The Quiet Journey: Memoirs 1936 to 2000

By Joe Millard

The Quiet Journey is one person's life story told in amusing and authentic memoirs from 1936 until 2000. The author, writing to his grandchildren, shares candid childhood stories about Saturday afternoon movies, reading contests, and threshing runs. The memoirs capture a glimpse of attending a one room rural school, growing up on a farm, and living without electricity. Older readers may recall their own memories of catching and killing a rooster for Sunday dinner, or playing fox and geese in the snow. Others may identify with the author as he tells of his first date and learning how to dance. A few may even remember the surprises that awaited them at college. Those who served in the navy during the 1950s may have experienced challenging shore patrol duty in places like Olongapo, Philippines, or visited Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. In addition, former sailors may remember some of their more amusing experiences when at sea. All of these experiences are captured in The Quiet Journey, along with humorous and challenging experiences of teaching in Urbana, Postville, Story City, and Dubuque, Iowa. However, everyone reading The Quiet Journey, will sense the importance of the second half of the twentieth century.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Dec 5, 2007
• ISBN: 9780595908660

Joe Millard

Joe Millard is a lifelong resident of Iowa. He earned a BA and MA from the University of Northern Iowa and a PhD from Iowa State University. Joe and his wife, Fran, have four children and ten grandchildren; they live in Waukee, Iowa. This is his fourth published book; he is also the author of Seeing Through Gray Colored Lens, The Quiet Journey (Memoirs 1936 to 2000), and Where Did All the Cowboys Go?

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Copyright © 2007 by Joe Millard

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ISBN: 978-0-595-46570-5 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-0-595-90866-0 (ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Introduction and Acknowledgments

A Mixed Pedigree

Naming Myself

A Forty Acre Playground

A Mixture of Fantasy and Reality

Everything Isn’t Learned in School

Thomas Jefferson’s Vision

An Innocent Time

Winging It

Cumshaw

Starting Over

Teaching 101

Postville in the 1960s

Up a Creek without a Paddle

Witnessing a Quiet Rebellion

Working With the Very Best

Are We There Yet?

Finding My Faith

Postscript

For My Wife

List of illustrations preceding each chapter All photos are from the author’s own collection.

Introduction and Acknowledgments

When I was a boy my mother filled scrapbooks with pictures, clippings, greeting cards and school reports. There was my baby book, and odds and ends from grade school and high school. When I married she gave me the box of memories and I added items from the Navy, teaching contracts, and published articles. I never inventoried the contents but moved them as if they were family heirlooms from one home to another. The boxes followed me in U-Hauls from Cedar Falls, Urbana, Postville, Story City, Dubuque, Ames, Des Moines, and Waukee, Iowa. The possessions are important not because they are expensive, but because they symbolize priceless memories.

I examined the objects when I retired and placed them into two stacks. One stack was to be tossed into the garbage and the other to be saved. I inspected them, reviewed them, and returned all of the items to new plastic boxes. I couldn’t throw them out.

They are bits and pieces of my journey, and remind me of how fortunate I have been. Too often society values the monetary inheritance or financial help received from families, but what I received was worth far more than money. I received opportunities, advice, support, and when I veered too far in one direction there was always someone to redirect me. Sometimes the stories provided by my brothers; Dan, Jerry, Mike, and my sister Karen are the same, and sometimes they are different. Nevertheless, these are my stories and this book is an attempt to thank all the people who helped me, most of whom I never thanked.

When I was studying at Iowa State University, Carl Hamilton, vice president at the university and the author of In No Time At All, encouraged me to write my family stories. Carl, a journalist before going to Iowa State University, believed that family stories should be written down so that family histories aren’t lost.

The stories I found in the boxes span over half a century and are about real people and real events. And while my stories are not about world events or national ordeals, sometimes those larger issues impacted my decisions. My stories are important to me because they reflect the richness of family, friends, relatives, and people whom I have met on my journey. And although I have changed a few names to save embarrassment to myself and others, the facts remain as I remember them.

I didn’t write about all the memories that I found in the boxes, there just wasn’t space. Moreover, I have written only a few stories about my children and none about my grandchildren. I could never get the stories right, and someday I hope they write their own stories.

These memoirs are written for my family; however others are invited to read them, and may discover that they have had similar experiences. I wish to thank Francis Cudahy for information about my Cudahy and Harkins ancestry, and Daisy Zwicky about my Bates and Millard lineage. Mainly I wish to thank my wife Fran who is such a large part of my journey.

1

A Mixed Pedigree

People have been interested in each other’s stories since the Canterbury Tales, and each generation has stories to tell. Log cabin and Civil War stories would have been told by my great grandparents, and they could have shared their experiences of encountering the American Indians and of breaking the prairie sod. My Grandpa Harkins told me about the Chicago fire, and Grandma Millard made it clear how unfair the reconstruction period was for Missouri. The Great Depression and World War II impacted my parents and they shared how those events shaped their lives. Moreover their stories and tales were passed on to me through values and beliefs that I assimilated. So before I tell my stories I wish to introduce my mother and father, and their families.

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My Irish heritage comes from my mother whose maiden name was Cecilia Agnes Harkins. St. Cecilia is the patron saint of musicians and Agnes is the patron saint for gardeners. That should have made her a singing gardener, but somehow the singing part never developed. However gardening was important because she enjoyed it, and during the Great Depression it was essential for providing food.

Her Grandpa Harkins migrated from Ireland to Chicago, Illinois. And my grandfather, Martin Harkins, was born December 22, 1867 in Chicago, Illinois, two years after the Civil War ended. He was four years old when O’Malley’s cow kicked over the oil lantern that started the infamous Chicago Fire. When he told me about the fire, he explained that he was tied to a tree so that he wouldn’t run and become lost. I was four at the time and wondered if the story was true, however several aunts confirmed it. I had seven aunts and two uncles who were my mother’s sisters and brothers, and if I can’t believe my Irish relatives it will definitely reduce the number of stories that I can tell.

Grandpa Harkins first came to Iowa during the summers in the late eightieth century for a respiratory condition. While in Iowa he worked on farms owned by his uncles, Michael and Patrick Pendergast. It was on one of those summer visits that he first met my grandmother Mary Ellen Cudahy, who everyone called Mayme.

In 1897 Grandpa Harkin’s father purchased a farm in Hardin Township in Greene County, Iowa, for my grandfather to farm. Since he was now a farm owner he moved to Iowa and married Mayme Cudahy. However, he missed working at his father’s livery stable that leased horse drawn coaches and a hearse for people in Chicago. He also missed his dream of playing baseball for the Chicago Cubs who had offered him a contract. Whether he was actually offered a contract or not doesn’t really matter, because he was a good baseball player and the story is now a part of family lore. Nevertheless, after he was married he often returned to Chicago, and frequently tried to convince Grandma to come with him. But my grandmother refused to move to Chicago, and he refused to move without her. So they remained in Iowa, and he continued to dislike farming.

After my marriage to Fran Carey, her father told me that Fran’s grandfather Joe Carey and my grandpa Martin Harkins knew each other. Both grandparents had assisted the Irish immigrants living in Greene County, Iowa with legal issues, and they read and wrote letters for those who couldn’t read or write. Fran’s grandfather helped those living around Churdan, Iowa, and my grandfather helped those living around Grand Junction, Iowa. Another bit of trivia was that Fran’s grandfather, Joe Carey, also taught in Bristol 2 where I started school, although he taught there in the 1890s and I didn’t enter school until 1941.

From what I was told by my aunts, Grandma Harkins’ disposition was quite different than my grandfather’s temperament. I never met her since she died from a stroke a year before I was born. Grandma enjoyed living on an Iowa farm, and Grandpa disliked everything about farming. However they both enjoyed parties and are said to have hosted many dances. My mother and Aunt Leona told me that Grandma had clairvoyant powers and was purported to raise the table and rattle dishes. These powers were used in predicting the future, and finding lost objects. When my grandparents started having marital problems Grandma blamed their troubles on Grandpa’s drinking, for he had a liking for the bottle. He blamed her mystic powers for their problems since he believed her power was the work of the devil. Eventually she quit being a seer, and he quit his drinking.

My mother was Irish both in looks and temperament. She had auburn hair, a temper that could flare up quickly, and a great sense of humor. One April Fools’ Day, she fixed what appeared to be chocolate covered caramels. She instructed me to take small appropriate size bites, and not to eat like a pig. After a mouthful of the delicious looking candy, foam formed around my lips, and I ran to rinse out my mouth. She had covered small pieces of soap with a dark sweet chocolate, the bigger the bite, the greater the consequence. It was a lesson teaching me to take appropriate sized bites, as much as an April Fools’ joke.

Mom enjoyed playing outdoors, and challenged all of her sons to footraces. I didn’t win a race with her until I was at least in the seventh grade. She had a competitive spirit and disliked losing. She played to win in cards, board games, or croquet. It didn’t make any difference if she was playing with her children, grandchildren, or daughters in law. After Fran and I were engaged, we enjoyed a Sunday afternoon with Mom and Dad playing croquet on their front lawn. When Mom hit Fran’s croquet ball across the road as a defensive play there were no apologies. Fran was stunned, and learned quickly that my mother liked to win.

Mom’s seven sisters and two brothers lived either in Iowa or around Chicago. Bridget Ellen was Mom’s oldest sister. I called her Aunt Nell, and she married Frank Dittert who became a plumber in Jefferson, Iowa. Their oldest daughter, Anna Isabelle, was my godmother. Another sister, Elizabeth or Aunt Liz was married to Taylor Manz who was a farmer in Greene County. Uncle Taylor was raised in the Angus coal mining community north of Perry, Iowa where he and his dad worked in the coalmines. His stories delighted me as a boy and were often off-color and always exaggerated. When I was eight or nine he asked me what the white stuff was in bird shit, and then told me that it was shit too. By age ten I knew not to pull his finger, because if I did he would pass gas and laugh. Nevertheless, I enjoyed visits from Uncle Taylor since he told the wildest stories that could be imagined and ones that every ten year old boy wants to hear.

My Aunt Margaret was married to Steve McNamara, and they lived in or near Chicago during their marriage. Their children were close to the ages of my brothers and me and they sometimes visited us during the summers. I don’t remember much about Mom’s sister, Rose Ann since she died of childbirth on September 17, 1940. She and her husband, Lawrence Conroy, moved to Chicago in 1936, the year I was born. Their children also visited us and stayed with our family a few summers when we lived on the Ulrich farm in the late 1930s and early 1940s. It was always a treat to have visits from the McNamara and Conroy cousins.

Aunt Veronica lived in the Des Moines Iowa area most of her married life and was married to Arnold Smith. For a few summers they traveled with a carnival visiting county fairs. There Uncle Arnold would challenge the county want-abe wrestlers to grapple with him for a set number of minutes. Aunt Veronica would promote the match, and collect an admission fee. If the challengers won they were awarded a cash prize, and if not, Uncle Arnold and the carnival kept the money. I bought my first car from Uncle Arnold, which was a 1932 Chevrolet coup with a rumble seat.

Aunt Leona was one of Mom’s younger sisters and was married to Virgil Kiefer who also farmed in Greene County. Since they lived close to my parents I got to know Aunt Leona better than my other aunts. It was always enjoyable to listen to her tell family stories, and watch her large brown eyes get bigger and bigger. She also taught briefly in rural schools after graduating from high school.

Uncle Tom Harkins was a younger brother who left Greene County during his teens, moved to Chicago, and worked as a truck driver. He was a colorful uncle who often returned to Iowa in the fall to hunt pheasants. He drank a great deal, and during the prohibition era he transported Templeton Rye from Templeton, Iowa, south of Carroll, through Dubuque, and delivered the whiskey to bootleggers in Chicago. Legend has it that the rye was delivered to Al Capone, however that has never been proven. Furthermore, it seems more likely that Uncle Tom would have delivered the booze to George Bugs Moran or Frank Nitti. Uncle Tom was Irish and Bugs Moran was boss of the North Side Irish/ German Gang. Or maybe my uncle left the whiskey in Dubuque for Al Capone to drink, since it is told that Al Capone would take refuge in Dubuque, and his favorite whiskey was said to be Templeton Rye. Neither my mom nor my aunts would confirm the precise story.

The youngest of Mom’s sisters was Josephine who married Carroll Johnson. She suffered from several mental illnesses, and was first diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1945. Aunt Jo spent most of her life confined to mental institutions or group homes, and died in 2003. The youngest in Mom’s family was Uncle Mart Harkins. He lived in Chicago, served in World War II and fought at the Battle of the Bulge. Uncle Mart was also my godfather.

My mother died on October 5, 1987 one day before her seventy-eighth birthday. She suffered from artery disease, diabetes, and poor blood circulation. Artery disease ran in her mother’s family, and her mother had died of a stroke in 1935. Her Aunt Lizzie Tiffany suffered from the same circulatory leg problems that Mom experienced. Mom’s cousin, Francis Cudahy, wrote in a genealogy document that a doctor advised my Great Aunt Lizzie to have her leg amputated but she refused. She asked the doctor that if he cut off her leg how was she to walk up to God when she got to heaven? However, my mother had both of her legs amputated, and was confined to a wheel chair for the last two years of her life. Dad took good care of her, and I’m sure wheel chairs aren’t needed in heaven.

My dad was Glen Arthur Millard, and from a very different family background. My Millard ancestors arrived in the New England Colonies in 1636 and over the centuries migrated west. His grandfather, John Elmer Millard traveled from prairie to prairie using a team of oxen to break prairie sod in Wisconsin, Iowa, and Kansas. Dad’s grandfather was ninety-four when he died and had been married three times. He fathered eighteen children, and Arthur Delbert Millard, born of his third wife was my grandfather.

Since Dad’s uncles and aunts liked to travel they lived all over the United States. Occasionally two of his uncles, Fred and Martin, would visit the farm and tell my brothers and me wonderful stories. They embellished their adventures about looking for gold in California, burying treasures in Illinois, or being caught by moonshiners in Tennessee. As an impressionable eleven year old I really didn’t care if they were true or not, since the stories made their lives sound so exciting.

My grandfather Millard appeared less adventurous than his brothers. Although he did travel some, he grew up in Iowa, but journeyed to Missouri where he met and married my grandmother, Vica May Bates, in 1899. They tried farming in Iowa, moved to South Dakota for six months, and returned to buy a farm in Bristol Township, Greene County, Iowa. Grandpa Millard lost the farm during the depression following World War I. He was a gentle man who laughed a lot.

My grandmother Millard was from the Bates family that emigrated from England to the New Virginia Colony in 1639. They were plantation and slave owners. Even her grandfather who settled in Missouri prior to the Civil War supported the confederate cause and was a slave owner. Grandma Millard was a disciplined woman. She did not believe in dancing, drinking, or having much fun. She was a raised as a Baptist and was very upset when Dad married Mom, because Mom was a Roman Catholic.

Dad had three brothers and four sisters. His older brothers Uncle Jim and Uncle Charles, Chick lived in Jefferson. Uncle Jim married Mary Morlan and Uncle Chick married Mary Galvin. Both Uncles Jim and Chick did manual work in the Jefferson area. Jim’s wife, Mary, was a dear woman that cleaned homes in Jefferson and died in 2007. She was a woman rich in Christian values and I admired her capability to love everyone.

Dad was close to his younger brother Ed who farmed for a while, and later managed a creamery in Jefferson, Iowa. Dad told me that as boys he and Ed would run after a horse, grab the tail, hold on, and skip along. Ed got too close, and a horse kicked him in the face injuring his nose so that his nose had to be reattached. It was a story with a lesson for me when there were horses on our farm. After hearing the story I wasn’t about to catch an exciting ride while holding on to a horse’s tail.

I listened to Uncle Ed when he sometimes substituted as a school bus driver and would drive the bus that I rode. I usually sat behind him and we talked about religion and philosophy. His first wife died of childbirth, which was the second aunt that I had that died in childbirth. He remarried after her death.

Dad had four sisters. His oldest sister was Edith who married Ora Smith and they farmed in Minnesota. The next sister was Daisy who married Harry Zwicky and farmed north of Jefferson. Aunt Daisy was the family genealogist who gave me much of the information about the Millard and Bates family. Another older sister was Aunt Tina who lived in Madison Wisconsin and was married to Jesse Jordan. Susie Millard was the youngest in the family, never married, and was a nurse’s aide who often cared for the elderly.

With Dad and Mom’s large families I had thirty-one aunts and uncles and over seventy-five first cousins. They were a colorful bunch, worthy of stories about their own lives. You will meet some of them as their lives cross my path. Some of my uncles gambled too much, drank too much, and strayed from their marriage vows. My aunts were a religious mixture. They were Mormon, Baptist, Catholic, and those that didn’t trust organized religion. Some were superstitious, some conservative, and some liberal in their social, religious, and political views. I always believed that my relatives varied from the norm. But I really didn’t know what normal was since I was surrounded by so many different personalities and beliefs.

My relatives provided many teachable moments for Mom and Dad, and when growing up Mom reminded me that I could pick my friends, but not my relatives. However, their different personalities and values helped me develop an appreciation and acceptance for different life styles. I was fond of them all. Furthermore I became aware that we all have skeletons in our closets, and warts that we don’t want to show anyone.

Neither Dad nor Mom drank excessively or gambled. They were faithful to each other for a marriage of fifty-seven years. And they were respected and trusted in the community. Dad was very likeable, and Mom had a wonderful sense of humor. She was ahead of her times as a social, political, and religious liberal. She supported responsible birth control in a marriage and couldn’t understand why Roman Catholic priests couldn’t marry. Their marriage survived the Great Depression, and World War II, and they provided me with a happy childhood. While they never had material wealth they modeled values and morals that served me well. Furthermore, these values were taught me while I experienced an enjoyable life on Iowa farms during the 1940s and 50s.

Dad practiced unconditional love as much as anyone I have known. He seldom became angry with me, even when I blew-up a livestock watering tank with a large firecracker. He wasn’t too upset when I dumped a load of beans in a neighbor’s field, because I was driving the tractor too fast. He always saw a lesson that could be learned from one’s mistakes and he looked for the good in others.

After Mom died he traveled in the United States and took several trips to Europe with a companion. It was on a trip to Finland that he suffered health problems and died in a hospital in Tampere, Finland in 1995 at the age of 87.

I flew to Tampere to place Dad in a Finish convalescent home since he was not permitted to fly home. I missed my flight from Frankfurt, Germany to Finland and was flown to Copenhagen, Denmark to catch a special flight. The special flight was with a group of Germans who were flying to Finland on a hunting trip. When I arrived in Tampere I was questioned about my visit to Finland since I wasn’t continuing with the Germans. With help from a Finish/American translator’s guide book I convinced the entry guard that I had come to Finland to see my father who was in a hospital. I then caught the last taxi from the small airport to the hotel, and caught a second taxi to the hospital. Dad had died a couple of hours before I arrived.

With the help of the United States Embassy, and a compassionate Finnish social worker I was able to arrange for Dad’s body to be flown home to Jefferson, Iowa for burial. He was embalmed by a German funeral home, dressed in a traditional white Finish burial robe, and placed in a standard European coffin for his trip home. For his funeral Dad was transferred to an American casket, and dressed in a suit and tie.

I value the rich impact and varied experiences that my many relatives provided me. But most importantly I owe much to my parents for their sacrifices and love. It was my parent’s advice, beliefs, and morals that made it possible for me to experience my quiet journey.

2

Naming Myself

My journey starts with how I got my name. Joseph Eugene Millard is the name printed on my birth certificate. Teachers wrote Gene on my grade school report cards. Friends sometimes call me the village idiot when I play bridge. But throughout elementary and high school I was called Gene or Eugene. You see, my mother named her sons one name, and then called them by another name. She really didn’t like the name Joseph, so she called me Gene. However, Dad was fond of Joe. This difference of opinion should have made me suspicious about my unknown namesake. Maybe my mother knew a man named Joe from her past who she wanted to forget. Whatever the reason, she preferred not to have a son with the same name. In any case it was up to me to name myself.

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Mom liked the name Gene. She had already named my older brother Gerald Gene, but no one called him Gene. They called him Jerry. Nevertheless she really liked the name Gene since she baptized me Joseph Eugene Millard. In the 1930s there was a cartoon character called Eugene the Jeep. Mom must have been fond of that cartoon character or why would she have named me Eugene. Dad liked the name Joseph, but didn’t dare call me Joseph because of my mom’s dislike for the name, so he called me Hey. It may have been Hay, but I answered to either Hey or Hay. When I started school my mom enrolled me with my baptismal name, Joseph Eugene Millard, and asked that the teacher call me Gene.

Somehow it leaked out that I was named Eugene after the Jeep character. And while most of the classmates called me Gene, others thought I was Eugene, and a few called me Hugh. I guess they thought it was short for Eugene. Those were the kids that didn’t like Gene any better than Dad.

I soon answered to Eugene, Gene, Hugh, Hey or Hay, but no one called me Joe or Joseph. This could have been traumatic for a six year old, and might have led to multiple personalities. However, Gene gradually became the choice of names, which was fine, except when it came to legal documents. There was a problem whenever legal documents needed signing, because I then became Joseph E. Millard. Thank goodness there aren’t many legal documents for children to sign. When I turned ten years old there was a situation where I was required to use my official name.

Dad, after listening to a life insurance salesman, became convinced that we all needed life insurance. He listed our official names on the insurance forms. I believe dad especially enjoyed listing me as Joseph Eugene Millard. Mom made sure that the salesman knew that while Joseph was my baptized name everyone called me Gene. When it came time for me to sign the insurance policy I told the insurance salesman I didn’t know Joseph Eugene Millard. Dad spoke up quickly, Hey, sign the papers. I signed the insurance forms as Joseph Eugene Millard (Gene). I placed paraphrases around Gene to assure Mom that I wouldn’t take on too many of the characteristics of this mysterious Joseph.

Throughout grade school and high school my friends and relatives called me Gene and Joseph E. Millard was relegated to legal documents. Joseph did surface when I graduated from high school and the principal read off my given name. When I enlisted in the United States Navy Reserve they became very formal. I was Seaman Joseph Millard and none of this paraphrase foolishness. I always made certain that