Post # 21- Oral History Interview Number 5 And Another Book For The Monk Collection

    

      Saturday February 16th 2008 I headed to Mt Vernon Iowa with L. and K. P. to interview R. P.  a local historian.  He had agreed to let me bring my camcorder .  He’s 87 yrs old - sharp as a tack.  Names of people and places rolled off his tongue.   We talked about a horse thief ring that had operated in the 1800’s out of some caves West of Mt.Vernon.   We talked about he and his dad paving Hwy 1 for $.50 an hour.   I came home with 2 hrs of conversation  and an old photo of the first bridge over the Cedar River by Ivanhoe.    We tried to go to Sutliff for lunch but it was standing room only- ( a snowmobile convention had beat us there). 

     It was at this point, I remembered something L.P.’s mother-in-law D had mentioned about possibly  making us lunch…we’d turned her down thinking we were going to be in Sutliff….Well, it was 1:15, no place to go except Hardees and her offer sounded awesome. A cell phone call later and we were making a bee line for Mt. Vernon…. we sat down to home made soup, fresh bread and cheese, black coffee and German Chocolate cake.    Boy did that taste good!!!!!

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   Painting depicting Scottish emigrants coming to Scotch Grove Iowa…from the collection of Bill and Jane Corbin

     The second big thing that happened this week was receiving Iowa Sketches- John Newton Hughes -edited by Michele Shover in the mail.  It is a limited edition… talks about the Hughes Family in Rural Nineteenth Century Scotch Grove, Jones County Iowa.  Here’s an excerpt from the book describing what it was like in the winter:

        ” In the dead of winter, when skies were clear and snow deep, farmers were then getting their year’s supply of wood for fuel, their timber for posts and rails, their dimension timbers for framing of farm buildings….A procession of bobsleds with axes for cutting and chains for binding the logs, and poles and timbers tied securely to the bobsleds for the journey homeward.  With well-matched teams of spirited horses, trim and slick and glossy from good feed and early winter’s rest.  Here, a pair of dapple greys, their check-reins taut, their silver mane and tail waving in the morning breezes.  Next a team of blaze-faced, white-footed sorrels; then a span of blacks, each girdled with his string of bells that made sweet music, or so we thought, at every move of those nimble limbs.  Witness the scene as the procession moved gently and firmly on.  No roar of engine or blur of gear or clash of clutch or honk of horn; only the hoof of horses and steel of sled runner on the noiseless snow, and the bells always jingling and pealing in the crisp, frost air;  only these and their merry jingle, jingle, jingle.  A thousand notes medlied, mixed and confused, yet always in harmony, always sweet; always stirring…often a half-dozen bobsleds might be seen approaching our highway from the west; sometimes even more, all in one silent company and driving as close as comfort and safety would permit….

     In the afternoon or early evening the whole picture was changed.  The journey reversed.  They were bound homeward.  Then the woods empty themselves as by magic and from narrow trails, the teams appeared, moving, seemingly from nowhere, into the prairie.  They were headed homeward.  The sleds were heavily loaded.  there were groaning now, and screeching and barking as the iron runners sank into the hard packed snow, and crunched and smoothed out every hummock or irregular surface.   Some were loaded with logs, others with cord wood, still others with long poles suitable for dimension timbers.  Others laden with wood of many lengths and when suitably dried from the summer’s sun would find its way in the cook-stove.  The men were tired after a long day at work in the woods.  There is not much gaiety and little thought for the pipes.  The horses are tired too.  But they have pep and courage; they lean forward in their collars, the harness creaks under the strain- you feel that the traces must surely snap.  Their hoofs dig into the snow, though by much travel it is as hard as ice.  Their fine legs twist and tremble as they feel for footing in the ice and snow.  The whole picture was that of rugged individualism that has made its mark on he economy of our age.”

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Note:  A special thank you to  Michele Shover for helping us get a copy of this  book…and for the Corbin’s for letting us see their picture.  DM