My Hometown

Larchwood, IA is in the Northwest corner of Iowa.  This past summer Dad and I were in the Larchwood Family Days parade in his 1918 Paige touring car.  Here's a view at the start of the parade.  Lots of memories in this scene.  The old bank, pool hall, the old Trophy Case Bar, a former grocery store, the post office, the Corner...  All these businesses have changed since I lived in the area (except the post office), but I still love the memories seeing them creates.  You CAN go home again; whether it's looking at photos, reading a story, hearing a familiar voice or walking down a street.  May you take that trip again soon.

Construction at School

This year at school, we're dealing with construction as they add additional rooms for the K-2 school to move over and join the 3-12 complex.  There are already sections to the school added on here and there with; high school, middle school and 3-5 areas.  With the addition there will be remodeling of some of the existing areas as well.
I used to have easy access to the outside, but now that is gone and replaced by the sound of construction outside my window and on the other side of the wall.  Parking and access to the school has also changed and instead of one locked door to the outside I have three, and a much longer path to walk.
Completion is scheduled for August 2011.  I have started taking photos out the old door in my hallway and hope to take weekly photos to watch the progress.  I should have started this a couple months ago but here are some beginning photos to share.

Farewell Chicken House

My Grandparents Joe and Phoebe Johnson lived in a small two room house on their farm while the "big" house was being built. They had a toddler, my aunt Joyce (b. April 1, 1924, at Moe Hospital in Sioux Falls), and made themselves at home in a two room abode that my Grandma fixed up with curtains, pictures on the wall, doilies, furniture, a cookstove and all the comforts of home. This hilltop location overlooked the Blood Run Creek valley and was close to Grandma's parents farm, below the hill. This is where my Dad was born, November 24, 1925, all 10 pounds of him. Grandpa Joe's niece, Amanda Long, came to help with the birth and do the cooking. Family lore has it that she made enough oatmeal for breakfast one morning to feed an army (of course she came from a family of 15 and obviously was used to cooking in larger quantities.)My ancestors were known to save papers and photos, but up to now we've only been able to find one photo of the little house, taken days after Calvin's birth. The family of 4 lived in the little house for only three weeks after Calvin's birth before moving into the larger family home (the home I grew up in.) Dad enjoyed the line, "I wasn't born in a barn but I was born in a chicken house."The little house became a chicken house, gone were the touches my Grandparents added to the furnishings it once held. Many years later it transformed into a storage building when Dad and some of his friends would fill it with old car parts and other miscellaneous items. Years after that one side was "cleaned out" so the west end where Calvin was born became a "cat house". Kittens and generations of cats were pampered here with left overs from family meals and other cat food Mom gave freely. In my childhood there was a line of lilac bushes going down the front of the chicken house, sheltering it from view. The clothesline was by the lilacs, including the swing at the end. Clotheslines were another childhood treat as I think back of all the blankets draped over the line and secured with a rock to create a tent to dream away the day in or venture to sleep in overnight (or part of the night.) When we were kids we'd put a ladder up on the blind side of the chicken house, facing away from the house and climb up to the roof and jump back and forth hiding from the "it" person during hide and seek. There was a junk pile out back where we put cans and bottles in an old oil barrel, things that wouldn't burn in the fire garbage. An old car was stored behind the chicken house, hidden from view so long trees grew up in the middle of the car, locking it in place next to the family garden including patches of rhubarb and winter onions.It was a little building full of history connecting us to loved ones that came down this summer. Dad started emptying the items stored in there, Mom's cats left over the years when they went to winter in Mesa and the missing or broken windows and holes in the roof and walls gave evidence it was time to retire. I came home to the farm at the end of June, prepared to help Dad empty the storage side. Many things in there had a story all their own. I found an old sled, our childhood swing, and a few other small items to rescue. There was a sewing machine my Grandma and Grandpa Wettestad got as a wedding present in 1910. We all knew it was in there but I can still hear Dad repeat, "We should have gotten this out of here a long time ago". The machine inside looked great but the wood cabinet had definitely seen better days. Out it came and has joined other family sewing machines from the old days in the machine shed. A little tug at the heart came when we came across my brother Steve's rock polisher that Dad made for him in his days of collecting rocks as a boy, another save had been made. Antique car parts, lights, tires, seats, carburetors, doors, windshields, all made their way to the scrap pile or movement into one of the garages. Plaster from the walls and ceiling had fallen amongst the clutter, broken glass and piles of nails, bolts, and other miscellaneous things scattered the floor as I finally used a rake to search for that missing treasure. What could I salvage from the building itself? I took the two doors from each end, a few windows and the sliding doors from the chicken holes. Photos were taken to capture the end of the old building, it was becoming an emotional goodbye.The day finally arrived, July 8th, when the Wulf brothers arrived with their heavy equipment to push the building down. (they also demolished a hog house and the corn crib, another posting perhaps) By luck it was the day my cousin Robin (Aunt Joyce's daughter) had come for lunch and a trip to some ancestral places in the area. We had just returned from our "tour" of the places when the big tractor trailer arrived with the caterpillar. Mom, Robin and I grabbed our cameras as Dad went out to be by the chicken house. It didn't take long to collapse the house so Robin and I could go out and rescue the couplas from the roof and pull out bricks from the chimney for a garden path. Once those things were clear the rest was crushed and compacted to be hauled away to a burn pit. I have to admit I got choked up when it first started to come down, especially when I saw Dad sitting close by to it overseeing the demolition.

Happy Father's Day!

A day set aside to honor Fathers. Any man can be a father. It takes someone special to be a dad. ~ Anonymous. How lucky I am to have had mine! A few shots of Dad through the years. Love ya Papa!

Home

Enjoying my summer, hope you are too! I'll be heading to the farm in a week and a half! There's no place like home... I painted this view of the house many summers ago.Rainbow on the farm after a storm, 2009.

Looking for letters...

I do this assignment with my students when I first hand over cameras to them. I try to get them to look at what they are filling their viewfinder with instead of just snapping photos randomly.

A high school classmate and fellow art teacher, Carol recently started gathering alphabet photos in an album on her facebook page. She invited others to add to her alphabet so I joined in the fun. Now I've started my own alphabet on my facebook page. I have multiple choices for some letters, and still have a few to find to complete the whole alphabet, but I've got the whole summer to search.
Today was the start to my vacation from school!

Love a Veteran, I do!

The only son in his family, Dad entered the U.S. Army on May 29, 1946 after having worked at Martin Bomber Plant working on B-26 aircraft in 1943 and returning to high school in Sioux Falls he was drafted into the service. He served 4 and 1/2 months in the states and 11 months 24 days as a construction foreman serving with Headquarters and Service Company, 3rd Engineer Combat Battalion in Occupied Japan, where he supervised men in construction work. He was part of the foreign presence that marked the first time in its history that the island nation had been occupied by a foreign power.

Dad was inducted at Fort Snelling, St. Paul, MN, before heading to Ft. Lewis in Washington state for his basic training. My Grandmother saved all his letters from Basic Training and it's fun to read through them to get a sense of what Dad's day to day life was like back then.

Heading to Japan, Dad went across the ocean on the Marine Swallow. The boat was jammed with about 2500-3000 soldiers. Most of them were sea sick. One guy even vomited on Dads pants and Dad tells of how he dropped them right there. No one could eat because people were getting sick at the tables all the time and it was hard to listen to that and feel hungry too.

Calvin Theodore Johnson achieved the rank of Technical 4 Corporal and wore 2 stripes over a T on his sleeve. He was in charge of various shops in a camp in Kokura, Japan. It was a Japanese Army Camp rebuilt for the U.S. Army by the Japanese. The shops included Plumbing, Paint, Electric, Carpentry, Machine and Tin.

Many of Dad's army friends called him "Box-Johnson" since he was always sending boxes of items home. Phoebe sent a family photo to Cal in Japan. A Chinese man who worked in one of the army shops Cal was in charge of painted a reproduction of the family photo. Pete Miyazaki got the finished painting to Cal after he came home and it still hangs in our family home.

Once General MacArthur was coming and they had about 5 days to make 65 mess tables - workers worked longer hours to complete them. Four mess halls collected their extra leftover food and gave it to Japanese workers for working overtime on tables. Most of the workers ate way too much, most of them hadn't had the opportunity to eat all they could in ages. (MacArthur never stopped, he just drove in and drove out.) The tables were given to Pete Miyazaki's priest who bowed and bowed and bowed in grateful thanks. Pete Miyazaki served as an interpreter for Dad on the base and became friends, staying in touch until Pete's death decades later. Before Dad went home to the U.S.A., he stopped at the priests house with Pete. Dad had taken his clothes to the laundry and he only had 1 sock to wear. He told Pete of his predicament and when taking his shoes off in the priests home the priest, through motions at Dad, stopped him. Dad asked Pete what was wrong, Pete said "He knows you only have one sock and doesn't want to embarrass you."

Calvin came back on the General John Pope. This ship had a capacity for 11,000 people but only 600 G.I.'s were on board coming home. Warm fresh showers were a rarity on the ship, one night "Hot showers!" was called out and everyone ran for their towels. Dad grabbed his and forgot he had packed glassware in all his towels. Glass went flying, while he caught some others broke. He was discharged October 8th, 1947. On his return home, he helped on the family farm. His parents moved to Sioux Falls in November of 1949. Dad and Uncle Carl Johnson, lived alone until Dad and Mom were married in 1950.

Dad's Army photos are all at home on the farm... I'll scan some someday to share and treasure.