Line Them Up and Jump Around........

Shown here is a small group of school mates of 1959.  Due to the necessity of making students exercise, the students all eventually had to take physical education classes when they entered the 6th grade. Up until that time the lower grade students had recess to help with their exercise program.  Playing soccer, or chaise would get one winded but swing on the swings and jungle gym was a low grade of movement. Playing tag could get one into a good run as people would scatter all over the old school grounds.

One who went out for the sports like football, basketball and track did get more exercise than the ones who did not participate. At this time a majority of them lived on farms so they did get to do farm chores and work as farm kids in the summer.

Jumping back in time the students of this day,1920s, were lucky to have finished eighth grade at a country school. There was not time for physical education back then even though health would have been taught. The older kids of this family did go to a town school and graduate. The youngest boys in this photo never attended high school but were home trying to help save the farm from foreclosure.  They didn't save the farm but all of that added to their character.  Those two boys ended up being in WW II, traveling far away from their farm roots to Europe and Aleutian Islands.

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Fixing and Finding......

I found an old newspaper article cut from the Sentinel-Tribune paper of Osceola, Iowa.  It was first published right after the end of WW ll.  All the local men who returned from serving during the war were asked to show up at a cemetery in Murray, Iowa.  There the seven guys of various services fired off a 21 gun salute. The names of the guys described in the row are all familiar with me.  When the article was republished years later, the paper said all were gone except for three men in that front row.  My dad must have been alive at the time when the republished it. The reason the article was cut from the paper was not for what you see but for what you don't see.  Jesse Burgus, my dad, is standing behind the second shooter as was marked with an arrow by a blue pen.  His brother, my Uncle Donald is in view with a blue line marking his existence. Both guys were in their early 20s in age as later they neither one would be able to fit into the uniform.  They were wool uniforms. I tossed a lot of my parents things but this is a fun one to have.

In the past I had this as a header for my Sepia Saturday blog.  These kids were all children from a country school in 1939.  My mom was their teacher.  When I posted more of these photos  on my blog I was contacted by a woman, my age, searched on the blog and  asked me about one of the photos. She said one of those girls was her mom.  I sent her the photo and  scanned pictures of the whole country school crowd.  The woman wanting the photo ended up being one whose mother was related to the an Aunt of mine, who was married to my Uncle. She also had lived in the town and graduated from the school that I had been working in for 31 years.  Small world, curious sharing of first cousins and we were not related ourselves.

While fishing for a photo of the past that would fit the theme, I found this one.  It is one of my dad's photos taken while he was stationed in Belgium during WW ll.  He is not in the photo but it shows two soldiers getting in on the fun, trying to catch a fish, while the local children are all so very entertained with his work or should I say play. The bridge they are on is a makeshift one as you can see the original bridge is collapsed in the foreground.

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Here, watch my baby.

The year must be 1951. The baby is about a year old or more and he is surrounded by relatives.  Great uncles and aunts are all in the yard.  They seem to be dressed up for some reason.  They aren't church goers so to speak so they must be there after a funeral. The men for sure are all my grandmother Mabel's brothers. They were all farmers and probably were 55 years old or more. To see them in suits seams unusual for farmers.  I can't identify the women but I am assuming that they are wives, great aunts of mine.

I am the little guy being held by Elva Wheeler. It is an amazing good photo of me as I was the fourth child and most all photos of me as a baby were blurry shots. There were not a lot of pictures taken as I was the fourth child and another child died 8 months after I was born.

 When I grew up to get to know Elva he had changed in appearance.  He was short all of his life but he became rotund as a well-fed mans should be. He was a friendly guy and bald completely.  He had a very angry wife who cussed a lot. Later on in years, she mellowed and became a kind, quieter  woman.

My grandmother's brothers are here with names labelled above.  There is one other bother not in the photo who just didn't hang around with these people. He went to the big city to make his fortune. In the top photo the back sides of Lee are directly positioned behind Elva and the next one back is Weaver. To follow the theme of "watching over others" my grandmother lost her husband in 1937.  Her brothers hovered over here and made sure she had a place to live and food on the table. Everyone was poor back then and they got by with whatever they had. The tree behind them is my great grandparents tree.  I have so many old photos of various people standing outside in  front of that tree. The all lived in the Madison County area, "Bridges of Madison County" locality, Winterset and Lorimor, Iowa.

While I am on a roll here, these are the parents of the ones above. They are my great grandparents.

Cyrus Henry Wheeler, 1872-1948, and Martha (Mattie) Selena Mobley Wheeler, 1876-1941.  Most all of these people are buried in the Moon Cemetery near Macksburg, Iowa.

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