NELSON GRANT SPENCER
3rd GENERATION AND GRANDFATHER OF
CARROLL GENE FRY

The father of the 3rd generation, Nelson Grant Spencer, which was a 2nd generation person, was in the Civil War of 1864, and was stationed in Albany, NewYork, during his time in the Army. There was also a 1st generation Nelson Grant Spencer, who also had a hand in settling the town of Van Wert, Iowa.

Nelson Lee Fry, son of Carroll Gene Fry
Nelson Joel Fry, son of Nelson Lee Fry
Nelson Tanner Fry, son of Nelson Joel Fry
Landon Spencer Fry, son of Nelson Joel Fry
Grant Edward Fry, son of Kenney Fry
Kenney Fry is the son of Nelson Lee Fry

CARROLL GENE FRY

Carroll Gene Fry, generally known as Gene, has given an enviable gift to his great grandson Landon Spencer Fry — the story of his life and times, introducing him to his relatives and expressing the love of the family for Landon. He has generously given permission to share the content with readers of Recipes for Living.

He begins with Landon's great, great, great grandmother Mary Elizabeth to be Spencer. She never knew about her father but her mother brought Mary from abroad — possibly Germany, to escape the turmoil that existed in the country from which they escaped. They came by ocean liner and landed in New York City, probably about 1900. Gene came to know her and loved her very much. She told Gene she was too young to remember anything about the trip except being very seasick.

Her mother married a man she met in this country, and Mary lived with them until she was in her early teens. However, her step-father was so abusive to her that she finally took a few clothes and ran away from home. She never saw her mother again. For some unknown reason, Mary traveled west and south on foot, hitching rides, and by freight train in empty box cars. When the train stopped at Van Wert, Iowa she decided to see if she could get something to eat and knocked on the door of some nice people, the John Hawkins family. Not only did they feed her but after hearing her story, they invited her to stay. They had a son, Roy, who became like a brother to Mary. He went on to become a famous lawyer, practicing in Leon, Iowa.

After a few years, Mary met Nelson Grant Spencer, named after his father whose first wife had died, leaving him with three daughters, Mary, Gladys, and Lela. Grant and Mary were married and lived on the Spencer farm west and south of Van Wert, Iowa. They had two daughters and a son — Velma, Julia Elizabeth, and Carrol. The children went to country school. Rural schools dotted the country in those days, and many of them were named. They attended Hazel College Country School, which is where Julia met Charley Francis Fry, whom she later married. They had one son, Carroll Gene in 1925.

Charley, Julia and Gene lived in the Nelson Grant Spencer house in Van Wert, across the road from the school house. In Iowa, country schools gave way to consolidation in the late 1950s, and the school buildings were put to other use or demolished. The school is gone now and a Post Office is in the location where Gene's grandfather's house had stood.

Everything is different from what was the case in those days. Like many young men, Gene's father, Charley, liked farming but times were hard and there was no way he could own his own farm. He did, however, have a car, as Gene tells it, one of the first "air conditioned cars" around. "It was a 1925 Model T Ford touring car, two seats, and four doors with a convertible top. The top was made of leather and could be hinged to the back to make the car open. The top had gotten rotten and flopped all around, so Charley took the top off and threw it away. Needless to say, that made the car air conditioned."

Along with true air conditioning, there were other improvements that would be made all through the years. A "starter," for example. In its stead there was a crank at the front of the car. It had to be held against a spring while turning the crank to turn the engine. The engines were hard to start, the crank would sometimes spin backward and were known to break a man's arm. The only other way to start them would be to park on a hill and coast down, or have someone pull one car with another. But even so, there was no heater, and in the winter Julia put Gene in a winter overcoat and covered them with a blanket. Some people heated the irons they used for ironing clothes, wrapped them in other heavy material and put them at their feet. This same method was used in beds when bedrooms weren't heated and houses poorly insulated.

Landon will have a hard time imagining what life was like in the days in which his great-grandfather grew up. He will be accustomed to faucets and water pressure. Gene tells his great grandson about "running water" produced by running outdoors and pumping a bucket of water from the well and running back into the house with it. Baths required carrying enough water and heating it on a 3-burner oil stove, pouring it into a wash tub, stepping in and taking a bath. Will he understand a time before garbage disposals? In that time they disposed of waste water in pails full, carrying them outside to be dumped. Winter and summer, rain or shine, that was the case.

Likewise, on Mondays, which were wash days — always, Julia carried in the wash water, heated it on the 3-burner oil stove, and using the wash tub they used for baths, she scrubbed the clothes on a wash board . The wash board had a ridged piece of tin attached to a flat board. Soap was not the gentle detergent of Landon's day, but often homemade in which a primary ingredient was lye. Gene remembers his mother's hands were red as a beet by the time the clothes were on the clothesline, or in the winter hung around inside the house to dry.

There was no refrigerator in those days. The well or a cave was used in its place, and food was canned. Julia used her 3-burner oil stove for cooking and canning the food from the garden and orchard, and meat after butchering Gene still recalls the beef and noodles Julia produced and understands why highway travelers stopped for a meal.

And Landon would surely want to know but be shocked to know about the bathroom. The tub has been explained, the lavatory was the kitchen sink, but the stool? In his great-grandfather's case it was a free standing building about 100 feet from the house. The seating arrangement was flat boards with, in this case, two holes. Without access to shopping centers, large companies displaying their goods, published catalogues with items that could be ordered. They served double or triple duty because they had interesting pictures to look at and torn out sheets served in the place of rolls of toilet paper. Money was scarce and the fact that this was free and no one in this area knew an alternative, made it acceptable. The water which had been used to wash clothes did double duty by using it to scrub this "outhouse."

But in spite of what Landon and those of Landon's day might think of as great hardships, Julia Elizabeth Spencer Fry had no word of complaint. She had been taught well by her mother, Mary Spencer, to be loving and kind to every person. Great-grandfather Gene said of her, "She was a hard worker, kept a clean house and always had a good meal at dinnertime. I can still smell her homemade bread. She also raised chickens to have eggs to use and sell. Julia and Charley raised a big garden each year.

About 1935, Charley went to work for Jess O'Hair on his farm, which was located in Decatur County, on Highway 69, one mile south of the Weldon Corner and one mile north of the Van Wert Corner. Charley had no means of transportation at that time. He had gotten rid of his car so he walked to and from work morning and night every day. When Jess O'Hair moved to Weldon, Charley, Julie and Gene moved to the farm. Gene was in 4th grade and went to Hollingshead School through the 8th grade, the highest grade in country schools. Like his father, he had no choice but to walk, which was true when he went to high school in Van Wert.

Great Grandfather Gene also worked for Jess O'Hair alongside his dad, Charley. He considered it a great chance to learn from him and about him "Charley liked farming and had a great wealth of knowledge about tilling the soil, how to build buildings, fences, and overhaul motors or anything that needed attention." Like many families of that era, his was not demonstrative and Gene wasn't sure his father loved him. As they worked side by side, Gene began to realize his father didn't have the ability to hold him and kiss him and say, "I love you." He showed his love in actions like not standing for anyone to abuse Gene's mother or Gene. He tried to teach his son the right way to be a good, responsible person.

Gene particularly remembered an evening at chore time. Gene was at the lower barn doing some chores and his dad was out of sight behind the garage filling fuel cans for the tractors the next day. All at once Gene heard some loud cuss words coming from a man at their back door, talking to his mother. He was telling her about the food he wanted her to give him. Gene came up toward the house, Charley from behind the garage. He grabbed the fellow by the seat of his pants and nap of his neck, and took him to the road. Gene heard his father say, "No one abuses my family when I'm around! Now get up the road and never come back!" This 6'4" man with long, strong arms, Gene said, "had just shown me his love."

Working with farm machinery can be dangerous. There were and still are accidents that happen — sometimes very serious ones. Charley narrowly escaped one of those. He was getting the pull type corn picker ready to go to the field. He had it hooked to the tractor, running the picker at a slow speed by the tractor's power take-off shaft. It was necessary to pour melted tar on the gathering rollers so that they would gather the corn better. The shaft got his pants-leg and he was caught. He grabbed hold of the tractor seat and hung on. The governor opened up on the tractor and wound off his overalls. At that point he was able to stop the tractor. He had some badly skinned, bruised legs but it could have been so much worse.

Landon will need to exercise his imagination again because these were hard times and there were people, like Mary, who had to resort to whatever means they could think of to go from place to place. They roamed the countryside and went to houses along the way to ask for something to eat. Likewise, roads and highways were just being constructed and it would be many years before there would be rest stops, filling stations or eating places. There would be situations in which families came off the road needing some kind of help. A lot of people walled Highway 69 between Osceola and Leon — 20 miles apart. That would put a person at the Fry's house around midnight There would be characters who, seeing no man in sight, would behave as the man in the previous paragraph. But Charley was always ready to help even in the middle of the night or in wintertime. He would take in a cold or hungry person, and Julia would prepare a meal. She always had home-made bread, beef and noodles, or beef and dumplings. She was a very good cook. Gene always suspected the word was out among travelers that their house was a good place to eat.

Gene recalled a close brush with death in his early teens. His grandfather, Nelson Grant Spencer, was going to the farm to pick up Gene to take him to the Grant's house over the weekend to help out. "My grandmother, Mary Spencer," he tells, "was in poor health..It was in the fall of the year and because of a rain, Grandfather's Model T Ford could not go over the mud roads, and there were no graveled roads. He had a 2-seated buggy with a top and side-curtains, and two nice horses to pull it. He had stopped in Van Wert at Davy Jones' place of business and left his eggs to be candled (to determine their freshness), and his cream to have its butter fat tested, on his way to pick up Gene. He needed to stop back to get his check.

"People 'ground-trained' their horses to stay when they dropped the reins to the ground. This is what he did along the back side of the building by a back door. He went into the building leaving Gene in the back seat of the buggy. When the fellows in the back of the store started up a grinder to grind corn for chicken feed, those horses took off. I didn't know what to do. I considered jumping out of the buggy but looked at the back wheel and knew it would run over me, so I just hung on for dear life and hoped for the best.

"Davy Jones, who owned the store, was pumping gas into a car and saw the run-away buggy coming. He took off running in from the side, grabbed the horses by the bit and was able to get them stopped. I owe my life to this man and to this day he is my hero. I went to school with his children, and his younger son, Wendell Jones, married my wife Wilma's twin sister, Charlotte. The other twin, Carolyn, married Fred Timmons."

There was very little diversion in the small town of Van Wert, except occasionally an outdoor movie and pool. One Saturday night, Gene was playing pool at Rass Wilson's Pool Hall. He had become a good shot and several people watched, including the owner. One time when he shot, the cue ball took off and hit Mr. Wilson in the middle of the forehead. It didn't knock him out but he had a hen's egg size bump on his forehead. Gene felt really bad and thought his pool playing days were probably over, but Mr. Wilson knew it was an accident and didn't get mad. "He did sit a little to the side of the table when I was playing."

Near the end of 1945, Jess O'Hair announced he was quitting farming, which left Charley and Gene without jobs. In time, Charley's sister, Helen, found Charley employment in the Alcoa Aluminum Factory. Charley and Julia moved to Muscatine and lived there until he retired. For a short time, after he became sick in 1969, Gene arranged for him to come to Osceola, where he died in 1971, at the age of 69. He was a good role model.

With the help of Jim O'Hair, Gene got a job with Elwyn McPherson who owned the International Harvester Business. In addition, he was starting an appliance store and L.P. bottled gas business. He needed someone to deliver the gas and sell and fix appliances. In the first part of 1946, Gene began working for him, in the same building where the present Gene and Nelson's Appliance Store is located. Gene rented a room and stayed in Osceola.

Erwin Ness, who had been in military service with Elwyn, and his wife Elaine decided Gene needed a girlfriend. They invited him to go with them to a party, where Gene met Wilma Louise Horton. They began dating and were married on November 12, 1947. They bought their first home in a section of Osceola, where Elwyn built several houses. It came to be known as "McPherson Addition." Wilma began working at Snowdon's Lingerie Factory. Son Nelson Lee Fry was born Feb. 23, 1949, Jane Elizabeth Fry on April 6, 1954.

Gene worked for Elwyn ten or 11 years. For awhile, Elwyn moved his appliance business to his implement building In about 5 years, it wasn't proving successful so he moved back to the same building where the Appliance store is now, 124 West Jefferson. In 1959, Gene bought the business, and bought the building from Hattie Touet. Gene and Wilma had to work hard at the business but as a team, they made it a well-respected, well-established business until they retired.

Throughout the years, Gene and Wilma have been and remain faithful members of the Christian Church in Osceola. Gene has served in nearly every position and was church treasurer for 33 years.

May God's blessing be upon each and every one.

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Last Revised January 31, 2015