The Palimpsest

Austin, Eric

war, preachers dropped all reluctance to talk 
about war. One spoke of The Crisis Before 
Us”; another, “The Bible and Sergeant York.’
A
fter  De c e m b e r  7, the Davenport
newspapers showed a new focus. Sto­
ries about local men in the Pacific 
appeared daily, and by December 16, 
the first reports of deaths would reach home. 
Davenporters began to adjust to a war-time 
life, in which war news would dominate the 
front pages of their newspapers for the next
four years.*
Yet life went on, played out by ordinary 
people and ordinary events. Newpapers con­
tinued to carry the stories of births, deaths, ball
scores, and the comics (Brick Bradford got 
away from the giant frog). The Friday after 
Pearl Harbor, Lawrence Welk and his orches­
tra played the Orpheum Theater in downtown 
Davenport, and new double features appeared 
on the movie screens.
Life did go on, but in some ways it irreversi­
bly changed. The war that was announced in 
banner headlines in December 1941 would 
end nearly four years later in nuclear explo­
sions, ushering in the Atomic Age. □
NOTE ON SOURCES
Primary sources are the Davenport Democrat and Leader 
and the Davenport Daily Times for the entire month of 
December 1941. This detailed look at Davenport was 
inspired by Stanley Weintraub’s approach in Long Day’s 
Journey into War: December 7, 1941 (New York, 1991 .
Iowa in 20th-century wars —
C a n  y o u  h e lp  us  s a v e  th e  s to r ie s ?
t he State Historical Society of Iowa seeks donations0
that document Iowans involvement in twentieth-
centurv military affairs. The Societv has little that
0 0 0
documents the activities of soldiers in the two world 
wars, Korea, Vietnam, and the several smaller con­
flicts in the Caribbean and the Middle East. We 
have even less that documents the homefront, such 
as veterans and protest groups, women’s contribu­
tions, war production, and rationing programs. And 
we have nothing that documents the activities and 
significance of a peacetime draft and the mainte­
nance of a standing army.
The Society is interested in acquiring collections 
of personal papers, organizational and business 
records, photographs, and objects that will fill these 
gaps in our collections. Photographs, diaries, let­
ters, or other kinds of personal writing can provide 
valuable insights on the impact of those wars on 
soldiers and on those who remained at home. Rep­
resentative weapons and equipment (especially 
field uniforms) reveal details about the day-to-day 
life of an Iowa soldier. Business and farm records 
show how wars abroad affect farming, manufactur­
ing, and the distribution of goods and services. The 
records of organizations devoted to veterans' affairs, 
peace and protest causes, and refugee relief and 
civil defense not only document the impact of war 
on our society, hut also show the broader social and
cultural significance of maintaining armed forces in 
times of peace and the military's role in our lives and 
social values. •
We welcome your inquiries regarding potential 
donations. Before calling the Society, gather all the 
background information you can about the items 
you wish to donate. Include a description of the 
items, their physical condition, and amount of 
material you might want to donate. Anything you 
know about the creation of the materials and their 
subsequent history and ownership is also impor­
tant. Then call the Society’s curators about objects 
(515-281-5111), or our manuscript archivists about 
papers and photographs (319-335-3916 or 
515-281-5111).
Because the Society doesn t accept all materials,
we will first evaluate vour materials based on their
0
content, condition, significance to Iowa history, and 
relationship to existing collections, and then decide 
whether to accept the donation. In general, we 
discourage restrictions on the access, use, or dis­
posal of materials donated to us.
We will be glad to talk with you about your 
materials and to help you decide what might be 
appropriate for donation to Society collections.
— Eric Austin, Lora Bloom, and Michael Smith 
State Historical Society o f Iowa staff
96 THE PALIMPSEST


English

Iowa in 20th-Century Wars: Can You Help Us Save the Stories?

Juhl, Paul C

J.P. Doremus and Floating Photograph Gallery

Briggs, Mary Wear

The Road by Home
Harrison County, Iowa,
in the 1920s
by M ary W ear Briggs
I
N THE 1920s, when I was six or seven, the 
road past our Harrison County farmhouse 
was dirt. Plum bushes grew along the 
bank, providing me a secret hiding place, a 
cool, shaded playhouse in the summer. Wild 
roses scrambled up the bank, their mass of 
fragile, pink flowers hiding their strong, thorny 
ancestry. Clumps of blue spiderwort fought for 
space in the green sod. These roadsides were 
my hands-on natural science lesson. In the 
early spring I watched in the prairie grass on 
the roadside by our pasture corner for the first 
lavender pasqueflowers, in summer for the 
ripening chokecherries. I dug in the high road 
bank for shells, bones, and layers of black char­
coal from an earlier time.
Coughing, sputtering Model Ts crept up our 
south hill, then gained speed to vanish down 
the hill on the north. Squawking chickens ran 
helter-skelter into, under, or in front of the 
cars. At times, foolish ones ended with a flutter 
and kick by the side of the road. This unrolling 
panorama of western Iowa, with the person­
alities who stopped by, was my education — 
and my entertainment. In many ways, the road 
by our house showed me the world.
In Iowa paved roads and blacktops were 
unknown. Even travelers on the great Lincoln
Frank and Nora Wear with children W alter, Francis, 
Mary (the author), and Loyola by their 1923 Model T.
Highway, twenty miles to the west, were 
greeted by six inches of pulverized dust in the 
summer; in the spring, by axle-deep mire. (It 
wasn’t paved until 1929.) W hen it rained on our 
country road, especially in the spring, the 
wheel tracks deepened into ruts. Drivers 
struggled to keep their wheels balanced on the 
high ground between the ruts and the side of 
the road. Four-foot-deep washouts encroached 
into our narrow road, running jagged ditches 
from side to side for “city slickers” (as Pop 
called them) to jolt into, breaking an axle. 
Grinding the gears, neighbors pushed their 
own cars out of the mud. Many times our Sun­
day company abandoned their mired-down car 
down on the hill, arrived at the door barefoot, 
covered with mud, carrying their shoes and 
stockings.
Winter roads were usuallv too ruttv or filled/  0
with snow for cars to travel. Sleigh runners 
were added to buggies or spring wagons, and 
horses hitched up. Deep drifts were left to melt 
unless the farmers shoveled their way out. If 
the draws filled with snow, sometimes a neigh­
boring farmer cut the fences so the team and 
bobsled could make its way easily across the 
windswept fields to get flour for bread, ker­
osene for lamps, or coal for heating stoves.
84 THE PALIMPSEST
On this Harrison County 
road — now graveled and 
graded — hoboes and 
peddlers, farmers and 
bootleggers, gypsies and 
circuses passed by the Wear 
farm, offering entertainment 
and a worldly education to a 
watchful seven-yearold.
ALL PH O T O S CO U R TESY  THE A UTHOR
W hen winters were severe, the farmers kept 
their cattle and horses fenced in near the barn­
yard and cattle barns, far from the open gates 
and cut fences.
If anyone unluckily got stuck in the snow or 
mud, my brothers, Walter and Francis, pulled 
them out with logchain and mules. Hand­
shakes were exchanged with neighbors. 
Strangers sometimes offered fifty cents or a 
dollar.
When we went to the Harrison Countv Fair*
in Missouri Valley, my father, Frank Wear, 
liked to take a route through the hills. He 
complained that the cars went too fast on the 
Lincoln Highway (the maximum speed was 
thirty-five miles per hour, and ten miles for 
trucks). But one year the Boyer River bridge 
washed out, and we had to take the Lincoln 
Highway. The county fair was a popular event, 
so the highway was crowded with cars. Dust 
was so heavy we were unable to see what was 
ahead. Everyone rode in open touring cars 
(celluloid side curtains were only used in 
winter). When we arrived at the fair, our 
sweaty faces were smiling mud pies. My mom, 
Nora Wear, had to wash our faces, ears, and 
necks, brush my long braids, and redo my 
sister Loyola’s long curls.
O
LD CANVAS-COVERED TRUCKS 
appeared on our road in the spring, 
with fish laid out on ice chunks in the 
back. In those days the uncontrolled 
Missouri River periodically Hooded out on the 
Hats, leaving ponds of wriggling fish for easy 
taking by seine or net. Mom loved fresh fish, 
perhaps a taste left from her Irish ancestry, at 
Dungarv in by the sea. The only fish we knew 
during the year was canned salmon or dried 
salted cod, so the fish peddlers were always 
welcome. Mom liked bass and bluegill, but 
probably settled for catfish and carp when the 
supply was low.
In spring and fall the scrap-iron man, the 
junk man, and the rag man also pulled in our 
lane, offering to buy old iron or any junk we 
might have. The Raleigh and Watkins men 
showed their spices, flavorings, patent medi­
cines, and a popular salve. Advertised as 
Good for man or beast, this salve became the 
cure-all for our scratches and cuts. An extra can 
was kept on a shelf in the barn for the tears and 
sores on the horses’ flesh, and for cracked teats 
on the milk cows.
Wagons (moving general stores) laden with 
dry goods, pins and needles, long black stock­
ings, pots and pans, and yard goods drew Mom
SUMMER 1992 85
to the road. Some peddlers came on foot. After 
a few years ofwalking with his pack on his back, 
one of these peddlers set up a store in our 
hometown of Persia. (Until recently the store 
was managed by the third generation.)
The front yard fence became my three­
penny seat” as the circus wagons crawled past 
to set up the yearly one-ring show in a pasture 
near the next town. As I watched, an elephant, 
show dogs, perhaps a tiger or lion, and beau­
tiful horses tethered to colorful sideshow wag­
ons slowly disappeared over our hill.
Gypsies in their long, black wagons — later 
in black, expensive cars — one following the 
other, mysteriously appeared on our front 
road. I stayed back and peered around the 
house as they rode by.
LL PASSING AGENTS and roamers 
soon became Pop s friends. He 
invited them in for a meal, unan­
nounced. They slept in our house, in 
the hay mow, or in their cars — then disap­
peared in the morning. Many times Mom had
only the simplest of food to go around: fried 
potatoes, boiled eggs, a two-quart jar of canned 
tomatoes, and, from the pan try crock, float (a 
kind of pudding, submerged in thick cream and 
sugar). One evening an itinerant sign painter 
painted lovely flowers and mottoes such as 
There is No Place Like Home and Home 
Sweet Home” on old remnants of wallpaper as 
four curious children watched. We kept those 
paintings on the wall for years, and played 
games saying the mottoes backwards. Some 
storytellers, in the shadow of the aladdin lamp, 
told about herding sheep on the high plains of 
Wyoming, or of visiting the Cripple Creek 
mines or far-off California.
Pop, easy prey in the spring for the traveling 
nursery man, dreamed of his orchard hanging 
with fruit. Most of his purchases became 
blighted hopes, unbearing trees. The four 
Delicious apple trees and the peach trees 
blossomed beautifully, then gave up and rested 
for the summer. We had one faithful sour 
cherry; the two sweet cherries refused to bear. 
One wonderful Wealthy kept us in pies and 
applesauce. Oblivious to the orchard on the 
north, our self-seeding apricots spread along 
the garden fence, faithfully filling two-quart
Peddlers selling medicines, extracts, and spices traveled country roads to find customers, as did other itinerants.
86 THE PALIMPSEST
-
& S?rr-
V
iiM
liMI
¿ft WH
“a  *
HflKi
Neighbors sharing summer Held work took relief in cold lemonade and ample lunches, prepared by farm women and 
carried down country roads and across fields by farm kids. Above, cutting and binding grain on the Wear farm, 1918.
canning jars for us and buckets given freely to 
the neighbors.
Often hoboes from the Milwaukee railroad 
in the valley climbed our hill. They came in 
rags. In winter they wore thin, worn coats, one 
on top of another, with many layers of pants. 
Their feet were padded with straw and news­
papers, then wrapped in burlap sacks and rope. 
They usually showed up shortly after the noon 
meal. Mom kept a well-scrubbed aluminum 
plate for their serv ing. The plate was filled with 
whatever we had left from dinner: meat, 
potatoes and gravy, vegetables, milk, even the 
last piece of homemade pie. They waited 
patiently on the steps, saying very little. Only 
their eyes lit up when we brought out the food. 
None were turned away, even during depres­
sion years when all we had to give was bacon 
gravy on homemade bread and fried eggs. We 
were never afraid of these men, just curious. 
My mother called them the poor souls.’
Pop was always drawn to the road by the 
passing horse traders leading wild horses from 
the West. He always favored foxy horses and 
had bought a pair of broncos, Dan and Pat, 
back when he delivered mail before he and 
Mom married. Now his heavv work team was 
Belgian sorrels, Bob and Mike.
On the road, farmers gathered together and 
drove their cattle to waiting railroad cars in 
town. Our collie, Bailie, would run back and 
forth along the front yard fence, yapping and 
growling, protecting our gate. Pop sent 11s to 
the house as the riders whistled and yo-ed the 
cattle down the rutted road. Country children 
learned early to respect the bulls and the 
mother cows with young calves.
B
a r efo o t  w ith  long  braids
hanging down my back, I would trudge 
down the dusty road to the field at 
haying time. Mom always cooked spe­
cial dishes for the six or eight neighbors that 
traded work with my dad. It became my job to 
carry the mid-morning and mid-afternoon 
lunches to the men in the havfield. I enjoyed 
the walks, as I watched for bob-o-links, 
meadow larks, and bluebirds. Grapevines 
hung down the banks giving me a chance for a 
free-hand swing. While the men worked their 
way toward me, I waited under a grove of 
cottonwood trees, listening to the leaves whis­
pering and rustling like gentle rain — a cooling 
sound on a hot day. When the men stopped to 
eat the sandwiches and cakes or pies, their red 
bandanna handkerchiefs flashed as they swab- 
bed their sweaty foreheads. Under a tree or in 
the shade of the hay bundles, the men stored a 
brown and white crockery water jug, plugged 
with a corncob. They all drank from the same 
jug — probably mixing various brands of chew­
ing tobacco as they swallowed. They always 
appreciated the fresh-squeezed lemonade I 
brought them. Despite their joshing around, I 
knew making hay was hot, hard work.
S
OME NIGHTS our road carried fear. 
The Ku Klux Klan was revived in the 
1920s in the Midwest. Its activities 
were directed against blacks, Jews, 
Catholics, and foreigners. Hooded, all in 
white, they marched down Main Street in our 
town, then burned their crosses on neighbors’ 
hills. Pop’s stories built vivid pictures of the
SUMMER 1992 87
event. Being the head of a Catholic family, he 
stewed for months, fretting because some of 
them were his neighbors. I had nightmares of 
crosses burning in our yard, or blazing across 
the road. This notice in the Harrison County 
Democrat on December 24, 1925, did little to 
alleviate mv fear:
HARRISON COUNTY KU KLUX KLAN NO. 53 
extends the season’s greeting to each 
and every one and wishes you
A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR
Thieves parked on our hill one night, then 
climbed through the fence, crossed the 
orchard, and stole Mom’s young Plymouth 
Hock fryers from the chicken house. (Imagine 
someone bothering to steal chickens now!) 
Chickens were unidentifiable so they could be 
sold alive in any town. The thieves probably 
made five dollars for their night s work.
On Saturday afternoon in winter, or Satur­
day nights in summer, we recognized each 
neighbor in the caravan headed for town. We 
also noticed which neighbor stayed in town 
past chore time and which came home weaving 
from side to side on our road. Mom never went 
to town, partly because of Pop’s ultimatum, 
Children don’t belong in town running the 
streets.’ Then, too, women had no place to 
visit or wait for their men. They never went 
into pool halls, bars, harness shops, or garages 
where men could hangout. Willards, the groc­
ery and dry goods store, had little room for 
gossiping, so Mom stayed home, and we with 
her. She did her visiting by telephone on our 
party line.
Bootleggers, on warm summer evenings, 
quietly toured back and forth on our road in 
their shiny black cars with a hootch chest on 
the back. They followed dances, carnivals, and 
picnics up and down the valley. We learned 
from Pop to identify them all, as we sat on the 
front porch steps or on a blanket on the lawn.
When Pop knew prohibition would become 
law, he took the afternoon train to Omaha, and 
bought two or three wooden cases of beer and a 
case of whiskey. (He also thought prohibition 
would soon be over.) During those prohibition 
days, Pop tried each year, to Mom’s consterna­
tion, to brew beer in the cellar — sometimes
fairlv successfully. Other times we would hear 
the explosions as the bottles shot the caps off.
D
URING MY CRADE school years, 
the road was my route to the Leland 
Grove country school. I walked the 
mile and three quarters down into the 
valley. One of my teachers there loved to dance 
and had won a Charleston contest. During 
noon hour she would teach the various steps to 
me. I spent hours practicing them at home on 
our hardwood dining room floor.
I was not old enough to dance in public
dance halls, but mv folks usuallv attended cele-
#  #
brations in our neighboring towns, and then I 
could at least watch the dances at the open-air 
pavilions. On those dance nights, I knew 
where the bootleggers were parked by the 
steadv stream of dancers out of the hall into the 
darkness. There, shocked, I saw my first stum­
bling, drunken woman, held up by her men 
friends. With silk hose fashionablv rolled 
below her knees, her wobbling legs were 
jointed in different directions, and her red, 
ngh-heeled pumps turned and twisted in the 
grass. Inside the band played and the dance 
crowd sang, Barney Google with His Goo, 
Goo, Googly Eyes.”
In our Model T late in the night, we returned 
home from these celebrations to a hot, stuffy 
house. Loyola and I slept together upstairs, 
under the eaves, in a poorly ventilated room. 
Often we grabbed a quilt, descended the stairs, 
and spread it on the floor by the front door, in 
hopes a breeze might find us. I would prop up 
mv head in mv hands, elbows on the hard 
wooden floor, and look out through the screen 
door into the night. The coons in the orchard 
hoo-ed. Down in the pasture hollow their 
friends answered. Fireflies danced and courted 
around the spirea bush. The empty road 
rested, streaked with shadows in the quiet 
night. □
88 THE PALIMPSEST


The Road by Home: Harrison County, Iowa, in the 1920s

Swaim, Ginalie

Index for 1992

Schabilion, Jeff

Living in a 'Moffitt House' 16th Century - and Ahead of its Time

Allen, Anne Beiser

Suspicion of Disloyalty': Silas Totten, Beleaguered University President, 1859-1862

Hawbacker, Becky Wilson

Iowa's 'Oll' Coomes; or, Desperado of the Dime Novel Industry

Politics, Dime Novels, and Unraveling the Rainsbargers

The Palimpsest, vol.73 no.4, Winter 1992

Friendly's Frontier: Images from the Life of Friendly Lucas, Iowa's First 'First Lady'.

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