90 YEAR OLD BIRTHDAY PARTY WITH TRANSPORTATION GLITCHES

We just returned from Branson, Missouri where we attended a Birthday Party for Robert Norman who turned ninety years old and was aboard the USS Nevada when Pearl Harbor was attacked on December 7 1941. We had a wonderful time at the party. In attendance, other than Mary and I were Bob and his wife Fran and three of his sons, Bob Jr. and his wife Julie, Kim and his wife Tammi and their daughter Ellie, and Kurt. One son could not come due to weather problems. We attended a show in Branson, Dolly Parton’s Dixie Stampede. It was a great show. Sunday we went to a brunch at an old homestead next to a lake, and Sunday night we drove to a place where they have Christmas displays of figures in different settings and music. All these were great.
The transportation problems started when we left home. We were to take Air Tran from Moline to Atlanta and then to Branson. Arriving at the airport we were told our flight to Atlanta had been cancelled and they could get us out the next day. We said tomorrow would be too late so they put us on United to Chicago and then to Springfield Missouri. We arrived in Springfield and inquired about transportation to Branson. They informed us that they had no transportation to Branson. After several phone calls they sent a limousine from Branson to pick us up and take us the 60 miles to Branson.
Leaving Branson on Monday, we arrived in Atlanta with no problem but had to wait 7 hours to get the flight to Moline. We arrived in Moline after 11 PM and checked into our hotel to spend the rest of the night. Next morning was the big snow storm and we were advised not to travel. We stayed in Moline another two days and finally returned home Thursday afternoon. The roads were fine to West Branch on I 80 and it was ice the rest of the way home.
We are happy to be home.

MORE PICTURES OF MY DAD

FATHER'S DAY

Since Father’s Day is almost here, I thought I would post some pictures of my Dad that most of you have never seen.
The three pictures on top are from his school days,
In the top picture he is 5 from the left in the 2nd row.
The middle picture is of his kindergarten class and he is in the left bottom corner.
The bottom picture he is 3rd from left in the top row. Grandpa Stuelke is in the top row first on left.
The second picture.
The large picture is of my Sister Carolyn and I with Dad.
The bottom picture is a school picture. Dad is in the bottom row second from left.
The picture of Dad and I was taken when I was home on leave after basic training on my way to Guam.
The other small picture is of Dad when he was in the 7th grade.

OCTOGENARIAN

I am, as of today, an Octogenarian. This means that I have lived on this earth for eighty years since May 20 1929. I was born at my Grandpa and Grandma Stuelkes house in Nashua Iowa at eight oclock in the morning.
I have seen a lot of changes since I was born. From the Depression to World War 2, with rationing of meat and sugar and gas, and seeing collections of aluminum, grease and cloth for bandages to be sent to the battlefront.
After graduating from High School I enlisted in the Air Force in 1948 and served on Guam, Japan, Korea and France as well as in the United States.
After heing discharged from the service I returned to Cedar Rapids and took a job with American Tobacco
After two years, I started working as a painter for my Dad and went on my own and painted for over 20 years,.
When building slowed down in the 1980;s I opened up a consignment store which Mary and I ran for 22 years before we retired..
My life has given me much satisfaction and happiness. I met my wife Mary in Nashua and together we have lived almosts 50 years. This marriage is blessed wisth 5 children. Mary brought to the marriage two wonderful children in Steve and Linda and we were blessed to have three more, John and Lisa at the same time and Wendy shortly afterward.
Our children are now grown and we have grandchildren who are the light of our life.
I never thought I would live this longbut I am very happy that I am here.

MY MOM

My Mom was Ruth Charlotte Abbott Stuelke Hentsch. She was born in Imogene, Iowa on April 13 1905 and died January 3 1997 at Villisca, Iowa. She was 92 years old.
Mom attended Iowa State Teachers College in Cedar Falls and acquired her teaching certificate. She taught for one year before marrying Wendell Stuelke June 30 1928. They were divorced in 1941 and she married Martin Hentsch July 28 1945.
She taught school at Fredrika Fredriksburg,Iowa Imogene, Iowa Union, Iowa Randolph, Iowa Clarinda Iowa and Villisca, Iowa. Mom furthered her ecucation by attending The University of Southern California and the University of Nebraska at Omaha. She received her Bachelor of Science degree and spent the last years of her teaching as Principal of the grade schools in Villisca,.
My Mom was a people person. After retiring, she spent most of her time volunteering. I lived with my Mom until I was 15 and then I went to live with my Dad through the rest of High School.
My Mom spent the last ten years of her life in a nursing home in Villisca. She kept up with every happening in town and enjoyed life even though she was in the nursing home.
Fortunately my sister, Carolyn lived near the nursing home and visited Mom at the nursing home every day. I never heard my Mom complain.
On this Mother’s Day I remember my Mom and all the things she taught me. She was a wonderful lady.

MY GRANDPA ABBOTT

MY GRANDPA ABBOTT
Charles Bela Abbott was born in Barrington Illinois on June 30 1865. His middle name came from his Father, Bela Abbott. My first name came from my Grandpa Abbott. His Father died in an accident when my Grandpa was just a boy. His Mother, whom I never knew, was born in Canada as Sarah Moorhouse Dearlove. After her husband’s death she married a fellow named Otis.Grandpa married my Grandma, Nora Straight, at Grandpa’s Mother’s home on the 26th day of May 1904.
When we went to live with my grandparents Grandpa was the postmaster in Imogene, Iowa. At that time postmaster was a political appointment so when the Republicans were in office he was postmaster and when they were out so was he. When he was out he sold insurance for a living.
Grandpa’s great passions were, trains, the Civil War and the circus. He smoked cigars and chewed Sweet Mist tobacco. He accompanied my Great Grandpa Straight to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania for the 75th anniversary of the battle of Gettysburg June 29th to July 6th 1938.
Grandpa was known as Charlie or C.B. I never saw him wearing anything other than a suit, shirt and tie. He had several idiocsyncrasies indigenous to him. If we had company and his bed time at 10 PM arrived he would get up and go to bed.
He would sit in the car when he thought it was time to go home and periodically honk the horn.
He wouldn’t eat green jello because he thought it might be poison.
He would always give me the same advice. “Listen to your Grandmother ane you’ll never go wrong. I should have taken this advice more to heart.
Grandpa died on July 12 1954 in a nursing home in Shenandoah Iowa. I was in the Air Force in Japan at the time, so could not attend his funeral.

MY FIRST JOB IN THE MILITARY

After joining the Army Air Force in February of 1948 I was sent to Lackland Air Base in San Antonio Texas for basic training. I remember I was assigned to Squadron BN 7, Flight 2815. Basic training was 13 weeks.
After basic training I was to report to Camp Stoneman, California after a delay in route at home.
I reported to Camp Stoneman and was assigned to the Far East Air Force un-assigned which meant I was going overseas but didn’t know where or what I would be doing.
I shipped out of San Francisco on a troop ship and 13 days later found myself in a replacement depot on the island of Guam.
I watched the bulletin board often to see where I was going and what I was going to do.
I learned I was going to Harmon Air Base and my job classification would be 970-C. No one at the depot knew what 970-C meant. I was taken up to Harmon Air Base where I learned I would be an instsructor in the Link Trainer.
The Link Trainer was used to teach pilots instrument flying and to keep them proficient in instrument flying . The trainer consisted of what looked like a small airplane for the pilot and a desk with a device that tracked on a map the progress of the pilot on a particular mission.
The trainer in use at the time was designated ANT-18. I instructed on this trainer during my 15 months on Guam and then on a newer Link Trainer when I returned toi the States.

HOME IN IMOGENE

This photo was taken of myself, my sister Carolyn and our Dad. I was between 2 and 3 years old and Carolyn was between 1 and 2.
The picture was taken in Imogene Iowa. Everything that was there on that property is gone. The house burned and I returned several years ago and walked the property and found nothing. No landmarks and it was then I decided the place would exist only in my memory. Next to me was the pump we used as our water source. In the background is a building we called the barn, used mostly to raise chickens. To the right of Carolyn is a place we called the cave where vegetables and canned goods were stored in the winter and where we would go in case of a severe thunderstorm. This photo brings back a lot of memoriew to me.

OUR FIRST GRANDCHILD

Our first Grandchild was born on April 11 1978. A little girl named Josephine Rose. My wife Mary and our Daughter Lisa were present for the birth.She was a perfect little girl and she brought joy to our hearts and satisfaction that we had the most precious Grandchild, and we were so proud.
She has grown up and moved away and we don’t get to see her as much as we used to but the memories of her as a baby and little girl are with us always.
I have a lot of memories which, perhaps I can put into words later but suffice it to say, she will always be our little Josie.

GRANDMA STUELKE

Grandma Stuelke was happiest maintaining her home and garden. She was what I would call a typical Grandma. She loved having people at her table and seemed to never run out of food. I recall one time when I was there she had strawberry shortcake for dessert. A large crock was filled with strawberries and when that was finished she magically produced another bowl,.
She cleaned the fish and game that the men brought home. I expected the same from my wife when I got married but soon found out that Grandma was one of a kind in cleaning fish and game. When I was in the service stationed on Guam she sent me a pheasant she had canned in a tin can. What a feast I had
Grandma would start gathering flowers from the yard and her garden prior to Memorial Day. She would wrap them in wet cloth and put them in the icebox on the porch and put them on the family graves on Decoratiion Day;.
Grandma loved her grandchildren and would make us our favorite dish or dessert. My favorite was currant pie. I wish I had a piece now.
I really miss my Grandma. I have fond memories of her I will always cherish.

MY DAD'S FAVORITE PASTIME

My Dad was most happy when he was fishing or hunting. He especially enjoyed going fishing or hunting with people from his home town of Nashua, Iowa.
The top picture shows him after hunting geese with John Emmons and Billy Cook. Bill Cook was a jockey who rode at race tracks all over the country. I always heard that Johnny Emmons flew a light plane under the railroad bridge in Nashua.
The picture on the lower right shows my Dad holding a fish and Hod Strike, his brother in law cleanilng fish back of 2911 Oakoand Road in Cedar Rapids.
The picture on bottom left shows my Dad with a fellow I don’t recognize, holding up a stringer of northern pike..
My Dad could skin a squirrel faster than anyone I ever have seen do it. When I was in high school we always had fish or game in abundance.
My Dad was always ready to go fishing or hunting.

SURPRISE! SURPRISE! WE HAVE TWINS

On September 18 1961 I was watching the Jack Paar show which came on TV at 1030 PM. My wife, who was very pregnant came out of the bedroom and informed me we had better head for the hospital. I asked her why and she informed me that the water had broken. Back in my deep memories I had heard that when the water broke it would be a short time until we had a baby boy or girl.
We took off for St. Lukes hospital and, once we arrived, they put Mary in a wheel chair and took us to the maternity ward. I was very nervous and apprehensive and kept asking questions and probably getting in the way of the nurses etc. doing their duty. They sent me downstairs to check Mary into the hospital and get me out of their hair.
They asked me the usual questions about our address and other pertinent questions which I had no trouble answering. Then the lady asked me my wife’s maiden name and my mind was so full of all kinds of things that I could not, for the life of me remember her maiden name.
They then sent me back to the maternity floor and to a small room where husbands waited for the birth. I was a smoker at the time and smoked cigarettes one aftert another. Going through my mind were all kinds of things. What would the baby look like? What color hair would it have? Would it have all the parts it was supposed to have? Would the baby ever come? We were four weeks early so no Xray had been taken prior to the birth.
Shortly after midnight the nurse came in with our little boy who had been born at 12:25 AM. He weighed 5 pounds 4 ½ ounces. All I could see was his face. It was beautiful.
I breathed a sigh of relief and sat back in the chair while the nurse started to leave. As she opened the door she exclaimed, THERE’S ANOTHER ONE RIGHT BEHIND HIM.
This opened a whole new can of worms in my mind, which was full to overflowing. Would this be a boy or girl? Would this be a long wait. I had no time to wait as the nurse returned and reported we had a girl born at 12:31 AM. She weighed 5 pounds 1 ½ ounces. The nurse said she couldn’t bring the girl in as she was turning blue and they had put her in an incubator.
What do I do now? Do I dare call anyone in the middle of the night? I thought I would call my Dad. I told him we had twins but that he couldn’t come up the hospital as only the husband was allowed on the floor. He answered me with, typical of him, The hell I can’t, and It was a short time until I heard him bellowing up the hall.
We named our precious babies John Charles Stuelke and Lisa Elllen Stuelke. They finally let me in the room and we got to see both babies. They were perfect.
I returned home and thought , now I must find another bed, another high chair, anoither stroller etc. etc.
We went to the hospital to bring the twins home and the Doctor decided they couldn’t come home until they gained back to their birth weight Finally, they regained the weight and we were able to hring them home.
We have watched them grow up and, graduate from college, get married and have children of their own.. Thank God for our twins.

OUR TWO IN THE MILITARY

We have two grandchildren who are serving in the armed forces.
Megan is in the Air Force and is a Chaplain’s assistant stationed at Arlington National Cemetery.Prior to this she was stationed on Okinawa.
Sean took his boot camp in the Marines at San Diego, then was stationed in Pensacola, Florida and is, at present, finishing up his training as an Aircraft Communications/Navigation/Electrical/Weapon Systems Technician.
We are very proud of our military grandchildren.

I remember hearing her in Phoenix as the Doctor performed the ultra sound.

I remember going the Phoenis and taking her on her first stroller ride.


I remember her calling us and telling us her pet fish had died.

I remember taking her to Villisca to visit family when she was five years old and, going to the cemetaryshe noticed a grave stone with the name WEBER and asking whether or not it was her WEBER.
On this same trip, to pass the time, we made up a game we called POLICEMAN---POLICEMAN which we played all the way there and back.

I remember walking the trail with her and finding an appropriate stick to anihilate the tall weeds.

I remember going to Montreal and going to a maple sugaring=of with she and I sitting in the back of the station wagon and that it was so foggy we couldn’t see.


I remember her being a little girl who made me very proud to be her Grandpa.

Now comes a new chapter in our lives.

She and Joe informed us last evening that she was pregnant.

What a wonderful day it will be when the baby arrives.

I will be proud when this child arrives and I will be very proud to be the child’s Great Grandpa.

GRANDPA STRAIGHT

My Great Grandpa, Francis Marion Straight, came to live with us when I was three years old and stayed until his death in 1938. He was a veteran of the Civil War, having enlisted at St. Louis, Missouri, in the 23rd Missouri Infantry, Company E, at the tender age of 17. I have vivid memories of him. He wasn’t very tall but stood ramrod straight. He had a beard and goatee. His hair was pure white. His eyesight was failing which caused him to do some funny things.
The house was lacking most of the paint and the rusty nail heads on the siding were easy to see. Grandpa would sit on the porch, raise his trusty fly swatter, Whack the nail head and exclaim, "I got ‘im"! He would also get ahold of the hoe and proceed to the garden where any thing he approached was a weed. Grandma had to replant vegetables a lot. He received a government pension for his wartime service. He chewed Sweet Mist chewing tobacco and smokee cigars. One time he sent my Sister and I downtown to get him tobacco and cigars and told us to also bring him some candy. We got the right tobacco and the right cigars but messed up by bringing him BB Bats, a candy on a stick which melted and stuck to your teeth.. He got the sucker stuck in the few teeth he had and Carolyn and I weren’t very popular with him for awhile.
As I look back, the fact that I knew and could talk to someone who was there about the Civil war was an education in itself. I can still see him, sitting in the living room, my Grandpa Abbott on the drum and my Aunt on the piano, playing Civil War songs like Marching Through Geoirgia and Tramp, Tramp,Tramp the boys are marching and others while Grandpa Straight would tap his can in time to the music.

SEGREGATION

As I watched Barack Obama take the oath to be the 44tth President of the United States, my thoughts regressed to 1948, sixty years ago when I was introduced to segregation. Having been born and raised in the state of Iowa, my interaction with black people was almost nonexistant. After joining the Air Force and being processed at Fort Sheridan in Illinois, I went aboard a troop train bound for San Antonio, Texas where I was to go through basic training.
The train stopped in Tennessee and we were allowed to get off the train. For the first time I saw signs with the words, WHITE ONLY and COLORED ONLY on the rest rooms. WHITE ONLY and COLORED ONLY on water fountains and WHITE ONLY and COLORED ONLY on two different waiting rooms, the COLORED ONLY waiting room being much smaller than the WHITE ONLH one. This was a great shock to me.
Arriving at Lackland, the training base in San Antonio, I found that even in the military there was segregation and discrimination. While the white troops had two story wooden barracks the black troope were housed at the end of the base in tar paper covered barracks. This was resolved with the integration of the armed forces.

Though there are still things that need to be addressed and acted upon. Today, we witnessed the beginning of an era that was long overdue.

REGRETS

Today, perusing my mind for something to think about, I thought of the word regret.
As I think about those things I regret the most, I guess the number one regret I have is not finishing my education by going to college. For years, I have used numerous excuses as to why I didn’t go to college, but had I had the desire, I know I could have achieved that goal.
The second thing that comes to mind is something that happened quite a while ago but I will never be able to make it right.
My Mom was in a nursing home for eleven years.
We had set up a time on every Saturday when I would call her. She had no phone in her room, so had to get in her wheel chair and go to the office and await my call. One Saturday I completely forgot about the call. When I realized it, from that time on,I have a mental picture of her waiting for my call. She forgave me but this is something I regret to this day.

I was stationed at Kelly Field, San Antonio, Texas in 1949 and 1950, teaching instrument flying to pilots in a C-97 Transitional Training Unit.
Two of my friends and I decided to look over the used car lots for an automobile. We found a 1939 Bluick convertible for sale. It was a beauty, black in color with lote of chrome and the interior was in fine shape. We purchased the car for $75 or $25 each. We had a glorious time driving the car around the Texas countryside.
We had the car for almost a month, when, on our way back to the base the car listed to one side in front and would not go forward. We looked under the car and found that the front coil spring had jumped out of its base which kept the spring in place.We worked and put the spring back in place and were ready to roam again. We found that the spring popping out was a rather frequent occurance.
We decided to sell the car to someone for $50 and chalked up the loss of $25 to experience.Click on photo to enlarge.

INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES

In 1948 and 1949 I was stationed on the island of Guam. It was during this time that President Truman signed Exuctive Order 9981 which entegrated the armed forces.
We were told to report en-masse to the outdoor theatre on the base. We had no inkling what was in store for us.
Our commanding General took the stage and told us, in no uncertain terms what was in store for us. He informed us that when we woke up in the morning there may be a black soldier sleeping next to you, when you go to chow there may be a black soldier eating next to you and when you go to work there may be a black soldier working next to you.
As we left the theatre I overheard the men from the south planning for a riot the next morning. I was really scared. I went to bed knowing that the next day may be my last on earth.
I awoke the next morning and anticipating mayhem, I was overjoyed to see that everything was normal with no riot.
I contend, that had there been a forewarning of integration to take place sometime in the future, things would not have gone as smooth as they did.

THE SAGA OF THE TWO HOLER

When I was a boy, living in the little town of Imogene, Iowa, our bathroom facilities were down the hill, away from the house. In the summer time, although lime was spread, it didn’t take care of the horrific smell. In the winter, it was a horse of another color. When you opened the door and gazed at the holes, you became accutely aware that jack frost was there. There was a frost ring around each hole and, in order to do the thing you came to do, you had to drop your pants and melt the frost ring and grab for the Sears and Roebuck or MontgomeryWard catalog. This a lasting memory, not only to my mind, but also to my behind.