THE BILL CARPER FAMILY

Bill Carper, principal and teacher in the Murray Community School System for 31 years, tells about his life and school experiences:

Both Norma Miller and I grew up in Clarke County and were educated through high school in the Clarke Community Schools. I hadn't been aware of Norma until we were in a freshman science class. The science room in the old building must have been a lab at one time because students sat at a steep angle, like you see in the movies where observers look down on an operating table. I remember looking over my left shoulder and there was this girl I didn't know, but she was cute! I remember asking her out for a date and her only response was ''NO," and she walked off. Not one to be denied, I was persistent in my efforts, and we dated off and on throughout high school - a typical high school romance, complete with spats and all the rest.

My dad was a construction worker, and the family followed him all across the United States, so when I would go to new school, I either had to fight or make friends. We settled in Osceola in 1957 or 1958 when I was in seventh grade, and just up the street was the Underwood family. Van was in the same grade. He and I quickly became very close friends, and between the two of us we managed to make "Sibling" (as he called his sister, who was two years younger) miserable. We didn't plan it but there was some understanding between us that any time the three of us were in the same vicinity, she had to have reason to yell or cry before we left.

I won’t forget my first impression of Van and his upstairs room. He invited me up there to teach me how to play chess. In those days all of us watched the sci-fi movies with the mad scientists and their test tubes and bubbling pots of goodness knows what. I walked into his room and here was a ham radio outfit with all kinds of dials and switches and levers. I didn't know what to expect. I'd run onto a mad scientist in my own town? However, I did learn chess and he wasn't mad, didn't have any bubbling potions in test tubes, and we formed a friendship that has lasted to this day. I think what I got most from him was his patience with me in my sometimes radical thinking. If it wasn't for him, I probably would have had a rap sheet with the local law enforcement officials. We did some wild things together, but none of them were against the law, and none of them damaged other people or their property. We just had a lot of fun. Through hanging out together and doing things young people did, we became close.

All three of us went on to college: Norma and Van to Iowa State University and I to Simpson on a football scholarship. Norma and I became engaged in my sophomore year, and were married June 15, 1967.

Norma still had a semester to go at Iowa State, and I had a year of college left. We took an apartment in Indianola in an old house on the comer across from the football field, so my mom and dad and Norm and Lily (Norma's parents) could sit in the window and watch the games when the weather was bad. After she graduated, Norma went to work for Northwestern Bell Telephone in Des Moines in the Central National Bank Building. In addition to classes, I had football practice. At night I worked in a gas station from 5:00 or 6:00p.m. to 10:00 or 11:00 p.m. for $1.25 an hour and all the candy bars and pop I could consume while I was studying.

I had a strange experience when I graduated. I suppose it was pretty typical. College football players are glad-handed, told how great they are and how fantastically they played, but when that is all done, they become just another citizen. Being 21, that's really a shock. You go from being a big fish in a small town to being an ordinary Joe.  I readjusted my expectations (or did a reality check) and began applying for teaching jobs. Norma and I probably sent out 50 applications, but about the time I graduated, the state was flooded with teachers. We didn't hear anything.

I was sitting there one night contemplating our future and what I was going to be doing when the phone rang. It was Dr. E. G. Booth, head of the Education Department, who instructed quite a few of my education classes. He asked what I was doing. I said, "Well, we are sitting here sending out more resumes. I can't even seem to get an interview." He said, "If you will take a shower, put on a suit and tie, and walk a half of a block east, go to second floor office of the junior high building, the superintendent wants to talk to you." I asked, "What does he want?" His answer was, "I'm not sure. He just wants to talk to you."

Being a neophyte in education, I didn't realize they were having a board meeting. I got cleaned up, put on my suit and tie, went to the building, knocked on the door, walked in and there sat the superintendent, the business manager, all the principals and the school board. I thought, "Holy cow! What’s going on?" I had just finished my student teaching, and I had a major profile I didn’t even know I had? I thought they were going to fire me and they hadn’t even hired me. Were they going to terminate my contract, or freeze my license? I had a sinking feeling that I was never going to get to teach! I just didn't know what was going on.

They said, very congenially, "Come on in! Sit down! Sit down!" and the fellow who I'd done my student teaching said, "Mr. Kaldenburg said you’re the person he wants to work with him." It still hadn't registered in my mind what they actually were saying. You get all that education and get stupid at times. I didn't know they were offering me a job and I said, "That's great." Someone asked, "Would you be interested in working here?"  It still wasn’t registering when they said, "We'll be getting a contract to you, and you will start January second."  That was fine because I graduated mid-term in December, 1968. That gave me four or five days, and I said, "Okay."

I must have been in a complete state of shock because it didn't hit me until I got back on the street. I went home and told Norma, "Well, I've got a job." "You what? Where?" I said, "Teaching here in Indianola." I never made an application for the job, never had an interview. The fellow I worked for recommended me, they called and hired me. I went to work about four days later. We moved out of the apartment where we were living, and like the Jeffersons, we moved up to the east side. That's where it started. Later, when I came to Murray, I really didn't make a formal application for that job, either, so the only two teaching jobs I had, I didn't formally apply for. I taught in Indianola 1 1/2 years, and Norma loved it there. Commuting was a breeze, with easy access to all that Des Moines had to offer. I started teaching in January 1969, and taught in Indianola until May 1970.

I went to work for a sporting goods company, and in May 1971, I stopped at Murray to tell them we had a special on track shoes. A high school principal, now one of my best friends, said, "You ought to get out of this racket and get back into education."  I asked, "How did you know I was in education?" and he said, "Well, I know a little bit about you from when you were at Clarke." An opening came up in Murray; I applied for it, and had an interview. They called me and said the Board looked at my qualifications and, along with the principal's recommendation, which sufficed. I went home and told Norma that I had a teaching job in the last place she would have expected to go, because as we were growing up we didn’t ever go to Murray. There was no reason to go to Murray.

During my first year in 1971, the town didn't seem attractive. The highway was torn up and we had to drive across country from Indianola. We came from the north to get into town and I think we got lost every time we came here. We had an old pickup and a car. Billy was about two and it wasn’t a pleasant drive. Norma was leaving Indianola with all its advantages, where she would have loved to stay, and putting her through this was difficult. She says before she dies, she would like to live again in a town with paved streets. But I said, "We'll stay here three or four years and get some experience, then we'll move on to a place that has paved streets." Every once in awhile she reminds me that 33 years after the fact, we still haven’t found a place with paved streets.

I was hired in Murray originally to teach history, one PE class and coach football. I accepted and about two days later they called and said the girls' basketball coach had quit. They wanted me to teach girls' basketball and coach girls' track. The first year I had classes during the day, and was head football coach, head girls' basketball coach, and Varsity girls' track coach.

One thing evolved from another. I got out of the gym and taught English and history for about 10 years - junior high English and high school history. Teaching English was a riot for me because anyone who knows my background knows I was not the best English student in the world. I had enough hours when I was at Simpson that I could skid under the line. My approach to teaching seventh and eighth grades in English was that I taught basic grammar and writing, sentence and paragraph structure, and a spelling unit. Primarily, it was teaching students how to write. The literature I taught was more reading for fun than actual teaching. They could bring whatever they wanted to read. One young man thought he'd be real smart and brought a Sears catalogue. I said, "Well, you know, you have to read everything you bring,"  The next day he brought a pamphlet from his church.

I had an enormous amount of fun teaching those classes. I taught my own kids. I had Billy twice a day when he was an eighth grader, Mike twice a day as a seventh and eighth grader, and Sarah also twice a day in seventh and eighth grades. They didn’t particularly care for it and would ask, "When we raise our hand, what do we call you - Mr. Carper?" I said, "Well, don't call me what you would call me behind my back. Just call me 'Dad.'  I'm your father. I hope no one else calls me Dad."

Seventh grade history was kind of world culture - mostly governments, situations, and cultures of selected areas.  I taught eighth grade American history - the discovery of America up to and including the Civil War. Jerry Brown had the same kids as juniors, and starting with the Civil War, brought them up to the present. I also taught sophomore world history including current events. American history was always my favorite. I enjoy that more than anything else, and the era I enjoyed most was 20th century - 1900 to the present day.

Jerry reminded me one day that we are getting old when we can put the book away and start teaching from memory. I realized that I started about the end of Truman’s presidency and I can remember things from the Eisenhower presidency, the Cold War heating up with Khrushchev and the Kremlin, the talk about the Atomic Wasteland.  I remember the fallout shelters in Des Moines and the drills we used to have, climbing under our desks in case there would be an atomic blast in our immediate area. How frivolous that seems now! We thought we were safe. I tell kids about that and how gullible we were. If I wanted to get specific points, I used the book and had to do research, which didn't bother me. I kind of liked doing that anyway. But if the subject matter called for generalization, I just stood in front of the class and said, "This is what is going to be in this chapter, and this is what I remember going through."  We got into the 60s when I graduated from high school and went on into college, and we had racial unrest in the country, later on the protest of the war, and the women's movement. By the end of the 60s those movements were in full swing.

I had become aware of these students living in a transition period. For example, in southern Iowa we didn't meet minorities. Until we had the influx of Hispanics to work at Osceola Foods, there were almost none. I remember when the Penninstons, a black family, was here back in the 50s; they lived in Osceola across from West Ward School. They were the only minorities I had contact with, but it hadn't been too long ago when many people believed that everybody ought to have at least one slave, and I'm not sure if there are some who still think that way. I have heard the "n" word used quite a lot. There were people who still believed a woman's place is being barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen. For ones in that mind-set it is impossible to believe women could have a professional life, but at least some of the girls I taught have the potential and will have the opportunities.

So I developed a curriculum for a women's studies class and one to get the kids introduced to the Civil Rights Movement and what the movement was about. I had a lot of help from a college friend of mine, Les Carter. His father was a minister of a church on Forest Avenue. I played football with him at Simpson and now he works for the Martin Luther King Foundation in Albany, New York. There was also a black fellow named Zach Hamlet who started the downtown campus of DMACC (Des Moines Area Community College). I got in touch with him and spent quite a bit of one summer with him, going over books and literature that I needed to set up the black study.

For the women's studies, I set up interviews, and Norma helped me quite a little with females in non-typical jobs.  At that time a female was president of Graceland College. From her 25 years of experience in the construction trades industry, Norma had come to know a lady who owned her own construction company. That was a rarity at the time. I sent both boys and girls out on interviews I set up in Pella, Des Moines, and Lamoni. It was quite an experience - more for the boys than the girls. The girls who took the class were probably expecting some female leadership, but the boys were kind of surprised at the educational background and qualifications of the females they interviewed. It opened the eyes of kids and their parents. That was fun.

I was pleased with the enrollment. I tried to limit it to juniors and seniors and had pretty good success. Kids still stop and talk to me about the women's movement. Once in awhile I used to challenge them and say, "You are probably going to stay right here," and they don't mind reminding me at a Jamboree or somewhere I run across them, "I left here and look what I am doing."  When I retired, I turned my material over to the young man who took my place, Darin Wookey.  He revised it and did a good job with it.

I enjoyed teaching and did it for quite a few years. Then, in 1988 or '89, after I'd been in Murray about 17 years, I went back to school to work on my MS Ed in Elementary Administration at Northwest Missouri State (NWMS). Qualifications to be a principal require that you have a Masters' or a specialist degree in either elementary or secondary administration. There has to be an emphasis on law, psychology, and curriculum. Except for the latter, that part of the education is pretty much a fantasy because your job performance in relation to what classes you've taken in college don't correlate very closely.

The connotation of a principal's job was largely built around the kids being warned to behave or they would be sent to the principal's office. When I first came to Murray, we paddled kids or gave them a choice. They could take detention. The Iowa Legislature took care of that. No more whacking. Personally, my approach to discipline went against all the rules, against everything I was taught in my graduate program, and against every psychological, psychologist and psychoanalyst's suggestions. I know I did. The first time a student came in, depending on what the offense was, we would sit there and talk about it and I'd admonish them, "I don't want to see you back in here again. Just behave yourself."  Of course, it depended on what the offense was and how many times the offender had been in to see me, and their general attitude. I had some who came with their chest stuck out, chin tucked down, pretty proud of what they’d done. With those I would get about two inches from their nose and holler at them in a stem voice,"Read my lips. This is how it is going to be. If you don't behave yourself, I am going to keep you in this school until dark 30." The younger ones would look at me and their eyes would get big and I'd say, "It is so dark at dark 30 you can't see the way home even using headlights on your car. Do you know what kinds of things walk these hallways after dark 30?" Most of those kids, unless they were hard little suckers, I never saw again. But believe it or not, I'd suspend kids for two or three days - even first or second graders - for kicking or hitting. I never thought I would do that, but it was the only thing that got their attention. I even suspended a pre-schooler. I told his parents to come get him and when he could "act like a human" he could come back. Being a small school, we had the advantage of knowing the students, their background, and their home situation, and I took all that into account with each student.

We are one of the few schools in the state that doesn't have collective bargaining. There are only 20 schools out of 371 that don't have what most people call a union. I always maintained that we had administrators, superintendents, and a board working toward one goal. That is all that is needed. Particularly, a good school board is vital in the fact that teachers have to trust the people they are working for. I never felt, in the 31 years I worked in the school, that the school board deceived us in any way. I always felt they were up front with us, told us what was going to happen, and it generally did. There was never any reason not to trust them.

NORMA MILLER CARPER

The records of Norma Miller Carper's ancestors are part of Clarke County history. Her great­ grandfather, Philip Miller, was an "enterprising and successful farmer of Clarke County, Iowa, residing on Section 1, Knox Township." He was a native of Germany, having been born June 4, 1824, to John and Catherine Miller. Philip Miller was reared and educated in the schools of Germany, "remaining in his native country till 28 years of age, his youth having been spent assisting on his father's farm. He was united in marriage in June, 1851 to Miss Catherine Rose, by whom he had nine children - John, Eva, Elizabeth, Catherine, Andrew, Philip, Adam, Annie, and Norman." Philip was the father of Norman T. Miller, Norma's father.

Quoting from The Biographical and Historical Record of Clarke County, Iowa published in 1886 (kept in the Clarke County Historical Museum): "In 1852, Mr. (Philip) Miller immigrated to America, locating first in Rensselaer County, New York, where he spent three years. He then removed to Galesburg, Illinois. Here he worked for the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad for a few years, then rented a farm in Mercer County, Illinois, and remained there two years, when he returned to Knox County and farmed there until November, 1870, when he sold his farm, chartered a car, and with his farm implements and some of his stock, came to Iowa, landing in Osceola on the morning of December 1, 1870. He lived in Green Bay Township and bought an excellent farm of 160 acres on Section 1, Knox Township, and soon after moving on this property he bought another farm of 80 acres. He has a good, substantial residence and two good barns to make himself comfortable in his old age. The D.M., 0. & S. R.R. built their road over one corner of his farm in 1882, and in 1883 built a side-track near his house, where Mr. Miller has bought grain since. In April, 1886, he put in a store, which he is having conducted by his eldest son, who has been an invalid since 1883. The station is called Philipsburg, the post office which was established in June 1886, is named Groveland. Being about five miles from Osceola, it is very convenient for a good many people in the vicinity to trade and get mail there."

The death of Philip's son, Adam, was reported in an item in the Osceola paper entitled, "Adam Miller, Well Known Farmer, is Killed by Falling Tree Near his Home Last Thursday." (No dates are given.) "Adam Miller, a well known and well-to-do farmer, met death in a tragic manner while cutting down saw logs with his brother, Philip, in their timber 3 miles southeast of Groveland, last Thursday afternoon about four o'clock.  The wind was blowing quite strong and when a large tree, which they were sawing down started to fall, both men stepped back to what they thought a safe distance, Adam calling to his brother to be careful, and when the tree struck the ground, the butt veered around striking Adam and knocking him down, the tree resting on about one-half the width of his body. His brother, Philip, rushed to him and with almost superhuman strength, raised the tree from his body, telling him to get from under it. Although fully conscious, Adam replied that he was unable to move. Philip then got a hand-spike and raised the tree, and placed a sledge that they were using, under the spike. As he released the sledge, it slipped on the ice and the tree again rested on his brother’s body. He then seized the saw and after almost an hour of frantic exertion, he sawed the tree off so that Adam was released. All this time the unfortunate Victim of the accident had been fully conscious and talked to his brother, telling him that he thought he was fatally injured. When he was released, Philip, who is
a small man while Adam weighed almost 200 pounds, found it almost impossible to get him out of the small creek on the ice of which the accident had occurred, and finally succeeded in doing so by hitching a log chain around himself, and with his brother on his lap, allowed the team to drag them out. He then placed him in the wagon and drove to John Haggerty's home and there he was cared for until his death, which occurred about thirty minutes after his arrival.

"The deceased leaves a wife and four children and many other relatives to mourn his sad and untimely death. He was a man of upright character, respected by all who knew him and a model citizen. The Sentinel unites with a circle of acquaintances in expressing the most profound sorrow and sincere sympathy for the widowed wife and fatherless children."

Philip Miller died at the age of 89, as recorded in a clipping from the Osceola Sentinel: "Last rites for Philip Miller, pioneer Knox township farmer, were held at the Osceola Christian church Sunday afternoon with Rev. Warren Rile officiating. Burial was under the direction of Miller Funeral Home in Maple Hill cemetery.

"Miller, who was 89 years old, died at the home of his daughter, Mrs. Blanche Eddy, near Leslie on Friday, July 18.

"He was born in Knox county, Illinois, December 27, 1863, son of Philip and Catharine Miller, and came to Clarke County with his parents when he was seven years old. They first settled at Green Bay and soon after moved to Groveland.

"He was married to Nellie Price at Osceola on March 11, 1888 and started farming near Groveland on the farm now owned by his son, Lloyd.

"Until the death of his wife on March 28, 1945, he continued to farm at Groveland and since that time has made his home with his daughters.

"Ten children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Miller: Lillis Luce, Blanche Eddy, Benjamin F., W. Pearl, Lloyd H., Norman T., and Garneta Lavender, all of Clarke County. Three sons preceded their father in death: They were Gerold who died in 1902; Philip III, who died in 1905; and Ted, whose death occurred in 1936.

"He was a member of the Groveland church where he kept his membership as long as the church was active.

"Besides his children, he is survived by 18 grandchildren and 17 great grandchildren; eight nephews and nine nieces."

Norma tells: My father, Norman T., grew up in the Groveland area south of Osceola. Dad's family was large and hard working, not wealthy by any means, but they had more than a lot of families at that time. It must have been about 1922 when they lost their home to a fire. I have a clipping about it. Title: Fire Destroys Farm Residence of Philip Miller Early Today, subtitle:

"Flames of Unknown Origin Discovered at 4:15; Osceola Firemen Try to Put Out Blaze.

"The farm home of Philip Miller at Groveland was destroyed by fire early this morning. One of the Osceola fire trucks was driven to the fire but due to lack of water and the start the blaze had, the building could not be saved. The fire apparently originated in a wash room at the rear of the house and had gained considerable headway when discovered about 4:15a.m. The alarm was given and in a short time neighbors and the Osceola firemen were there. A bucket brigade soon pumped the well dry and the chemical tanks on the truck were not sufficient to put the blaze under control. The flames were checked, however, so that a considerable amount of household furnishings were removed."

It is important for readers to understand that with all this, Father never thought of Mother as less than equal to him. There is not a doubt that he loved and respected her and we did as well. In fact, showing respect to our elders was an important aspect of our training. We didn't call any of them, including our parents or their friends, by first names or nicknames - ever. With the exception of our next-door neighbors, Charles and Mary Allison, everyone was Miss, Mr., or Mrs. My first employer was Alfred Jones, whom my father had grown up calling "Scrappy." I worked for him at the A & W Drive-in from the time I was 13, which was illegal at the time because I had no social security number. That was not available until we were 14, so he paid me in cash. I washed dishes there for 35¢ an hour. My sister and I called him Mr. Jones, while our coworkers called him Scrappy or Alfred. This was appalling to us, and we would not have been comfortable doing so.

In our home, Mother had her "place," and it was an extremely important one - not demeaning in any of our eyes, and Sharon and I benefitted from her teaching us the various aspects of home care. For example, she loved to iron, so when my sister and I were small, we had a little ironing board and a little electric iron that really heated. Mother would take us to the basement laundry room and she would do the wash with the wringer washing machine, take it out and hang it on the line, bring it in, and "sprinkle down the clothes."  This involved using a soda bottle with a sprayer nozzle, one of which I recently purchased at a garage sale, and use. She would shake the water through the sprayer gadget onto the clothes, dampen them, roll them very tightly, and put them in the refrigerator so they wouldn't mildew before she got back to them. That is how she took care of my father's white shirts on which she starched the collars and cuffs until they could stand alone in the corner. She ironed the bed linens. We had a mangle which she used for flat items like sheets and pillow cases. My dad loved the smell of clean pillow cases. There was a scent from drying those on the line that cannot be duplicated with a dryer. Sharon and I ironed and folded the handkerchiefs. After every fold you ironed again. Thus ironing was a natural thing for me. It became a game that we really enjoyed, or at least I did. I learned later that my sister hated every minute of it. But in later years, this was a way to supplement Bill's and my income.

On the other hand, Dad was thinking enough to see that the lives of my sister and me would be different than the type of domestic life our mother had led. Things were changing and more than likely we needed other preparation. As a result, Sharon and I were very active in school activities, both athletic and service-oriented - Future Homemakers of America, Future Nurses of America - any club there was, we were part of - as well as being encouraged to take college preparatory classes. Mom was also very encouraging. She always had our basketball clothes clean and ready, and if we needed an early meal, she made sure it was the proper type food, prepared a certain way, as the coach directed. She never missed a game, whether she was ill or well. Dad was there also, unless his work interfered.

Mother did not drive a car. She tried to learn one time but ran it into the end of garage, nearly knocking out the wall. That was the last time she got behind the wheel of an automobile. She was just too nervous. So once again, Dad was adamant that we learn to drive. He would take us to Des Moines on a Friday afternoon and make us find our way out of the city in rush hour traffic, because he assumed we would be doing a lot of city driving. As a result of that, we were prepared - my sister living in St. Louis and I always commuting to work. So I think the lives that my parents had very much formed my sister and me, our personalities, our futures as far as what we have done professionally, academically, and in our relationship to our families. I
think we are both very strong willed as a result of my dad encouraging us to be strong. Neither of our parents wanted us to end up being a domestic. It is possible our husbands have suffered a little because of that. They've been forced into doing more household type things, as we have become part of the wage-earners in our families.

After I left home and went to college, Mother worked outside the home, in Wetterlings’ greenhouse, two blocks south of where we lived on Park Street. She poked holes in flats of dirt, put small seeds into the holes, and patted dirt over the seeds. That was the first job she had, except that when she was in her 20s, she and her sister, Pauline Woods Patterson, worked as cooks and baby sitters - now we might call them nannies - for two families. One was the Ettinger family, who were a Jewish couple, transplants from Chicago, whose only son remained in the Chicago area, was shot and killed in a gangland shooting. Mother and Bessie Wesley worked together for the Ettingers. Bessie was a black lady who lived on what came to be Delaware Street, although there were no street names at that time, on the north side of the tracks to the west. Mother cooked and cleaned for $2 a week. Mother and Aunt Pauline also worked as chamber maids - making beds and changing bedding - in a rooming house, where construction people and road workers lived, in what we identify as the Rick Eddy home on south Main, one block from the "four corners."

Mother also worked for Dr. and Mrs. H. E. Stroy at the start of WWII.  She was nanny to Don and his sister, Donna Lou. At that time, they thought my father would be drafted, and Dr. Stroy offered a home for my mother and Sharon (I hadn't been born yet).  Father was given a deferment, however, because the electric business was considered a vital industry. Once again Mom worked in the "service industry," by which I mean a house servant as opposed to having a profession. She cleaned, cooked, and looked after children. People in service industries look after homes, hair, body - those types of things - whereas professions require college degrees or further education. She felt comfortable in what she was doing. Education was not required. What was needed was being able to work, having a strong back, being cognizant of directions, which were not to be questioned. She knew how to do that. It had been her background from the days she lived on a farm, caring for the house, cooking, cleaning, and caring for her younger siblings. This was not threatening for her, whereas she was very threatened if she had to speak in front of groups, which she had to deal with later.

This came about because Father was a Mason, and as such, sponsored the Rainbow Girls, which I was a member of in junior high and high school. This was an international fraternal organization for teenage girls. They didn't preach morality but hoped that by the teachings of their order, we would learn. It was also a service organization to the community, and they thought Osceola was the right size and would benefit from it. There was also an organization for boys, called Demole, but it never "got off the ground" in Osceola. The Masonic Lodge and the Order of Eastern Star were Rainbow Girls' sponsors. We had a Mother Advisor and there was always a Mason who watched over our work.  In our case, it was Ernest Vander Linden, a native Clarke-countian.  The Mother Advisors would change from time to time but I recall Grace Marquis Edmondson, an aunt of Elizabeth Davenport Garrels, as being very active in the organization and a great supporter of it. There were also Gene and Vera Marquis, well known Clarke County farmers.

All of these conduct their meetings with ceremony, which was a natural for Father, whose work was a professional, management type of career.  But in order for my mother to attend, she had to become a member of the Eastern Star. As the spouse of a Mason, she was eligible to do that but it required standing in front of the group to take vows, doing memory work to participate in the ritual, and Mother was petrified! She didn't consider herself smart enough to do memory work, so she always managed to be a worker bee. She never wanted to be an officer or "hold a chair."

By that time my father had died and Mother's health was declining. I needed to spend more time with her, so I came back to this part of the state and worked part time for the Area Agency on Aging at Creston, as part of the Coordinated Care project in the Senior Center. I also worked in the laundry at Osceola Leisure Manor (now the Rehabilitation Center). All three of our kids were in college at the same time, so both Bill and I were taking every odd job we could find. Mother came to live with us until she went into the Extended Care Unit at Clarke County Hospital. I went to work at Plum Building Systems in 1995. They needed someone who knew people in the Des Moines building market, and I was there as long as they needed me, which was
1 1/2 years. Then I went to Merchandising Frontiers in Winterset as purchasing manager, and I will start my eighth year there in April of this year (2004).

Once into the field, my experiences with work related to construction and building materials moved forward, and I have really enjoyed it. It was a field that was uncommon to females at that time and as a result it was sort of an uphill battle. Men didn't necessarily want women telling them about a tool or piece of equipment or building material, the specifications, and how it could be used and how it shouldn't be used.

However, my background had prepared me to relate to men. Even though I have emphasized my mother's teaching me to be a homemaker, my dad's influence was strong, too, and I had some leanings toward being a tomboy. He hoped to have a boy, and that boy's name was going to be Norman, so I became Norma. My sister would stay in the house and do domestic things with my mother, and I would be outside doing things with my father, like going with him to the farm. I am sure at some time I was petrified by snakes and bugs, but I didn't want to displease him and be frightened of them when I was out with him, so I learned not to be. I grew up in a neighborhood of boys. I was one of the boys. I didn't ever play with dolls. I played with army men, sports, and war, rode bikes, golfed - did all the things that the boys I grew up with expected me to do, and of course tried to do it better than them. Thus I learned at a young age how to deal with males, how to convince them that I knew what I was talking about, and how to speak their language. I have managed to develop kind of a shell. Things that might be said that could have been objectionable, like profanity, I had to kind of let go over my head and just roll off, not be offended by it, but just move forward. The customers that came into my work places could be comfortable with me. They didn't have to walk on eggshells because I was female.

My current job hopefully will be my last - as far as earned income type of job is concerned. I am a purchasing manager, overseeing purchasing for a medium sized manufacturing company. I purchase thousands of kinds of materials as well as negotiating contracts with vendors for large purchases and with sub-contractors to do off sight work for us. There was a time when my father told me that he was never worried about my ability to survive in the world because I was versatile. He felt there were few things that I would not be capable of doing. That was good and bad. It made me an overachiever, and I also think it made me feel that I should have accomplished more things. But I am pleased with my progression in life professionally.  I feel that I have learned to deal with a lot of different kinds of people, a lot of diversities socio­economically, and ethnically, and not be biased in any way.

This is another way in which I feel I've lived with change. My parents' lives didn't lead to venturing out very far.  My dad went away to school but that was in Missouri at a time when people of color and other ethnic persons weren't in this region. My experiences at Iowa State exposed me to diversity, as has my work. And even though I haven't lived or worked out of the state of Iowa, because ours is an international firm, I deal with people in other countries. Both my sister and I have learned to do this on our own, and it has been a plus. It has also helped Bill and me to raise our children not to be biased toward other people. It has helped us to encourage them to branch out and spread their wings, and reach the educational levels they have attained.

Our children are a great source of pleasure for us, as are our grandsons. I am jealous that my grandsons' other grandmother is retired and gets to spend a great deal more time with them than I do, but that will come. Our son Bill and his wife Julie are older parents, as mine were, so they will have a lot to learn as their children grow. I've observed the changes in the way children are raised and the challenges parents face today, dealing with the gap between their childhood and their children's childhood. They are going to face a lot of the same challenges in their relationship with their kids that my parents, my sister, and I did. But they are up for that and our grandchildren are being exposed to a lot of things internationally - they have already traveled abroad and are not yet four years old. They will survive.

I look forward to retirement. I have a large yard. I'm a gardener. I love to can and that is something our son Mike has expressed an interest in. He is a cook and I have a lot of recipes that he will carry on, which I think is important. Preserving food is part of our history. So I look forward to that in my retirement. Traveling for the sake of traveling isn't that important but traveling to see our children will certainly be part of our enjoyment.

Health is extremely important, because I want to live to be an old, old person - a healthy old person, and an active old person. That doesn't frighten me in the least. I consider it just another challenge. I'm looking forward! I've recently lost 30 pounds, lowered my cholesterol 65 points, lowered my blood pressure 30 points, all with the help of Weight Watchers and learning to be more concerned about what I put into my mouth. I love to cook and I love to eat and that's a bad combination. But I do watch it.

CHILDREN

Bill was born October 21, 1969, while we were in Indianola; Mike was born June 8, 1972, while we were in Murray; and Sarah was born August 11, 1973. Bill was valedictorian of his graduating class in 1988, and throughout his schooling in Murray, he received many honors academically and athletically. He attended Simpson College for four years, and played football his first year. He graduated with a degree in Management and Marketing in 1992, and went to work for Fingerhut Corporation, which is a large marketing firm. He was a marketing analyst, crunching numbers. After four years, he left that company to move on to a division of Great Plains Supply, called Better Tools. His title was Vice President of marketing and sales, and he did everything with the products from developing and packaging to marketing. In 1998, he married Julie Noack. They wanted to leave Minneapolis so Bill accepted a position with CBS Sports Line in Orlando, Florida. He worked for them about four months, at which time Bill was stolen away by NBCI in San Francisco. Julie hadn't even moved...They bought a house which they never lived in. They moved to the San Francisco Bay area without ever unpacking. Bill worked for them until NBC swallowed them up. Things were not good in the Tech industry and NBC chose not to have that division any longer.

Bill remained in that area to test the waters to see if there was anything he was interested in and Julie came back to Minneapolis with their twin sons, Jack and Adam Carper, born in 2000. Bill didn't find any prospects that appealed to him, and he came back to Minneapolis. He worked with head hunters and was enjoying life, when he received a telephone call from a man who had pursued him prior to his leaving San Francisco. The company he represented was Oracle, based in Redwood Shores, California. It is the second largest business software provider in the world and Bill is now senior director of marketing world wide. Bill is starting his third year with the company. The family now lives in San Mateo. The boys attend pre-school, and Julie is a stay-at-home mom.

Mike graduated from Murray High School in 1990 and attended William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri on an athletic scholarship. He wanted to major in physiology, an under­graduate program which wasn't available there. His advisor said, "Build your own program and take the classes you think you are going to need to graduate with that kind of degree."  Rather than taking classes in the PE department, Mike took classes in pre-med. He really had a tough time of it, but he graduated in four years with an Applied Physiology degree. He worked for a while in a gym and that was going nowhere.  He went to Harrisonville and worked in a nursing home in rehabilitation of the elderly.

By this time, Sarah was going to school in Maryville, and Mike moved back there. He worked in a nursing home while starting to take some graduate courses at Northwest Missouri State. He thought maybe he should get more education and an advanced degree, so he started taking classes at the University of Kansas at Lawrence, and moved there to work on his Masters' degree. With the help of some graduate teaching assistantship money, he got into the PhD track. That was three years ago. He graduated in May, 2003 with his PhD in Applied Physiology Research. He accepted a three-year contract as a Graduate Fellow at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina, at the ECU Medical Center. They are doing cutting edge research in obesity. Basically, he takes samples of fat from all kinds of patients that come through the hospital for surgery, he uses cadavers, etc. It is hard to tell whether he will pursue teaching or research. Hopefully, whichever he chooses will allow him to do some research.

Sarah graduated from Murray High School in 1991. She also is quite an athlete and received a scholarship to NWMS to play basketball. An injury in her sophomore year resulted in reconstructive knee surgery and ended her playing days. She continued her studies and received a Bachelors degree in Corporate Wellness in 1996. She moved immediately to Kansas City and remained there until the fall of 1999, working in the fitness field. She returned to Iowa to attend cosmetology training and received her professional stylist certification, which led to work in a Des Moines salon from 2001 until the fall of 2003. She returned to the fitness field, working now for Prairie Life Fitness in West Des Moines.

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