Recipes for Living Elbert Weaklend

I am not only a native of Clarke County and Osceola, but until very recently I have lived at the same address, 220 North Temple, all my life. Dr. Stroy delivered me in 1946 to my father, Audrey Weaklend, and my mother, Wilma Hall Weaklend. My dad was a mechanic, an excellent one according to all I've come to know. He not only had his own shop but was the school bus mechanic for years. My uncle, whose evaluation was that Dad was the best mechanic he ever saw, told about a fellow who came through Osceola driving a Cadillac. It had given him lots of trouble and he had taken it to various dealerships where they had been unable to correct the problem. Someone suggested he take it to my dad. They took a short drive together; Dad quickly diagnosed the problem, and was able to fix it within a half hour. He charged the man about $3, when a much higher fee would have been appropriate and acceptable. My mother was an excellent stay at home mom.

Steve Weaklend came to Iowa from Pennsylvania. He married and had eight children, then eight more by his second wife. My granddad descended from the first brood. Steve was descended from an Indian princess. My granddad's grandmother Rhodes was a full blooded Indian. When I was a small boy, he took me to her grave and told me of her people camping on their farm to visit her. I noticed cup handles and bits of plates and saucers breaking through the grass. True to Indian tradition her valuables were buried over her.

My grandma Weaklend died about three weeks before my third birthday. I remember being set on a cot and told not to jump around and hurt Grandma. Over her bed, there was a little pink weather house that had two doors. One had two children and the other a witch that came out of the doors when the weather changed. After being told many times that it wasn't a toy, my grandmother figured out my problem. She explained that if it was nice weather, the kids could play, but if bad weather was coming, the witch came out. It remained there on the wall for years, helping keep this little bit of family memorabilia alive in my mind.

Mom made sure us boys spent time with our grandpa Weaklend. We often spent a day, one of us at a time. Breakfast was always a big shredded wheat biscuit with milk and sugar. Lunch and supper were hot dogs split lengthwise and fried to the degree of black you liked. He also shared the knowledge and lore of nature, passed from his Indian grandmother.

My granddad Hall died when I was about five. He would hold me on his lap and tease me, then sit down and teach me dominos. My grandma Hall spoiled her grandkids. She could be strict if needed. There was a time I was playing with the dog on the kitchen floor. She told me nicely several times to go into the other room, until I said, "Shut up, I don't have to." She gave me a backhand across the face that sent me to the other room. I got the point, even though she added, "My kids didn't sass me, and neither will you." She also gave quick counsel sessions on subjects Mom would not have discussed, but that Grandma felt were important for my character.

Unlike my father, I have no mechanical inclinations or interest. That was not true with my brother, Doyce, who is six years younger than I, with whom I had little in common until recent years. Like my dad, he liked mechanics and cars, and didn't care for animals, school, or church. I was just the opposite. I love animals and am like my mother. She and I went to church. From the time I was in the nursery, we attended the Calvary Baptist Church, and Mother taught that class. I was a faithful attendee until I started working at the gas station on Sundays. I was baptized in 1964 or '65, the age when I graduated from high school. The coincidence was interesting because my two cousins, Uncle Con's twins; had decided to be baptized at the same time. The baptism was held at the Chariton Bible Church because we didn't have a baptismal in the Osceola Church. Our family, our aunt and uncle were all there, and we hadn't made any arrangements for it to be a family affair, so it was a nice surprise. I learned a great deal of Bible in my years in the church, so I am well versed in the scriptures. My pastor wanted me to go to a Bible Institute, but I never felt called to do that.

Mother valued education, although hers was cut short because of the large family in which she was raised. In those days, unless farm kids knew someone in town to board with, they couldn't go on from rural school. Her family was taking care of their grandmother. There wasn't anyone to board with. To get further education, after they graduated from eighth grade, a lot of my aunts and uncles went back another year and "sat in" to make sure they got all the education they could get They literally took the eighth grade twice.

My granddad, Ivan Hall, was a director at their school. One of the teachers they hired and helped start her career was Minnie Hertz. My mother always told me that raising me was like raising her dad because I had the same mannerisms, and when Minnie Hertz was my teacher, she kept thinking she should know me. When she asked my name, "Weaklend" didn't ring a bell, but when I told her the other side of my family was Hall, she knew she identified me because of my grandfather, Ivan Hall.

Mother's brother, Kenneth Lynford (Con) Hall, became kind of a surrogate dad to me. It started when I began working on his farm, helping take care of livestock, which I really enjoyed, and the death of my father cemented our relationship. Dad was sick with liver cancer for almost a year and was very young when he died. I missed the first day of my sophomore year because of his death. My brother and I stayed with my grandmother, who lived just across the road from Uncle Con. My Uncle Hiram lived there also. But it was Uncle Con whom I related to best. We raised hogs together, later went into partnership in the hog business, and when I was in FFA (Future Farmers of America) in high school, and had a dairy cow for my project, he helped me with it. Later I had dairy cows, which he let me keep there. He went to banquets and chili suppers with me, and did the things fathers normally do. He was always there when I needed him.

Actually, my career with animals started when I was in fourth grade. I lost my hearing. Dr. Stroy didn't know what to do, and I went to Dr. Lauvstad, who was new in town. They thought they were going to have to send me to Council Bluffs to the School for the Deaf, but Dr. Lauvstad sent me to Iowa City, where they found I had fluid in my ears. The operation to correct the problem is simple now, but it was new at that time. They gave me ether, removed the fluid, and did some scraping of my adenoids. They also ran some tests and discovered I was allergic to some kind of feathers, so I began using a foam pillow and had to get rid of my parakeet. To compensate, Mom's best friend and her husband gave me a pair of rabbits. So in fifth grade I had my first rabbits and have had them ever since except for the time I had my FFA project.

There were teachers who had an effect on my life. The one I remember best is Winona Naylor. I loved her! One I didn't care for at the time was Miss Hutchinson, our third grade teacher. We'd pick up cinders off the playground and throw them up in her room when she wasn't there. We'd put tacks on her chair, but I came to realize later I learned the most from her of any teacher I had. She taught us multiplication tables and cursive writing. For Thanksgiving we built a teepee and had an Indian and pilgrim reenactment. When we studied the south, we had little cups in which we planted cotton seeds and raised a cotton plant. I took mine to my granddad, who transplanted it, and it bloomed that summer. When we were studying how people did things in years past, she brought in two jars of cream. We passed them around, taking turns shaking them until the cream turned to butter. We drank the buttermilk and put the butter on crackers. That young teacher was brilliant, and it is a shame we didn't appreciate her at the time.

Mrs. Naylor was our fifth grade teacher. We went through a transition at that time, going from West Ward to East Ward. They combined the two and grouped us alphabetically, which separated us from classmates we'd had before. It was kind of traumatic because we'd been together since kindergarten. We didn't know a lot of our new classmates or the teachers. Before then, we knew that when we got through with Miss Bonham, we'd go on to Mrs. Simpson, then Miss Hutchinson, and for fourth grade, we'd have Mrs. Carson. It was my good fortune that for fifth grade, I happened to draw Winona Naylor! One memory I have in particular was that I got to running around with some pretty ornery kids from my neighborhood. Mrs. Naylor took me aside one day and said, "I see who you are running around with. They may be your friends, but they are going to get you into trouble." She gave me a good talking to. She said, "I mean it! I care about you. I know you're a good kid, but you are going to get into trouble, and you don't deserve that." It meant a lot to me, and I had the opportunity to tell her. Years later, we were both in Joan McCann's office taking care of some business. I reminded her of that incident and thanked her. I think it meant a lot to her.

We had a teacher named Mrs. Howell. She could smell bubble gum a mile away, like a bloodhound. She couldn't see anything, so we could get by with murder in her classroom, but we couldn't chew gum. Van Underwood, Stan Leeson, and I were together in an endeavor. Van was always prowling around East Lake Park and the golf course, catching ground squirrels and snakes and everything, which appealed to me as well. We found some holes in a bank of the playground. We dug them out more, and garter snakes that we caught, we put into the holes. We called them our snake pits. It made a nice home for them. It was nice and cool, and we'd always find a couple snakes and some bugs every time we'd check.

On the last day of school, Van decided to take some home. He had a paper route so we gathered up a bunch of them and put them in his paper bag. He hung the bag in his locker and the snakes crawled out. Mrs. Howell pulled a locker inspection. She opened the door and those snakes came barreling out. She went ballistic! Mrs. Benbow, the principal, came and laughed, saying, "Those snakes won't hurt you." So we got out of that okay.

The next year Mrs. Benbow held me in after school. She wanted to know why I was beating up on a certain boy, and said I'd better stop. I said, "Mrs. Benbow, I'm not beating up on anyone." She said, "You are chasing him home three or four blocks every night, and his grandmother has to come out with her cane and chase you off." I kept insisting it wasn't me, and she said, ''Don't lie to me. I don't like to be lied to." She kept at it but I wouldn't admit to it because I didn't do it. She had three other kids who rode my school bus, waiting their turn. They sat there making faces and laughing behind her back. Not one would speak up to defend me. Even though I kept saying I didn't do it, she grabbed me and shook me, and slapped my face for lying. She sent me on my way but I was too late for the bus.

Mom always watched for the bus. She didn't put up with our fooling around after school. We went home, and did our homework and chores. That day when I didn't get off the bus, she started out to find me. There I was at the subway, heading for home. I told her what happened, and I never quite forgave her for not believing me, because I always told the truth. Now, Doyce might bend it a little, but I never did. She said, "Let me look into this." She went to talk to my bus driver, but he hadn't heard about it. I told her to talk to Mrs. Benbow, who told her the whole story. Mother said, "That can't have been Elbert. He gets off the bus every day and comes straight home. That's the reason I'm here, because he didn't come home today." Mrs. Benbow promised to look into it. The boy admitted he had been wrong in identifying me, and she came back to apologize. I liked her for that. One day long after, I saw her at Robinsons. I hadn't seen her for years. The last time was when she could look down at me. Now I was about six feet tall, and she simply said, "I don't think I'd want to correct you again."

I had Maxine Woods in junior high. She used to chew me out for not getting on the honor roll. I had an attitude that if there was something I liked, I would do really well, but if I didn't like it, a C was satisfactory as far as I was concerned. She had been a country school teacher, and we soon found out that she didn't tolerate our lying or sassing her. That wasn't a problem for me. I had been taught not to do either one. Occasionally I'd do something for which she'd keep me after school. I'd sit there about five minutes and she'd come in, pull out a sack of hard candy like butterscotch or little peppermint swirls. She'd pop one in her mouth and I'd be sitting there pretending to do my thing. She'd say, "Would you like one of these?" I'd take one and she'd say, "Why did you do (thus or so)," and I'd say, "I don't know." She'd ask, "Do you think that was smart?'' and I'd admit it wasn't.

When Mr. White was our principal, I walked into school one morning at the time of the World Series. Van and Stan had decided they wanted to see the opening pitch that day, and if they could get out 10 minutes early, they would be able to see it. They came up with a plan to set the clocks ahead in the old junior high. They already had the clocks set in their part of the building and they had a seventh grader alerted to the prank. When I got to school, they told me what was happening and said, "If you'd help us with this, you need to synchronize your watch with the clocks. You ask to go to the bathroom and a seventh grader will meet you there." That went along okay. I got down to the bathroom and sure enough, this kid (I think Bob Shepherd) was waiting for me. Mrs. Woods smelled a rat because we were all sitting there ready to go. She said, "What's your hurry?" We said, "Well, the clock says - - -" and before she could question us, Stan's room got up and started marching out so she dismissed us, also. The hitch was, they hadn't gotten the seventh grade clock set up. So we went barreling out of the classroom and the other teachers didn't know what was going on. Mrs. Sparboe was running up and down the hall amongst all the kids like she'd lost her mind trying to find out what the problem was. It was total chaos.

Charlie White always seemed to have a way to find out who the culprit was so we got called in. I didn't hear Van get his, but boy! When Stan was in Mr. White's office, he was really lacing him up. We could hear him through two doors. I thought that might have taken care of it, but pretty soon I heard my name called. Mr. White asked, "What is your part in all this?" I said, "You already know what my part was and I'll admit I did it, but I am not going to rat on anyone else." He said, "You're the first one who didn't try to weasel out of it." He ended with, ''Don't let me see you in here again," and that was the end of that.

When I reached Little League age, I joined one year. My coaches were Cliff Underwood and Willis Leeson. Their sons, Van and Stan, were my classmates. Mr. Underwood tried but I was never good. I did learn team effort and sportsmanship under my coaches. We may have only won one game, but we had fun playing and that's what it is all about. Peter, Paul, and Mary's big hit "Right Field," was written about me.

When our class moved to the new East Elementary, we had a nice basketball hoop and baseball field. Van worked with me and I improved greatly in both sports. Instead of the last pick, I was usually chosen by Van in the middle of the selection. He knew my skills and where and when to use them. I repaid his kindness by helping him with his animal projects a few years later.

In my junior year in high school Christine Hausheer got me started on Student Chief. She taught English and Library, and was my advisor. Alan Swegle signed me up. This led to my becoming interested in writing. Miss Hausheer also had us write to pen pals. I have boxes of letters that I wrote to many countries. A number of students in America were selected to write to a person behind the Iron Curtain, and was chosen. We were warned not to write anything political. I wrote, but never received a reply.

I wrote a number of FFA articles. One article I wrote, not FFA, Mr. Selix commented about, saying this was a touchy subject, which I handled well. It was in regard to Student Council. The elections were kind of like a popularity contest. In their meetings, the faculty would tell them this or that, but the other students never knew anything about them, and were never asked to vote on anything. I randomly conducted a poll among five from each of the four grades, asking if they knew who their council member was, what was going on with the council, and did they ever vote on anything that came from the council. The answers consistently were "no, no, no" and the results were published. Mr. Selix suggested that I ask the principal, Mr. Pickup, for a comment. He agreed that they probably had become a little lax and did need more P.R. (Public Relations). It got the point across.

I carry a little resentment that when graduation was nearing, I talked with my high school counselor, who asked me what I wanted to do. I told her I would like to go on to college, but instead of helping me find assistance I would need, she tossed me a catalog from Southwestern Community College and said, "You might be smart enough to get through there." I enrolled for night classes. In my first class there, our assignment was a typewritten two-page paper, double spaced, #12 font, and that was a lot different than writing longhand. You can get a lot of words in a paper like that. I remember putting two gaps between the sentences to take up a little more space, but I made it and got an A on the paper. From then on, when I took a writing course, I figured it was an easy A. I enjoyed them all. I really would have liked to send the counselor a transcript of my 3.6 final grade average, but by then she had died.

Earlier, when I knew I wouldn't have money to go to college, I had started taking home studies from Penn State University. Students received so many points for completion of a course, and when we had 30, we received a certificate of accomplishment. There was no deadline for having the work done, so when I had a news-writing course half done, I let it sit for so long that by the time I'd finished, they had dropped the course. They had to send my papers to be graded by the Penn State English Department.

Mr. Halluer was the one who got me interested in poetry and taught us a lot of technique. Then I took a creative writing course under Linda Medland, who was both the speech and creative writing teacher. She was the one who urged me to enter poetry contests. Then I took a third composition course, in which punctuation and basic techniques were drilled into us. So I always credit George for getting us started, Linda for getting us creative, and the third course teacher, Jean Sheridan, for putting the polish on.

Linda encouraged us to submit our work to the Iowa Poetry Association. They have from 5,000 to 7,000 entries each year, from which they select about 360 to be published in a periodical called Lyrical Iowa. In about 1981, I first submitted some of my work, and I continued to submit. I finally got published with Japanese poetry, Haiku, which is three lines, five syllables, seven syllables, then five again. My goal of Haiku poetry is to paint a word picture. For instance:

GRANDMA IS GONE

The house sits in darkness,
we're alarmed at the sight.
We have not a clue,
where went Grandma tonight.

A full moon is rising,
shedding soft silver light.
Her garage sits home empty,
where is Grandma tonight?

She is out there somewhere
as we search left and right.
We can't give up now,
we must find Grandma tonight.

Her car has been spotted,
hurry fast as we can.
Goodness gracious it's Grandma,
she's out with a man!

GRANDMA'S GONE (The Sequel)

They finally found grandma.
She was out with a man.
Now she is under curfew,
her dates have been banned.

They all watch her closely
keeping the old gal in sight.
No more, her sneaking out,
trying to find Mr. Right.

Hey! Granny is clever
and really quite spry,
She is also determined
that she find a new guy.

To everyone's surprise
a new search must begin.
The garage sits home empty,
Grandma is gone again!

One teacher we had for all our business courses was Eldon Hunsicker. He told the class that somewhere in our college curriculum there will be one course we will hate and wonder how we'll get through it. "Don't expect to get an A or B. Be happy with a C or D. Just get through it and put it behind you." Mine was algebra-trigonometry. I got a C-, and know I didn't deserve even that. I took Bookkeeping I under him, and wanted to take Bookkeeping II, but it wasn't to be offered immediately. However, when Furnas Electric had courses offered at Southwestern, enough people signed up to warrant having a class. I had to have a new textbook and a new workbook, but I found out that my ex-boss, Lucile Roe, had taken it and wasn't going back the second semester, so with the promise that I'd take good care of it and return it to her, she let me borrow hers. I was scared to death when I went in there, but Mr. Hunsicker had been such a good teacher that I discovered I'd forgotten more than most of the students knew. I got a B on the first test and aced the course.

In 1986, Ellen Danner and I were the first students to graduate from Southwestern Community College's night school program. We attended graduation together and are still good friends.

I graduated from high school in 1964, and in 1966 I started to work for the Carr family. For 2 1/2 months I quit and went back to farming with my uncle, who thought I could make more there than I was being paid. I call that our learning experience because Cliff called to ask me to come back, and I never left again. They sold to Mike and Lucile Roe (Roe Enterprises) in 1978, and I worked for them as their general manager, as I had been for Cliff and Ruth. When I worked under Lucile, I was the only full-time employee and I worked both the tank wagon and store. I was with them for six years, before their son-in-law came. I started at the water department in 1984 and was there 15 years. I was the assistant superintendent of distribution and carried the highest distribution operators' license it is possible to get in Iowa - a Grade 3. I could have gone to any city in Iowa and worked distribution. I carried a Grade 2 treatment license. To get an upgrade, I'd have had to be able to trouble-shoot a plant, and I'd never had experience at the plant. Steve Squire was my boss at the water department. Steve is probably one of the most knowledgeable water people I've ever seen. Osceola is lucky to have him and I was lucky to have him as a teacher. He lives, thinks, and breathes water.

My association with the Carrs went beyond my working for them at their station. Cliff and Ruth loved animals like I did, and Cliff and I raised dairy goats. I became acquainted with dairy goats when I began milking his about 1968. He started with them when Janice was a little girl. Cliff had a Jersey cow and Janice wanted a cow to milk. He was afraid she'd get hurt so he got her a goat. They discovered the goat was giving about a gallon of milk a day and it was as good as cow's milk, so they got rid of the cow and kept the goat. When they wanted to be out of town, I began milking the goats for him. I was a member in the American Dairy Goat and the Iowa Dairy Goat Associations, to which we both belonged, but I kept up the papers because he didn't want to mess with them.

We both had goats. Cliff liked Nubians and I had French Alpines, but I helped him with all his animals. He had children come out from Head Start and we'd show them the ducks, chickens, rabbits, calves, goats, and even pheasants. Much of the poultry was hatched under Banty hens. Ruth didn't like geese or ducks, so we didn't have them.

The Carrs and I were close friends for 30 years, and I'm glad I could be part of their lives at the time of their deaths. Cliff had a stroke and was in the hospital for a week. One morning after he was released, I went to their house to feed the animals and I did something that I'd never done. The paper was lying there and had an interesting headline. I asked if I could sit and read the article. Cliff was sitting there and we noticed his speech became garbled. I first thought he was choking, but then he started slumping. I held him while Ruth called 911. If this had happened at another time, Ruth would have been there alone with him. We buried him in 1984.

Ruth died 1995. In another two weeks, she'd have celebrated her 95th birthday. She knew she was going to die. She told us she would not be here in another month or two, and her wish was that she die at home, with just her cousin, Ruth Rinderspacher, and me with her. That was what happened. She died on her favorite couch, which she and Cliff had since they were married.

I've been in the rabbit business for 31 years. About 1973 I became a co-leader for 4-H with Bob Wetzler. Some of the kids found out that I had rabbits when I was a kid, and they gave me some pure bred rabbits from their show stock. Later, I started showing rabbits as a hobby. I won numerous trophies. My work with 4-H, and experience with rabbits and goats, led to my being recommended for 4-H judging, which was a life long goal. Now I judge rabbits, poultry, dairy goats, cows, and little kids' projects of bucket calves, at County Fairs. I belong to the American and the Iowa Rabbit Breeders Associations, in the latter of which I am a director, representing Indian Hills, my local club. I also belong to four specialty clubs, each one representing a breed of rabbit. They help design the standard and promote the breed. I have served as director on three, presently I am a director on two, and I write the newsletter for two of them, Silver Fox and Cinnamons. I also raise Silver Martens.

I took early retirement in 1999. I had triple bypass surgery in October of 2003. I stayed with my brother Doyce while I recuperated, and then, rather than having lots of room in the house not well arranged for recovery, I moved to an apartment at North Fair. I just have a kitchenette, a living room, a bedroom, and lots of storage space. I really like it. Doyce and I still have the home place and I still have animals. I have a pretty full life.

When Mrs. Underwood asked me to be in her project, I was honored. After being involved, I am amazed at my life. I have been a 4-H leader for 30 years. A hunter's education course is required to obtain a hunting license - the minimum age is 12. I have been a Hunters' Ed instructor for 20 years. I attended two workshops at Southwestern Community College to become a Laubach tutor. The Laubach course was implemented to teach adults how to read. Over the course of 15 years, I have worked with three different cases, one case consisted of man and wife who had immigrated to Osceola. I have four short stories and many poems published. My dream of judging 4-H animal projects came true. I have judged in 12 different counties, most of them more than once. I have had the pleasure of breeding and raising quality animals, some being trophy winners. My future goal is to complete 35 years in the 4-H program, and 25 years in the Hunters' Ed program. I plan to write more poems and short stories to submit for publication. I also race homing pigeons and want to train them to fly at least 100 miles. Most young birds, around six months old, are raced at 100 or 150 miles. Older birds are raced at 200 to 300 miles, and the really experienced birds in Belgium and large cities are sometimes raced at 500 up to 1,000 miles. A good homing pigeon will average 50 to 60 miles an hour.