Recipes for Living Ed and Margaret Swaney

ED AND MARGARET SWANEY

Told by Margaret

It is difficult for those of us who have been widowed, to acquaint others with the spouse by writing his story. In Ed's case, what he did was an expression of who he was. What he loved most reflects a life of simple but profound pleasures. His roots went deep - he loved his home, his family, the kids he taught, hunting, fishing, and playing practical jokes on his friends.

Ed's dad was a farmer his whole life and his mom was a homemaker. They lived on a farm northeast ot Pickering, Missouri. There were two boys in the family, Gary the older brother and Ed four years younger. For the first six years of their schooling, they went to Xenia country school which was about a mile from their home, so they walked. It was one of those rural schools that was a gathering place for those who lived close by, having family and neighborhood dinners, and those sorts of events.

Gary went on to teach school and was the vice principal in Red Oak for many years, and concluded his teaching career in Sioux City as adult education coordinator at Western Iowa Tech. As of 2007, he and his wife, Barbara, have retired in Sioux City.

As Ed grew up, his life consisted of home, school, helping his dad on the farm, hunting and fishing. He, his brother and dad enjoyed hunting for Lake Superior agates, arrowheads, and other Indian artifacts on their family farm and surrounding area. He loved to tromp around in the woods, most of the time alone. When it was time for college, he chose Maryville, which was then Northwest Missouri State College (not University). It was also called Southwest Iowa College because so many kids from Iowa attended there.

I, too, grew up in northwest Missouri, in Skidmore. There were five children in my family, two older sisters and two younger brothers. My dad was a mechanic and my mom was a stay-at-home mom.

We both went to Northwest Missouri State College in Maryville. That was where we met. We were business majors, but Ed was a year ahead of me in college. He graduated in 1966, and came to Osceola to teach. Ed put his roots down in Osceola and stayed here.

I graduated a year later and taught business in Fairfax, Missouri. We were married in June 1968, and I came to Osceola to teach.

Ed was drafted in 1969 and went to Fort Leonardwood, Missouri for basic training. His MOS (Military Occupation Specialty) was finance. After completing basic, he received orders to stay at Ford Leonard Wood as a payroll clerk in the hospital. So he always said his business education helped him get into accounting instead of the infantry.

Our first daughter, Lori, was born in Fort Leonard Wood in 1970. Just after Lori was born, Ed got orders for Vietnam. He was stationed at a base in Dian as an payroll clerk. We spent aweek on R & R (Rest and. Rehabilitation) in Hawaii. He was discharged in the spring of 1971, and we returned to Osceola where Ed resumed his teaching. I worked a year at Reynoldson's Law Film before returning to teaching. Our second daughter, Dyan, was born in 1978 here in Osceola.

Ed taught from 1966 to 2000. He started out teaching accounting and business law but he was also the track coach, one of the football coaches, and the first year we moved, he filled in as the athletic director for a year. The last years he taught he had COE (Cooperative Occupational Education). During the summers Ed worked as a house painter.

Ed enjoyed hunting and fishing. He loved going to the country. He hunted constantly, sometimes with his favorite dog, a seven-year-old beagle named Barney. The girls also enjoyed hunting with their dad.

What hunting did for him, he expressed in a letter to the Editor in the Hopkins Journal, Hopkins, Missouri, Wednesday, November 27, 1985: "Participating in the events at the Nodaway County deer check stations makes one realize that the deer season means different things to different people. It's seeing a young boy tag his first deer. It's a contest to see who could get the big one. It's making new friends and reestablishing old acquaintances. It's sore muscles and muddy pickup trucks.

"At Christmas a year ago, I held the hand of a man hooked to machines at Kansas City's Mid-America Heart Institute recovering from heart by-pass surgery. A couple of days ago that same hand grabbed one antler to assist in the loading of a buck.

"A $75 out-of-state license seems very insignificant when you come back home and say, 'Dad, let's go hunting.' Signed E. (Ed) Swaney.

Ed had a good sense of humor, and he was always playing practical jokes on people. For instance, the wife of a couple who lived in the country had clothes line poles. I don't know why, but he went out and painted the poles purple with pink polka dots. He loved pulling jokes on Jerry Kelly and Jim Emary.

Ed also gardened. We had a vegetable garden in our back yard for several of years. Ed eventually changed to flowers. It is now my hobby and I do enjoy it.

Probably Ed was best known among his prankster friends for his creation of the deertle. Ed has acknowledged that it came about from noting a turtle shell and deer antlers lying around. With proper adhesive, he fastened the antlers to the shell and added to the collection with plaster of Paris bodies and more antlers. With cooperation of the newspaper, there was a series of articles under the title of "Amazing Discovery Made; Deertle Resides in Clarke County"; Species Endangered Swaney Seeks Sanctuary for Deertles; Story Can Be Told Deertle is Captured. Each story is accompanied by a picture.

What was probably the introductory story goes like this: "Arlie Switzer first reported seeing the phenomenon in West Lake - deer that were swimming in one of the coves. But small deer with racks that measured no more than a foot across. Friends ridiculed the idea and made remarks to Arlie about Loch Ness monsters and such. And they told him not to spend over three hours per day fishing because it made you see things. They even hinted that because the lake was so low this summer that there was no fish anymore, and thought Arlie was making up stories to compensate for not having any fish stories.

"One can tolerate this sort of mockery for just so long. Then one either goes into seclusion and silence or takes the opposite tack and declares vociferously that it 'is too so' and goes to any length to prove his point.

"For Arlie, neither has happened. He has been vindicated and the evidence is irrefutable. What he saw in West Lake this summer has now emerged with the recent thaw and has proved to be a deertle — an aquatic animal with most of the characteristics of a turtle, but sporting a small pair of antlers growing from its head similar to those of a small buck. The generic term for the animal is, according to the Worldbook Encyclopedia, 'zie haben gehaupt."'

This gives the tone of the account, but the creative genius and humor it displays were Ed's. He fashioned its origin in the Cenozoic period of geologic history. "Professor Minoru Maeda of the University of Hichiyu, Japan, visited in Iowa a year ago, verified that such reptile-mammals may be found in the midwest. .Swaney feels that the recent clearing of land near West Lake...is endangering the deertles...Now that we have proof that they do indeed exist," he said, "I feel that we should make an effort to relocate them...They're very shy and I have had to wait as long as five hours in one location before seeing them....Capture of the deertles may be a difficult job...I'll probably get the help of Jerry Kelly, Tom Meyer and Chub Goodrich in the project as they are very helpful in these kinds of projects, although they were a bit reluctant the last time I invited them on a snipe hunt."

Former Osceola attorney, James H. Cothern, entered the fray with a letter printed in the Osceola Sentinel-Tribune Open Forum: "Dear Ed: I was unaware that Deertles were an endangered species. My most recent contact with a deertle was when I accidentally hit one with my car, took it home and made 'Mock Deertle Soup.' I have the horns and four feet mounted on the wall of my study. Unfortunately when I filed my claim for damages resulting to my car, my insurance company rejected the claim stating that their understanding was that deertles were extinct. I am hoping that you would be willing to be an expert witness on deertles and make available the original of your photograph of them as an exhibit in my contemplated law suit" The story became state-wide news when Jack Shelley used it on "Home Town News," over WHO radio.

THE FAMILY: A family of deertles consisting of a father, mother and young one, are shown on the banks of the West Lake reservoir near Osceola. Recent earthwork has removed all vegetation cover from the north end of the lake near the dam in preparation for enlarging the reservoir's capacity. Swaney reported using a telephoto lens to catch the deertles.

On a more serious note, Ed also had an extensive collection of arrowheads, which he and his dad found on the family farm. He had them mounted and framed.

Ed retired from teaching in 2000. He worked at Farm and Home. He enjoyed hauling his new ATV to the country and sometimes I'd go with him and we'd find places where we'd just ride back through the woods. By this time we were grandparents, and Ed really enjoyed taking his grandsons out to the country. To them Ed was "Buddy."

Ed passed away in February 2001. I retired at the end of that school year. I am now spending my time gardening, visiting with my daughters and grandsons and traveling.