Home Town Memories of Grinnell, Iowa

By Dave Adkins

I attended my 55th high school reunion in July of 2012 and was inspired to write Home Town Memories of Grinnell, Iowa. This work is not intended to be an all inclusive, comprehensive, scholarly history with a preoccupation for exact dates, etc. It is simply a personal history, my recollections of the old home town during a limited period in the towns history the 40s, 50s and 60s. I have written in my own way using a flow of words that came to me as I wrote. In a town of 8,000 9,000, as Grinnell was in those days - you eventually get to know and have some contact along the way with most people. My intent was to communicate in simple, straight forward terms and was not concerned about presenting it as a triumph in English language grammar.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 20, 2012
• ISBN: 9781479701650

Dave Adkins

I have written these articles and essays which are mainly historical-nostalgic and also on the topic of aging. They were published on the Grinnell, Iowa website ourgrinnell.com under the heading of Readers Share Thoughts. I was born in Grinnell, graduated from Grinnell High School in 1957 and Cornell College in 1962. I have a Master's Degree from Iowa State University and the University of Leon and a Doctorate from Middle Tennessee State University. I have lived and worked on Okinawa, in Mozambique and in Australia

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Copyright © 2012 by Dave Adkins.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2012914972

ISBN:          Softcover                                 978-1-4797-0164-3

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4797-0165-0

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Contents

1. Introduction

2. Some Information on Grinnell’s History

3. Biographical Sketch

4. My Family

5. Skeletons

6. Growing up in Grinnell

7. Elementary, Secondary School and Teachers

8. More Education

9. High school class and 55th Class Reunion

10. Neighbors

11. Friends and the Game Time Gang

12. Downtown Grinnell

13. Barber Shops

14. Theatres

15. Restaurants

16. Taverns

17. Pharmacies

18. Car Dealers and Gas Stations

19. Churches

20. AA in Grinnell

21. Softball League

22. Grinnell Country Club

23. Letters from Tom Sangster (’46) and Jerry Hagen (’51):

24. Grinnell High School Sports

25. Tribute: Chod DeLong

26. Grinnell College Sports

27. A Special Tribute to Ron Altenberg

28. Closing

DEDICATION:

THIS SLIM VOLUME IS DEDICATED TO THE

GRINNELL HIGH SCHOOL CLASS OF 1957

The Cover: The house on the cover is 1332 Main Street in Grinnell as it appeared in 1980. This is a copy of an original painting done by Dirk Blokland, a Dutch artist from Australia. After making arrangements with Dirk at his home in Toowoomba, Queensland (he greeted us coming from behind the house wearing a huge pair of wooden shoes), he then did the painting from snap shots which Geneva, my wife, and I sent him from Grinnell.

1. Introduction

Thornton Wilder, who depicted small town life in his prize-winning play, Our Town, writes about the drama of a fictional New Hampshire town called Grover’s Corners and its people, both living and dead. Grover’s Corners was billed as a place where time and memory intersect, also a juncture of life and death. There is a unique scene in this play where Wilder’s deceased characters sit in rocking chairs above their graves with a full view of the town, their town, and gossip about the problems of their living counterparts. Have we not had a similar experience in visualizing the faces and lives of deceased old friends and family members on visits to Hazelwood or Rock Creek Cemetery? At a certain age does not one realize that he knows more Grinnellians in the cemetery than on Main Street? I cherish those visits and answer yes to both of these rhetorical questions.

I have spent many enjoyable hours strolling around the Hazelwood property reminiscing and recalling. Bob Smith gave Phil Palmer, Jack Mathews and I a tour a couple of years ago as Bob is a student of the history of the Grinnell cemetery and knows the location of many historic grave sites. We went to the highest point of Hazelwood to visit the grave of J.B. Grinnell, our town’s founder, and also saw the final resting place of Sam Pooley, who played in the first football game west of the Mississippi River in 1889. (Grinnell, known as Iowa College then, beat the University of Iowa at Grinnell 24-0). I had to call on Joe Wall’s history of the college for the score on the 1889 game, but was present to see Sam Pooley and Herbert Miller, two members of 1889 Grinnell team, in person at a remembrance of that game during the half time of a Pioneer game in 1949.

When I am alone and stop at Hazelwood, I usually park on west side of the cemetery parallel to the Manly (family of lawyers) grave site. Bob Blakely was laid to rest just south of the Manly markers—he was a GHS sports fan who moved to Brownsville, Texas from Grinnell. As I walk south to the fence and take a left east at the corn field I see more familiar names on grave markers. There’s Jim George, Herald Register reporter and later the Sports Information Director at Grinnell College, and as I continue the stroll I realize that I can place a face and an event with many of the names that I see.

There is a grave with three stones. It is an unusual name for Hazelwood—Madame Odette de Lecluse and her parents. She was hired by Harold Clapp to teach French at Grinnell College and according to college records was on the faculty from 1945-1970. She could be seen driving around town in a blue ’41 Ford coupe usually with a long cigarette dangling from the side of her mouth and her further identifiable French bob hair due with a shock of curled hair hanging over one eye. Bob Clapp, class of ’57 GHS and 1961 Grinnell College graduate, wrote me a couple of years ago that he had purchased Odette’s car when she traded and drove it around town while a college student. Thornton Wilder limited his play, Our Town, to one small town, Grover’s Corners (New Hampshire). This book is limited to people and events associated with one town also, Grinnell, Iowa. Furthermore, I am limiting the content of this book to those people, places and things that I personally recall during the period of the 1940’s, 1950’s and into the early 1960’s or to those that I faintly recall and my curiosity has moved me to seek more information from other sources. That is not to imply that this humble offering should be otherwise compared to the quality and depth of Our Town. It should not be.

This work is not intended to be an all inclusive, comprehensive, scholarly history of Grinnell, Iowa, with a preoccupation for exact dates, etc. It is simply a personal history, my recollections of the old home town during a limited period in the town’s history. When I have called on other sources, which was infrequent, I give credit to those sources in the text. I have written in my own way using a flow of words that came to me as I wrote. In a town of 8,000—9,000, as Grinnell was in those days—you eventually get to know and have some contact along the way with most people. My intent was to communicate in simple, straight forward terms and was not concerned about presenting it as a triumph in English language grammar.

Although my main objective in writing this book is to relate memories of my home town, Grinnell, I do find it necessary to include some autobiographical information—family, education, career, etc.—to put in context who is telling this story. Grinnell, Iowa is the main topic of the book, Dave Adkins is the messenger and readers should know who I am to better understand the subjects that I have chosen to pursue. In the biographical sketch which follows I provide some background on the guy who is writing this book and also mention surprise meetings of Grinnell, Iowa brothers in far-flung parts of the world.

A special thank you to Karen Groves Peterson, class of 1957, who provided a valuable service in proof-reading the text and also found the information on the Renfrow family which was used in this book. Jerry Hagen, life time Grinnellian and sports buff, and Tom Sangster, class of GHS 1946 athlete and musician who upon graduating took his many talents to the University of Iowa, were valuable contributors. Haig provided the information from the GHS yearbook about the Tiger basketball teams of 1935 and 1941 and also wrote the heartfelt tribute to his friend, Bob Kaloupek. Tom Sangster (T-Roe) responded to my email requests with some excellent information on the 1945 GHS Mile Medley Relay Team and on the Skyliner Band. Dan Kellams, a former school mate at Cornell College, wrote a well researched book as a tribute to his high school coach, Les Hipple, called A Coach’s Life and his descriptions of the Grinnell-Marion sub state battles were relevant to the present book. Also, thanks to the Drake Library for sending me information on the GHS basketball teams from 1966-1970 and a tip of the hat goes to John Pfitsch and Jim George for sharing their memories and experiences, of which, some I have included.

Everyone’s perceptions are different. My picture is different from others who have done credible books on Grinnell. I would like to recognize these authors and their previous books about Grinnell: In Old Grinnell by Dorothy Pinder and her second book, Grinnell-Then and Now: A Photo Album of Grinnell, Iowa and another work, Remembering Grinnell: 1940’s and 1950’s, by Larry Millhollin, class of 1955 at GHS, and a 1959 Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Cornell College. Dorothy’s text was carefully researched and she went into detail on many of her topics in Old Grinnell. Millholin’s book is a large, well-organized volume of varied information about Grinnell, Iowa. While my two colleagues have used photos and copies of original pieces from bygone eras to tell their stores, I have relied exclusively on the written word.

I recall when Al and Dorothy Pinder moved into an apartment in the late 40’s across the street north of our home at 1332 Main Street. We used to exchange waves, my wave usually coming from the basketball court in our backyard. They developed a good feel for Grinnell and their articles reinforced my efforts as a high school basketball player. Larry Millholin and I attended GHS and Cornell College during some of the same years. He was a very good student, a talented sketch artist, and played all sports pretty well. Milly was a scrappy guy and wouldn’t back down from anyone—as he proved on several occasions as a kid in Grinnell.

Why would anyone want to write a book about his hometown and travel back in time 50-60 years? I see this book functioning as a class reunion; that is, as a time machine. I see a reunion as a form of a time machine in which we are on special dates for a few hours placed in the company of people we haven’t seen and things we hadn’t thought of for a number of years, since the class graduated from high school. The reading of this book might bring up names and events long forgotten.

The answer to the question about why do it is that Grinnell is a favorite topic of mine and that those years are still quite clear in my mind: it is a chance to relive some of these things—to recall is to relive. I feel that I take a slight risk in the writing of this book because I know that it won’t be perfectly done and also that there will be some, even friends, who will reject the idea of my doing this project, that is, that someone they know is writing a book—that it should be reserved for those we do not know? I imagine that type of criticism will probably happen, as I found it did in the writing of Journey in Overseas Basketball, a book which I wrote and published about overseas basketball experiences. There was a strange reaction from some—like who does he think he is writing a book? I guess that putting our thoughts and ideas of a personal nature out there for public consumption and drawing attention to ourselves are touchy subjects.

Some might say that he (me) is talking too much about himself—well, I was an only child so I’m used to that business of talking about myself, and after all, it is written from my own perspective, so I reserve the right to do what I think has to be done to deliver the message. There are parts of the book that may seem like bragging to people who don’t know me. Believe me, I know the truth. I am not conceited, but humble, because I know the whole story and realize that I have done some things pretty well and also some things badly. I see my self-esteem account as balanced and some of my failures have been, and continue to be a gift, for I feel that I have wasted some valuable time along the way. The awareness of wasting time in a short life span motivates me to continue to strive to compensate with some more accomplishments as I age—for that wasted time. I welcome it as a gift of motivation, like a kick in the rear.

The story is basically that I was born and raised in Grinnell, eventually left Grinnell to seek my fortune—not bags of money, but more a treasure of varied experiences in different places of my personal interest. I admit that I have never intended to build the world through my life, but have instead used the world to build my life with the hope that I might do some good along the way, although doing good has never been the only motivator, but neither has doing harm. Learning has been my principal objective. I see my life as an experiment in learning which has required variety, movement, effort, failure, discipline and reflection. Now in this book I am looking back at Grinnell as a part of that experiment: the reflection necessary to write the book has also enhanced my goal of daily learning.

As I said before, I believe that I am only the messenger and that the message is much larger and more important than the messenger. What is the message? It is simply that growing up in Grinnell was fun, humorous and interesting and, at times, intense and it served as a springboard to spending time in other places, doing some new things and developing other interests. For example, it never occurred to me when I was taking Latin from Miss Karstens at GHS and relying on Mrs. Swaney (Lillian Swaney, Jim and Jackie’s mother) to tutor me that I would one day dedicate over a decade of my life to the study of another language, but that happened and is an important part of the experiment. This book is a combination of musings, recollections and observations. It is meant to be informative and of interest (probably to a very small audience). Nevertheless, I am willing to put all that stuff aside and to take that risk to which I have referred.

Another motive for writing this book is that I am now retired and I find that there’s nothing really very easy about taking it easy and taking it easy is not a priority with me. I need something of value to do every day, in addition to a daily physical workout, and I consider this project of value. After I have finished it, I will look for something else to tackle that has some meaning to me. In fact, I hope to have identified the next project as I approach finishing this book. I can say that I have enjoyed the entire process which has put me back in touch with some grand and glorious days and people of the past in my hometown of Grinnell, Iowa. Those days were of wonder at being alive, then a time of trying to fit in, including and following the events which provided motivation for action; then the action itself, flawed as it was and then reflection, which is the only way we learn, on the whole process. No, this book is not a psychological study of a life, it is more a walk through the years of selected parts of the 1940’s, 50’s and 60’s in Grinnell, Iowa and beyond and making observations about some of the things and people that I saw on that walk.

I was born at the Community Hospital in Grinnell, Iowa on a cold winter day of December 20, 1938 to Avery and Irene (Hedges) Adkins. Dr. O.F. Parish was the doctor in charge of the delivery. According to Ave and Irene, I greeted Dr. Parish with a squirt in the face, which he took in stride with a smile. My dad, Ave Adkins, was a barber and known as a guy who liked people, and he knew a lot of people in the town, in Poweshiek County and at Grinnell College. His friends marveled at his memory and he took pride in the ability to picture people and events from the distant past. I have inherited and developed my own ability to remember. When my dad spoke of someone or something, I figured that it was true and that it was important, so somehow I put it between my ears for safe keeping and for future use.

The ability to recall details of the past is a great source of fun and pleasure (and can also be painful as personal loss has an inevitable part in memories)—especially things and people that have to do with Grinnell. Another purpose of this book is to share my recollections of Grinnell with high school classmates from the Grinnell High School class of 1957, my brothers and sisters, and with people in general who hear about the book and are interested in what I have to say about Grinnell, Iowa. My memory may not be 100% correct in small details down loaded from 50-60 years ago, but it will seldom be far from the mark. I have double-checked gray areas. I hope you enjoy the book and I welcome your comments. The section that follows is a brief discussion of some information about Grinnell’s history. Parts of this information were secured from the internet, in particular from Wikipedia.

2. Some Information