Esther's Town

Our Neighborhood Was Rarely Dull

Our Neighborhood Was Rarely Dull Myfirst educational experiences were learning to build sand castles, to cut out paper dolls, to mold objects out of clay, and otherwise to amuse myself at Longfellow school in Des Moines. We lived on Pennsylvania Avenue, near University Avenue, while my father pondered legal niceties as assistant to Attorney General George Cosson. Father had been a serious candidate for attorney general in 1910 but decided not to run against Cosson, who apparently rewarded him with a consolation prize after being elected. In addition to the exercise I received on a long walk to school, I was permitted to gather eggs in a henhouse father built in our backyard . I also watered oat sprouts in the basement that were part of the poultry nutritional program. This operation helped keep father from longing too much for some sort of a farm atmosphere, in which he felt most comfortable. Although I enjoyed the daily visits down Pennsylvania Avenue of an ice cream wagon, which announced its presence by a tinkle bell, Des Moines life held as little attraction for me as it did for the rest of the family. However, I was to miss the long sticks of licorice from the little neighborhood store on University when we moved back to Estherville in the spring of 1912, not many months after going to Des Moines. My baby brother, Robert, was sickly and so was my mother. The Des Moines climate got blamed for their illnesses, and perhaps not unjustly. The town was heated and powered by soft coal that enveloped the capitol city in irritating smoke. A severe case of whooping cough had done baby brother no good, either. The home we moved back to in Estherville had been built by father on North Eighth Street when he and mother were married in 1902. The roof was so steep it could split a raindrop. Behind it was a chicken coop and a privy that was soon replaced by more modern 95 96 ESTHER'S TOWN First home of Maude and Nelson Lee, on North Eighth Street. facilities in an upstairs dormer that carpenters fashioned. A neighbor described the roof dormer, built for a bathroom, as a wart. For soft water we depended on rain that fell on the roof and was conveyed into galvanized steel gutters and through downspouting into a lined cistern. In the earlier days, the cistern water was pumped by hand; when the electric age arrived, an automatic pis· ton pump did the work. The cistern collected not only soft water but also whatever else happened to collect on the roof. An iceman who made a regular route supplied our household refrigeration. He brought a chunk of ice carried over his back with a pair of tongs to replenish the icebox daily. A placard in the front window informed him what size lump the housewife needed to keep her perishables cool. When we got back to Estherville, I felt put down because my Longfellow education in paper dolls did not qualify me for second grade. Of course it didn't. That was a good thing, for otherwise I would have missed the experience of first grade in a pleasant room at Lincoln school. Sunbeams produced all hues of the rainbow as they played on brilliant prisms hung at the window. That is all I remember about first grade. What I remember about second grade was a handsome bandage Dr. Bachman contrived to hold in my brains after I stooped on our back screened·in porch and split my scalp as I raised my head against the edge of an unfriendly two·by-four. No other second· Our Neighborhood Was Rarely Dull 97 grader was privileged to wear such magnificent headgear. Every kid in the room was green-eyed with envy. Third grade was memorable because a big bully who had regularly repeated all the grades opened a long pocketknife in a threatening manner when Miss Peterson reproved him. At the time I was learning to ride a bicycle, the city government apparently permitted such traffic on sidewalks. My first ride turned out badly. Not having yet learned that a cyclist should look where he wants to go, not where he doesn't want to go, I riveted my eyes ahead of me on the seat of Pat Heaton's pants. Suddenly Mr. Heaton, an elderly gentleman, found himself astride the front wheel of...