Iowa Heritage Illustrated

Mitchell, Robert B

SHSI (OES MOINES)
«a*
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From Genealogy to History
The idea for “Get Ready for ’96” 
grew out of genealogy research I 
was doing on the Mitchells who 
lived throughout Decatur County, 
Iowa, in the mid-1890s. My great- 
great-grandfather, the Rev. George 
E. Mitchell, was a Methodist “ supply 
preacher” based for several years 
in Davis City. I was reading micro­
filmed Decatur County newspapers 
of the period to learn basic facts 
about my family’s history.
Family lore suggested that Ralph 
Mitchell (one of George’s children, 
and my great-grandfather) had 
worked for a brief time in the news­
paper business, but no one knew 
where or when. Imagine my sur­
prise and delight, then, when I found 
a brief item in the Decatur County 
Journal reporting on the purchase of 
the Davis City Rustler in 1895 by
Ralph Mitchell and a business partner.
The newspaper microfilm sud­
denly provided a window into the 
journalistic and political milieu in 
which my great-grandfather plied his 
trade. Even a casual glance at the 
newspapers showed that Ralph’s 
career as an editor came during an 
exciting period, with a high-stakes 
presidential election and accompa­
nying partisan rhetoric dominating 
the front pages of Decatur County’s 
newspapers.The desire to learn more 
about this particularly fascinating chap­
ter of my great-grandfather’s life led 
me to write the accompanying article.
Only one copy—the final 
edition—of the Rustler still exists, 
and there is no microfilm record of 
the paper, but it is still possible to 
draw some basic conclusions about 
the publication based on references
made in other county newspapers 
of the period. The Rustler seems to 
have supported the Republicans 
but was the secondary paper in 
Davis City, a town of 500, where it 
struggled with the Populist Davis 
City Advance for readers and influence.
Ralph’s career in the newspa­
per business did not last long. He 
married my great-grandmother, 
Mary Helen Davis, in September 
1897. Soon thereafter he swapped 
the press for the pulpit, leaving the 
newspaper business to follow in his 
father’s footsteps as a Methodist 
minister. Although his journalism 
career was brief, Ralph nonetheless 
played a role in the fascinating 
political and journalistic drama that 
unfolded in Decatur County during 
1896, even if he had only a bit part.
—Robert 8. Mitchell
Fall 2003 109


English

From Genealogy to History

Get Ready for '96': The Decatur County Press, Partisanship, and the Presidential Campaign of 1895

Briggs, Mary Wear

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Jack Erwin of Henry County, Iowa, 
feeds chickens in this mid-20th- 
century photo. Helping care for 
poultry and collecting eggs were 
typical chores for farm children, as 
described in this reminiscence by 
Iowan Mary W ear Briggs.
by M ary Wear Briggs
When I was young, in the 1920s, 
nny mother, Nora Wear, raised 
chickens. She usually had a flock 
of more than a hundred layers, 
and she traded their eggs for our 
groceries in Willards Store in 
Persia, our hometown.
Chickens have proved to me 
to be the dumbest creatures in the 
barnyard. When God made 
chickens, he must have taken a 
look at his newest creative en­
deavor and, seeing the flat top on 
their heads, realized too late that 
he had forgotten to leave room for
the brains. So he built a bright red 
comb over the flat top to cover up 
his mistake. Chickens only know 
three things well: to lay eggs, to 
"set," and to cackle or crow 
according to their gender.
My sister, Loyola, didn't care 
for outdoor jobs, so 1 usually had 
the chore of gathering the eggs. 
One summer, when I was about 
seven or eight, my mother had 
what she considered a brilliant
idea of giving me a penny for 
every two dozen eggs I gathered. 
(Peon wages!) In hot weather, hens 
sometimes quit laying and spent 
relaxing times dusting their 
feathers in powdery holes they 
scratched out in the shade of the 
grove, or they decided to set, and 
didn't lay during this period. 
Gathering eggs for money became 
diligent work.
I not only gathered them in the 
henhouse, I had to search for them
in the barn, the crib, the hoghouse, 
the haystacks, or anywhere the 
chickens might decide to lay an 
egg. I collected them three times a 
day, so they wouldn't be out in the 
heat too long. Sometimes I literally 
plucked the egg from the hen as 
she laid it.
I worked out a very simple 
accounting system. 1 drew the 
number of eggs I gathered in sets 
of two dozen. As I sometimes 
found only two or three in a 
gathering period, this alleviated 
constant adding and gave me a 
pictorial view of my growing 
riches. I did not have a regular 
allowance. My father gave us each 
50 or 75 cents on the Fourth of July 
and on church picnic day, and that 
was all we had.
I knew just how to bring my 
hand in behind the hen's wing 
near the tail and quickly grab the 
eggs before the hen could turn her 
head and peck my hand or arm. 
Even though I was cautious, some 
of the hens were vicious. I had 
many bruise blotches, where a hen 
had given me sharp, open pecks. 
The only way to retrieve the eggs 
when this happened was to take a 
stick and drive the hen from the 
nest. It was better not to do that, as 
she might then hide her eggs in 
the straw in the haymow, in the 
horses' stalls, under the crib, or 
down in the tall grass along the 
roaci. Then my income was lost, 
while she happily set on some­
times sterile eggs, or a fox or snake 
would find the nest. In due time, 
the hen would reappear in the 
barnyard, proudly leading only 
two or three baby chicks from her 
clutch of 18 or more eggs.
Besides the cross setting hens,
I also had to skirt the big Rhode 
island Red rooster. He ruled the 
chicken yard, strutting as proudly 
as a Prussian general. When he
puffed up his feathers, lowered his 
wings, and stuck his neck straight 
forward, I knew it was time to 
run. He would come at me like a 
bullet, peck my bare legs, or knock 
me down. Gathering eggs became 
a hazardous occupation!
An egg incubator stood in one 
of the seldom-used rooms in our 
house. In the spring, Mom gath­
ered eggs that she hoped were 
fertile, placed them on a tray in 
the incubator, and lit the lamp for 
heat for the eggs. We helped mark 
each egg with an X, so we could 
tell that we had turned them over 
each day, as the hen would do on 
her nest. Mom sprinkled them 
faithfully to keep the inside mem­
brane moist. She candled them by 
holding them up to a lantern. If a 
dark blob showed, the chick was 
beginning to develop. If the egg 
looked clear, we destroyed it.
After the chickens were 
hatched in the incubator they were 
put out with setting hens inter­
ested in raising a family, usually 
15 or 20 to each hen. Their protec­
tion was a small coop built of 
wood, set out in the north grove. 
Each hen had her own territory, 
but as the chicks grew, they were 
allowed to roam through the 
orchard gathering tidbits of bugs 
and worms.
Usually one or two of the 
weaker chicks hatched late with a 
crooked leg, forever bent upward, 
reaching for the sky. These I tried 
to raise. Their "night mother," a 
box covered with an old cloth, I 
kept in the washhouse. Every 
summer I had one or two of these
pets hopping around the front 
yard. I fed and watered them 
morning and night. They jumped 
on my shoulder and perched on 
one foot, swaying from left to 
right, as they took an easy ride 
around the yard. When we sat on 
the porch or steps in the evening, 
they sometimes jumped on my 
uncle's shoulder. He would knock 
them off, calling them "damn fool 
chicken!" I could tell by his half 
smile that he was teasing me. I 
had to keep them in our fenced 
front yard or they would be killed 
by the hens and roosters, who 
seemed to believe strongly in the 
survival of the fittest. Usually by 
late fall the chicks' poor develop­
ment left them ill-suited for the 
cold chicken house. They weak­
ened and died.
Chasing chickens was always 
a traumatic experience for me. We 
lived on top of a hill in southwest 
Iowa, with no trees to the west 
and south to blot out the storm 
clouds that rolled up. Unless we 
were outside playing, we didn't 
notice the black clouds until they 
were almost upon us. At times the 
storms came up rapidly. Mom 
would call out, "Mary, Loyola, 
come help chase in the chickens." 
As fast as we scurried, the storm 
would catch us.
Mom was of Irish stock. Her 
parents came over from Ireland 
and migrated to western Iowa to 
farm. They were deathly afraid of 
the storms and winds of the 
prairies. After I visited Ireland, 
with its mild temperatures and 
soft, misty rains, I came to realize 
why they were terrified of the 
heavy, boiling clouds with the 
sharp lightning and the loud claps 
of thunder. I probably acquired 
this panic in the face of storms 
from my mother, and chasing
%
chickens did nothing to lessen the 
terror.
The chicks were easier to get 
in out of the rain when they were 
smaller. My mom ran, waving her 
apron, yelling, "Shoo, shoo!" to 
the hens, desperately trying to 
save her only income. My sister 
and I followed along, gathering 
the little chicks in the carry-all we 
quickly made by holding up the 
front of our dresses. By then Mom 
would have the hen fastened 
inside the coop. We would place 
the chicks down by the coop. With 
a soft "cluck, cluck" from the 
mother hen, the chicks would 
scurry to the warmth under her 
wings.
With a storm moving in fast, 
sometimes the whole family 
would rush out to get in the 
chickens. We would run all over 
the orchard and grove and in the 
tall grass, finding them and trying 
to drive them back to the coop or 
brooder house. The dust swirled 
up from the barnyard, blinding 
my eyes. Thunder rumbled and 
cracked. The turbulent sky turned 
purple and black, leaving us in 
twilight gray. Many times hail 
pelted our heads, and lightning 
flashed and sizzled. Mom would 
call out, "Get to the house, quick!"
After the storm ended we 
would go out and pick up the wet, 
prostrate chickens, wrap them in 
towels, bring them in, and put them 
behind the warm, cob-burning 
stove. After they had warmed and
dried off, some would stand up 
with a "wa-a-a-k." Then we would 
carry them back to the brooder 
house. If the storm was especially 
intense and lasted too long, we 
would find them in the grass, stiff 
and dead. The shock of the cold 
and wet gave them a heart attack.
One evening, my brother, 
Francis, and I were home alone. 
We were in our early teens and 
fascinated by the mystery play on 
the family's battery-powered 
radio. Mom had told us to check 
the brooder door before dark to be 
sure the wind had not blown it 
shut during the day. It was a very 
hot, sultry evening, and before 
Francis and I noticed, it was 
getting dark. We dashed out to the 
brooder house, but too late. The 
three-fourths grown fryers had 
crowded up to the closed doors, 
then piled up, one on top of 
another, and went to sleep. I 
remember our frantic effort to 
unstack them. Some woke up and 
staggered away, others were so 
near suffocation that they lay there 
for a while before trying to rise. 
Those on the bottom were stiff and 
dead. I felt badly about my care­
lessness, because my mom always 
worked so hard raising the fryers 
to sell and for us to eat, and of 
course the pullets would later 
become our laying hens.
In the fall, we went through 
something similar to "chasing the 
chickens." After they became too 
large for the coops or brooder 
house, it was necessary to train 
them to go into the chicken house. 
They were like bewildered teen­
agers. They could no longer fit in 
the coops, but the chicken house 
was unfamiliar territory, ruled by 
the Rhode Island Red roosters and 
the domineering hens. So the 
young flock, true to their primitive 
instincts, took to the trees. They
would have been perfectly happy 
to perch there all night. But with 
weasels, foxes, skunks, possums, 
coons, and coyotes always search­
ing for food, it was our job to 
climb the trees, reach out quietly, 
and grab the chickens by their 
legs. Then we carried them by 
their legs, their heads hanging 
down, while they squawked 
loudly all the way to the 
henhouse. On quiet nights we 
could hear our neighbors catching 
theirs. Chicken squawks and 
protests chimed in with the night 
noises.
By late fall the tree-sitters 
became fewer and fewer until 
usually there were only two or 
three fully feathered roosters 
holding out for their ancestral 
rights. For their inherent stub­
bornness, those were eaten as 
fryers for Sunday dinner. ❖
Mary Wear Briggs's writings about her 
childhood in Harrison County, Iowa, are 
part of her memoir, "My Road from 
Leland Grove," compiled in 1992 and 
donated to the State Historical Society of 
Iowa. Her essays "The Road by Home" 
and "Sunbonnets" appeared in earlier is­
sues of this magazine. Briggs taught in 
Colorado and Iowa, before retiring in 
Missouri Valley, Iowa.


Chasing Chickens

Bergman, Marvin

Reading the Past: Hobo Workers

Swaim, Ginalie

The Voice and Faces of Iowans Fighting World War II

Cherny, Robert W

William Jennings Bryan and His 'Cross of Gold' Speech

Chadwick, Irene Kooi

A Child's Memory of World War II

Heinselman, Karen

SHSI (IOWA CiTY): PHOTO BY KAREN HEINSELMAJ
T h e  W o r ld  W a r  II C lip p in g s  P ro je c t:  
S a v in g  th e  P a s t, O n e  S to ry  a t  a T im e
IF YOU WANT TO WITNESS THE 
reach of World War II into everyday 
life in Iowa, pull out any microfilm 
roll of the World War II Clippings 
Project and begin winding. You'll 
soon be immersed in thousands of 
individual stories of Iowans fight­
ing the war, on the home front and 
overseas.
A half-century after World War 
II, a small group of Iowans is rescu­
ing thousands of Iowa stories— 
800,000, in fact—from enemy Time. 
Twice a week for the last nine years, 
a handful of members of the Iowa 
City Genealogical Society and other 
local volunteers have gathered to 
prepare fragile newspaper clippings 
for microfilming.
During World War II and the 
Korean War, the State Historical 
Society of Iowa in Iowa City re­
ceived a steady flow of newspaper 
articles referencing Iowa or Iowans, 
clipped from more than 90 Iowa 
papers by the Iowa Press Clippings 
Bureau. Sometimes as many as 
10,000 arrived in a month, labeled 
with date and newspaper. The clip­
pings filled more than 18 file cabi­
nets. Over the years, the edges of 
the long clippings turned brittle, the 
newsprint yellowed, and the ink 
faded.
In 1995, Char Hixon and Joni 
Hindman, members of the Iowa 
City Genealogical Society, under­
took a massive project to save these 
war-related stories with Iowa con­
nections. Nancy Kraft, then a pres­
ervation librarian at the State His­
torical Society of Iowa, established 
proper procedures; now at the Uni­
versity of Iowa Libraries, Kraft con­
tinues to check in with the volun­
teers. But the clippings project is 
sustained by the dedication and
stamina of the volunteers, who have 
become something of a family. 
That's what comes of individuals 
working together for over 5,000 
hours.
One by one, the fragile clippings 
are carefully unfolded, sorted by 
date, pasted on sheets of paper, 
quality checked, and then sent off 
for microfilming. Do the volunteers 
actually read each article as they 
trim and paste?
"At first we read a lot but when 
we got to the casualties, it got too 
sad," Hixon said.
The volunteers do skim the ar­
ticles, to make sure each is in the 
proper category. Sometimes a vol­
unteer reads aloud a clipping that 
is especially heroic or heart-wrench­
ing, funny or astonishing.
The stories are endless. A Clear 
Lake soldier received General 
Dwight D. Eisenhower's blood in a 
transfusion in France. A private 
from ViIlisca was saved by a mon­
key in North Africa. In a Seattle 
shipyard, a Marshalltown woman 
discovered her long-lost sister 
working right next to her. Leo 
Hendrickson witnessed Nile Kin- 
nick's plane crash. Nurse Gertrude 
Morrow, from Algona, died at 
Anzio.
One clipping reports that pos­
sibly the first African American in 
the war to be assigned to military 
intelligence, in North Africa, was 
Guy VV. Smith of Des Moines. An­
other relates that Algona's John 
Slagle was headed back home on a 
ship with 500 Australian war brides. 
Eight-year-old Harold "Corkey" 
Wells of Maquoketa sent 650 of his 
comic books to his uncle in the navy. 
Another article asks whether Iowa 
will help resettle Europe's displaced
D oris  T h o m p s o n  w as  a n u r s e  in th e  
S ou th  Pacific during  W orld  W a r  II. Now 
she vo lun tee rs  on a p ro jec t  in Iowa City 
t h a t  is p re se rv in g  th o u s a n d s  of news 
clippings a b o u t  t h e  war, and  m ak ing  
t h e m  available to  the  public on m ic ro ­
film. For each  of 30 ca tegories ,  th e  first 
s tep  (above) is so r t ing  by da te .
persons. And this story seems right 
out of the movies: When he was sent 
overseas, John F. Hassebrock of Buf­
falo Center lost touch with his wife, 
a WAC corporal. On a convoy in 
France, he went into a farmhouse 
to spend the night and discovered 
his wife—at the exact hour of their 
wedding, and on their first anniver­
sary.
The volunteers regale each 
other with their own World War II 
stories as they sort and paste. Larry 
McConahay used his portion of ra­
tioned sugar as a bargaining tool 
with his brother. Char Hixon 
scouted the Iowa skies for enemy 
planes. Mary Robertson nearly lost 
her job as a telephone operator for 
sounding the local fire alarms at the 
war's end. Doris Thompson battled 
heat and disease as a nurse in the 
South Pacific.
194 Iowa Heritage Illustrated
/
•Jk.
Because each category is or­
dered chronologically, every time 
the volunteers begin a new cateory, 
they are viewing the war all over 
again, from start to finish, but from 
a different perspective. There are 30 
categories in all. Sever} are already 
microfilmed. Hindman and Hixon 
are indexing the POWs microfilm 
(nearly 11,000 clippings and 16,000 
index entries). They hope to even­
tually index Marriages and 
Women's Military Activities, but 
that's probably all. They acknowl­
edge that the entire collection of 
800,000 clippings is just too enor­
mous. The sorting, pasting, and mi­
crofilming, now in its ninth year, 
will probably take ten more years 
to complete.
The volunteers agree they have 
learned a lot about the war and war­
time news coverage, which some­
times lagged far behind the actual 
events. "I think newspapers do 
bring out the human elements, how 
the people endured,” McConahay 
commented.
Thompson agrees. "Everyone 
ought to know what went on then."
—Ginalie Swaim and 
Karen Hcinselnian, intern
A t this tim e, m icrofilm  o f the fo llo w ­
ing categories o f the W o rld  W a r II 
Clippings Project is available fo r use 
at the State H istorical Library in Iowa 
C ity (402 Iowa Avenue, Iowa City, IA 
52240,319-335-3916).
Casualties
W om en ’s M ilita ry Activ ities 
Prisoners o f W ar 
Business & Labor 
Public Health 
Education & Training '
Farming, Food Production, & Rationing 
Life & Activ ities (1942-1943) w ill 
be available soon.
We welcome your finan­
cial donations towards 
microfilming. Thank you!
Have You Used Our Military Records?
Family h is to rians and o th e r  researchers w ill w a n t to  check o u t these 
m ilita ry  reco rds  in the  State A rch ives, State H is to rica l Society o f Iowa (600 
E. Locust, Des M oines, 503 19, phone 5 I 5 -2 8 4 -7 4 16):
• W o r ld  W a r  II B onus C as e  F iles: A pp lica tions  subm itted  by W o r ld  W a r 
II ve terans o r  n e x t o f kin fo r  a m ilita ry  service bonus fro m  the  State o f 
Iowa. Files include lim ite d  in fo rm a tio n  on the  s o ld ie r ’s m ilita ry  service and 
the  a m o un t o f the  bonus paid and to  w hom , and som etim es suppo rting  
docu m e n ta tion . M o re  than 300,000 low ans received a W o r ld  W a r II bonus 
fro m  the  state.
• W o r ld  W a r  II C as u a lty  Files: Photos and com piled service records o f men 
and w om en w h o  enlisted fro m  Iowa and died during the war.
• A r m e d  F o rces  G ra v e  R e g is tra t io n  R ecords: In fo rm a tion  on veterans 
o f the  U.S. m ilita ry  bu ried  in Iowa. May include genealogical in fo rm a tio n  
(such as date and place o f b ir th ; names o f parents, spouse, and o th e r  im m e ­
d iate fam ily m em bers) and data pe rta in ing  to  m ilita ry  service and place o f 
b u ria l.T h e  earlies t graves reg is tered are those  o f R evo lu tionary  W a r ve te r­
ans buried  in Iow a.To date the  series conta ins m ore  than 270,000 grave 
reg is tra tions.
— Sharon Avery, archivist
Help Us Preserve World War II History
The s to ry  o f Iowa and W o r ld  W a r II has many facets, and we need yo u r help 
in preserving and docum enting  all aspects.The State H is to rica l Society o f Iowa 
is seeking three-dimensional objects, w ritte n  narratives, journals, correspondence, 
photographs,and o the r documents re la ted to  the  war. W e  are pa rticu la rly  
in terested in m ateria l related to  social and po litica l aspects o f the war, such as:
• N o n -m ilita ry  objects, docum ents, and pho tos  th a t show  how  people carried  
o u t th e ir  daily lives in the  m idst o f war.
• Items made o r  m odified to  make low ans’ lives easier during the war.
• Iowa-m ade p roducts o r  services tha t co n trib u te d  to  the w ar e ffo rt.
• M ateria l descrip tive  o f w o m e n ’s e n try  in to  and experiences in the w a rtim e  
w o rk fo rc e .
• Papers o f lowans in politica l office during the w a r and th a t re flec t public 
debate and op in ions abou t the  war.
• Papers o f individuals involved in pro-peace o r  re lie f e ffo rts  and tha t 
describe the  w o rk .
• Papers o f individuals involved on the  hom e fro n t and tha t describe those 
activ ities in detail.
• W e ll-d o cu m e n te d  pho tos  w ith  accompanying m anuscript o r  personal 
com m entary.
• Gl helmet, Browning automatic rifle, M l carbine, and Thompson submachine gun.
Please note: W e  do N O T  need ra tion  books o r  tokens; un ifo rm s; en lis t­
m en t papers o r  o th e r  ce rtifica tes; individual p o rtra its  o r  g roup  un it photos, 
unless the re  is an accom panying m anuscrip t co llec tion ; pho tos o f so ld iers in 
tra in ing  camps and European landscapes.
Before bringing in a dona tion , please consu lt w ith  o u r staff:
Photographs and docum ents: Becki P lunke tt in Des M oines (515-281- 
8976) o r  Kevin K n o o t in Iowa C ity  (3 19 -3 3 5 -3 9 16).
A rtifacts: Jack Lukfin o r  Bill Johnson (5 15 -2 8 1 -8295; 5 15 -2 8 1 -5627)
— Thank you for helping us preserve Iowa history for you and your descendants.
Winter 2003 1 95
\


The World War II Clippings Project: Saving the Past, One Story at a Time

Nash, George H

Herbert Hoover: Humanitarian in Europe

Iowa Heritage Illustrated, vol.84 no.2, Summer 2003