Recipes for Living Fred Diehl

My father was born in Virginia, and came to Iowa when he was about four years old. My grandmother died giving birth to the youngest child, which was fairly common on those days. My father attended school and graduated in Osceola - the only one in the family to graduate from high school. He went to work at Ettingers Department Store, which was on the comer of Main and Jefferson, the recent location of Kum and Go. The building extended to where Busse Realty used to be. The building that is now Murphy's Law Office was not yet built. The store burned, and Dad went to work for Penney's on the east side of the square.

All that was before I was born. My brother Bill, four years older than I, was born here in Osceola. Bill died, one of the last cases of Bulbar Polio in the state. He didn't go to college, but had been employed in the bank in Osceola, then worked in the north part of the state for Sears and Roebuck. I have a sister, Rita, who is six years younger, and lives in Mankato, Minnesota. She is married and has three sons. She is a nurse, my wife is a nurse, and my sister-in-law is a nurse, so I have nurses all around me.

The family moved to a farm near Derby, where I grew up. I was born in Leon because our doctor was at Humeston, and they had no hospital. I tell everyone the reason I am so short is that I was born in the hottest month on record, August 1936, and they gave me Leon water. Readers would have to be my age or older to remember Leon water, which was horrible. It was from the old Jordan vein, and whenever we played football there, we took our own water. You would have to be terribly thirsty to drink theirs. Becky Persels and I used to kid each other that we were both so short because we were born in the same hospital, and given Leon water.

When I started to school, I walked ½ mile in mud, and I was even shorter then. I went through kindergarten and first grades; then started second grade at Fisher's School. It was a very modern one-room school, with a basement and inside toilets. I didn't realize how nice it was until, when I was about eight, in the second grade, we moved to Osceola, and I attended the oneroom school four miles east of town - an outdoor toilet, and no basement. I thought I was coming down in the world. The offset was that I walked to school on pavement.

We moved in December. There weren't enough students in that neighborhood to open the school where I was supposed to go, so we went to the two-mile school. Pauline Miller was the teacher. On March 1st of the following year, the Sheesley family moved in so that gave us enough students. Lila Adams was the teacher, and I had Mrs. Gerald Peterson for the fourth and fifth grades, then she married Gerald. As was the rule in those days, marriage terminated her teaching career. An aside - her niece, her sister's daughter, was the first woman astronaut.

Through the years I have done a lot of plays and public speaking, and it all began with the programs we did in rural schools. The first time I was in a performance, we had a ragtime band in which everybody played something. I was only in kindergarten so I played the blocks and I was so jealous of my brother because he filled bottles with water and made a xylophone. But the biggest disappointment was that my mother had an appendicitis attack, so she was in the hospital and not there to see our performance.

There was nothing particularly memorable about those elementary school years, but at the close of eighth grade, we took exams where I met other kids from all over the county. I have no idea why I remember this, but Elmer Nash from Murray sat across the table from me. Elmer was quite a comedian in those days and kept us all entertained. Commencement exercises were in the First Christian Church in Osceola, which seemed to be the community gathering place. It was huge, almost like the KRNT Theater in Des Moines.

It was then I made my debut as a public speaker, when I gave the dissertation on "Old Mother Hubbard's Cupboard." I was so disappointed because my teacher, Mrs. Kimberlin, was not there. She was to be my prompter, and I was extremely uneasy when I couldn't find her. At the last minute, I shoved the script to the guy next to me, Robert Diehl. (Same last name but no relation). Their name is pronounced "dial" instead of my "deal.") I went along okay until I was ¾ of the way through, and I forgot what came next! I was absolutely petrified! I just stood there until finally Robert caught up to where I was, threw a word up to me and I finished my oration. The other memorable event of that occasion was it was there I met my wife.

I owe Mrs. Kimberlin a lot. She was such an excellent English teacher and taught me enough that I got through the English courses at Iowa State with no trouble at all. She was also a great promoter of school programs. She'd play the piano and we'd sing. It was a lot of fun.

High school was full of activities. I was in plays, and in sports. In spite of my size, I played football - broke my ribs the first year. When I was a sophomore, I went to the first 4-H conference, at the first 4-H camp at Madrid. A girl and I were the "Spirit of Camp" and went back the next year to the second 4-H camp. I worked for two years at the State Fair in charge of FFA (Future Farmers of America) ushers. I also went to Hawkeye Boys' State and was elected the Assistant Secretary of Agriculture for the state of Iowa, an office I held for 15 minutes. During that time I had the desk of Lloyd Van Patten, the Assistant Secretary, and dictated a letter to my folks from the Department of Agriculture. I still have the letter. Years later, I worked for that department as a pesticide investigator from 1999 to 2005, after I sold my insurance agency.

But the best feature of high school was the public speaking. I went to and won the State. One day in 48 hours, I went to the FFA convention, did the public speaking there and got a gold, that night I went to Drake and did a one-act play with Leland Kearney, who was an outstanding musician and very good in theatrics. He and I did "The Bishop's Candlestick," which was quite a drama. I was the villain. My speech teacher was Miss Miller, whom I recently looked up in California. She was great! She could sit down with me and get me so pumped up and in the mood to be this nasty guy. We got a 1st and an A "1” rating at Drake University! The next day, I went to the State Oratorical Contest and got a "1” there. All that in 48 hours - it felt pretty good. That was my big experience at public speaking which later in my life I used a lot.

I was pretty active as a senior, class plays and all, and went on to Iowa State University on a full scholarship from Sears and Roebuck- $200, which paid for books and tuition. Tuition at that time was $150 a year! I started out to be an Ag teacher and have a degree, but I also became interested in TV and Radio. That became my minor. At that time we did a live broadcast every Wednesday night, called "This is Iowa State." That gave me experience in all phases of broadcasting. One week we were time-keepers, the next week we were broadcasters, the next we were directors back in the control room, next week we were cameramen. This is why I was so disappointed when they decided to do away with WOI and sold it. I think it was a terrible mistake.

Anne and I were married in the fall of that year. There were unusual complications involved. I expected to have completed my student teaching at Thanksgiving, but they changed the schedule, requiring two more weeks of student teaching after Thanksgiving. So we were married and I left my bride in Ames, where she was working in Pediatrics at Mary Greeley Hospital. But what really blew things apart was that the Sunday before we were married, my dad had a heart attack. He was in the hospital, couldn't come to the wedding, and we came back from Omaha, spent our honeymoon milking 35 cows, and tried to get ready for the sale. The good news was that Dad lived through it. It was the kind of attack where, by taking care of himself, his heart was actually stronger than ever. His physician was Dr. Harken, who was an excellent doctor. Dad he lived to be 87 years old.

I finished the school year, and graduated in the spring of 1958. Because I was in ROTC (Reserve Officers' Training Corp), I was commissioned as 2nd Lieutenant in the Army Field Artillery at the time of graduation. This carried the obligation of active duty, but I didn't know where I would be going, when I would be going, or for how long.

I interviewed with several commercial companies, and was very specific in stating what I wanted, which was to be Med Maxwell. Med Maxwell had the 12:15 show on WHO. I'd listened to this since I was a kid, and the name of it was "Let's Go Visiting with Allied Mills, Wayne Feeds." He traveled all over the United States, interviewing farmers about how they fed their livestock using Wayne Feeds, of course. I visited with Larro Feeds a product of General Mills, Pillsbury, Ralston Purina, DeKalb Hybrid, and told them all the same thing- "Here is what I want to do."

Pillsbury wrote a nice letter saying they were not interested because they went out of the feed business as did Larro. Purina said, "That's a great idea. We're interested but you go to the service first, and then come back and see us. DeKalb didn't say anything, but in the meantime I heard from Herb Plambeck from WHO saying he could use me for the summer. Would I be interested? I said, "Sure." That same night I got call from the personnel manager for DeKalb Hybrid saying, "We want to talk to you, and bring your wife." I took the train ride to DeKalb and was told that I should go to work for Herb for the summer, take care of my military duty, and "When you are through there, come and work for us." I received my orders to go in April and I had to go for two years. They said, "See if you can get that changed to six months."

I had tremendous experience with WHO! I was on the air live every morning at 5:00 a.m. Chet Randolph was my supervisor, a wonderful guy. He taught me how to interview people, and was just fantastic. As agreed, after the Farm Progress show was over in September, I went to work for DeKalb in their advertising department doing radio and television. I went all over Texas and Kansas, following the seasons.

After that I reported for service and was sent to Fort Sill for Officers' Training School. I was just about ready to be through, and my mother called at 8:30 one morning to say my brother had died that morning at 5:00. That was the biggest trauma of my life. I couldn't even talk about it for years and years. I don't know if he could have prevented it. He and a lady in Sioux City died from Bulbar Polio that summer. We were all taking vaccine for it at the time. It may have been when it was contained in sugar cubes, but I don't know if he took time to do that. He was an up and coming young fellow who may have thought he had more important things to do. They were about to open a brand new store in Mason City for Sears and Roebuck. He was manager for all the air conditioning, appliances and all that kind of merchandise. For me Bill was a trail blazer. He played football, he did public speaking. Everything he did I wanted to do and tried to do it better. When he was gone, who was going to pave the way for me? I drove to Mason City for a funeral, then here for another funeral and burial, then flew back to take my finals in gunnery.

After I graduated, I came home for two weeks, but then went back for six weeks as the First Executive Office - the safety officer, for the 155 Howitzer, overseeing, inspecting them, and making sure they had the right powder, and were fired in the right place. This was serious business because the first day I reported to Fort Sill, six guys were killed because they fired in the wrong spot. So it is pretty critical that they fire the big rounds correctly. My hearing was affected during that time. When they are fired, the Howitzers really crack!

So at that point, I was out of the service and but still employed by DeKalb, and became their editor of internal publications. One day, out of a clear blue sky, I was called down to management. I walked into the room filled with the top executives of the company and they said, ''How would you like to go to Cedar Rapids?" I'd been to Cedar Rapids and thought it was a nice place, so I agreed. Then they said, ''Now that you've said yes, we want you to go, close that office, and move it somewhere in the district. We don't care where."

I felt kind of sick. I looked at all the towns - Anamosa, Tipton, but when I rolled into Monticello, there was the ag teacher. I had known him at Iowa State. He sent me to another guy who found me a secretary, an office, had a house ready for me to rent, and I was in Monticello. Now I was in sales management, 25 years old, the youngest district manager in the United States, with 60 farmer dealers who were the age I am now. They were wonderful, they took care of me.

We had tremendous success and then got interested in poultry. We put 187,000 layers north of Eldridge. At that time the poultry business was changing dramatically - in essence it became a social change from small family farms, where the wife raised chickens, which provided the family with food, clothes, and all that. At this time, she quit doing chores. Out went the chickens and in went the hogs. This came to be the origin of egg factories. We got involved in doing that, and in selling starter pullets instead of baby chicks.

Again out of the clear, blue sky, I got a call from the head of the poultry division. I had to make a trip to the home office, where he asked, "How would you like to go to Janesville, Wisconsin?" I was enticed to go there, where I traveled half the state - Baraboo, Arcadia, LaCrosse, and all I did was poultry - which is ironic because I'm allergic to chicken feathers. But we cut them up, studied them, diagnosed them - everything we could do with chickens. That is probably where I learned to be my own boss. If I'd gone with another company, I'd have been told what to wear, what to say, where to go, the whole bit. DeKalb said, "That is your territory. If you screw up, we'll call you." So I learned how to run a business, only it was somebody else's business and somebody else's money. It was a tremendous experience for a young person.

I started a shopper, similar to the Clarke County's Advertiser, from scratch. I was not a printer, but I knew how to sell, I knew advertising, and I knew composition. So we began and literally printed our own shopper, 6200 circulation. We started at 8:00 Monday morning and worked until 5:00 Wednesday evening around the clock, non stop all the way. You have to be young, stupid, and poor to do that. We had no money at all. We were in business with my brother-in-law, Anne's sister's husband, who was in production. I was in selling. We did that for six months, when we decided the wise move was for one of us to buy the other out, and logically, I should be the buyer. We made some changes. We went to central printing, where I took the copy to Leclair. That enabled me to continue selling and putting out the shopper with somebody else doing all the production. There was a boy who came in, and using our little offset press, he did envelopes, stationery and all of that.

One day a fellow came in to ask how to go about getting into the shopper business. Should he start a shopper from scratch or buy one? I said, ''Unless you've got a lot of money, it all depends on whether you want to starve, or whether you want to pay interest." What he really wanted was to buy me out. Finally he asked, "How much would you want for your business?" I had no idea. But he did buy me out and the end of the story was that the fellow who bought the shopper bought out the newspaper, which was the opposite of what the newspaper editor predicted would happen when I went into the business.

While I was with DeKalb, I was contacted by State Farm, who was trying to get me to go into the insurance business. Here we were in Monticello, two children, a brand new house. We loved Monticello, we loved the people and it was a fun, fun time. But now I was in the insurance business. I was a direct writer, wrote disability, life, and health for only one company.

I won a trip to Hawaii, and came back through Colorado Springs, where I saw some Monticello friends who had moved to Colorado. He sent me downtown one day and I stopped to see the former Paul Revere agent, who had retired. He said, "Here are all my files." I could take over his accounts. While he was talking, I was looking out the window at Pike's Peak, the mountains, and all that beautiful scenery. When he said, "Why don't you come out and take over my agency," it seemed too good to pass up.

I sold our gorgeous two-story house, and went to tell my general agent I was moving to Denver. He said, "Oh, no, you're not," and he wouldn't let me go. He shipped me off to Davenport, which I didn't like at all and decided if I had to take orders from someone else, I'd just start my own shop. I looked at an agency in Monroe, one in Ottumwa, and when I was in Osceola for the 4th of July, I ran onto a guy named Cottrell, who sent me to the County Mutual Agent. I walked in and asked if he was interested in selling, and he said, "Oh, no," so I turned to walk out the door when he said, "Whoa! Wait a minute." The bottom line is that I bought the agency in August 1971, and we've been here ever since.

We have four children: the oldest is Laura, a professional photographer and art teacher. She was born in Illinois. David, the second child, oldest boy, is a chiropractor in Pella. Matthew was born the year we were in Wisconsin, and he was in college wrestling. Now he is teaching at Central; David and Michael were both born in Monticello. Michael lives in Colorado and has his own landscaping business. All of them graduated from Osceola and from college, which says something about our local educational system. All of them have children, so we have 12 grand-children. The oldest is in New York and does all the production work for the Blue Men, and he is also in theater. He's been in plays on 42nd Street, which is off Broadway. We're hoping to take a trip there this fall to see them.

I was in the insurance business, which I bought in 1971 until I sold in the 90s to the Friday Agency, although I still write Medicare Supplement, health and some life insurance. I also do some substitute teaching, which has been fun, and Anne and I like to travel. We go to California every winter, to the Palm Desert area and this fall we plan the trip to New York.

I've been Osceola's mayor off and on for 10 years, which gives me an opportunity to be active and involved. I've discovered that if we work at it, we can get a lot of things done, which I think we have. I've found if we try to do too many things at once, we flounder. That is easy to do because there are so many things to be done, but if we concentrate on fewer things, we can progress.

Now we are trying to focus on streets and infrastructure. We've been working on the southeast end of town, which I think now looks like a different town. We want to blend our efforts with the Clarke County Development Corporation, which is concentrating on the corridors. Together, we want to provide some extra money with incentives for people to clean up their property, and in cases of abandoned buildings, tear them down. We have tried to emphasize cooperation between the various entities of the governing bodies. I think our relationship with the county is very good. They have done things they wouldn't have had to do, and I think it is because of our very good relationship. The point is that we need to work together to stimulate a better place to live, which is what we all want. It isn't important who does it, or who gets the credit for doing it. Just so it gets done.