Recipes for Living Bill and Mabel Oehlert

Mabel begins: I was born on December 8, 1921, in the vicinity of the Groveland community in Clarke County. There is nothing left now to indicate that it was in Knox Township, a couple miles from Leslie, about six miles south and west of Osceola. The railroad went through and there was a school, which my brothers and I attended all eight years.

There was what we referred to as the "church", although worship services were not held there. It was more of a community meeting place for such organizations as the Farm Bureau and a women's group that was simply called the "Aid Society''.

It was also our auditorium, where we had community plays. I remember one in particular when I was about 14. There were some young married couples in the cast and they looked for a person who would learn the part of a secretary. I was chosen and my boss in the play was Norm Miller, an outstanding citizen of Clarke County, the first director of REA, now REC (Rural Electric Co-op). The building was eventually brought into Osceola and placed at 514 North Fillmore. It housed the Assembly of God congregation before they built a new, larger church and now it has become a home.

What I know about my grandparents, I have learned from genealogy and books that have been given to me. I only knew my mother's mother, Nancy Baker, who passed away when I was about 12. I remember that she smoked a corncob pipe. After dinner we would be sitting on the porch and she would reach down into the pocket of her long white apron and pull out her pipe for a smoke. It is interesting that, even though we weren't accustomed to people smoking, we didn't think anything about her doing it. My dad smoked a cigar once in awhile and maybe some of my brothers did, but I never smoked.

My parents were Marion and Cora Baker McLaughlin, which makes me a double cousin to Maxine Woods. Her mother, Anna McLaughlin Baker, was my father's sister, and Maxine's father, Henry Baker, was a brother to my mother, Cora Baker.

I had six brothers: Orvie, Allie, Garl, Gerald, Fred and Doyle. Our brother, Gerald, died of meningitis when he was two-years-old. I was the youngest. We had such a happy childhood, with parents who both were loving and caring. My mother influenced our lives with some of her little sayings like, ''Pretty is as pretty does" and "If you can't say something nice about someone, don't say anything." That was exactly the way she lived.

We were a close-knit family, always having the confidence that we could say whatever we wanted to say. Everything wasn’t picture perfect, as it can't be with life's ups and downs; but we always recognized and appreciated our closeness. There was always music. Everybody but Mom played an instrument, and we all sang.

My brother, Orvie, traveled and sang on stage with the Angelo Tent Show, which was run by Bill and Mabel Angelo. One of his numbers was "Dream Train" and while he sang it, they flashed colored lights on him. I was about nine-years-old at that time and so proud of my big brother. I loved to tell all the kids at school about him and his wife. One evening, while we lived in the big house in Groveland, on the Ondy Pound farm, Mother had a big meal for the people in the show. There were about 14 of us and I can still remember the farm meal with fried chicken and all the trimmings. At one end of the table were bouquets of lilacs.

Some of the traditions from those days that are gone now have left beautiful memories. The traveling shows – vaudeville - provided excitement; and there were community projects that called all of us to work together, sometimes for fund raisers. They were hard work! When there were suppers held in the church or the high school gymnasium, both men and women were involved; for, without modem facilities, all the water, food and eating utensils had to be carried in and out. But that was all part of socializing and neighborliness-another tradition that has largely been lost in the busyness of the present day. On one occasion, at Leslie, we had a Farmer/Business people dinner. Each business person invited a farmer to be a guest and the
ladies served a lovely supper. Beryl Kendall and I still remember that we sang a duet, "Stage Door Canteen."

The outstanding memories of school were declam contests which I loved to be in. I always chose the humorous selections and we would go to different schools to perform. I was also in spelling bees. I did pretty well in those, but was never a #I winner.

When I was a senior, my father’s health was failing and he died when he was only 64. He was a hard working man and developed many physical complications. During that year we moved to Leslie, on property bought from Will Pollock and Dad remodeled the house. It was very special. Dad was a decorator and carpenter. He built cupboards, removed old varnish and re-varnished everything. Some of the doorways had what we called "porticos"- they were elaborately decorated with wooden beads part way down. I wish I had saved more of the items, but have only a stained glass window, which we use as a wall hanging in our present house.

I have a lot of wonderful memories of Leslie but, when I-35 was planned, all the land was bought up and the houses demolished. Mother died in 1965, at the time when all that was going on, and I remember her wondering if they would take down the house. They did. They simply bulldozed whatever might have stood in the way. It involved years of negotiating and now I-35 goes right through what was formerly that community.

The Leslie Christian Church was quite active in those days. My folks didn't attend regularly but my bothers and I went to the Leslie Christian Church, both for Sunday school and worship services. All my life I have not been particular where I go to worship. I have just wanted to be in church. When I was about 15, I went with an interdenominational group of young people to a camp. We slept on straw ticks in screened-in buildings and ate our meals of fried chicken and all the trimmings in a big dining hall. Each morning we had a sunrise service when we all held hands and gave testimonials. It was quite moving.

Probably about the second night we were there, the speaker gave an altar call. I felt as though someone had hold of my arm, guiding me. Perhaps it was my angel, but there would have been no way I could or would have resisted giving my life to Christ. That experience has stayed with me all my life.

My brothers and I all came to Osceola for our high school education and I graduated in 1939. I had taken a business course and worked for 1½ years for Artie Allen in his real estate business, which was located above what is now Gene & Nelson's Appliance business at 124 West Jefferson. Betty Baldwin, Bill's cousin, also worked there.

After that I didn't know what I wanted to do. It was 1941 and war was much on our minds. I wanted to enlist in the service but my folks frowned on that so I went to summer school at Simpson, took Saturday classes at Drake and got what was called a secondary elementary teaching certificate. My first teaching job was ½ year at Washington #8, when I took the place of Carrie Little who had married and moved to Illinois. I stayed with lovely people - David and Charles Gorsline's parents, Helen and Louis. That was followed by teaching two miles west of Leslie, Knox #4, then ½ year at East Concord in Franklin Township. That school building is still there.

Altogether, I taught for nine years in the rural schools of Leslie, Groveland, Weldon and Murray. I always walked to school. There was no other transportation available until, in 1949, I bought a new Chevy coupe. Factories were assembling cars so fast that, in this case, they didn't take time to put in a back seat. It turned out to be quite handy because that space could be used for hauling things. In fact, that was the car Bill and I took on our honeymoon, sitting in the front with our luggage stashed in back.

Bill and I were married in April, 1950. That July I became pregnant with Emily. There might have been no objection if I had continued teaching; but I didn't know if it would be appropriate to teach in maternity clothes, and I chose not to continue.

At this point, Bill picks up the story: My roots are in the Woodburn area. My parents were Herschel A. and Emily Cecil Baldwin Oehlert. I have three brothers-Allen, Joe Donovan (J.D.), and a twin brother, Bob.

We all attended Jackson #8, called the Lowe school, and received a good basic education. I have nothing but praise for rural school teachers. They gave us a good start. Georgia Westbrook, who married Paul Van Winkle, was my teacher in 7th and 8th grades. She was very good. I had a lot of respect for her. Our teacher in 3rd grade flunked us and we could think of no good reason except that my dad, who was president of the school board, hadn't hired her again. So Bob and I had to repeat that grade.

One of our grade school activities was baseball. We had a team made up of our neighbors, the Mason boys along with my three brothers and me. We made quite a ball team. We used to go to Woodburn and play the boys in town. There was lots of rivalry in those days between the country and town kids.

We always had a pot luck dinner on the last day of school. In 1935, Dad was planting corn at that time. He left the team of horses long enough to come to the dinner, then returned to his work, planting another 10 acres adjacent to the school yard. It started raining that evening and continued, with the result that he didn't get back into the field until the first week in June.

When they started closing rural schools, in the early 1950's, Lowe school closed and the building was sold to John Frizzell. The school was tom down and the lumber used to build a house in Osceola. It now stands on Highway 34, 526 East McLane. The land reverted to Ben Potter, who owned land adjacent to it.

I attended Woodburn High School all four years and graduated in 1943. I was Dad's farm hand for awhile, and then began working at the ordnance plant in Ankeny in 1944, along with Bus Palmer and Frank Donley, also from this area.

I continued to work there until I received my notice from the draft board. Dad got me a deferment for farm work until October, 1945, when I was drafted and entered the service that winter. During my service years, I saw a good bit of the United States and had some overseas experience as well.

My induction was in Fort Snelling, Minnesota; for basic training I went by train to Ft. McClellan, Alabama. While I was there, I became ill and was diagnosed with pneumonia. They kept me in the hospital for two weeks, in reconditioning for six and I had one week furlough, during which I came home. When I returned, I had nine weeks basic training, and then was sent to Camp Polk, Louisiana. I spent six months there in the Quartermaster Corps, which was responsible for getting rations out to the companies in training.

From there we were sent to Ft. Sill, Oklahoma for three or four months, then to Camp Stoneman, California, which was near Oakland. From there we were transported by boat to Japan and were stationed on the northern island of Hokkaido, near Sapporo, until September, 1947, when we went by rail back to Yokohama. We boarded a ship, sailed around the southern tip of Japan and went up through the Sea of Japan. Our port of call was Seoul, South Korea, where we picked up some army men who were returning to the States. I will never forget how happy they were to get on the ship and return to the states. They had a strong feeling that something was going to break loose between North and South Korea, which did develop several years later.

We left that port and spent about 30 days getting back to San Francisco on a big, old troop transport, the C.G. Morton. We hit port in September, 1947, and were at Camp Stoneman for two weeks before being mustered out of the service. I was back to Woodburn in October, 1947.

All four of us boys were in the service and we lost my oldest brother, Allen, on July 5, 1943. He was the co-pilot when their plane made a bombing run on Kapinga Maringa Island in the South Pacific. They were shot down. The pilot was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, the only one given in the state of Nevada in World War II. The crew received the Navy Cross, which arrived in 1997. We held a ceremony in Allen's honor in the Woodburn cemetery at that time. J.D. served his duty in the Panama Canal Zone. Bob was a tail gunner in the Marine Corps.

In the winter of 1947, I purchased the old farmstead, 120 acres, from my parents and moved there in March, 1948. I was a bachelor farmer for a few months until my mother's sister, Edith Woodward, came back from California and kept house for me until October, 1949.

Mabel and I met at a farm party at Bruce Fuesner's. We saw one another at such places as the Murray Jamboree, but the occasion for our first date was a Halloween party. She went as a gypsy and remembers that I went as a cowboy, but I think I dressed just as whom I was-a poor, struggling farm boy. We didn't go together long before we were engaged and planned to get married April1, 1950, but I got chickenpox so we had to postpone the wedding for two weeks.

We were married at Mabel's mother's residence at Leslie, by the Rev. Charles Miller. It was a family wedding, nothing fancy. We took pictures out in the yard. For our honeymoon, we traveled to Chillicothe, Missouri, and on our return trip we stopped in Chariton and saw "The Jolson Story." I carried Mabel across the threshold on April 17, and Mabel laughingly interjected that "he might not be able to do that now."

Our first child, Emily, was born April6, 1951, followed by Brian, Marty, Billy Dean, Elizabeth, and E'Lynne. In 1959 we expanded our farm by buying 182 acres, adjacent to the 120, from Orville Gardner. That worked out real well. I raised corn, soybeans, oats, alfalfa, clover and lespedeza, which was being promoted as a good pasture crop. At that time experiments were being made with bird's foot trefoil, as well. I also diversified, and raised cattle, sheep, and hogs not large herds. We sold cream and eggs and Mabel remarked, "How I hated to wash the cream separator! I was busy with many other things."

She continued: With six children, it is not hard to imagine the "many other things” I had to do, and it would also go without saying that we have "many other things" to remember. We were very fortunate that our children were all healthy. Dr. Harken removed Marty's tonsils and adenoids when he was five-years-old; and E'Lynne had to undergo two major corrective surgeries on her eyes and nose because of an unusual situation while she was still in the womb. She hadn't moved all that while, and her birth was lengthy and difficult; but by now she has emerged a beautiful and very intelligent young lady.

Brian had a wreck with his motorcycle when he was 16 or 17, barely out of high school. He had a job helping build the Jimmy Dean plant and was not covered by insurance. Bill had been encouraging him to get his own but he had not done so. There was considerable expense involved and Bill says, "I paid the first $50 to get him into the hospital. He had to pay the rest and Dr. Bunton encouraged him, saying, and ‘Don’t worry about your bill. Send me $20 a week.' In that way, Brian paid off the $600. That was one of his lessons in life. He had to learn to ‘cover his tracks'."

We look back and laugh about precious memories. Bill remembers a time when Marty had done something. "I don't even remember what it was, but I was chasing him and he cleared a 5 ½ - foot board fence to get away from me. I couldn't do a thing but lean against the fence and laugh."

There was a time when Billy was told to do something and hadn't done it. He wanted to go to town with his mother and Mabel said, "No, you can't go this time." He disappeared, went out and laid down in the middle of the road. "As it turned out, on that particular day I chose to go west instead of east and didn't know about it, but I shudder to think what might have happened."

There was one summer we went to visit brother Doyle in Chicago and go to the Brookfield Zoo. All the way, every time the children saw McDonald's arches they wanted to stop. Dad drove right on, although probably we did stop at one somewhere. The children loved such outings. When Bill worked at Ford Implement in Des Moines from 1955 to 1969, the company gave a big picnic at Riverview for all the employees and the children were given free rides. They began looking forward to that as early as December.

When the children rode the bus to go to Woodburn to school, Emily took charge of seeing that everyone was ready. There were limestone slabs in steps from our yard down to the road and she lined up her brothers and sisters. She was on the first stone, because she was oldest, and the others were in place according to age. E'Lynne was not in school at that time.

The family became involved in the Woodburn United Methodist Church. In fact, Mabel says, "I was baptized there in 1953. Until then I had gone to a variety of churches but at that time I knew I wanted to be baptized. Our whole family was very active. I was the organist, and was instrumental in the Ladies' Aid Society becoming United Methodist Women. I wrote to Mary Yaggey in Des Moines and she came down to tell us what was involved. Those were fun times! As we had in Leslie, we served many dinners and banquets. There were 10 or 12 women who hauled everything in and everything out, but what a close knit group we were!"

Fern Underwood remembers when Mabel was the church organist and tells: "It was in Woodburn that I had my first acquaintance with the wonderful sense of family in rural churches. It was at the time when I was just beginning lay speaking, but I always go with a sense of trying to adjust to whatever is customary for the congregation.

"I first came to sense a difference from the more formal, structured nature of the churches I had always been familiar with when, before the service began, wasps' nests were discovered in the outside frames of the windows. Even though it was a very hot summer day-and, of course, no air conditioning at that time - the windows had to be closed.

"When it was time for the service to begin, the organist had not arrived so I asked the congregation - in those days the sanctuary was full-what they did in that case. Someone said that one of the young children was taking piano lessons and she could play. The child could play several appropriate songs but had never had the experience of a congregation singing along. However, we proceeded and were well into the service when the doors opened and the Oehlert family arrived.

All the children were baptized in the Woodburn church when they were about four months-old. They were all baptized by Rev. Elmer Clark, retired, who lived in the house across the street west from the church. While Rev. Ivan Bys was pastor, from 1971 to 1978, Woodburn and Osceola were in the same charge. He said the Woodburn area reminded him of New England states and he sang a solo about that the first Sunday he was with us.

All the children graduated from Clarke Community School and went on to take up responsible lives, establishing their own homes. All are living in the Osceola/Woodburn area except Billy ("Swede"). He and his wife, Terri, with their son, Ryan, live in the Galesburg, Illinois, area.

Emily attended the University of Northern Iowa for two years, then married and has two children: Jason and Erica. Emily has been employed at Furnas for 19 years. In the latter part of June, 1998, she will marry Wilbur Clark and move to Lima, Ohio. Jason is presently in the service at Ft. Bragg. He is Sgt. Jumpmaster in the Paratroopers Corps, training others. A little over a year ago, he married a Haitian girl, Marjorie, who, of course, speaks French fluently as does Jason. Marjorie also speaks English very well and is now working at one of the universities in North Carolina.

Erica has finished her second year at the University of Iowa and is employed as a waitress at a restaurant in Iowa City. She will be married on June 13, 1998, to Andy Price from Osceola, who works in Iowa City with a painting contractor.

After Brian graduated in 1972, he went into the service and had his basic training at Ft. Leonard Wood; then he was stationed at Camp Gordon, Georgia, where he was in the military police. He went on to Ft. Carson, Colorado. By nature, Brian is a farmer and loves horses, which he now raises along with cattle. He is also a substitute mail carrier in Lucas, Iowa, and works at Power Logistics on a night shift.

Brian married Mary Daughenbaugh, who for some time had a nursing home, Mary's Guest Home, in Osceola, at 221 West Cass Street. Presently she works at Miller Products in Osceola. They have two children-Tiffany Dawn and Brian Allen. Tiffany is a junior at Clarke Community School, and Brian a sophomore. Mary had three children by a previous marriage- Dena, Dale, and Mark. They are now grown. Brian and Mary attend Woodburn United Methodist Church.

Marty married Cindy Faga, whose father was a Lutheran minister at Leon, and they have one son, Jeremy. Marty graduated in 1973, and began working as a brakeman on the Burlington Northern Railroad. He worked there until he was to move to Cicero, Illinois. He had the option of a buy-off from the railroad, which he chose, and moved back to Osceola. He works at Power Logistics. Marty purchased his Uncle Allie's home which he has remodeled, keeping it like it was. It is becoming a showplace.

Jeremy is in Ft. Carson, Colorado, in a field artillery unit. He had a scholarship for officers' training and went to Chicago for that. Now, with encouragement of his commanding officer, he plans to come back to Ames in 1999. He is more like our child than our grandson because he has come back to stay with us every summer.

Bill, "Swede", tried the gold mines in Deadwood, South Dakota and told his dad that one day he got to thinking that he was 2 1/2 miles underground. He went to work the next day and told them that would be his last day. In June, 1977, he married Terri White of Osceola. They have one sort, Ryan, who is 11. He has won medals in Chicago and Indianapolis, competing in gymnastics. He is also into playing ball and tennis, swimming, and has recently begun taking piano lessons. Swede is a welder with Burlington Northern Railroad. Terri is a secretary at the Christian Church in Galesburg, Illinois.

After graduation, Elizabeth worked for short time at Furnas Electric and then went to Oklahoma City, where she and Debbie Paul roomed together while Liz worked in a grocery store until she got a job with Southwestern Bell Telephone Company. She worked several years and came back to go to beauty school. She graduated as a cosmetologist. She worked first for Kathy Goodrich and now, with two others, has her own shop, Express Yourself, in Osceola.

Liz will be married on August 8, 1998, to Charlie Harger, who grew up in Osceola and is a locomotive engineer with the Union Pacific Railroad. They will make their home in Des Moines. Charlie and Liz are both sincere Christians. Liz has done considerable solo work in several churches and is very comfortable talking about her faith to her customers, or on any occasion. Recently, when there was a Billy Graham Crusade in Osceola, Emily remarked, "Whenever I think about a flower, realizing that God made it, I want to cry." Liz replied, "Don't feel sad about that. Be happy that God gave you those feelings." Liz and Charlie are very involved in the Assembly of God Church. He is a member of First Assembly in Des Moines.

E'Lynne graduated in 1980. She and her mother baby sat in their home for a number of years. On April16, 1988, she was married in the Osceola United Methodist Church to Lonnie Stone, from Eldon, Iowa. He operates a crane in bridge construction work. In 1987, he helped construct the beautiful bridges in Atlanta, Georgia. This was when they held the Republican convention there, when George Bush chose Dan Quayle to be his running mate. E'Lynne is employed at Furnas Electric, now Sieman's. She has two little step-granddaughters-Mercede, 4, and Mallory, 2. They are her pride and joy!

During the years that Bill farmed, he worked other jobs as well: substitute mail carrier for Woodburn rural routes; for Ford Implement in Des Moines from May, 1955, to August, 1969. They wanted him to move to Michigan but he chose not to do that. He went to work instead, at age 47, for John Deere Des Moines Works in Ankeny and retired from there in December, 1987. From 1993, through 1996, he served on the Board of Clarke County Supervisors.

One day Mabel and the girls were in town and, even though we had no thought of moving from our farm home, the girls persuaded me to go through the house where Paul and Ruth Ostrus had lived, at 328 South Jackson. It was so large and so nicely decorated that it was quite a contrast to our modest farm home. But it just felt as though it belonged to us. Vivian Sparboe had shown it to us and I explained to her that we had no intention of buying, but she said that if we ever changed our minds, we should call her. Bill looked at the house the next day and felt exactly as the girls and I had felt."

In 1974 we sold the farm to Louis and Marlou Goodrich; but when we told Brian, who was in the service at the time, he broke down and cried. We bought the farm back and Brian and Mary moved there. Without a job, however, Brian didn't have the finances, so we resold it to Joe Johnston, who was a deputy sheriff in Des Moines. He later sold it but is going to build a home in that area. When we first sold, we had a farm sale of all the equipment. Bill has since bought a small John Deere tractor to mow the 80 acres that had been left to him.

When Bill's father, Herschel, passed away, Bill's mother, Emily, gave 80 acres to her three sons. Now we have given an acre to each Brian and E'Lynne who wants to build a home there.

We feel that we have been most fortunate. Every one of our children and their families have been loving and so very thoughtful. We have been richly blessed with health and happiness all through our lives. In addition to church affiliation, we have enjoyed the organizations we have taken part in for about 30 years. Bill is Commander of the Herndon Oehlert American Legion Post at Woodburn and is a member of the Masonic Unity Lodge #212 at Woodburn. We are both members of the Order of Eastern Star in Woodburn and the Order of White Shrine of Jerusalem in Leon since 1969.