Lake of Three Fires

This day, sixty-four years ago, has stayed impressed on my memory while so many others have faded away. Even before I found this photo Mom took, any time I thought of Lake of Three Fires, I thought of this boat ride. Why? I'm sure I could not have been more than eight years old.
I don't remember anything else about the day, what we were doing, whether or not we were there for a picnic or if we had just been on a Sunday drive. We were with our friends and neighbors, the Moore's.
Mom and Rose Emma stayed on shore while Dad rowed us out onto the lake. Ron (in overalls) and Wayne Dale were in the stern while Betty and I were sitting with Wayne in the bow. Where were the life jackets? And is that why this memory has stayed with me? Was I afraid we were going to end up in the lake? I do think that may be the reason, because it seems like I was very anxious and very glad to be back at the dock.

Lake of Three Fires was our nearest State Park, around 20 miles from the farm. It is one of Iowa's oldest, dedicated in 1935. It was one place we could go swimming with a nice sandy beach near the shelter house and the docks where boats were rented.

I don't think I ever went down the slide, but I do remember swishing my feet through the water while swinging.

And that lodge! It was beautiful, built by the CCC. I loved the massive stone fireplace.


There was a trail from the beach area, through the woods over to the camping area with a wooden foot bridge across one of the lake inlets. I thought is was great fun to follow the trail and cross that bridge.

The other thing that always fascinated me about this state park was its name - why was it called Lake of Three Fires? A park brochure says it was named for a legend about the area: The local Potawatomi tribe joined with two others, the Objibwa and the Ottawa, to form the Three Fires Confederacy for mutual advantage and protection. Legend says they held a great council meeting in the area. Another legend says each tribe kept a fire burning the whole time they were in the area. If the fire went out, that meant they had moved on. Thus, three fires.

The park had cabins for rent even when I was young, but now it has six new all-season ones with heat, a/c and plumbing. There are trails for hiking as well as an equestrian trail. I remember at least one picnic here with my children and I kind of remember a bigger family reunion type of get-together years ago, maybe with Mom's folks, her sisters and their families.

But no memory of Lake of Three Fires stands out like the row boat ride with my Dad, brother, sister and the neighbors.

Beggars Can't Be Choosers

Moving back home in 1978 with no job and little money didn't worry me too much. I had a solid resumé with years of office experience. The NFO home office occupied three buildings on main street in my home town. They employed many people and while I didn't really want to work there, I figured if I couldn't find an office job anywhere else I would be able to get one there.
After several weeks job hunting and finding nothing and with the savings dwindling away, I applied for a job as a transit specialist with the Area XIV Agency on Aging. And got it. Again, not that it was the job I wanted, but if nothing else is on offer, you must be content with what you have. (Beggars can't be choosers!) Anyway, I figured it would be  a stop-gap measure until a real job showed up.

Driving the trolley, which is how my little blue bus was generally referred to, turned out to be one of my all-time favorite jobs. It was good to again see some of the people I had known all my life and to meet new ones I hadn't known before. I have always loved history and talking with people of my grand mothers' generation was like history coming alive.
I soon learned that being outside in all kinds of weather was preferable to sitting at a desk all day. Bonus - I got to wear my jeans to work!
In addition to driving the senior citizens to and from appointments and the meal site, I also took the children home after their mornings at head start.
In this July, 1980 photo, I am stepping into the bus, getting ready to leave home for another day of driving.

One day each week I went to the little towns of Carbon and Nodaway and brought riders to Corning to shop and go to the meal site. Once a month we took the bus to Creston for shopping in a bigger town.
And once in a while we had special trips like the one of the group here. I think we were just driving out and about in the countryside, enjoying the colors of Autumn, although they look a little dressed-up for joy-riding. Maybe we had been shopping first and then leaf-peeping.
I can still name all but three of the people in this photo even though they have been gone many years.

There were two incidents that I recall while driving the trolley, the first similar to my school bus snow story. Only this time it was ice which was the culprit. I was taking the head start kids home and only had one left to drop off. Even though it was icy, most of the roads were well-traveled and okay. But I turned onto a little-used gravel road, got part way down the hill and started slipping and sliding. I couldn't go forward or backward. After several tries I finally got out, got my little passenger out and we walked back to a farmhouse. The people there called a tow truck which came out from Lenox, the closest town. He winched the van back up to the main road and we went back around on the main roads to get the pre-schooler home.
The other incident happened again when I was taking head start children home (though not on ice). I was traveling west on a main county gravel road when I saw a car coming from the north. He had a stop sign, so I wasn't concerned. However, he didn't stop! I applied the brakes and horn. He didn't even look our way just pulled right out in front of us. I got stopped in time but it was a good fifteen minutes before I stopped shaking. Just thinking about what could have happened to those little kids in my care was enough to make me livid.
Like driving the school bus, driving the little blue bus was a job I totally enjoyed. If nothing else, it taught me that accepting a job other than what I thought I wanted to work at could turn out to be a very good experience.

Eating An Artichoke

Before Pam, the only artichokes I had ever eaten were the hearts that came out of a jar and used in a salad or on pizza.

I met her when I worked for the Taylor County Extension Service as a homemaker aide - or some such title. My job was to call on low-income families and teach them about nutrition.

This was around 1980 - when I had moved from Des Moines back to my country roots. Pam was a transplanted big city girl, moving with her three sons from Kansas City to Taylor County. Why I don't remember, for a fresh start after a divorce, I think. Anyway she met and married a local farmer and had two more boys.

We hit it off and a year or so later when she and her husband separated and we were both operating as single parents, we got together often. One of her boys was the age of my youngest son, another the same age as my daughter. While Pam and I fixed a meal, drank some wine and shared our woes over men, the kids played or talked or listened to music.

Pam always referred to her privileged childhood of growing up in a well-to-do family, shopping in the downtown department stores, eating in fancy restaurants. That must be how the subject of artichokes came up. She asked if I had ever eaten one and when I said I hadn't she decided the next time we had dinner at her house she was going to show me how to eat an artichoke.

When I first looked at this photo taken at a mall in Des Moines of Pam on the right and my daughter Kari on the left with her friend Natalie in between, I was thinking it was when Kari & Natalie had won their junior high women's history presentation and got to go to state. But it was after Kari had moved back to West Des Moines to live with her father. Pam, Natalie and I had driven up to see Kari in a play (or concert) and spend the next day with her.
It was Kari's desire to attend Valley High School, where her Dad taught, that led us to move back to the city. Pam and I stayed in touch for awhile, but gradually grew apart.

So, in 1993, when Des Moines area author, Mary Kay Shanley, wrote She Taught Me To Eat Artichokes, about a cautious meeting between neighbors and how it grew one petal at a time until the heart of friendship was exposed, I immediately thought of Pam.

And how she had taught me how to eat an artichoke.

Driving A School Bus In The Snow

Our forecast for today is one to three inches of snow. No winter storm watch. No high winds blizzard. Just snow. But it did make me think of when I drove a school bus.
I only had a part time job in 1980 and needed another. I had tried waitressing. Um, no. Then I saw an ad for part time school bus drivers. I applied and got the job contingent upon passing the driving test for a commercial license. I borrowed a truck from the Red Star Mill and passed my test on the first try.
I got a lot of opportunities driving a bus as a substitute on almost all the routes. In 1983 I got my own, full time, route. Interestingly it covered many of the same roads and areas as the bus did when I rode it as a high school student.

My route was one of the longer ones. I had to be at the bus barn by 6:45 and on the route before 7 a.m. My first pick up was a little kindergarten girl. I remember feeling so sorry for her that she had to be up and ready for the bus so early. Of course I had to make sure my own two children were awake and getting ready for their own bus pick up before I left home - but they were older. I didn't feel as bad for them. If snow was in the forecast they were awake early anyway, hoping school would be called off for the day.

There was one morning I was certain school would be cancelled. The forecast was for heavy snow and wind. But the powers that be made the decision to go ahead and send the buses out. The first seven miles out of town I was on a north-south highway. As soon as I turned west I could see the gravel road was beginning to drift. I made the first two stops and starts okay and bucked a few smaller drifts. When I made the third pick up I could see the drifts ahead were higher. There was a wind break there for the farm stead and the snow was piling up higher because of it. I got stuck.
We traveled with scoop shovels on the bus when it was snowy. I got out to scoop and the farm father came out to help. Between us we got the bus unstuck and I went on.

Everything went okay until a few miles farther when I had to pull into the driveway to pick up the children and then back around and go back the way I came. With all the snow I couldn't see the edge of the road and didn't back tightly enough. The back wheels on one side of the bus went just enough off the road that I couldn't get it out. I had to call the bus barn. They sent a wrecker out. (We called them wreckers instead of tow trucks.) They pulled the bus out. I finished my route. We were late, but I got all the kids to school. (I wasn't the only bus late that day, others had problems, too.)

THEN the decision was made to call school off early. I think it had stopped snowing by then but was still blowing and drifting. I could remember times from my own school years when buses didn't make it through their home bound routes and kids and driver ended up spending the night with some farm family. I got all my riders delivered and made it back to town. The wind went down, the sun came out. The snow started melting. If they had waited until regular dismissal time, getting the students back home would have been easier.

There were probably other times when driving the school bus was challenging - besides dealing with some of the students, I mean. But this particular day is the one that remains in my memory.

For some reason they decided they wanted ALL school personnel to have their pictures taken that year. So here is the one and only school photo of me post my own school years.

Driving a school bus was a job I enjoyed. I would have gone on driving it for who knows how many more years, but we moved back to the city the summer of '84. My bus driving days were over.

My Newest Guilty Pleasure

When I was young and read a book I particularly enjoyed, I was torn between sharing it with others and keeping it to myself. Mostly I kept it to myself. I was selfish. I didn't want anyone else enjoying 'my' discovery. This behavior lasted well into my twenties. I couldn't say why or what or when or by whose encouragement, I finally learned the pleasure of talking about my favorite reads with other book lovers. Most likely it was a matter of being older and having more social experience - learning to converse with others.
Now if I keep a new enjoyment to myself it is because I don't think there are too many people who care what I like or don't like. It's one of the truths of getting older. Who cares? I'm back to my childhood behavior of keeping good things to myself.

On a rainy Sunday morning last April, while searching for a poem about plum blossoms - which you can read here - I discovered a website which has become my newest guilty pleasure:

Each day, seven days a week, The Writer's Almanac publishes a poem. It might be a poem authored hundreds of years ago or one written last month. It might be an old favorite or something thought provoking by a poet I had yet to hear of. The poem might rhyme or be free verse; long or short. Almost always it opens my mind to looking at something in a way I had never thought of before. Yesterday's West Highland about "prim, widowed ladies" and today's Everybody Made Soups "out of the rejected, the passed over" are such poems.

Following the poem will be a "It's the birthday of..." about an author, or "On this day...." about some historical happening. I always, always find the topics interesting, often searching to read even more about someone or something mentioned.

And even though this is my newest favorite website, I am very particular about when I read it: I have a list of favorites I go through each morning, reading the news first then Facebook and e-mails and then the word of the day followed by a list of blogs.

The Writer's Almanac is my favorite. This guilty pleasure I read last.

Taking A Sunday Drive #11

The first time we stayed in Idaho was in 2006 during our nearly three-week-tour of the west. After leaving Yellowstone National Park we followed the scenic route south through Jackson eventually crossing into Idaho and stopping at Soda Springs......

.....where we had lunch and toured around the area seeing the Soda Springs Geyser which, when it was drilled into in 1934, flooded the downtown area for weeks until it was successfully capped. It is now controlled by a timer and 'goes off' every hour - just like Old Faithful at Yellowstone.

We visited most of the parks in the area including Hooper Springs where the above picture was taken and where you can sample the clear, sparkling soda water. The water from this spring was marketed nationally in the late 1800's. I filled an empty water bottle. I wasn't overly impressed by the soda water, dumping most of it out after several sips. From Soda Springs we went on to Pocatello for the night then to Oregon the next day.
In the fall of 2014 on a trip to Oregon to see Kari & Ken's new house, we overnighted in Idaho at Jerome. I was so impressed with the Best Western there that I imagined it would be my choice of hotels on any future trips that direction.

However, after seeing my son-in-law's pictures of Shoshone Falls in Twin Falls where they stayed overnight on their way here last July, I know even if we stay in Jerome on our next trip, I am definitely stopping in Twin Falls! (This photo is not Ken's - his was much better.)

When we left Portland with plans to cross Idaho at the upper narrow part on I-90 (a way we had never gone before) Kari told us how pretty Lake Couer d'Alene was early in the morning with the mist rising off it.

So we timed our overnight stay so we would be there to see the lake the next morning. She was right...very pretty. In this photo it almost looks like someone is sending smoke signals.

A short distance on down the road is Old Mission State Park. Cataldo Mission is the oldest standing building in Idaho, built in 1853.

Idaho has so many beautiful natural areas to see. I'm hoping there is another trip or two for us out to see the kids in Oregon. And you just about have to go through Idaho to do that.

The Hospital Where My Sons Were Born

Both Douglas and Preston were born in the hospital at Corning - Doug because that is where his Dad and I were living in 1962 and Preston because when he was expected in 1971 his father was in summer school in Missouri working on his master's degree. I was at home near and at work in Des Moines. The week before his due date in late July, Kari, Doug and I went to stay with my parents near Corning. Until then my younger brother (17 at the time) had been staying with me, watching over the children while I was at work and being on hand to drive me to a Des Moines hospital just in case the baby decided to come early.

I scanned the above photo from Corning's 1957 Centurama booklet which is where I was reminded of these facts about the town's new hospital: Rosary Hospital opened in 1951 and was operated by the Order of Felician Sisters. The $600,000 structure opened debt free. The building fund began when two brothers, Thomas and James Roach, bequeathed $235,000 to Catholic Charities. Father Powers, pastor of St. Patrick's Catholic Church in Corning, designated the money for a hospital to be built. Local community drives for funds brought in another $175,000 and $188,000 in federal aid was secured.

Even though there was a hospital in Corning in 1954, my baby brother was born in Creston, the same as Betty and I (before 1951). Our older brother, Ron, was born at home. I don't know why Mom didn't have Les in Corning unless it was because her doctor, Dr. Fry, was a D.O. and wasn't affiliated with Rosary Hospital. Les was born eleven days after our cousin, Jolene. She was the 500th baby born at Rosary - 500 babies in three years!

When Doug was born, as anxious as I was to be thin and get back into my jeans again, I was ready to make a deal: I would stay pregnant the rest of my life if they could just stop my labor pains.

The next day I misunderstand when they came in to change my bedding and got out of bed. A little later Sister Jovilla came in and bawled me out for it. "Young lady, the first day we only 'dangle', we do not get out of bed!" Meaning I could sit on the bed and dangle my legs, but no more than that. How times have changed!

This is a picture of the sisters in the original hospital lobby. I can't say for certain which one is Sister Jovilla. Being a Protestant, I was in awe of the nuns and fascinated by the statue in the lobby.
I don't remember if the sisters were still actively running the hospital when Preston was born.

When I got to the hospital that night I learned there were already two baby boys in the nursery. I hoped to make it three. I was very happy when I was delivered and they told me, "It's a boy!"

On the way back to my room, still a little groggy from the anesthesia and extremely thirsty, I grabbed onto the water fountain as they wheeled me by. It was next to the window into the nursery. I looked in and saw two blue blankets and one pink one. Immediately I thought they had lied to me. I was assured my baby was a boy, they had just used a pink receiving blanket.

Preston was born with lots of dark hair with exception of a patch of silver hair about the size of a half dollar. I was trying to get a picture of it in this photo taken when he was about two weeks old. You can kind of make it out just above his forehead. After he lost his baby hair his new hair was golden blonde.

The structure on hospital hill and its name have changed over the years. Parts of the original building were torn down and rebuilt. The name was changed to Mercy then Alegent. Right now it is CHI Health Mercy. The old living quarters of the Felician Sisters was torn down and another new clinic wing added in its place.

It doesn't matter what they call it, or how it changes in appearance, I will always think of it as the hospital where my sons were born.