Recipes for Living Dr. Fred and Barbara Evans Wood

By choice I am a transplant from northern Iowa. How I came to southern Iowa, why I chose to stay here, and hope to be here the rest of my life, is my story. If you have read my sister Marjorie Faulkner's story in this same edition, you know something of my background. My name is Frederic Jordan Wood, born December 3, 1934, in the hospital at Emmetsburg. Our parents lived in Mallard.

Barb and I took a trip to northern Iowa this last weekend (August 5, 2006) to see the farm we inherited. I couldn't believe the disastrous drought up there. The corn crop is just terrible, but their drought is spotty. We drove past fields where the edges didn't look too bad, but the center was black! We drove a few more miles and there would be nice, green fields. In southern Iowa, we have come to expect a drought every few years, but not up there. The crops on our farm looked fairly good. We cash rent it so it really doesn't matter as far as we are concerned, but those poor people aren't going to have a corn crop.

Dad bought this land with some excess funds and didn't pay too much for it. It was 100 acres, 93 of them tillable, six miles straight south of Lake Okoboji in Dickinson County. When Dad retired, he and my mother lived on Pocahontas Point of the lake. On our trip, after we looked at the farm, we went to their graves, where they are buried side by side in Clay County. My mother grew up in southeast Clay County and they are buried in a township cemetery which is just beautiful. We wanted to make sure the person we were paying to put flowers on the grave had done their job, and they had.

From there we drove over to see the Wild Rose Casino in that county. When a casino was still a possibility, Jack Ames and his wife, Donna, had gone with us to help with the promotion. The license holder would be the Palo Alto County Development Corporation centered in Emmetsburg, just as it is here in Clarke County, centered in Osceola. To get a license, they needed a 70% affirmative vote and to have that they needed to assure the small towns in the county that they would share in the benefits on a per capita basis each year for the improvement of their communities. In those days the casino still had to be on a lake, and they have a natural lake right on the edge of town. The rule changed before they got their license, and their casino is on land. The vote passed. They told us, however, that they consider our arrangement, with the boat on a lake and the interstate going past, the best in the state of Iowa. We were interested to see how things were going for them. They have a very nice facility - just not as nice as ours. We also ran onto Kevin Preston, who formerly managed our Lakeside Casino. That turned out well because we stayed over night and they "comped" our rooms and meals.

We had an opportunity to talk with people in Emmetsburg, and they think the casino is the greatest thing going. Little tiny towns that didn't have anything, now have something for people to do. One lady we talked to is working at the casino. She said, "You can't make it farming. This year with crop failure, it will be worse." They are not accustomed to that.

Barb and I were promoters of the casino before it came here - not for the gambling. I don't gamble, but we go out to eat and go to the shows. They have brought in some outstanding entertainers at affordable prices such as we might drive to Branson, Missouri or fly to Las Vegas to see. There are any number of things to do at the facility without going near the gambling part of it.

The reason I was in favor of it was the economic potential for our community. The money that has been poured into our city, county, and state governments has been put to use for our benefit. Pillars Grants, administered by the Development Corporation has helped communities throughout the county, as well as equalizing opportunities for children. And jobs: the report this week is there are 513 employees. They aren't all "biggee" jobs, but they are jobs. There are a lot of entry level jobs that give kids a start and some experience in accountability to an employer. And there are lots of retired people working there! Several of them worked in jobs where they were around people all the time. Now for various reasons, they are alone, but because of their work their lives are similar to what they enjoyed previously.

My introduction to southern Iowa, and the main reason I came, was that I had grown up in northern Iowa, where my dad was a superintendent of schools, and a very successful girls' basketball coach. We moved around quite a lot. I grew up in six different communities in northwest Iowa, and the closest I came to southern Iowa was two years at Valley West, in Des Moines. Then in 1954 and '55, I worked in Clarinda as a vet student for two summers, and I loved the people of southern Iowa. I had noticed that wherever we lived in northern Iowa, there was always a predominant group who controlled the town. It might be a nationality - German, Swedish, or Dutch - it might be religious - Catholics, Lutherans, or Methodists, but they banded together and whatever they wanted became the rule. That is not the case here.

People generally don't realize that lots of towns up north have just celebrated their 100th birthday. Here is Osceola nearly 160 years old! That's why our houses and farmsteads don't look quite as good as those farther north. But the farms there are beginning to show their age. They are not as immaculate as formerly. We are beginning to be aware of our need of upkeep and the Clarke County Development program, "Paint the Town Red," spearheaded by Amy Lampe, is a great step in that direction. What Osceola needs to recognize is all we have going for us, be proud of it, and promote it. Osceola has one of the best towns in the state of Iowa for a small community. The potential is fabulous!

I moved here on June 1, 1958, fresh out of vet school. I went back to Ames a week later, got my diploma, and started practicing June 14, 1958. It has been a wonderful experience. The influences toward my becoming a veterinarian began early. I spent many summers on the farm of my mother's parents, long enough ago that my grandfather farmed with horses. When all the horses got sleeping sickness and died in 1939, he got an old tractor. I was fortunate enough from eighth through twelfth grades, to live a block from Dr. Larsen, a veterinarian whom I worked for all through high school. He was in general practice and I learned some details that have been helpful. For instance, I know the human body can only stand up to large animal practice for about 20 years. Cattle chutes, crawling around in manure, pulling calves - the body just won't hold up to all of that indefinitely. I have a real bad back, but I can do a lot of specialty work along with a small animal practice. I have enough of that work to fill my time.

When I had a chance, I asked, "Dr. Ramsey, you are on admissions committee, why was I one of first ten selected from my class?" Modesty, almost but not quite, keeps me from telling his answer. He said, "That's easy. You're no risk. We lose too many good men to medical school. These guys with degrees aren't good enough to get into medical school so they end up getting their Masters' and going to vet school. We didn't want to lose you to med school. When you took the veterinarian aptitude test you scored the highest that has ever been scored. When we come across someone with an exceptionally high score we know you will make a good veterinarian and we want you in vet school." Barb thinks I should have gone on to become a surgeon, but I'm a good veterinarian surgeon and that is important to me. Here I am 71 years old, and even though my back isn't good, my hands are still good. I have no arthritis. It takes dexterity to be a good surgeon.

As I progressed through my education, I had a variety of options. In addition to working a summer in Clarinda, I worked a summer in a small animal clinic in California. The fellow who owned it wanted me to come there and guaranteed me a part of the business. Loren Kale, Dennis' dad, wanted me to set up a practice in Truro. I even leased an office. I drove through Truro a week ago yesterday and discovered they hadn't torn down the "For Lease" sign. The office is still sitting empty. Loren died suddenly that spring, at 58 years old.

When I heard that George Lewis was looking for somebody, I went to see what kind of opportunity that would be. He hired me and I came to Osceola. Having been the son of a school superintendent, one of my objectives was to settle where I wanted to be for a long time. I didn't want to have to move around or move my family around every four or five years. I found it traumatic not to be able to put down roots. I can stay here as long as I want!

I was with George for 19 years in general practice, but then I had some other avenues I wanted to try. They required I practice alone for awhile, so I moved my practice downtown and have been there since February 1977. Next February, I will have been there 30 years. I have been the longest occupier of that building, which was originally a filling station built in 1946.

My clientele has continued to build, including not only people in Osceola or Clarke County, but those who come here to work, go to the casino, or for whatever reason. They have come to know what I do and my reputation goes out at least 50 miles. I have developed a small animal practice that I can pass on to somebody else when I get ready. Barb says she would like me to retire, but she doesn't mean it. Neither of us knows what I would do with my time. I am in my office eight hours a day, off one afternoon a week, and I open the office Saturday mornings.

Doing Caesarian section surgeries on dogs has become a common practice. I have a number of small animal clients who are dog breeders. There was one time in the last year when I had a Caesarian to do every night, four nights in a row. That is rough on an old man. I get out of bed, perform the surgery, and then even if I go back to bed my mind is so keyed up I can't get back to sleep. One reason there are so many Caesarian sections to perform on dogs now is because there is so much cross breeding. They breed a Pekinese with a Poodle and come up with a Peekapoo or a Cocker Spaniel with a Poodle and produce a Cockapoo, and many others.

There are certain breeds in which it is almost always necessary to do surgery any time they have puppies. There was a local family who raised Boston Terriers, and every time the litter of pups had to be delivered by Caesarian section. The same is true with English Bull Dogs. The problem is, in order to develop these small breeds; it has been done largely through in-breeding. On down the road, the animals were not very healthy. All of a sudden they decided they should cross-breed with bigger animals, and what they have produced is called "Designer" breeds.

I have also a certified embryo transplant specialty which involves collecting, freezing, and transferring embryos of cattle. This process was established in 1974 by six people. Two of the six became friends of mine, they trained me, and I passed the examination. The purpose for embryo transfer is to take an outstanding female, mate her to an outstanding bull, either by breeding or insemination, and giving them drugs to release numbers of eggs. We set up a series of shots of female hormones, breed them about three times. Five days after they come in heat, the egg goes into the upper part of the uterus, seven days later, we go in with equipment and flush in fluid, drag out the eggs (fertilized embryos) that are seven days old, capture them with the flushing technique, and catch them on a screen.

Basically we are taking a very good cow that has produced good calves, so the breeder wants a lot of calves from her. The average cow produces seven calves in a lifetime, but by this method we might get 10 to 15 embryos in one flush. We put the embryo into a surrogate mother beef or dairy cow - and that cow will give birth to a calf, but it has no genetics. It could be a Limousin and the mother a Jersey. You could have a whole herd of Jersey cows and every one of them have another breed of calf running by their side all because of embryo transplant.

For example, Gene Bedwell paid a lot for a Charolais bull about 18 months old. He took his best cow, we flushed her, and recovered nine transferable embryos, which we froze. He sold two of them to a fellow in Illinois. We put them in a container and shipped them. He will have someone put them in over there. I put one in for him Monday morning at 7:30. She was in heat the previous Monday morning, we will wait through the heat cycle, which is three weeks, and at that time we will know if she has conceived.

Barb has been working for and with me since the '70s. She understands this technique and we have done a lot of traveling teaching it. There is a man from Japan who lives in Denver, Colorado. We became acquainted with him when we bought our freezer to freeze embryos. He travels to and from Japan all the time because his wife, who is also Japanese, is an exporter. She had never been to Japan. The man told friends there about this process and they wanted us to come over to show people on a ranch how to do embryo transfers so they could do it on their cattle. We flew over and spent eight days teaching them the process. We went back the next year to see how they were doing. It was very interesting. The man had a very large ranch, where we stayed. We had our interpreter with us. He knew about a young Japanese veterinarian who came to a place in Texas for training, but they weren't going to teach him. He wanted us to train him and he was with us a year and a half, living at the clinic.

We had another fascinating experience when we became acquainted with Ron Simek, a Bohemian from Wisconsin. He and his brother owned Tombstone Pizza, which they sold to Kraft Foods for $178,000,000. The origin of their company is interesting. Their mother, who is a delightful lady, told that when the fellows returned from the service in Korea, they wanted to buy a little bar across the street from the cemetery. What became Tombstone Pizza started with their investment of $100. She told, "I used to make pizzas for them to sell at the bar and somebody wanted a bunch of them for a big wedding or party or something. I made them and took them in, but something happened and they weren't going to have the party. They said, 'Just freeze the pizzas and we'll pick them up later.' We'd never frozen a pizza. Why would you freeze a pizza? But that is what we did and they came out great. Later they came back and ordered another 50. They said, 'We don't know when we will use them, but we will. They are better frozen than fresh.' And because there was a cemetery across the road, we called them Tombstone pizzas, and that is how we got our Tombstone Pizza business." The place where they made them was beautiful. The structure looked like a hospital.

They reinvested their money in a ranch in Carson Valley, Nevada, which is just south of Carson City over the mountains from Lake Tahoe. It had been owned by Harvey's Casino in Las Vegas, and his home was right across the road. There was another really nice house across the road. Barb asked who lived there and it was Kathy Crosby, Bing's wife. She loved it there. The brothers raised Limousin cattle, and we flew out there five or six times - it seemed like it was about every other month for a year, collected embryos, did transfers and all of that. In the late 70s the Limousin cattle was a fast growing breed, coming out of France. Dave Bell and I were the early local breeders. I bought out Dave's stock, and gave my cattle to my son Rick.

Another specialty I have is determining fertility. A lot of people in this day and age will not turn a bull out or buy a bull during breeding season unless his fertility is evaluated. We used to do that with an electric ejaculator which I never liked. It obviously was painful to the animal. My education came about one day when Dick Bell invited me to meet a man from Illinois, who was collecting semen from his valuable bulls to freeze. Dick said he would like me to come out to observe how the man accomplished this with rectal massage. He taught me the procedure and now I can produce what I want in a minute or a minute and a half with no problem. Now I've taught this method to others. I've done fertility evaluation by rectal massage for about 35 years. There are a lot of fellows who bring their bulls to my facility on Ayers Street and I fertility test them. This is a very acceptable specialty; I've always enjoyed specializing around reproduction.

Barb affirmed that Fred absolutely loves doing veterinary work. Fred says, "I have a way with animals. They just know me. Carol Stroud, who lives in Stephens Forest, breeds dogs. Their older dog died and they had another old enough to breed, they had a bitch in heat and I collected semen on him and evaluated it so they would know if it would be fertile or not, and it was."

Barb is retired now. She told, "I went to work for Fred in the 60s. I quit for awhile and went back in the 70s. Fred taught me what I needed to know. My maiden name was Evans. I am the sister of Bob and Charles Evans, and Phyllis (Mrs. Don) Lynn who is deceased. I went to school in Osceola and worked for Dr. Stroy right out of high school, and then for Drs. Stroy and Bristow. I was married and had two boys, Tim and Jim Saylor. My older son has a little girl, and the younger has a boy and a girl. They live in the Iowa City area and build homes."

Fred was married and had two children, Rick is married to Sara who is the secretary to the County Attorney, and he works at Hormel (Osceola Foods). He is called the "pickle boy." He has charge of 100+ recipes of pickling mixtures so he has to know the flavors they need for hams. He has a very good job and is well thought of They have two children, one in Iowa City and the other in high school. My oldest granddaughter has graduated from Coe College. She is a psych major, and has a very responsible job evaluating people going into Oakdale. Her fiancé is a grad student at Iowa. My daughter Cindy is deceased.

Fred was eager to tell about Barb's organizational ability. She was chairman of the National Junior Heifer show at the Iowa State Fair Grounds in July of '88. She put a lot of work into it and they have never had another like the one she organized. She made the new template for how to hold it. Kids come from all over the United States bringing their calves. They show them and earn awards. She and Donna Hickman, whose father, Don, was formerly associated with Clarke County State Bank, did their 50th year class reunion the weekend of the 4th of July, 2006. It was at the boat. They had a great turn-out. There had been 40 class members and with spouses there were over 60 in attendance.

I like to be involved in the goings on of the community where I live and I have thoroughly enjoyed all the civic organizations I have worked with and for - and was greatly honored to receive the Community Service Award in 1985.

The first service was as President of the County Club. Gary Pool, Dick Murphy and I were the committee that promoted replacing sand greens with grass greens, and installing the watering system. That was done in 1968. I no longer golf, but I am proud that our course gives enjoyment to so many people, partly due to what we accomplished. I served as President when we remodeled the club house. There have been later improvements but we made it into a much more useable facility than it had been previously.

I was elected to the city council in 1967 to take office in '68. I served one term, through 1971. Jack Jeffreys was the mayor, Milan Blake the clerk, Mickey Thomas, Mick McGuire, Delbert Harsh, Don Lynn, and I were the Council. We were responsible, in 1969, for the 1st street paving project since 1928, and I served again in late 90s when the casino was being built. The reason I was involved in all the negotiations, along with Eddy Saylor and other members of the Development Corporation, was that I wanted to make sure the city administration lived up to all the promises they had made. Again, I served only one term, which was as long as I wanted.

I was one of the founding members of the Clarke County Development Board. I served as Vice President under Eddy Saylor for seven years, and dropped that office to serve on the lake project. I was President of CCDC for a three year term, from 2001 to 2004.

I was appointed to the Water Board in 1974 and served until 1997, when I had to go off because I went on the Council. I came on the board again in 2004. The one thing the community must be sure we have, if we are going to grow and develop, is plenty of useable water. Good examples are the packing plant and the river boat, the casino. Just now we are trying to get another lake so we will have plenty of water, but that issue could get us into a political discussion, which is not the point of my life story.

Except for Dale Gracey, I've served with everybody who has ever been on the Water Board since November 1953. From what I understand, the Board was formed by a vote of citizens who wanted an entity concentrating on the issue of water rather than, I've been told, maintaining streets with utility funds, which was not the original intent. I worked very diligently as chairman of the Water Board for 14 years. For seven years, we were involved in getting all the details taken care of to raise the lake by 12 feet. Every time somebody yells the lake is going dry, they must realize we raised the lake 12 feet in 1984. It has never been below that point since that time which means that when the lake gets down 12 feet that would equal the amount of water we had in storage in 1984. For a poor attending but sincere Methodist, I have noted and believed the good Lord looks after us. When we built the lake in '84, it was down to nothing. We had just about used up all the water across the road, and in less than a week after we got the lake done, it rained and filled the lake. We are blessed in this town in a great many ways.