Happy Halloween, readers! I hope that you all have bought candy and are ready for the wave of trick or treaters that will be swarming the streets in the coming nights. I also hope that you are ready to see some particularly spooky costumes, or that you have one yourself. If not, do not fret, because today I have some costumes ideas for you that come straight from our collection! First up in our slide show is the budget devil costume from about 1997. As you can see, this child has mastered the art of wearing a trash bag for a cape. Notice how black the black of this trash bag is, it will help the child fit in perfectly with the black of the night. In addition, we have the wonderful paper plate mask. The child has painted it with bugged-out eyes, a terrifying grin and awful horns. It is essential to bring out the horror of this costume. Of course, the piece that brings together the whole outfit is the pitchfork. In the end, this budget costume would probably cost less than $10, perfect for the frugal costume seeker. Next up on our slide show of costumes is a group of children from 1966, with the two in the middle wearing some fashionable costumes. On the left is the classic Skeleton, from the famous designer “The Human Body”. As you can see, this child has brought forth the terror of a living skeleton by having the bones sewed onto the front of his clothes. What makes his costume unique, however, is that instead of going for the classic all-black background, he has opted for a mixture of blue and black. He also appears to have some kind of hat on his skull, which unfortunately lowers the scare value of his costume. Beside him is a much different kind of costume. Instead of going all out, this child has opted for a minimalist design. The mask, who I can only assume is George Jetson, is the only part of the costume that depicts someone other than the child. It is crude, but it is effective. Both types of costumes would be good for someone who is looking to put a costume together last minute. The final slide in our slide show shows two kids from about 1942. These kids have gone all out for their costumes: the child on the left appears to be a Romani woman, and the child on the right appears to be a witch. Both of these costumes, as you can see, had much consideration put into them. They are not budget costumes, or minimalist costumes. However, these costumes are both classic examples of “non-scary” costumes that seem to be common during Halloween. Halloween is meant to be scary, people. So if you must settle for a non-scary costume, make sure that it is as good as can be. Now you all should have some ideas for Halloween costumes! As you can see, nothing much has really changed in the kinds of costumes that people wear since 1942. However, even though all these photos are children ready for trick or treating, remember that you are never too old to have a costume for Halloween!
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Hello Readers,
Sorry for the late post this week, we are rather busy here at Hometown Heritage as of late. However, there is something interesting that I would like to share with all of you. First, let me ask you this question: have you ever wondered if you, or someone you know, appeared in one of the Perry Newspapers? Well, all of us here at Hometown Heritage are excited to tell you that now, you can find out! We have recently installed on our public research station a database of all the Perry Newspapers that have ever existed from 1874 to 2013. Not only do we have this database, but it is also super simple to search! So now you can find out if you have ever appeared in The Perry Chief, or any of the other local publications. Or, perhaps you have wondered what was happening on this day 100 years ago? The database can do that as well! The database is a wonderful tool, and we are very lucky to have it. All of this is possible thanks to Mary Murphy and the Perry Public Library. They were the ones who put in the hard work to create this database, and then shared it with us. For this reason, we would like to extend a big thank you to Mary and the Perry Public Library! I highly encourage anyone to come down either to Hometown Heritage in the Town Craft Building (see the below map if you do not know where we are), where we have this database on our public research computer, or to the library to have a look at the database, and conduct a search for their own name. Not only could you find something interesting in the database, but there is plenty of fun and exciting things here at Hometown Heritage as well. Plus, it gets a little lonely down here. So please, do not hesitate to come down and take a look! Good Afternoon readers!
Today, instead of talking about something that we have here at Hometown Heritage, I am going to tell you about a building that many of you have probably seen here in Perry. The building in question is the Jones building. This building is behind Fareway, and has the word “Jones” carved across the top. Currently, the Jones building functions as a group of apartments. However, people did not always live in the building. So let us learn about the buildings history! Before we can learn about what the original use of the building, it is important to learn about the man who built it. A man named C. Durant Jones is behind the creation of the building. He had a wife named Ida, and two kids named Horton and Lois. Jones was also a man of many talents. He was a newspaper publisher, a writer, a minister, a politician, a lecturer, a businessman, a temperance leader, a builder and contractor, a realtor, and a one point he was even the mayor. He also owned and operated the Jones Business College and a cement plant. Jones resided in Perry from 1904 to 1928, before he moved to Texas and hosted a radio show there. Now, onto the building itself. Construction of the Jones building occurred between 1912 and 1913 by C. Durant Jones. He used reinforced concrete for the outside (which came from his own cement plant of course), and oak for the interior. However, how did people use this building when it C. Durant Jones first built it? Well, the first floor housed offices for the Chautauqua, and, maybe you guessed it, a college occupied rest of building. This college was the Jones Business College. The college did not last long, however, and it closed after 1921 and the building converted to apartments. Now, many of you may be wondering what the Chautauqua is, since it was part of the building. I do not know much about it myself, but we do have a book about it here at Hometown Heritage. From what I can gather, the Chautauqua was a movement that started in the small town of Chautauqua, New York. A Methodist Episcopal minister started it along with an inventor named Lewis Miller. Chautauqua was, and still is, an educational movement, encouraging adults to continue learning and growing everyday of their lives. C. Durant Jones was a big supporter of this, and so he built the building not only as a college to continue people’s education, but also as a building to house the Chautauqua movement, which he organized in Perry in 1910 and incorporated in 1912. So now you know all about the Jones building! Next time you happen by it, perhaps when you are buying food from Fareway, take a moment to remember what it stands for, and try to keep learning new things every day. Hello Readers! (And sports fans!) Have you ever wondered if any famous athletes have come to little old Perry, Iowa? Well, hold on to your stadium hot dogs, because I have quite the story for you! Long ago, on an October day in 1922, Perry faced Pella in a good old-fashioned baseball game. The weather did not exactly co-operate. Everyone was worried about the game being rained out, a problem that is all too common today as well. Eventually, the game did start, and the athletes played it just like any other game. Each team took their turn, and at the end of the day, Perry won the game with a score of twelve, while Pella only had a score of four. So far, this all sounds like the average baseball game and not anything interesting at all. However, here is where this story gets amazing! Thanks to the American Legion, who paid what I can only assume was a decent amount of money, both Perry and Pella had a special member on their team: Perry had Babe Ruth, and Pella had Bob Meusel! That is right, Perry once hosted the world famous Babe Ruth thanks to the hard work and contributions of the American Legion. Not only did he come and play for the Perry team, he also stayed at the Hotel Pattee, along with Bob Meusel. In fact, if you every have the chance to stay at the Hotel Pattee, there is a photo of Babe and Bob in the bowling alley on the lower level. Most of this information comes from a very old Perry Chief. It took quite a while for me to find it, since we keep old scans of different Perry newspapers on microfilm (and I misread the dates at first as well, oops!). Still, there are many interesting things in the old newspapers. If you ever have the chance, look over some of the old newspapers you may have lying around. Not only is there bound to be some interesting stories, but also just the advertisements can hold some value and entertainment. I saw one while I was looking about a quote "swaggerest" (the ad actually uses this made-up word) villain. That, however, is a story for a different day. Salvēte (that is Latin for welcome!) readers!
Today, we are going to start a new kind of series of blog posts about something different. Normally, we would be talking about something that is interesting, or has some kind of mysterious story behind it. Starting with this post, however, we are going to be talking about some of the more ridiculous items in the collection here at Hometown Heritage. Now without sounding too offensive, these are the kinds of items that, when I first saw them, I questioned why they were actually in our collection. If you do not agree with what I think is questionable, please leave a comment and explain why! First up on the list of not-so-interesting items is a blank piece of paper. Upon first glance, this single piece of paper seems like it has no business being in our collection at all. It has nothing written on it, and there appears to be no historical value in keeping it. In fact, it looks like the kind of thing that one would toss into the trash without a second thought. However, something may make this piece of paper worth keeping: the header. Printed at the top of this piece of paper is “Hoagland Grocery Co.” and a few other things, such as the names Clyde R. Hoagland and Harry T. Hoagland. The reason this may make this piece of paper worth keeping is that Hoagland Grocery was an early grocery in Perry. It would be worthwhile to keep important documents and information about this early part of Perry’s history. That said, however, a blank charge slip from the grocery is not really an important document, nor does it reveal any important information. This comes back to something that we have talked about before on this blog: it is important to tell the younger generations the stories behind the things that you keep. For all I know, this blank piece of paper could actually be the last charge slip ever made for Hoagland Grocery. Or it could be the first one that was ever made! If this piece of paper had retained its story, it could be an amazing piece of history worth keeping in our collection. Now, however, people of my generation simply see it as something that we can toss into the trash, even if it should not be. To prevent this from happening, if any of you have information regarding this piece of paper or even Hoagland Grocery Co., plus come forward and tell us! We would be more than happy to record it so that others can remember it too. Before I go, since this is going to be an ongoing group of blog posts, I have decided to give them the title "Scraps of the Past". This is due to most of them being "scraps" of things that may have been worth keeping at one point in time, but appear to have no value now. Welcome back readers! Now, we have talked about animals on this blog once before, and that was a very interesting day. I thought that nothing out here could ever beat the wonder and curiosity that the shoulder chicken inspired in me. However, I was wrong. There is something more wonderful and curious than the shoulder chicken, and that animal is the wagon ostrich. The wagon ostrich is exactly what it sounds like. It is an ostrich, hitched to a wagon, as if that was completely normal. There is even a woman sitting on the wagon, holding the reins in her hands. That is completely amazing. I can only imagine how hard it would be to hitch an ostrich to a wagon. It seems highly unlikely to me that an ostrich would cooperate with anyone trying to do that to it. In addition, there is a fenced off area behind the wagon with a whole group of ostriches in it. Are they all wagon ostriches? Is this a family business for those ostriches? This, along with the fact that the side of the wagon reads “Los Angeles Ostrich Farm”, leads one to believe that this is some kind of tourist attraction. However, what is also of interest is why this photo is in our system. Now the details of this photo are not very plentiful. Really, all that I know comes from the title: “Kate Friedrichsen in a Wagon Pulled by an Ostrich”. What exactly does this mean? Is Kate Friedrichsen the owner of the ostrich farm? Maybe she is a tourist who stopped by and got a ride. Neither of these answers really explain why we have this photo. This question is even more curious because based on the photo. From what we can see, this wagon is in Los Angeles, or at least comes from Los Angeles. Now correct me if I am wrong, but Los Angeles does not have very much to do with little old Perry, Iowa. They are half a continent away from each other after all. The only connection that I can think of is that, perhaps, this is how Kate Friedrichsen got from Los Angeles to Perry. Perhaps she rode the entire way on a wagon drawn by an ostrich. That would be a completely new level of dedication. I doubt that I could ride in a wagon that far, let alone in a wagon drawn by an ostrich. Of course, it would also require a team of ostriches, since one is probably not strong enough to pull a wagon full of stuff. Overall, even if the reason that it is in our collection is unknown, it is still an amazing photo. If you have any amazing photos in your photo collections, please feel free to share! Hello Readers! The past couple of times I have come to you all with a mystery stemming from the lack of information in our system. However, that is not the case today! I have actually found something in our system that not only has information, but I would even say that it has an over-abundance of information. Because of this, today I will be telling you all about Seth Dayton, and his interesting, fun, somewhat unfortunate life. Seth Dayton was an early settler of Perry in 1854. He built his own brick house on Lake Robbins Road that also served as stagecoach station on the Des Moines to Fort Dodge line. The house was two stories, so Mr. Dayton probably had a fair amount of money to his name. He was married twice, and had nine children in total, three with his first wife and six with his second. So far, it seems like Seth had a pretty normal life for an early settler. However, his story quickly becomes very interesting. Let us start with his nine children. Now having nine children is not a surprising detail about an early settler, since families often needed as much help as they could get around the house and farm. The names of his first three children were Ellen, Frank, and Isabelle, and the names of five of his other children were Harry, Adeline, Eva, Jane, and Minnie. All of these names are, without trying to sound mean, common for the time and do not seem very interesting. It is his last son that has a name that stands out from the rest: Pharaoh Israel “Fez”. This name is amazingly unique. There are few people that I know of who are named Pharaoh (aside from all of the Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt), and even less people who have the nickname “Fez”. Unfortunately, there is little else to say about Pharaoh, since the article in our system is about his father and not him. Yet Seth Dayton’s family is not the only part of his life that is noteworthy. His house, aside from what I have already told you, is also very interesting. First, according to the article, Seth was a great horse race fan, and because of this, he had two horse race tracks next to his house. These tracks would get him in some big trouble later in life. According to the information in our system, he lost his farm because of horse racing: he actually bet it on a race and lost. This may not be the only reason that he lost his farm, however. According to the newspaper clipping, Seth had also built his house next to a knoll that was the site of an old Native American burial ground. I hope that I do not have to explain why this could be a problem (think Pet Sematary and the Poltergeist). It may even be possible that losing the farm in a bet was actually a good thing for the Dayton family: maybe they desperately wanted to get away from what they thought was a haunted house and farm. What about you, readers? Have any of you ever thought that you lived in a haunted house, and would do anything to fix it or leave the house? If you have, leave a comment in the space below! In addition, the house itself is still standing and is even being restored. If you want to learn more about the house, you can go to the Dallas County Conservation site by clicking here, or even drive out to see it for yourself! Greetings, readers! Today is another mystery, just like the one about the shoulder chicken. However, today’s mystery is about boats. Yes, that is right, boats. Now we do not actually have any boats here at Hometown Heritage (where would we put it, after all), but we do have something from a boat: an old life preserver (or life buoy). Glenn Theulen donated this ring, and as you can see in the picture, it was white with three P’s on it. Here lies part of the mystery. What do the three P’s stand for? Peace, Perseverance, and Patience? Or maybe Partying, Poker, and Pajamas? Unfortunately, searching Google for “PPP life preserver” only brings up a life jacket product… for dogs. What do you all think that the three P’s stand for? Contemplating the problem it seems the two most likely things that they stand for is either the name of an association or company that distributed this life preserver, or the name of the boat that it belonged too. This brings to light the second mystery of this object: where did it come from? Now obviously this came from a boat (I am not THAT silly) but where was that boat? Here in Perry there are not exactly many places to go sailing. The closest place in Perry that would count as a body of water is Frog Creek, and I highly doubt one could put a standard sized boat into that little stream. There are a few other places nearby, like Saylorville Lake or Lake Panorama, but I am not sure that a boat with this kind of life preserver would be sailing around those lakes. It seems likely to me that this life preserver belongs to a boat that was sailing somewhere out in the ocean. Maybe it was some kind of Navy boat that was used during a war? Or maybe it was just an old sailing boat, used during a vacation on the beach? Unfortunately, the answer is unknown. Once again, there is not enough information in our system here to answer these questions. If you have any answers about this life preserver (or just ideas in general) I would be very happy to hear them so that this mystery can be solved! Hello again readers! Welcome back to the Hometown Heritage blog. Here in the office we have tons of photos on the walls. Most of them are pictures of people and immigrants, in all kinds of different situations. Now I am sure that you all have heard the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” Indeed, many family photos have stories attached to them, earning them their thousand words. However, what about photos whose stories have been lost? There are many pictures like that here at Hometown Heritage. For instance, on the wall next to my desk is a picture of a man with a chicken on his shoulder. By looking it up in our system, I can find out that it is a photo of a Welshman named D. R. Jones, who was the great-grandfather of Dick Shoesmith (the original donor of the item), but that is the only information about it in the system. Yet there is so much more that this photo could tell! Questions like the location of the photo and the exact date of the photo are unanswered. Even the biggest question, why does D. R. Jones have a chicken on his shoulder, is unanswered. Was it a pet chicken? Or was it a random chicken he found out in the wild and it happened to jump on his shoulder and stay there? Or maybe it is a stuffed chicken that he is posing with? Since there was little information recorded at the time of the picture’s donation, it is impossible to know for sure if any of those reasons are true. Because of this, it is important to record as much as possible for every photo. Without that information, the full story of a photo is lost. Think about the pictures that you have in your house. Can you remember the story behind every photo? Or have some of these pictures lost their meaning, because no one is around to tell their stories, or not enough information has been recorded? I know that in my home, there are photos of people (purchased in an auction for the frames they were in) that we lovingly call great-grandma and grandpa, even though they are completely unrelated to us. In fact, we have absolutely no idea who these people are. They may not even be real for all we know! Still, their pictures may be worth a thousand words, but without a voice, their words and stories are lost. So remember to tell the stories of your photos to whoever will listen, as we will do here at Hometown Heritage. It is important that people do not forget the history behind photos like these, so that they do not end up like D. R. Jones and his shoulder chicken (seriously, why is it on his shoulder?). We will ask Dick if he can shed some light on this question. Change – truth is I am uncomfortable with change. I’ve lived in and around Perry, Iowa much of my life, and most of that time, change has been a part of life…...
I grew up in Dawson, Iowa – my entire small and happy world was a tiny town, with neighbors that looked out for one another. Together my sister and I attended school in Dawson, walked to the grocery store and post office (located in the back of the building), and faithfully attended Sunday school at the Evangelical United Brethren Church. Looking back, with the kindness time allows, I remember my neighbors, teachers, and pastors with fondness. I’m not so sure they’d think the same of a scrappy girl and her two brothers who frequently seemed to find mischief. Let’s fast forward about 50 years, and return to Dawson, Iowa. I arrive in Dawson by bicycle, thanks to the incredible Raccoon River Valley Trail; from Perry it is 6 easy miles through woods and farm fields. That landscape has changed – 50 years ago there were many more small farmsteads between Dawson and Perry; evidence of these farms and families remains only in old photographs and aging memories. I spot the immense West Central Cooperative grain facility before arriving in Dawson; the smaller grain elevator of my youth is gone, as is the lumber yard, the school, and the gas station. The church remains, but is now a United Methodist Church, the parsonage was sold to a private individual. While I ride my bike around town, I see only change, so I return to the Raccoon River Valley Trail and ride west a little further. There, I wander through the small rural cemetery, nestled appropriately among farm fields; with the sound of the wind and bird song, I find the names of family, friends, teachers, and neighbors of my youth. |
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