ROBERT & ELISABETH REYNOLDSON

(Bob and Beth told their story together with encouragement from the other to talk about their achievements.)

Elisabeth: I was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where Dad, an urologist, was in residency in the Hennepin County Hospital. My father was born and raised in Humboldt, Iowa, and my mother in Charles City, Iowa.  I have an older sister, Becky, living in Austin, Texas, an older brother, Peter, in Chicago, and a younger sister, Sarah, in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina.

When I was two, we moved to the Waterloo/Cedar Falls, Iowa, area.  We lived in a very homogeneous neighborhood on the west side of Waterloo, only two blocks from an elementary school; but our parents wanted us to experience different life styles, so they bussed my siblings and me across town to attend Grant Elementary.  That school serves a very poor neighborhood populated mostly by minorities on the east side of the city. Only 5% of the students were Caucasian.

We had wonderful teachers and the whole experience broadened my understanding of people whose appearance and life style were different than mine. It gave me a better appreciation for living without prejudices. My best friends would have been classified as living on the "wrong side of the tracks."  We had a cleaning lady who just happened to live right across from the school.  She took care of us as well as our house.  She had a daughter around my age and I often stayed at their house after school, or sometimes Crystal came home with me.

We so often talk about what we would like to do for people less advantaged and don't know the answer.  I would have supposed that if you exposed them to what could be achieved by hard work and education, that they would automatically follow the right path and succeed. Unfortunately that was not true for Crystal.  She was shot and killed in her early 20's while involved in drug dealing.

I look back on attending Grant Elementary School as a wonderful experience.  Our parents chose to make a decision that was not popular in our neighborhood, but it taught us a lot about the world. It also made it easier for me as I went on to college.  I had a wide range of friends because I was not frightened of people who were different from me.

My parents divorced when I was eight.  My mother remarried in 1978, and she and my stepfather have retired to an island near Charleston, South Carolina.  My father has retired from medicine and is farming and traveling.

When I was starting my freshman year in high school, I moved with my father to Bloomfield, Iowa, and I graduated from Davis County High School. I had been in the National Honor Society, involved in student government, was a cheerleader and academically, was in 2nd in my class of 100 students.

I attended Iowa State University (ISU) and graduated with a degree in Management of Information Systems, which is a blend of computer engineering and business. Persons in this field put together big computer systems for large corporations. In college I was a Cardinal Key, Phi Kappa Psi, and have a notation on my diploma indicating that I graduated with highest distinction, which means that I had above a 3.5 grade point average.

While I was in college, I earned college credits by taking a year off to do an internship in a law firm in Washington D.C. The address was 1010 Pennsylvania Avenue, about which Mom said there was something familiar. I didn’t realize the White House was only three blocks away. I took advantage of the time there. I went to lots of speeches, presentations and other events, jogged around the monuments and visited the legislature and Supreme Court various times.  Jim Leach, my mother's cousin, is a congressman and, in my "unbiased" opinion, he is one of the best. He was educated at Princeton University, and London "the" School of Economics, so it may have been natural for him to be the one to expose the S & L (Savings and Loan) scandal and initiate the Whitewater investigation.  His activities are not limited to what would be popular, and he is not easily deterred by threats from his own party. Through Jim's help, I had a wonderful time while in Washington, D.C., but learned that I didn't want to live in a big city.

Although we attended church on special occasions when I was growing up, I wasn't regularly involved in church until I was out of college and moved to Arispe, Iowa. There I became the high school youth director. For the first time, I began going to church on a regular basis.  When I came here, I continued attending and Bob and Michael have joined me.  We live at 617 South Main, just around the corner from the church. I enjoy our home and Bob and I spend a lot of time working on the yard and garden, but my main hobby is exercising, which allows me to pursue my joy - eating.

Bob

I was born prematurely on July 22, 1948, delivered by Dr. Harken in his private hospital on South Fillmore Street, Osceola, Iowa. The folks had moved here after Dad graduated from law school. They lived in an apartment owned by Dr. Harken on East Fayette Street, currently owned by Fred Wise. Favorite neighbors, who lived upstairs, were Jim and Lorraine Machholz. They had no children, and my older and only sister, Vicki, would spend hours there.  He was a patrolman who worked nights, and she woke him up every morning.

We later moved to 217 South Adams Street, and I attended East Ward School.  That was very convenient.  I could just walk down the alley and be at school. We had truly enjoyable neighbors, Jack and Pat Fisher, and their sons, Don and Lynn.  One of my favorite memories is a pot-luck bridge club my parents were part of   Its members were Joe and Rosamond Adams, Don and Aletha Gibson, Harold and Alice Young, Cliff and Fern Underwood, Casey and Jessie Canavan and the folks.  The very best part was that we usually had twice-baked potatoes.

I had some really good teachers - Mrs. Theodosia Gripp, who gave us a thorough beginning; in 5th grade, Winona Naylor, who was excellent in art; in 6th grade, Frances Carson. I remember her being perturbed at my behavior in the lunch room and leading me down the hall by the hand.  That was a long walk. I had Marie Cooper and Maxine Woods, the latter of who inquired what we wanted to be when we grew up.  At that time I wanted to be an FBI agent.

One of my greatest embarrassments was on Boom Night in the fall of 1964. I had the misfortune of rear-ending the car that was transporting the homecoming queen, Mary Saylor. Because of that, she had to attend the Homecoming Coronation in a cervical collar and my name was mud.

Regarding my choice of career, my parents didn't push me into law. I enjoyed speech class and public speaking.  I did fairly well in speech contests, so I had some aptitude. Dad suggested I become a doctor; but I had occasion to observe and be influenced by the enjoyment both my parents obviously took in law.  I had the chance to follow Dad around from time to time and watched him at trials.  Mom started law school when I was a freshman in high school.  She drove back and forth to Drake every day and graduated in 1965, with the honor of the Iowa State Bar Association award as the outstanding member of her law school class.  Upon graduation, she joined Dad in practice, at a time before that was "the thing to do", and made it look easy.  It was not easy.  She worked hard at it and she did it.

I enrolled at the University of Iowa and attended there all seven years.  I joined the National Guard and spent some time in both basic and on-the-job training.  I obtained my under graduate degree, in May, 1970, spent four months in training and started law school in September, 1971.  I graduated with distinction in 1974.

One of my more enjoyable experiences in law school was when I served in Linn County as a County Attorney intern in the summer of '73.  I tried a lot of little cases - misdemeanors and insignificant cases on which it didn't matter if we screwed up. I gained a wealth of experience.

I graduated in 1974, and applied for a position with Reynoldson Law Firm. Frankly, I didn't give a lot of thought to practicing anywhere else. I wanted to live and raise a family in a small town, and I wanted to work with my mom. She required that I fill out an application like everybody else.

Vicki's husband, Gary Kimes, and I graduated the same year - he from Drake, I from Iowa U., and we both joined the firm in June, 1974. Working with Mom was what I had expected. She was a good teacher. Her exuberance about practicing law was contagious. She knew Osceola and, because she truly loved people, she had remarkable person to person communication. When we would discuss a case, and others of us would be focusing on the letter of the law, Mom was apt to ask, "What about the people?" It was a wonderful opportunity to practice law through the good will of my mother.

Mom became aware of her cancer in 1984.  In spite of all the related treatment, she worked every day.  She was tough but it won.  She died in February, 1986.

She and I had a close relationship, and I miss her terribly. I was not the only law firm partner who held her in high regard. Attorney John Lloyd gave the eulogy at her service, speaking of her having been a four-career person: a teacher, wife and mother, lawyer, and public servant with involvement in various community organizations and projects.  To each she gave "love, tenderness and devotion...grit and determination."  She gave us all a role model that is a challenge to follow.

That is also true of Dad, who served on the Iowa Supreme Court bench from 1971 until his retirement.  We have publications regarding his life and work, worthy of a section of their own, which follows our report.

Beth's work is varied.  She does income tax, real estate, family law, wills and estate planning, while mine is 90% family law and plaintiff’s personal injury law. It has taken time for me to learn to leave the office at the office, not to allow myself to become emotionally enveloped in the myriad of problems for which our clients are coming to us. We have to tell them constantly that, as much as we care, we are not counselors; we can only help with legal problems.

We have a wonderful life. Beth’s dad is renting an apartment in New York City for ten days, and I will be celebrating my 50th birthday seeing a Yankee’s game, and Helen Hunt in "Twelfth Night". Beth didn't tell about one of her hobbies, carried over from childhood, when she played the violin. After a long respite she is enjoying taking it up again.  My cat is taking it better than her cat.

We both enjoy working outside and reading.  We enjoy the Sunday ''New York Times" and the "Washington Post", ''New Yorker", "Vanity Fair", and books.  I am currently reading a history of the Masters' Golf Tournament. I intend to read more, but as it is, our bedroom has such piles of books that we will soon have to chart a path to find our way through.  Beth's mother has asked if we had heard of a piece of furniture called "bookshelves". Something we both consider a serene afternoon is in a bookstore, complete with cafe mocha.

Return to main page for Recipes for Living 1998 by Fern Underwood

Last Revised July 5, 2012