The Gerald and Ena Shriver Family

By Janette Shriver Barber

  Gerald and Ena Shriver moved to Jerome in 1945. Gerald worked for the Swiss Company driving a truck. Later he worked for John Morrell's in Ottumwa. They had three girls.  Kay (Doug) Butler lives in Bettendorf, Iowa; Darlene White lives in San Francisco, California; and Janette (Gary) Barber lives in Centerville, Iowa.

  The girls attended the Jerome School until it consolidated with Seymour, where the girls all graduated from high school. The family moved to Ottumwa in 1966, where they lived until coming back to Centerville, where Janette has lived since 2000.

  Gerald Shriver died in 2001 at the age of 78. Ena died in 2009 at the age of 89.

  We all have great memories of Jerome.  We had great times at the school and at the Methodist Church and hold fond memories of all the people who attended.

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  The editor sincerely appreciates the contribution of the above article to The Jerome Journal by Janette Shriver Barber of Centerville, IA.

BORN TO FLY --- Paul Felkner

By Myrtle Felkner

  No doubt about it, Paul Felkner was born to fly. As a little kid he sometimes played with his tractor under a tree in the yard, but more often he was begging his parents for balsa wood and glue, and usurping his Dad’s workshop in the basement to build model airplanes. Later on the teen-aged girls wondered why the second date with Paul was always an airplane ride. That was an airworthiness test, ladies. (I won.)

   Paul’s dad and uncle, who farmed together, encouraged Paul to raise pigs. Every cent he earned went into a special account to buy an airplane when he was old enough for a license. At the age of 16 he began his flying lessons, but the army air corps interfered somewhat with the whole plan. He got his private license while a cadet in the corps but was married and had a baby daughter before that money was invested in his first plane, a small Luscombe. A temporary runway ran criss-cross through a hay field, with a small tin hangar at one end. Paul, Myrtle and baby Barbara flew countess hours in that little Luscombe. (Barbara never learned to fly, but she married a pilot, too.)

   Hard times in the fifties made new demands on the small family. Finally, Paul reluctantly sold the Luscombe in order to buy a few dairy cows, hoping for some steady income in addition to the egg money! As times got better and farming improved, Paul got a Stinson, a Taylorcraft, a Cessna 172, and eventually he and a couple friends went together to buy a twin-engine Apache. (The family had increased to three children; what’s a man to do?)

Paul Felkner in His Plane

   In the meantime, Paul had joined the Ottumwa Chapter 409 of the Experimental Aircraft Association, an international group of pilots with a passion for building their own airplanes. Here he made friendships that lasted his whole life and still influence the lives of his family. Months of pondering, a decision made, Paul bought the blueprints for an Acro 1 airplane, developed by Paul Poperezny. When Myrtle saw the blueprints, however, tension increased in the household: Where do I sit in this airplane? Paul immediately exchanged the blueprints for an Acro 2, which is a two-seated version with Myrtle’s seat plainly designated. With peace in the family again, Paul began to build. And build. And build. Nine and a half years later, Paul flew his craft off the new Felkner runway, flew the required 40 hours that the FFA requires before he can take a passenger, and then took off with another pilot and best friend for the International Convention of the EAA in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. The year was 1992, just fifty years since Paul had graduated from high school and entered the air corps.

   Paul’s aircraft won the “Lindy” award that year in Oshkosh; in 1995 it won the Paul Poberezny Craftsmanship Award.  Reserve Grand Champion followed at aircraft events at Bartlesville, Oklahoma and Best in Class, Experimental Aircraft at Blakesburg, Iowa.

But the certificate Paul was proudest of was his Young Eagles Award for having given over one hundred youth their first ride in an airplane.

   Paul had begun to build a second airplane when he died in 2007. An honor guard of his buddies flew over the cemetery at his burial.

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  The editor sincerely appreciates the contribution of the above article and picture to The Jerome Journal by Mrytle Felkner of Centerville IA and Joan Felkner of Iowa City IA.

Second Anniversary of The Jerome Journal

  Today marks the second anniversary of The Jerome Journal!  Over the past two years we've made over 700 posts to it covering a wide variety of information about the community, its organizations and its families.  Since starting the Journal, I've expanded into several other related projects.  As I look to the future, the Jerome/Lincoln Township Area Historical Project will have several components:
  (1) A continuation of The Jerome Journal though which folks can share information, documents, pictures about the Jerome/Lincoln Township area, its schools, churches, organizations, businesses and families.
  (2) A Jerome Cemetery Database with information about those buried in Jerome based on the cemetery records, gravestones, death records and obituaries.  Also, to a lesser extent databases of those buried in Miller, Farmer and Stewart Cemeteries in Lincoln Township; plus information on those Jerome/Lincoln Township folks buried in Oakland Cemetery in Centerville, Felkner and Numa Cemeteries in Bellair Township, and Southlawn and Jones Cemeteries in Wayne County.  John Glenn has shared with me the plat map of the Jerome Cemetery which identifies to whom each of the lots were sold; I've taken pictures of all of the gravestones in the Jerome Cemetery; and I'm searching the death records of Appanoose County which identify Jerome as the place of burial.
  (3) A Jerome-Lincoln Township Community Tree database, similar to the new "community trees" on FamilySearch.org, using AncestralQuest software which will be compatible with the newFamilySearch website when it is opened to non-LDS members. It provides he means to include photographs, audio clips and documents, as well as full documentation of sources. To achieve any significant success, this will require the participation and contribution of others of individual family trees which can be combine through GEDCOM files.  I am seeking volunteers who could give leadership on collecting the information on major "family founders" who have left many descendants in the Jerome area. Gale Norris of Unionville MO is already gathering and contributing information on the descendants of Jacob Norris.  I am working on the descendants of John Criswell, David Hawkins, James Hagan and Reuben Alexander who form a family cluster, since David Hawkins, James Hagan and Reuben Alexander were the first of their families in Appanoose county and they each married a daughter of John Criswell.  Other early key family founders are A. W. Adamson, William Arrison, W. N. Bollman, William H. Bradley, James Buck, P. T. Butler, John G. Crist, Joseph M. Crouch, Milo Darrah, E. S. Denoon, H. C. Dukes, William W. Elliott, James Handlin, E.W. Inman, Calvin R. Jackson, Jacob Kinney, D. S. Larimer, Robert S. Lowry, John Manning, W. D. McElvain, John Moore, Henry Morlan, T. A. Murphy, Thomas Owen, Samuel Pendergast, Jonathan Rinker, S. R. Sedgwick, Jacob Shontz, Peter Sidles, Noah Stoner, Henry Thomas, A. S. Vandorn, S. C. Vanness, Samuel P. Wailes, William W. Ware, Henry Wilson, Zebida W. Wright, and many more. 
  (4) An Annotated Bibliography for Local and Family History Research in Appanoose County, Iowa, which will identify primary resources for research for folks interested in the local and family history of Appanoose County.
  (5) Landowners Maps for each of the 24 sections in Lincoln Township which identifies the original land owner (i.e. the person who purchased it from the government) of each 40-acre section, their certificate and patent numbers, date they were issued, land office which issued them, and the statute under which they purchased the land.  Later, I hope to identify the original owners of each of the lots in Jerome who purchased them from those who subdivided Jerome, i.e. Sidles, Wilson, Stevens or Buck, along with the date of purchase and recorded deed. 
  Everyone is invited to participate in these projects.  Please contribute your ideas and suggestions for making it possible. 

BACK -- After a Break from Blogging

  In mid-June we left Pennsylvania for a trip to the Midwest to attend a memorial service for Francia's parents at Northfield MN and to spend time in Appanoose County IA doing research.  It was a productive and enjoyable trip.
  On the last day of our 8-day stay in Appanoose County, my computer went "blue screen."  When I returned home the Geek Squad was able to retrieve all of my data so nothing was lost.  After three trips to the computer shop I decided it was time for a new computer.  Took three weeks to get the new computer, then had to install all of my programs and data.  By then I had my old computer working pretty well, so I've ended up with two computers and have learned how to keep the data synchronized on them so I have things working pretty well now.
  Had a minor surgical procedure in September, made a trip to South Carolina for my annual reunion with my three sisters and had cataract surgery after I returned from which I am still recovering.  In SC, my sister had a box of pictures and historical material for me to review and scan, including copies of four issues of The Tomahawk from the Seymour Schools.
  During this time I was able to continue my research and start the organization of the pictures and information I gathered in Appanoose County.
  We had a wonderful 8-days in Appanoose County.  We really appreciated the hospitality and assistance provided by Marion and Jane Zemo.  Marion and I were children together in Jerome, but had not seen each other in 60 years.  
  We visited the Prairie Trails Museum in Corydon, the Appanoose County Historical and Coal Mining Museum in Centerville, the Drake Public Library, the Seymour Community Library, and the Appanoose County Court House to see their resources; there are lots of opportunity for research in the area. 
  Bill Heusinkveld, Appanoose county's own historian, secured for me copies of several of the town and township histories which have been published over the years.  Also, shared with me the new edition of the Historical Atlas of Appanoose County which he first prepared in 1996.  The new edition can be secured from the Museum in Centerville and contains over 30 maps of Appanoose County with a variety of historical data on towns, roads, schools, cemeteries, churches, coal mines, post offices and railroads at different times in history.  Bill has just written his last column for the Iowegian and he has contributed his library of resources to the Museum for all to use in their research.
  Attended the meetings of the Appanoose County Historical Society and the Appanoose County Genealogical Society and met several of the volunteer leaders of these two helpful organizations, especially Gary Craver, President of the ACGS, who has been most helpful to me over the past months.
  Spent a morning with Mary Lou Hunt Matthews to review and scan materials she had secured from the late Susie Sidles.  Will be posting it on The Jerome Journal shortly.  Met with Myrtle Felkner who shared many memories of Jerome, especially of the Methodist Church.  She has since sent me several articles which I will share on The Jerome Journal with you. Attended church in Jerome on Sunday. The pastor's husband gave me a fan from the church which my father had sponsored many years ago.  Later, Marion Zemo gave me a church fan from his brother which had been sponsored by the Warnick Grocery Store. Marion came to church, as did Carl Hamm and Myrtle Felkner.  After church Marion drove us around Jerome and we tried to recall where various people had lived or where buildings had existed.  I have some pictures to share taken that day.  I also was able to get good pictures of the memorial stained-glass windows in the church.  Met briefly with Donald and Vera Purdy who were having a garage sale before their move into a new apartment; hope to visit with them again to see their pictures of the family mine and the Jerome area. Had a wonderful visit with Reavis Beer; her son, Jimmy, and daughter, Judy, were visiting which enriched the experience. 
  With several visits, I was able to photograph ALL of the gravestones in the Jerome Cemetery, plus some of the gravestones in the Miller, Felkner and Oakland cemeteries.  From John Glenn, I secured a plat map of the Jerome Cemetery which identifies to whom each of the lots were sold.  This plat, the pictures, plus some death records and obituaries will serve as resources for compiling a complete directory of the Jerome Cemetery in the coming months.
  As a result of the trip, I have lots of potential posts for The Jerome Journal in the coming weeks and months.  Check back from time to time and see the new posts.  It is great to be back to blogging about Jerome and the surrounding area, but I still need contributions of pictures and historical material from everyone; please share your family's information with others.

A Poem: The Counties of Iowa

The Counties of Iowa

Published in Annals of Iowa

Volume 13, No. 8 (April 1923), Page 619

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  In the early '70's while attending school in Adel, Iowa, a teacher, Miss Mattie Ferguson, introduced to us the following composition on "The Counties of Iowa."  If she told us the name of the author it has slipped my memory, although the lines have stayed with me. I have dictated this "poem" several times in the past for publication, but in the last few months have had a number of requests for a copy. At the suggestion of our State Librarian, Johnson Brigham, I have prepared a copy for publication in the Annuals of Iowa for preservation. 

  --Almeda Brenton Harpel, 1125 Twenty-first Street, Des Moines, Iowa.

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Our home is in Iowa, westward toward the setting sun,

Just between two mighty rivers where the flowing waters run.

We have towns and we have cities; we have many 
    noble streams;

We have ninety-nine counties and now we'll say their names.

Lyon, Osceola, Dickinson, where the Spirit Lake we see,

Emmet, Kossuth, Winnebago, Worth near Lake Albert Lea.

Mitchell, Howard, Winneshiek and Allamakee shall find

Make eleven northern counties on the Minnesota line.

Clayton, Dubuque, Jackson, Clinton, together with 
    Scott and Muscatine,

Lee, Louisa and Des Moines upon the eastern line are seen.

Van Buren, Davis, Appanoose, Decatur, Ringgold, 
    Wayne we spy,

Taylor, Page and Fremont upon Missouri's border lie.

Pottawattamie, Harrison, Mills, Monona, Woodbury, 
    Plymouth, Sioux

Are all the counties around the borders of the state we view.

Next we point to O'Brien, Palo Alto, Clay, Hancock, 
  Cerro Gordo, Floyd now see,

Chickasaw   say, Fayette, Bremer, Butler, Franklin, next upon 
    the map we see.

Wright and Humboldt, Pocahontas, Buena Vista, Cherokee,

Ida, Sac, Calhoun and Webster, Hamilton with name so rare.

Next is Hardin, Grundy, Black Hawk, Buchanan, Delaware.

Jones, Linn, Benton, Tama, Marshall, Story, Crawford, 
    Carroll, Boone,

Let us not your patience weary, we will have them 
    all told soon.

Cedar, Greene, Johnson, Iowa, and Poweshiek by the same,

Next is Jasper, Polk and Dallas, names of presidential fame.

Guthrie, Audubon, and Shelby, Cass, Madison and Adair,

Warren, Marion, Mahaska and Keokuk is there.

Henry, Jefferson, Wapello, Monroe, but Washington 
    we missed.

Lucas, Union, Clarke and Adams, and Montgomery fills the list.

A Black Utopia in the Heartland -- A Good Read!

Buxton - A Black Utopia in the Heartland

by Dorothy Schwieder, Joseph Hraba 
and Elmer Schwieder

[Iowa City, IA: University of Iowa Press, 2003]

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  From 1900 to the early 1920s, an unusual community existed in America's heartland: Buxton, Iowa, established by the Consolidated Coal Company. The majority of Buxton's five thousand residents were African Americans--a highly unusual racial composition for a state which was over 90 percent white. At a time when both southern and northern blacks were disadvantaged and oppressed, blacks in Buxton enjoyed true racial integration--steady employment, above-average wages, decent housing, and minimal discrimination. For such reasons, Buxton was commonly known as "the black man's utopia in Iowa."  Now, eighty years after the town's demise, this truly interdisciplinary history of a unique Iowa community remains a compelling story. 

  "This interdisciplinary study combines documentary materials with oral history to provide a vivid descriptive picture of Buxton ... The authors have provided an excellent work demonstrating the use of documentary evidence and personal interviews to reconstruct a picture of a community of the past ... of considerable value, particulary, for the areas of race relations and community studies."

  --Contemporary Sociology

  Dorothy Schwieder is professor emerita of history at Iowa State University and the author of, among many other books, Growing Up with the Town: Family and Community on the Great Plains (Iowa 2002), Iowa: The Middle Land, and Black Diamonds: Life and Work in Iowa's Coal-Mining Communities. Joseph Hraba is professor of sociology at Iowa State University, and Elmer Schwieder is professor emeritus of family environment at Iowa State University.

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Transcribed from the back cover of 

Buxton - A Black Utopia in the Heartland

The Only Dance in Iowa -- A Good Read!

The Only Dance in Iowa

A History of Six-Player Girls' Basketball

by Max McElwain

[Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2004]

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  Iowa six-player girls' basketball was the most successful sporting activity for girls in American history, at its zenith involving more than 70 percent of the girls in the state. The state tournament was so popular--regularly drawing fifteen thousand fans, more than the boys' tourney--that officials declined a lucrative broadcasting offer from ABC's Wide World of Sports rather than forfeit the Iowa Girls' High School Athletic Union's control of the game. The Only Dance in Iowa chronicles the one-hundred-year history of this Iowa tradition, long a symbol of the state's independence and the people's rural pride. Max McElwain shows how, well before the passage of Title IX, in 1972, Iowa six-player girls' basketball was, as Sports Illustrated gushed, "a utopia for girls' athletics." He also demonstrates how, ironically enough, the fallout from Title IX in many ways let to six-girl basketball's demise.

  Through interviews, careful ethnography, and detailed historical analysis, McElwain exposes the intricate political, sociological, and historical dynamics of this cultural phenomenon. His book reveals how six-girl basketball, flourishing with the passionate support of Iowa's small towns, school districts, and media, came to represent the state's strong traditional beliefs and the public school system's determination to maintain its identity in the face of national educational trends. The Only Dance in Iowa is as much a study of this disappearing culture as of the game it claimed as its own.

  Max McElwain, an assistant professor of communication arts at Wayne State College, is a former sportswriter for several Midwestern newspapers.

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Transcribed from the back cover of The Only Dance in Iowa.

Love amid the Turmoil -- A Good Read!

Love amid the Turmoil

The Civil War Letters of William and Mary Vermilion

Edited by Donald C. Elder III

[Iowa City, IA: University of Iowa Press, 2003]

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  William Vermilion (1830-1894) served as a captain in Company F of the 36th Iowa Infantry from October 1862 until September 1865. Although he was a physician in south central Iowa [in Iconium, Appanoose County] at the start of the war, after it ended he became a noted lawyer; he was also a state senator from 1869 to 1872. Mary Vermilion (1831-1883) was a schoolteacher who grew up in Indiana; she and William married in 1858. In this volume historian Donald Elder provides a careful selection from the hundred of supportive, informative, and heart-warming letters they wrote each other during the war.  

  Donald Elder is professor of history and chair of the department at Eastern New Mexico University in Portales.

  "What a find! This remarkable cache of Civil War letters reveals a companionate marriage of two literate, caring individuals who explore the meaning of their love and the meaning of the war that has separated them. Well illustrated and well documented, the book's pages take the reader from honesty and sensitivity to disappointment and despair. Elder proves that historical documents can be more compelling than fiction."

  --Glenda Riley, Alexander M. Bracken Professor, Ball State University

  "[These letters] make up the most complete husband-wife collection from the Civil War--most wives' letters were lost in the course of marches and battles."

  --Washington Post Magazine 

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  The above material appears on the back cover of Love amid the Turmoil.

Lights in the Old Farmhouse's Photostream

Lights in the Old Farmhouse's

Photostream on Flickr

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  This morning I came across Lights in the Old Farmhouse's Photostream on Flickr with many enjoyable and beautiful pictures of southern Iowa.  You should take a look and enjoy!

Out Here on Soap Creek -- A Good Read!

  I am reading Out Here on Soap Creek by Inez McAlister Faber (1897-1994) [Ames, IA: The Iowa State University Press, 1982].  Anyone interested in life in rural southern Iowa would enjoy this autobiography by a former Appanoose County resident.

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"Home is here on the farm with my memories."

--Inez McAlister Faber

  In 1927, Inez Faber began writing under the pen name Elizabeth Beresford. A few years later she dropped the pen name but continued to write, and for the next 25 years she wrote "A Farm Woman Speaks Up" for the Des Moines Register and Tribune and "Out Here on Soap Creek" for the Centerville Iowegian.

  This book gathers together some of Faber's columns, sprinkles them with a narrative account of her life in rural Iowa, and treats the reader to rich memories of the rural Midwest.

  Out Here on Soap Creek covers the weather, the Iowa landscape, the kind of farming practiced, the crops, the people, the animals, and the style of life in rural Iowa during the second quarter of this century. The columns tell of life on the farm, Inez and Dick's four sons, their pets, the livestock, Inez's parents and their pioneer ancestors, childhood memories and playmates, the sandpile and swing, the maple trees Inez loves, and the thrill and hard work involved in building their own home. Many of the columns included in this book involve members of Faber's family, close neighbors and friends.

  Out Here on Soap Creek is a reflection of Inez Faber's life and through these columns you will learn that her life has always been interesting. She makes these years come alive in this captivating memoir of growing into adulthood in the early part of the century.

  This book offers a chronological picture of Iowa farm life from the perspective of the woman of the family. The stories are sometimes serious, sometimes hilarious, but always touching. The experiences related are common to farm women of that ear in every part of the country.

--From the 1982 cover of Out Here on Soap Creek

Christmas Tree, Decorations Adorn Library

Daily Iowegian - 3 December 2009

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Christmas Tree, Decorations

Adorn Drake Public Library

  Three Friends of the Drake Public Library, with a little help from two high school students, pose around the Christmas tree they had just finished decorating Tuesday afternoon at the Drake Public Library. From left are Sue Sacco, of Centerville, Alexis Valentine, 16, of Jerome, Sara Runyan, 15, of Centerville, Cindy Burnside, of Moravia, Colene Chebuhar, of Centerville and Debbie Robinson, of Centerville. Chebuhar said the Friends of the Drake Public Library will be at Dannco Dec. 12 from 10 a.m.-6:30 p.m. wrapping Christmas presents.

Photo by Michael Schaffer/Daily Iowegian

Death, Burial, Obituary & Probate Records

Death Records

Burial Records

 Obituary Records

• Daily Iowegian - Search Obituaries and Other News Items.
• Davenport Public Library, Quad City Memory: Local Index Database, including obituaries, marriage announcements and other databases.
• Des Moines Public Library, Newspaper and Obituary Index, for several Des Moines newspapers.
• Lange Funeral Homes, Centerville and Moravia, Obituary Archive.
• Obituary Central - An Obituary Database.
• Quad-Cities Online - Dispatch - Argus, Search Obituaries and Other News Items.
• Thomas Funeral Homes, Centerville and Bloomfield, Obituary Archive.

Probate Records