ALICE YOUNG

I am a native Osceolan, having been born March 30, 1916 in a little house just down the street from the southeast corner of the square, the corner of Park and East Jefferson Streets. I was about ten-years-old when Dad built the two-story house next door west; when I was 15 we moved to a forty acre farm that the folks owned. It was on the cemetery road, where Don Henrich presently lives. That is the house where I was married.

Both my father and mother had been previously married and widowed. I had no full brothers or sisters. Mother had a son, Richard McAuley; and Dad had a son Lowell Johnson. Dad and Lowell were full of jokes. One particular Christmas I wanted a pony and we had a little barn on the back of the lot, so it was a logical request. On Christmas morning, they said, "Let’s go outdoors." I just knew I was about to get my pony; but when we got to the barn here was a little toy pony with a great big rope tied around its neck and I cried all day long and ruined everybody’s Christmas.

Dad was manager of the second Spurgeon’s department store. Dad and Mr. Spurgeon had been boyhood friends as they grew up in Creston. One day when they were grown they happened to be on the same train. Mr. Spurgeon asked if Dad would like to manage a store for him. His first store was in Afton, and the one in Osceola would be the second. It was located where Penick’s Electric is now, 103 South Main. The company would grow to have about eighty stores throughout the Midwest. However, several years ago the company was sold and is now Spurgeon Investment Company with few stores left.

In those days people held a church office for years and years and this was the case with Dad in the position of Sunday School superintendent. When the folks moved back from the farm there was a Sunday morning when he couldn’t find his coat, so he wore my black sweater. He made a lesson of it that impressed me very much. He announced from the pulpit that it didn’t matter what you wore to church as long as you came.

Aunt Verna, Mother’s sister, sat in a wheel chair for 30 years because of rheumatism. In those days they didn’t have a better solution. She lived with the folks after Grandpa died. Martha enjoyed standing on the step of her chair and looking through her box of jewelry and to this day her daughter, Jennifer, wears one of Aunt Verna’s favorite rings.

All my schooling was in Osceola and my extra-curricular interest was in music. While I was in high school I was in quartette, mixed chorus and girl’s Glee Club until my senior year when I became interested in Harold and dropped music, much to Mother’s disappointment. Harold was four years older than I - a senior when I was a freshman. He had to work after school so he wasn’t in any extra-curricular activities.

Harold and I were about as different in personalities as it was possible to be. I liked social functions. I have been a longtime member of P.E.O., Query Club, Research Club, and bridge clubs or foursomes. I have just joined the Country Club to participate in bridge. Harold played bridge but had few social inclinations. His preferred activities were hunting and fishing which did not interest me at all. For years he had hunting dogs of which he was very fond. He had the habit of going out to feed and play with the dogs in the middle of the night. One particular night the dogs got into a fight and he had to separate them. He came in and woke me about 1:00 in the morning so that I could hold one of the dogs while he built a fence to keep them apart.
I seriously disliked contention while Harold loved a good argument. He would have been a good debater and did pursue Law. In those days it was possible to study individually under an attorney. He studied under Hal Stubblefield and passed the bar. Ha didn’t practice law but it was an asset when he served in the F.B.I. Harold continued to enjoy arguing until I finally told him that it bothered mc. He promised to quit and he really did less of it after that.

Both of us loved to read and I still read many books a year. Har01d’s reading was of a more studious nature. He read very few books because he would become so absorbed that he would read all night then have to shower and dress for work with no sleep. It was probably in our sleeping habits that we differed the most. I would go to bed very early while Harold would be ready to come to bed about the, time I was ready to get up. This worked fine, however, when we were rearing our children, particularly if they were sick. I would go to bed early and get my rest. He would tend to their needs until very early morning when I would get up and he would be ready to go to bed.

Harold’s nature was to challenge concepts that most people accept almost without thought. This was true with spiritual matters as well as others. I have always been a member of the Osceola Methodist Church. Originally there was the Methodist Episcopal Church located at 220 South Main, which was the church my family attended, and also the Methodist Protestant on the corner of Webster and North Main. In 1939 all Methodist branches throughout the nation united. The Floyd McComas family, the Coral Nortons, Emma Saddoris and her daughter Vivian Saddoris Hutchings, Zu Painter and her sons Jack and Andy Jeffreys and others came into our church at that time.

I was involved in a girls’ church group. One week we went to Des Moines and stayed in Esther Hall, a Methodist facility at 911 Pleasant Street. It was strictly supervised and parents felt comfortable allowing their daughters to live there when they worked in the city. We were informed of their strict set of rules but several of the girls in our group were caught climbing out a window and we were invited not to come again.

Through the years I have taught Sunday School, sung in the choir, co-led the Junior Choir with Fern Underwood, served on various committees, and fixed lots of food. I have always enjoyed cooking and baking. Presently I serve on the Memorial Committee and calling committees for United Methodist Women. Harold objected to none of this but didn’t relate to any of it.

The bottom line, however, is that even though our differences were obvious, something about our relationship was exactly right. We went together for seven years and were happily married for 49 years.

Harold and I both graduated from high school in Osceola and went to junior college for two years. The junior college was in the same building, on the third floor of the high school, in the third block of North Main. It is now an abandoned building. Tuition was $100 a year and I worked in the school office to help pay it.

Harold worked for Paul Reinhart in the furniture business then quit and went into partnership in insurance with A. O. (Arney) Bruhn, which didn’t last too long because of the war. Harold went into the F.B.I.

I graduated on Friday and started working at Hawkeye Lumber Company the following Monday. That business was located on North Main where Casey’s store is presently located. I was their bookkeeper for five or six years until Har01d’s F.B.I. work took us to St. Louis. We lived there for six months, then for two years in Cleveland where Martha was born in 1944. Harold was sent on to Sioux Falls. I brought the baby home and we lived with the folks until he resigned from the Bureau.

Dad’s preference was always farming and after he bought the farm it became his primary interest. We moved there and Andy and Zu Painter moved into the 2-story house. When I got married, because the folks didn’t drive, it was necessary for them to move back to town. Zu had to move out and the folks went back to the house Dad had built.

Which brings to mind another important story in my life: Every Christmas the whole family of 15-16 gathered at Mother’s house for two or three days. There was a large lumber yard on South Main where Fareway Grocery Store is now located, and a grain elevator around the corner on Jefferson. The lumber yard caught fire and spread to the elevator a night or two before Christmas in 1961. The only thing that saved Mother’s house was an abandoned brick building between the elevator and her house, and the firemen watering down the house.

Jeff and Martha were going together at that time. They had gone to a movie and it was announced that if the audience wanted to see the biggest fire they would probably ever see in Osceola they had better leave the theater. They left, discovered its location and immediately became involved in helping. Martha says that in her mind she still feels the tremendous heat as she ran up the stairway to the second floor where she saved the Indian Head pennies that were stored in a secret drawer in a bedroom dresser.

I handed two sets of Haviland china and many hand painted dishes to Jeff who packed them into big wash tubs. Not a single dish was broken. The next day when I was bragging about how well I packed the dishes I was told that I was doing more bossing than packing. Dr. George Bristow and family lived in the next block and offered a room where we could put dishes, etc. The last thing we carried out was the Christmas turkey.

Harold didn’t want to make the F.B.I. his life’s work so he resigned and came back to Osceola where he and Clark Johnson bought the furniture store from Paul Reinhart, Clark’s father-in-law. The store was the first building south of Clarke County State Bank where Refern’s Mall is presently. After a year he sold out to Clark and did this and that to hold his money together for a year, then went into the furniture business on North Main where the American State Bank drive-in is at this time. Our business, Young’s Furniture Store, was there a couple of years then moved to the north side where we were for 20 years. I always did the bookwork but as the children got older I became more involved. Harold finally had to retire because of failing health.

We built the house at 218 East Washington in 1940. I have lived there ever since except for the time we were in St. Louis and Cleveland during the war.

Stephen was born in 1947 at Harken’s Hospital. Both of our children were their own selves. Martha had lots of fun with a group of friends she went around with who called themselves "The Nutty Nine" Stephen enjoyed reading and chess — the quiet, private activities.

Both children attended church regularly. Along with Mother we had a certain pew in the old church which I didn’t realize Stephen considered in a proprietary way until one Sunday visitors sat in "our pew" and he made quite a scene. They both also participated in Sunday School and Junior Choir. I have one particular memory of a day when practice didn’t go well. After one of the songs the leaders remarked, "That was not very good. Let’s try it again" Following that try Stephen asked, "Was that better?" When it was acknowledged that it was he stormed out of the room because he had deliberately not sung that time.

Stephen has a special place in the heart of the one editing this material from memories of his being in my Sunday School class. From a bus trip to Washington, D.C. he brought me a reproduction of a painting of Madonna and Child from the National Gallery of Art. The thought of his protecting that single sheet of paper all the way home is very touching as was the time he bought two lovely Christmas gifts and couldn’t decide which to give to his mother and which to me. He did chide me several years ago because in my zeal for temperance I asked the class members to sign an abstinence vow regarding liquor. In his adult years he resented it but still took it seriously. I wonder if any others in the class remember that, let alone heed it.

Both children went on to college after graduation: Martha went to the P.E.O. two-year Cottey College in Nevada, Missouri. She graduated from Maryville with a teaching degree and taught for a year at Winterset, Iowa.

Stephen went to college at William Jewell in Liberty, Missouri and worked in Des Moines for a short while. He had a girlfriend who lived in Chicago where he went to work and has lived there ever since. He has never married. He calls regularly and spends vacations in Osceola. He is careful with his money but buys beautiful gifts for me often from the Art Institute.

Martha and Jeff Wade from Weldon were in the same class in high school and went together for seven years. Jeff s parents owned the Wade Corner complex, Sport Wade, Inc. Jeff was in the service and in 1967 they were married in Biloxi, Mississippi, where he was stationed. Martha later followed him when he was stationed on the island of Crete. They were there 2 1/2 years during which time she taught. They returned to the States and she continued teaching while Jeff got his degree in business. Because of their father’s poor health, Jeff’s brother Jamie stayed out of school for a year in order for Jeff to finish his education. Then Jeff went into the business with his father, Sport Wade. Martha eventually quit teaching to become the bookkeeper in the Wade Oil business.

They have two children, Shawn and Jennifer, both born after they came back to Iowa. They have made their home in Weldon and are wonderfully attentive to me, including me in family activities. Because of that I could follow the children’s school progress. At the present time, 1996, Shawn has completed a double major in Math and Computer Science from Simpson College and is working on his Masters’ degree in Mechanical Engineering at Iowa State. Jennifer will be a senior at Simpson and will receive her degree in Math and Computer Science. She presently has an internship with C.D.S., Communications Data Service in Des Moines.

In the mid 1960’s the congregation voted to build a new church. It was a reasonable decision because the old structure needed a lot of costly repair and upgrading. I remember that at one time water was piped from the parsonage pump to the church where there was a big container that caught the water. That was the only means of getting drinking water.

The new church was built in 1967 at 130 West Grant and was a well-planned structure providing many features. I had a problem being enthusiastic about it. I had seldom missed church all my life. On the Sunday when the congregation walked from the old church to the new one, I felt so badly about leaving the old church that I stayed home and refused to have any part of it.
Harold’s health began to deteriorate about 1985. He had heart surgery in Iowa City. Later cancer developed and required many trips to Iowa City over the course of years. He died in 1989.

I had a health complication in the early 1990’s and it was not until 1993 that the specialist in Des Moines said the only thing that would help would be surgery. It required a long recovery and I am still dealing with bothersome effects. It has put an end to my traveling which I enjoyed - Harold and I went to Crete and stopped in Greece, France and England on the way home. When we were in business we won a trip on the Rhine River and visited Switzerland; then I went with two nieces and two great- nieces to England and France. I took various trips sponsored by Clarke County State Bank and many trips very capably organized by Ethel Tangeman. Some were one-day trips and the longest was to California.

But even though I am unable to do those I am basically not limited in my activity. As a volunteer I occasionally accept church responsibilities when the church secretary calls, and help with Pink Lady booklets which are distributed at the hospital. I appreciate and enjoy my family, friends and clubs. My calendar is very full.

The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make his face to shine
upon you; the Lord lift up his
countenance upon you, and give you

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Last Revised April 29, 2012