LELAND AND LOLA HUNT
Written by Granddaughter Nichole Saylor

Leland Hunt and Lola Cochran Hunt met when they were in elementary school. Lola’s sister was Leland’s teacher in a rural school. Lola visited the school for a day and Leland was asked to share his desk with her for the day. During high school days they lived in the same neighborhood and attended the same church. They started dating after Lola had graduated from high school in May, 1936.

Leland lived on one of the first graveled roads in the country; however, Lola lived a mile off the gravel.  When the road was too muddy for Leland to drive over and pick her up she would ride her horse over to his house. They usually went to Osceola to see a show, visit friends, or go to the roller skating rink.

They dated for two years and got engaged during the summer of 1937. Leland sent to the Spiegel catalog for her engagement ring, which he paid $17 for. The great depression was at its height during this period in history (1929-1939). Five percent of all the population had one third of all the personal income. The people were very poor at this time.

Leland and Lola lived in their own homes and they would drive to school together and Leland would duck down in the car so nobody could see he was with her. Lola was teaching for a paycheck of $50 a month. Leland was in partnership with his father on the farm. Between 1919 and 1929 agriculture income fell 22%.

The problem at this time was magnified by unusual weather. In 1934 there was a serious drought in the Midwest. There was very little food for humans or animals. There were no forage crops or any grain to feed livestock. Lola recalled a time when her father could not hear the thought of knowing he had nothing to feed his livestock. He was sick in his heart so the family did not complain and gave him all the support they could.

In 1935 there were few crops because of the above average rainfall. In 1936 there was the most difficult time the farmers had experienced. This filtered into all areas of the state’s economy. There were few jobs to be offered and no one had any money in the rural or urban communities. However, everyone worked together to help each other. Families and friends shared food as well as work. Banks closed and people lost their life savings. They did not offer insurance during this period in history. A few wealthy people found themselves on relief, but they all learned, young and old, many valuable lessons about living. They were happy to be alive and no one starved because they raised their own food, milked the cows, churned the butter, baked their own bread, burned wood cut from the timber, preserved food, butchered their own beef and pork, and also made their own soap. From these experiences they seemed to appreciate things more. They are still conservative and never talk about these years as being terrible.

Leland and Lola were secretly married November 23, 1938 in Missouri. They were secretly married for four months because married women were not allowed to teach at this time. Leland and Lola lived in their homes...Even though they were married the director offered her the teaching job the following fall. She taught until their first child, Connie, was born December 11, 1941. For a time after she had her children and started back to college Lola was juggling the tasks of being a mother, student, farmer's wife. And teacher (all at once).

Lola Cochran Hunt
Also written by Nichole Saylor

Lola Cochran Hunt, wife of Leland Hunt, also attended Osceola High School. Her home was several miles off a hard surface road so she and her brother, Frank, had l to live in an apartment in order to attend school. (Apartments were always an extra room in a family’s home.) They lived with two other children from their community. They were taken in to town on Sunday evenings and their parents came after them Friday after school. Lola was responsible for cooking and keeping the apartment clean. She was 14 and in the 9th grade when she was made responsible for her brother, age 12. Rules and regulations had been discussed before leaving home. The "kids" knew that if the rules were broken that would be the end of their education. They had no problems because they both knew they were very lucky to be able to attend high school. Lola’s parents managed to send all four children through high school.

Nicki wrote, also, about her mother, Connie which reveals something of the Hunt’s home life. Leland and Lola had moved to Osceola by the time she was born because Leland held the office of Deputy County Clerk. They moved back to the farm.

“Connie remembers listening to soap operas on their old radio, accompanying her mother to the store where Lola had to use ration stamps because food was needed to support the soldiers in World War II. On March 23, 1943...Rosemary was born. Connie and ’Rosie’ were very different in personalities but enjoyed doing many things together. The family had an outhouse, running water, but no bathroom. When the family got their first shower Rosie and Connie begged their mother to let them use it. She told them no, saying they must conserve water. Connie and Rosie went out and rolled in the chicken dust so that Lola would let them use the new shower.

"The Leland Hunts were always having gatherings on the front lawn. Friends and relatives were always invited over, and the girls were accustomed to having a house full. Most of the time the girls enjoyed having an extra  ‘brother or sister’ (cousin or relative) that lived with the family during their early childhood years. One summer Connie’s cousin Bill was living with them for several weeks. Connie and Bill each had a BB gun. Lola was looking for them one day. She called to them and their answers came from the steep roof of the two-story house. When Lola looked up all she could see was their heads and the barrels of their guns over the peak of the roof, pointed toward the sky. Lola was speechless because Bill was not allowed to climb or run because of a serious heart problem. Lola’s first response was ’What are you doing up there?’ Answer: We’re hunting birds and up here we are closer to the birds.

"Connie and Rosie often went to the outhouse and spent time together. One day they were smoking cigars in the outhouse when Lola looked out the window to see smoke rolling out of the outhouse. For punishment the girls were made to get a switch off a tree and bring it to their father. They had to bend over a bushel basket and Leland would spank them with the switch".

Addendum by Fern: Connie is presently in Craigmont, Idaho teaching in the winter and works as a Ranger in the National Forest in the summer. Rosie is Mrs. Jack Cooley and lives in rural Osceola.

From "Along Your Co-op Lines", a publication by Clarke Electric Cooperative, Inc. of November, 1958 is further revelation of rural life at that time: Memories of early activity in the history of Clarke Electric were revived by the uncovering of a war food production feature story concerning the Lacelle neighborhood in Clarke County. The booklet was loaned by Leland:

This feature, complete with pictures, appeared in the late 1942 issue of "Rural Electric News", predecessor of the REA publication “Rural Lines."...Title of the story was "Lacelle's Neighbors Cooperate - From Wiring to Haying, It’s Done Together in This Southern Iowa Community". That was the theme of the entire article, the cooperative spirit which exists in the Lacelle community, and the tine job being done there in production of food for the war effort...

Wherever one of the Lacelle neighbors is working, you’re likely to find all the men folks— from the 9—year—old boys on up.

When located at the W.B. Hunt farm, men and boys were busy putting the finishing touches on a barn—wiring job, and inspecting the newly concreted floor. The freshly painted barn shone brightly in the warm sun; everything radiated an air of good management.

That’s the way the Lacelle community works — and the well-kept appearance of the farms bespeaks the value of cooperation. The farm folks themselves breathe a healthy, hearty zest for rural life.

The story of cooperation among the Lacelle neighbors goes back to World War I. The farm labor shortage was acute then, too, and Lacelle’s threshing ring began to do other production jobs together.

The method was effective. All through the 20’s and 30’s — long after the original need had passed - the neighbors stuck together building a thriving cooperative community which in 1942 doubled all production and trebled poultry production.

In this war the Lacelle neighbors have a new source of strength, for every farm in the neighborhood is electrified. One member of the group put it this way — If we lost electricity at our house, everything would stop.

Members of the community have no appointed leader, although you might say that everyone is a leader. They include a county war board member, a director of the REA co—op, the county Farm Bureau president, a township trustee, a state representative, a school board director and the township assessor.

Despite the fact that the members pool their labor, no time records are kept in the community. Each farmer furnishes gasoline for his own work, and owners of larger farms try to provide more help.

The farmers are not particular where they go first, getting all the necessary work done as quickly as they can. It makes no difference whose tractor, mower or cultivator is used where - just so long as it is doing the most good.

With such a background it is not surprising that the Lacelle community took such an active part in the organizing of the Clarke County Electric Cooperative (now Clarke Electric Co-op).

When electricians became scarce, and the cooperative had trouble getting house wiring done, the Lacelle neighbors pitched in. Tom Derrough, Clyde Siefkas, and Emerson Day attended the REA wiring school, then wired 60 farms and 25 brooder houses for the co-op.

Recently the cooperative has called on its “three musketeers“  to help wire farms being connected under the War Production Board’s program for increasing wartime food production.

Success of cooperative farming in the Lacelle community has recently been given wide recognition in the Midwest and the group received the Des Moines Register War Service Award because of their cooperative program throughout the year in getting all farm work done without loss of crops.

Today, in 1958, the Lacelle community still practices this cooperative effort and still provides leadership for Clarke Electric. Henry Siekfas, Clarke president, resides in the community, and past-president Arcel Luce is an enthusiastic worker for rural electrification, although no longer a member of the board. John Barr, another community member, is now serving his second term on the Clarke board.

Most of the community belong to the Lacelle Methodist Church, where again the spirit of cooperation and good will is evident to every visitor.

On Tuesday, November 11, after their monthly meeting, the Clarke board drove to Lacelle for turkey dinner, at the annual God’s Portion Sale, which attracts a large crowd from Clarke, Decatur and surrounding counties.

The writings quoted above give the essence of Leland and Lola’s life together. They have had at least their share of problems and joys. Three times Lola has had life- threatening illnesses with the harsh medication taking its toll along with the disease. But their analysis of life is positive and they reflect on the good times, not the bad.

Lola taught school for 33 years beginning in a country school northwest of Murray. It had the reputation of the students having gotten the better of their teachers. Lola was not strict, but she was a disciplinarian. Lola always gave kids choices, and she had a successful term at that school.

Her students have always come to know they couldn’t get by with cheating or swearing. She is convinced the kids like discipline - "they like rules." One boy she taught was "kind of an outlaw." His father admitted that he couldn’t do anything with him — his mother wouldn’t let him. Lola remarked, "What a shame!" Two of her students were David and Doyle Curnes. They still talk about some of the things that happened. They had dinner together recently and remembered all of it.

Lola had taught three years when Connie was born, and Rosemary came along three years later. She went back to teaching at the home school and took the girls with her. Lola taught at Washington Center and came into the consolidated school system as 3rd grade teacher. At one point she had a personality conflict with a superintendent and resigned. She went to St. Charles and taught remedial reading. When the local school ` staff changed a member of the school board suggested they offer Lola a job, saying, “We owe her." She came back to Osceola where she taught 5th grade and remedial reading. She retired from teaching in 1983.

Some of the memories take her back to the fun created by teaching associates Ruth Gould and Pat Fisher who is now in Lexington, Missouri. The kinds of amusements were that Lola incorporated the teaching of art with bulletin boards. They were artistically done, appropriate to the season. One of the others would sneak in and, perhaps, put an Easter Bunny on the Christmas tree. Lola would leave it because the kids were brought into the fun, getting a big kick out of the jokes — it was a matter of relaxing.

One April Fool’s Day Pat fooled them all except for the Principal Clara Benbow whom Pat had alerted beforehand. She taught 3rd grade which made this possible because the kids were capable of reading directions on the board. All day long she pretended to have laryngitis. Couldn’t say a word! Not only the children but her teacher friends were very sympathetic and encouraging. Ruth and Lola both offered their help until the end of the day when Pat said in her normal voice, "April Fool!"

There was a book passed back and forth. It was one purchased together as they took a course, a dull course and a dull book. Whoever ended up with the book when the course was over wrapped it up and gave it as a gift to the other on some special occasion. When another occasion came along the giver received it back and it became a running joke as it could commemorate Ely Whitney’s birthday or anything to give an excuse to Wrap it up and keep it moving. It wasn’t long before the students began to recognize it and it was as much fun for them as the givers and receivers.

Not everybody thought these pranks were funny. Once Lola and Pat thought they would do something to one of the other teacher’s bulletin boards. They went into her room but there she sat and caught them red handed. Not everybody thought this was the way to behave. They were there for serious business, but it certainly enlivened the days and was completely harmless. Leland, too, loved pranks. As the publication previously quoted tells, the Lacelle neighborhood in which they lived did much of their work cooperatively. This was particularly true if one of the farmers was incapacitated. Leland enjoys remembering that when one of the neighbors was in the hospital he and another neighbor planted his corn then went to the store and bought a package of annual flower seeds. They put them in the planter so he had flowers all over his cornfield. Leland commented that they probably couldn’t do that now. Everyone is afraid of getting sued. But it was different then when most people got along well with each other and respected one another. Leland especially mentioned threshing time. No question it was hard work but it was also a neighborhood get-together.

There are fond memories of the young people they took to live with them for shorter or longer periods of time. One was a little nine- or ten-year-old girl, the age of Connie and Rosie, whose father had been killed while building the state capital of New Mexico. The mother and grandmother were well known to the Hunts and the mother would come to visit on weekends. This little girl stayed only about a year. Two older boys lived there awhile. The stay in the Hunt home gave them an opportunity to straighten out their lives.

Leland served as deputy clerk of court in 1940-1941. The wages were $80 a month. "If our folks hadn’t helped us with milk, cream, eggs and butter we couldn’t have made it." At one point Lola wanted to make a dress for Connie and didn’t have enough money for a spool of thread.

They moved back to the farm and Leland helped his father, rented about 1,000 acres, farming it with horses and a small tractor. He didn’t go into the service. Frank Paul interviewed him and said, "You are doing more good out there raising food than in the service." Leland said, "I had a lot of mixed emotions. All my friends were going but still I couldn’t leave Dad." Leland had been township clerk for 21 years and was still county clerk when he was appointed to the Board of Supervisors. In 1970 he ran for office and was elected for three terms.

Leland developed encephalitis and was in the hospital in Des Moines for two weeks. During one period he was not expected to live. He had kept the farm home and rented land. His neighbors sold his hogs for him. In 1977 they moved to town because he could no longer tolerate the dust. He retired in 1985.

Leland commented that Lola’s father was one of the kindest, best men he had ever known — a true Christian who never flaunted it. Lola remarked that she felt she had married a man just like that.

This is truly a "Recipe for Living" with all the ingredients of hard work, good humor, earned respectability and accountability — a couple who are the very "salt of the earth."

Search me, 0 God, and know my heart;
test me and know my thoughts. See of
there is any wicked way in me, and lead
me in the way everlasting.
(Ps. 139: 23-24 Favorite Bible verses of
Arlean Crum}

Return to main page for Recipes for Living 1996 by Fern Underwood

Last Revised April 29, 2012