Murray, Iowa.........

Murray, Iowa was incorporated in 1880.  Its largest population was 876 people during the 1920s.  It has shrunk in size throughout the years and now is back up to around 700 people. Murray was my hometown even though I actually was from the farm.  My ancestors met and married each other surround this town and Germans and Brits connected to created large families.  Burgus, Abernathy, Turner, Reis are a few of the names I have in my family tree from around Murray.  These were all from my dad's side as my mom's side came from the Lorimor, Iowa.

The location of the tracks are still the same today as the Amtrak now runs on these tracks. The tracks go all the way to California.  The depot is long gone.  Even so the history of the building has so many stories of people who were killed on this exact location.  Older people would walk along the crossing next the building and would look the one way but not see the train coming from the other direction.   I actually had a distant cousin that was killed on this track probably 50 years ago.  I know all that seems to be confusing as I too think that they should hear a train coming.  I do know during my youth an older lady was hit there but she was probably not knowing where she was and what to look for while outside or should I say confused.

The train station was torn down in the late 60's. The grainery in the background is also gone. The whole set up was for shipping of grain and also was the mail train. A person could post a card in Murray in the morning and the person in the next town could receive it.  They could then reply to the card and send it back to Murray in the afternoon on a returning train.

I am familiar with this main street as it was all standing when I was growing up in the area.  The corner fron building became the post office in later years.  It looks like it could be a barber shop in the photo. A grocery store sat next to it.  The post office is still there today and the grocery store closed a few years back.  The next two sets of buildings are not standing now.  I am assuming fire took them out.

This building always fascinated me.  It sat empty most of my life as a youth.  I never really noticed that the lodge was above the store until I saw this photo.  I always seemed like a large building to me and I never understood why they couldn't keep business going it. I do know it would be hard in a small town.

My uncle Carl owned the building in the foreground. The photo was taken I believe in the late sixties.  The major section of the buildings between the two buildings burned down in 1967. It had a movie theater there plus an empty store and a closed drug store. If you wanted to find the building in the top photo you can't as this building was added on the main street later after the photo was taken.

 Uncle Carl bought the building before I was born in the late 40's.  The first door was an entrance to a fancy barber shop with two barbers running the place.  The next set of windows shows where my Uncle and Aunt lived in an apartment.  They lived basically on main street with Venetian blinds separating them from the people walk down the street.  I remember my Aunt Pauline watching every move of everyone going by that set of windows.  The next set of windows  and door had another barber shop and then a laundromat.  The whole building originally was a dealership for  Model T's and the windows were display areas for cars.  The building was large with the garage being in the back of it.  I remember a cafe originally was in the place of the laundromat.

Memory lane today for me as I have borrowed these photos from a friend on facebook.  I have one more photo that will be a blog in itself to come in the future.

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Living The Past........

A sepia photo of the Sidney Rodeo in Sidney, Iowa.  I lived in Sidney four years starting out as a very young inexperienced teacher.  Sidney sits on the bottom southwest corner of the pretending to be an Iowa town even though it wished it was in Nebraska or Missouri.  Sidney is a long ways from Des Moines but is very close to Council Bluffs, Iowa and Omaha, Nebraska.  As a matter of fact Kansas City, Missouri and also the part of the city in Kansas is a close distance.

I have lived in Minnesota in the summers for many years and been at home on the farm in southern Iowa most of my growing up years and I find each experience leaving memories of such different ways of life.  While living in Sidney I was in an upstairs apartment of an old Victorian house.  Out the back west window you could see the hill that was steep and deep.  The town was built on top of a semi bluff hill even though the bluffs along the Missouri River were a few miles west.  The whole bluff scene of traveling up and down them was memorable.

 I also lived near the geese and duck migration and the thousands of birds flew overhead at night as well as landed over in the swampy river bottoms to the west. I taught in a school once a week west of Sidney, in Percival.  It was a small town with its small school still standing.  The floods of a couple years back has almost wiped out the entire town now. Cowboy decorations and western themes are everywhere in the town even though it is an Iowan town.  The court house in this county seat town was originally blown up during the Civil War and the present one was built to replace the original one.  I don't quite understand why being so close to the Mason Dixon line.  I am assuming they knew that the Sidney people were Iowans and  were probably antislavery citizens even though they really were almost Missourians.

The rodeo itself has evolved from its once branding season, roundup time and breaking of wild horses.  Today it is a regulated and many ruled sport. Sidney is one of the recognized rodeos where barebackers can come and gain points in their national score.  When they add to there point scores throughout the year they finally tally it all up to see who was the best cowboy for the year.  The town itself centered its four seasons around the rodeo.  They make a lot of money from it as well as follow a town tradition of parades and festival time.  The high school band was named the Sidney Cowboy Rodeo Band.  They wore their red and white costumes and brimming white cowboy hats in all of their marching events.  They practiced marching and playing with great vigor and zeal.

I see from research that the marching band is now called the Sidney Pride Marching Band and they do competitions during the year.  I bet the cowboy hats return to their heads when the rodeo season comes around.






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School's of the Past.........

Iowa was covered with country schools less than 55 years ago.  I don't remember enough of the details to state facts but country schools would be positioned throughout townships.  I think that the school  had an acre of land and there was one teacher who managed the building and the kids. I believed they were placed often enough around the area that a student could walk to school even if it was two miles or more.


 My mom was a country school teacher until she married in 1940.  All ages attended the school and some kids who reached a certain age would just quit going to school even if they were passing.  Farm boys would stay home to help with the field work.  Eighth grade was the last grade one could attend in a country school.

The photo above comes from a facebook page that belongs to Bill Fleming, a former Murray High graduate.  After completing country school, students could go to a town school as long as the parents could find a way for them to get there. Busing did become available but then that did shut down country schools. Bill's photo shows the country school of Troy number 7. He didn't really say that he was in the photo but he must be there.  It was a school that was north of a school that my brothers attended Troy number 9, ( I am guessing the number). By the early 50's the country schools were closing because buses were traveling around picking up kids for the Murray school. I do remember country school auctions where they would sell out everything inside the building.

I can identify  three of the members of the photo from Troy Number 7. as my brother's ex-wife is the tallest girl in front, Janet, dark curly hair, and her brother, Max is behind her.  The young man with glasses Monty was also in one of my bothers classes in later years of high school.

In 1953 my parents bought a farm a few miles away from where their three sons then went to country school.  They moved into an area where they were required to go to the Murray public school and they were bussed from our home.  The first few years the dirt road that we lived on made it impossible for buses to reach the house in rainy season. Dad took them with a tractor, neighbor took them on her Fordson tractor and some times the neighbor girl road her horse along with the tractor out to a gravel road to meet a bus.   I started kindergarten when the road was still dirt but by first grade and new gravel road was built. I do remember riding on that Fordson tractor hood out to the gravel road.

Above is a 1947 photo of the Woodward High School study hall room filled with students and staff.
One of the girls in this photo did eventually become the study hall monitor in this very room when she was in her 50's. This is the school district that worked for 31 years and am still part time working as a substitute teacher.
 
The room has the entire high school seated at desks plus teachers posed for an all school picture.  The buildings illustration shows the same four windows on the top left side of the building.  The year is 1947,  It is amazing that the entire four grades of high school are in this photo.
It is the high school study hall room that took up the entire width of the building.  You could look out the east or west windows to check the weather as well as the south side too. I worked a study hall one period a day in that room back in the 1980's. My one oldest son had study hall in that room up until 1992.

This other photo is also taken in 1947 at the Woodward High School.  It is taken in one of the classrooms on the northwest end of the building.  Notice how high the ceilings are and also the paneling. I at first thought that this was on a stage but I notice one can see the ceiling.  It is a photo of the cast for a school play. The room is on the main floor of the building and the panels are covering the wall because the windows were all removed when a gym addition was added to the west of the building. I am sure that behind the panels one could have found four bricked in windows.  Knowing the way the building was created that the piano had to be taken up a half flight of stairs to be put in this room.

The building itself didn't stand 100 years as a new building was put into its place in 1993.  The structure seemed creaky but I don't believe that it would have ever fallen down.  History in the United States seems to show that we tear things down readily to update facilities rather than remodel and recreate the present old structures. The building was a 1906 building and was removed in less than 80 years.

I wished I had more time to blog history as it is fascinating to me.  I learn so much from many of my Sepia Saturday blogger friends from all over the world.  If you want to check out other historic posts from all over the world, click here to see the many participates on Sepia Saturday.
 

Faces Tell Their Own Story..........

They are all gone now.  Everyone in every picture has passed away.  They all had relationships with others.  Most werefamily, friends and spouses that they related too.  The all met strangers along the way that they communicated with in life.  The stories of each  one face has its generational story and all of these are in the 1800's.

Sisters who grew up and became close friends. Married and also had large families and lived within the same area all of their lives. Both lost their maiden name of Ries and became a part of their husbands family tree name.

A husband and wife who posed for the photographer.  I wonder why they have one turned to look the other direction. Was that to make the woman look like a beauty gazing off in the other direction.  Movie stars would gaze to the side to show their best features but formal couple photography seemed to do that many times.

A family bunch leaving from a get together.  You needed a hat to keep warm and a good sturdy coat. The faces of each have had different walks in life but they were all walking with family very close by them.  I used photos from my past blogs but cropped out all of the things that distract us from the faces of people.  It is amazing to see the spirit of people showing through regardless of time and there present situations in life.


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Great Grandma Driver...........

This is an odd photo of an odd family and I am related to them all.  There are no names written on the photo but I have Great grandmother identified right away.  She is the oldest woman in the photo who is pointing to the camera for some reason.  I suppose she is directing the crowd to look that way.

When you enlarge this photo you find it to be below amateurish.  The one boy has his head tilted and face in shadow while his mother and sister are hidden behind him.  The chair may have been intended for Great Grandma but that plan must not have worked out for them as she seems to be holding an unruly girl.

Great Grandmother Carrie Maxson Brown Driver is the older woman.  She was first married to my Great Grandfather Charles Brown.  They had two boys and one of them was my Grandfather Leroy Brown.  When Leroy was three years old, his dad died Carrie's husband.

Carrie Maxson Brown remarried Thomas Jefferson Driver a few years later and they lived in Iowa. They had five children which made them half  Great Uncles and Aunts of mine.  The two daughters were Ida and Florence and the three sons were Glen, William and Jesse. Most of them lived in the southern Iowa towns of Lorimor, Murray, and Osceola.

Back to the photo above, Carrie Driver then is shown above with her second set of family.  The two daughters and their husbands are in the photo and one stray son is standing behind her.  The odd thing about the family is that the daughters both married and had many children and the threes sons all remained bachelors their entire lives.  The Driver name in this family instance did not pass on as the daughters all had taken their husband's name. I wonder if Thomas Driver is taking the photo or if one of the other two sons that are not in the photo.

Aunt Ida who is one of the women in the photo lived close to downtown of Osceola and my mother kept track of her and all of the cousins.  She and her husband are buried in the Murray cemetery.   My Great Grandmother Carrie and her husband Thomas Jefferson Driver are buried in a small country cemetery north of Osceola.

As an interesting footnote, both my Grandmother and Great Grandmother were with the name of Brown until they both lost their husbands.   As a youngster,  I could never figure out why they called the older one Grandma Driver and my grandma that I knew Grandma Brooks.  The great great had married my Great Great grandfather and the Grandma Brooks had been married to my Grandfather Brown. I would never been around to know one of them and the grandfather died when my my mom was 18 years old.  I may have been slow but my parents were not too good about explaining things.  I actually think before computers my mother really didn't have most of the information correctly in her mind and I am  a lot more clear with it with research on the web.

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Oldies on the Prairie.......

This is the latest in fashion when you live on the farm on the prairie. It is probably the 1940's or later.  Wearing a hat is required just because everyone must wear a hat. It probably was cold outside as they had their coats on and two out of three have them closed to keep warm.   The young man has a different style of hat than what one would wear on the farm.  It almost reminds me of a beret.  The bib overalls were a common sight and I am really surprised that the dad isn't wearing them.  Farmers rarely wore belted pants when I was growing up.  My dad wore belted pants only when there was a wedding, funeral, or a big family reunion. 

Back porches on farmhouses were also essential as a buffer zone.  It was needed as a place to remove the boots or shoes.  Also it was the first barrier to stop insects from coming into the house.  Flys would be the number one intruder.  To the right of the group is the outside door that goes to the basement.  It is a fancier style on this house  as a lot of them had outside stairs dug into the ground that went down to the basement and not a door at the top of the stair going into the basement. 

Both of the photos I am sharing today are unknown relatives.  The little girl could be the same in both pictures because the hat and the stockings seem to be the same.  The bottom photo is a springtime shot as the lambs are young and the grass looks like it is high enough for the lambs to enjoy.  My mom always complained about the stockings that she wore that were like these in the picture.  She said they were impossible to actually keep them up and yet they were expected to do so. Gravity can be a bad thing when it comes to stockings.

As in both photos it seems to be the smart thing to do to have your subjects stand outside in the sunlight.  It does cause problems though with the pesky shadows and also the squinting of the eyes.  Photography was an unstudied skill so all those photos that turned out darker than necessary because there wasn't enough light merited everyone to seek the sun.

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The Good Old Days.........

Feeling a little rebellious today I will share a grayed photo, in color, which has no liking to a sepia shot.  It is a few years old and I think water is in the shot.  It is Lake Superior.

I am reminded of the musical "Music Man" when I viewed this photo.  In the musical, everyone on the street breaks out to singing about the Wells Fargo wagon that will be comin' down the street and what it might be delivering to them when it finally arrives.   The boat in this scene is a large cargo ship that has come from some far country to the harbor in Duluth, Minnesota.  The crowds gather during the warmer weather and wait for the large ships.  The ships come in to enter a waterway canal to go into the protected harbor.  The vessels are so big that when you see it as a speck on the horizon you can plan on a forty five minute wait or more before it comes into the harbor. Large crowds gather by the time it finally arrives.  One can stand along the waterway and watch it  go by as I am sure it has done for over a hundred years. They are a couple of football fields long.

It is a gray day along the Maine coastline bordering the Atlantic Ocean.   Somewhere out there is Newfoundland.  It may be further north than here but it  is out there,

Water on a gray day reflecting the sky in my fish pond.  The two bricks are there to keep the waterpump weighted down and also for birds to land in order to get drinks of water.

A brighter day is this view on the shore of Lake Superior.  The deepest lake I believe in the world.  Miles deep and very cold.  It does empty into our Mississippi river when the people who control the water are generous.  South of here is the city of Duluth, Minnesota which has a long history of trappers and hunters in their early years and now a shipping center for coal and iron ore.

Water in the Des Moines botanical center that has many large koi gracefully swimming up and down an artificial river or pond.

Jordan Pond is on the island of Mt. Dessert.  Acadia National park may sound familiar to you as being the location of the pond.  The area has an interesting history of a man named Jordan who brought in famous authors and artists to stay with him at his lodge next to the pond. That was in the early 1900's. Noteworthy people did stay there for the summer but I am not able to give any specific names at this time.

The peninsula like land form in the Bar Harbor area is filled with winding roads and swamp or pond areas all along the way.  In the background is a heron, great blue maybe, standing as still as a stick, waiting to slam its beak into water to catch fish. Our kids live near the area and the Atlantic is near by as you travel up and down and around the winding roads.

I promise to behave next week and find sepia, older looking photos.  I have enjoyed sharing those things that I have found under this theme of "water."

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