the library. We started writing a lot more, too. Still commercially produced materials dominated my classroom.

But the tide began to shift. I saw the rumbling of discontent in the professional journals. I knew I had to be a better teacher. I knew I couldn’t continue to do something I didn’t believe in…something I was convinced was actually doing harm to the kids.

Other teachers wanted to do more but were afraid. Teachers generally are a very cautious group. Contrary to popular belief they don’t take on every new thing that comes down the pike. Generally teachers teach they way they were taught and only do things differently if there is powerful research and support for it.

Parents demand their children be taught just the same way they were taught. Parents have stopped more than one significant educational innovation simply because it was new and different. When I hear politicians tell us education has got to change I always think they are talking to the wrong people. They need to talk to the parents.

Publishers and parents got the pieces but not the picture and, unfortunately many others were in the same boat. The goal of reading and writing instruction should be to produce readers and writers.

The model of public education we use today came from another time and was tailored to produce good citizens and level the playing field by offering the education to everyone. In Europe only the very wealthy could afford to be educated and the thinking in the new world was that it should be for everyone. It was only later that things like producing good workers for the business world became important. The one size fits all model we were using in Mt. Pleasant and most other schools wasn’t working because large numbers of kids were failing to become readers and writers.

So I was faced with the dilemma. Follow the rules and just go along with the others, or ask a lot of questions and try to find a better way. There had to be a better way! But, would the school district let me find it and use it if I did? What about my colleagues? What would they say? What about parents? I was sure they expected a traditional education much the same as they one they had. And last, but most important, would the kids prosper and grow up to be readers and writers?

Up to that time I had been influenced by a lot of different people and things. Out of my experience I began to form my beliefs about education and learning. (Continued)

Becoming a Teacher II

Rudolf Flesch was strongly opposed to a technique that was in use in some places in the early 1950s called the “look and say” method in which students learned to recognize whole words. He felt that students were not being taught to link letters with sounds and turn the sounds into words. He felt that looking at the context in which the word was used in was counter productive.

What was called phonics became the method of preference in most schools for the next 30 years or so even though research and professional opinion didn’t support it as the only method to use it became just that! I was beaten by the phonics stick myself and now facing the prospect of doing what I hated so much to my own students.

The trouble was that learners associated reading with boring and pointless drill and practice and writing with grammar drills and red marks on their papers. There was no reading and writing but rather the so-called preparation to be readers and writers. Contrary to Flesch’s contention, Johnny could read but he chose not to. Much the same problem that we have with most adults today and the same is true for writing.

Are the generations of kids hammered with Flesch’s phonics better readers today? Nope! Publishers loved the programmed instruction and made a fortune peddling their reading series. Textbook authors and quasi researchers published volumes to support what they were doing…lining the pockets of the publisher. The popular press was full of stories espousing their beliefs. True researchers who had no vested interest in selling books continue to advocate for an alternative but their voices we drowned out by the deep pockets of the book selling industry.

Those who advocated for more novels and books (literature based) in the hands of children didn’t have a chance either. The publishers wanted to sell their volumes of scripted lessons that only included brief reading passages that the kids seldom got to even read.

A movement called whole language was quietly gaining strength in the background. It advocated for much more reading and writing and the teaching of skills in the context of the student learning and not in isolation as advocated by the phonics approach. I was drawn to it because it made sense to me. Who could learn to golf or play tennis or ride a bike if they never got to actually do it because they were always practicing the sub skills? Thus, came the name, whole language, and teaching from the whole to the part. That is pretty much how we learn everything else. Oh, there is some instruction that usually goes on before hand but the real learning doesn’t really happen until the learner tries the activity.

Teachers didn’t have to think. They dutifully read the script in the teachers’ manual to their three reading groups and didn’t question the fact that it didn’t take any training to do that. When it is tightly controlled like that there is no decision making on the part of the teacher. Today we know that good teachers make instruction decisions that impact student learning all the time. We now train teachers to do just that. (To be continued)

Becoming a Teacher

Some say that good teachers are born while others say they have to be trained. I think it is both. Some people are more natural at it than others but they can benefit from some training, too. At least, I did!

I felt pretty confident, coming out of college, that I could do the job. I knew quite a bit about science and had the equivalent of a minor in that area. I was comfortable with math at the elementary school level and didn’t see social studies as a challenge. I wasn’t so sure about how to teach skill-oriented reading or even where to start for that matter. I hadn’t been a good reading student myself so that didn’t help. I loved language but didn’t do well with the traditional language arts classes that were heavy on drill and practice.

Educators tend to break things that need to be taught into parts, teach the part, and then have the student put it all together. The problem was that we got so busy teaching the part that the student never got around to putting it together. The putting together is where the fun and reward of learning is. Needless to say many didn’t find reading and language arts fun and rewarding. Kids rarely read anything more than a very short passage. Research in those days said elementary students spent less than two minutes a day reading. They almost never got to write a story and when they did it was taken apart piece by piece with a red pen.

I sought advice from my colleagues in the building about how best to go about teaching reading and language arts (English). Most just said they went by the teacher’s manual. It was scripted instruction and had exactly what the teacher should say and what the student response would probably be. No creativity there! It seemed sterile and boring. I honestly believe the other teachers were terribly bored with it and, as a result, the students were, too. Oh, a small percentage of kids “got it” and made sense of the drudgery but the majority just dutifully plugged along.

It just seemed to me that it didn’t have to be that way. School didn’t have to be boring and tedious. Kids needed to know that somehow it would all fit together for them. From that came a career long battle of swimming upstream against prevailing practice in the classroom. The surprising thing was that even then, and long before then, research and professional opinion was on my side. As far back as the late 1890s professionals had warned of the pitfalls of the drill and grill instruction that became common practice after Rudolf Flesch’s book Why Johnny Can’t Read became so popular in the 1950s. As I recall he had little background in education but had tutored his child or grandchild using the skill and drill technique and the child could now read. It wasn’t research and it might just have been the extra attention the child got that turned him around. Flesch swore it was the method and if it worked for this kid it would work for all kids.

Publishers grabbed on to the “one size fits all” mentality and produced manuals and workbooks and worksheets by the truck load! Use their materials as they prescribe and your students will prosper. Never mind that they had never met even one of my students.
(Part 1 of many!)

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.

Kayaks

My Dad and I went canoeing many times. I think the first time I took him on Big Creek in the Explorer canoe hooked him. We got in just north of town and got out near old highway 34. It was after a rain so what was normally a rocky stream was a raging boat ride. Actually the creek was only a few feet deep in most places but it was still a fun trip. He loved it.

We floated down Big Creek, Big Cedar, and the Skunk River from Merrimac to Oakland Mills. I still have a piece of ancient pottery I found on a sandbar in the middle of the river. Floating down Big Creek or any float trip was like a trip to another place. The rocky bluffs on both sides of the creek made us feel like we were in the wilderness. The abundant wild life was a constant source of beauty. The whole thing was like a vacation to Colorado.

One of Dad’s neighbors, Clarence Rouse, introduced Dad to kayaking. Clarence had two kayaks that he built from kits. They had a wooden frame and were covered with a vinyl like material. They were very sturdy and could withstand major whitewater conditions. Dad went with him several times including a trip down the Buffalo River in Missouri.

That convinced Dad he should build one of his own. He ordered the kit from Folbot. It was very similar to a kit they still sell called the Greenland II. He had all the equipment he would need and was an experienced woodworker. The question, then, was where do you build a boat that size in the wintertime. Building it outside in an Iowa winter was not an option.

The basement at our house was suggested as a possible location. To make sure they could get it out of there once it was built they first brought over a 17 foot board. It would easily go down the steps and into the basement. Ever cautious, they brought Clarence’s boat over and put it in the basement. It had room to spare! So, our basement on Clay Street became the building site for the boat.

Clarence and Dad worked on it diligently for about a month. I helped when I could and when spring came we had a kayak. It returned to the basement only for winter storage and was just turned over outside in the summer. Although Dad used it a lot it was usually stored at our house and he encouraged us to use it.

That boat took the place of the Explorer canoe for us and we used it a lot. I still have two of the paddles but the boat itself is long gone. I miss it but it was heavy and vulnerable to puncture in rocky waters. It repaired easily but it was always a concern.

The last trip we took in it Dad and I got caught in a rainstorm between Rome and Oakland Mills. We waited it out standing under an overhang at Neil Panther’s cabin west of town.

Canoes

When the Explorer Scout Troup disbanded in Mt. Pleasant much of their gear went to whoever wanted it. Clint Rila kept the seventeen-foot canoe and would loan it out to any Scout or former Scout who wanted to use it. He would even let you keep it for extended periods because there just wasn’t much demand for it.

We borrowed that canoe a lot! It was easy to lift up on top of a car, strap it on and carry it off to a river or stream somewhere. We usually used it on the Skunk River, Big Cedar Creek or Big Creek. It was fun to get some other couples and more canoes and go on a float trip. Most of the time the weather was good and we had few problems. At least once the weather was bad.

One time we planned a trip with two other couples. Each couple had their own canoe. We thought we would float down Big Cedar and have a picnic on the way. When the day came it was cool and rainy but we were determined to go anyway. We loaded up our gear and headed for the starting point. By that time it was evident that one of the females was less than excited about going even if the weather got better.

As luck would have it she got wet just getting into the canoe. It went down hill from then on. Becky and I were experienced and dressed for the occasion. I can’t say the doomed couple was. The third couple were prepared and not getting bothered by the circumstances. The male taunted the now discouraged couple and after awhile pulled up next to them and rocked their canoe. The victims over compensated and were in the water in an instant! The female let out a stream of expletives that only fueled the bully.

When they were back in the boat and headed downstream he started in again. Seeing that this could only get a lot worse I encouraged him to leave them alone and he did for a while. By that time the poor couple wanted nothing than to just get out of there, dry out, and get some warm clothes on. We were in the middle of a stretch of the creek between the only exit points, which were simply bridges. There was really no choice but to ride it out. We had planned to go a lot further but the couple and the other two females in the group had enough.

When we did get near the exit point the bully started again with the taunts and then moved in for the boat rocking. Trying to get away the couple tipped again. By then the female was so mad she was spitting bullets. We got out at the bridge, trudged through ankle deep mud and flagged a ride to one of our cars. Eventually we all go home safely. We thought maybe we all just go someone’s house and eat but that was quickly nixed.

The very sad part of this whole story is that the couple that had so much trouble soon divorced. I doubt if it really had anything to do with the canoe trip but I am sure it didn’t help.

My Dad and I canoed a lot together and he even, with the help of a friend, built a kayak. More on that in the next piece.

Rabbits

When Angie aand Heather were young we raised rabbits. They, of course, multiply so quicky you have more than you bargained for. That happened to us. I thought maybe we could sell them to people for food. I probably should have known better since I raised rabbits as a kid.

The trick is to have a litter and raise them to four or five pounds and then sell them as pets or for food. A female rabbit can produce 1000% of her body weight in food in a year. You wean rabbits after about 8 weeks and the female can then be bred for another litter. They usually have seven to ten babies per litter.

Dad helped me build a terrific two-section cage for the rabbits. The buck lived on one side and the mother and babies on the other. They were only allowed together when it was time to make babies. There was a door between the two cages that could be opened at the right times. The cages had narrow mesh wire floor and wider chicken wire on the sides and top. The floor mesh was wide enough to let the manure fall through but support the rabbits’ feet. I was pretty proud of the design and construction.

The cage was located just off our patio and under a small redbud tree. Feeding and watering were easy and rabbit food was cheap in those days. They also loved leftover lettuce and carrot and potato peelings.

Early one morning I heard a rabbit scream! It’s a horrible sound! We had a litter that was about six weeks old at the time. I went out to the cage and found that one of the rabbit’s had got a paw somehow twisted in the wider chicken wire on the side. The rabbits twisting and squirming had only made the situation worse. Its leg was broken and pulled out of joint. I had to cut the wire to get it out. The whole thing saddened me! I gave the rabbit to my neighbor who I am sure had it for dinner.

Shortly after that incident I decided to sell or give away the whole bunch. An old friend, Billy Jackson took the rabbits and cage and I thought I was done with it. That wasn’t the case because he returned it all the next day saying his landlord wouldn’t let him keep them. A few days later another guy took the whole thing off my hands and gave me ten bucks, too. The cage was probably worth twice that.

That was the end of my experience with rabbits. I often think I would like to have a rabbit. They produce the most incredible fertilizer that would be great for my garden. For a while I had a friend whose kids were in 4H and supplied me with a feedbag full of manure two or three times a year. I need to find someone like that again or start rasing rabbits to produce my own.

Bank Poles

I wouldn’t call bank pole fishing a sport. It is more of a harvest of available food. It involves baiting up to five poles and sticking them in the muddy bank along the river. Thus, the name bank poles. All of the poles must be tagged with your name and address and be checked regularly. If you don’t follow the regulations you are very likely to get a ticket. Typically, the poles were just five to six feet long branches cut from trees. On the big end it was chopped to a point so it would stick easily in the bank. On the other a length of line is tied.

I usually used some strong line or string not much longer than the length of the pole. My bait of choice was always a three or four inch sunfish that I had caught in a pond somewhere. I would stick the pole in the bank and let the hooked sunfish swim around near the surface. It was best to fish with a bank pole when the river is rising as the fish feed on what is a new area for them so the lines are often only a few inches from shore.

Most often I did this kind of fishing with a group of two or three friends. We would each put out our lines early in the evening and then go and run them every four hours or so for the next 24 hours. Five lines usually yielded two or three catfish each time and sometimes more.

One guy in our group was particularly annoying. If he knew where your lines were he would run them before you got there and then show the fish off as ones he caught. He was soon out of the group. Another guy liked to do the fishing but didn’t like to do any of the work involved. He always had something he had to do right now when it came time to clean the fish or anything else that required much effort.

I remember once when I put out poles down river about a mile from Oakland Mills. A run of the lines about eight o’clock that evening had produced good results including a three pound cat. Nobody was willing, that night to run them again around midnight so I ended up going out to run mine by myself.

It was pretty dark but I thought I could see well enough with the light of the moon and stars so I left the flashlight in the car. I am actually kind of fond of a dark night in the woods. If you couldn’t see the fish you could certainly feel it when you grabbed the pole.

Anyway, this first pole had a pan size catfish. I rebaited it and moved on. The second was empty. As I approached the third I could tell it must have a fish on cause the line was moving around wildly. I grabbed the pole and I could feel the fish or, at least, what I thought was a fish.

I lifted the pole and reached for about where I thought the fish would be. Just a split second before I grabbed the line I saw in the moon light something that was four or five feet long and not much bigger around than the pole. It was a snake! I dropped the whole thing on the ground and took about 10 steps backward falling in the brush.

I got to my feet as quickly as possible and went to the car to get my flashlight. Back at the pole I found the huge black snake angrily trying to get off the hook. How do you get a snake off the hook in the middle of the night? I didn’t know either. I ended up cutting the line as close to the snake as possible and then I got out of there as quickly as possible.

When I returned in the daylight the snake was nowhere to be found. I pulled all of my poles out and went home. I fished with bank poles after that but was a lot more careful when I ran the lines.

Changing Schools

After two years at Saunders, a K-6 grade building, the district decided to move to grade level buildings. For some reason they decided Saunders would be a K-2 building and Harlan would be a third and fourth grade building.

To this day I am somewhat mystified as to why they did it. I have never read in research or professional opinion that one is significantly more effective than the other. I was also surprised that if they were going to do it they would put the smaller kids in a building on multi-levels with lots of steps.

Anyway the district moved me and the third grade teacher, Nadine McCoy, to Harlan over the summer. Becky was set to be the building secretary at Harlan, too, but took a job at the Coop over the summer to be Lawrence McCoy’s (Nadine’s husband) confidential secretary. That was probably good because she probably would have killed me if she had to live with me and work with me everyday.

I loved my top floor room at Saunders. The big window on the north looked out over the playground and the south facing windows in the hall outside my room were perfect for starting tomatoes. Every spring the windows were lined with the little milk cartons with plants sprouting out the top.

Harlan was a much newer building on the north side of town. It was over a mile from our house on West Clay. Not a really long walk from home but a lot farther than the three and a half blocks Saunders was.

At Harlan they put me in the classroom at the end of the north Hall and on the left. The new principal was Philip Speidel. The windows along the north side of my room looked out on the street. It certainly wasn’t the pleasing view that I had at Saunders and I lost the advantage of being able to watch my kids on the playground during recess.

Gertrude Miller taught 4th grade across the hall from me and the other 4th grade in the room just south of mine was Mrs. Morrison. She passed away that year. It was a very sad and sobering thing for the whole building.

Nadine was teaching 3rd grade along with a new teacher to our district, Marilyn Strohman. I can’t now recall who the other third grade teacher was. There was also a kindergarten in the building.

You couldn’t see the playground from the windows of my room but could from the teacher’s lounge down the hall. Teachers would gather there during their breaks and watch their kids outside the window even though there was plenty of supervision out there. You could learn a lot by watching your kids in that environment.

One warm spring day I saw a group of fourth grade boys in a tight circle near the far edge of the playground. I could tell they were looking at something but couldn’t tell what. I walked out of the building and in their direction but tried to avoid having them realizing I was headed toward them. I got within twenty yards before they spotted me and panicked. I zero in on the kids who had the goods and soon had them all. One boy had quite a collection of material.

It included two adult magazines, a package of condoms, and three Polaroid photographs of a naked woman in a lawn chair. I took the bundle into the teachers lounge and told the other teachers what it included. They were on me in seconds and took it all away from me as if I was one of the students. Eventually, it all got handed over to the principal who, in turn, met with the boy’s mother and handed it all over to her.

The stories of Harlan are many and I will tell some more another time.