In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

What makes you think there was only one cross burning in the Buck Creek area? There were plenty of them. — Mrs. Myron Zumbach, Coggan, Iowa, telephone interview, 26 September 1994 9 rural school consolidation and the remaking of buck creek In 1918 and 1919, neither the Buck Creek pastors nor the Buck Creek community captured any headlines in the local press. Chalice’s replacement, William Baker, came highly recommended from the Methodist Episcopal church in Mechanicsville (population 812 in 1920), but he was unable to pick up where Chalice had left off in carrying forward with the reform of rural community life. Indeed, it appears that he felt there was little more to be done along these lines. Instead, he launched his pastorate with a five-week series of sermons focusing on family life.1 Apparently this more traditional emphasis was not received with much enthusiasm because at the end of the five weeks Baker announced a list of prominent speakers on various aspects of rural life who had agreed to give addresses in Buck Creek over the next year. Heading the list was the state superintendent of public instruction, Albert M. Deyoe, a personal friend of Baker.2 Little seems to have come of these initiatives. Deyoe’s lecture at Buck Creek never materialized . Deyoe canceled his visit shortly after Frank Joseph announced his candidacy to run against him for state superintendent on the Republican ticket. By midsummer 1918, the Buck Creek Parish was again searching for a new pastor. A new pastor, W. A. Odell, arrived in October,3 but he fared no better than Baker. Odell was unable to spark interest in new community-building activities of the sort that Chalice had been so successful in leading. Even his Irish sounding name aroused some concern within the church. He was not reappointed for a second year. Chalice had left very big shoes to fill. Until 174 the arrival of a Chalice protégé, A. R. Grant, in October 1919, nobody could fill them. In Grant, the Buck Creek Church’s board of trustees spied many of the same qualities Chalice possessed — youth, an old-time evangelistic style,and a commitment to obtaining all the conveniences and advantages of urban life for farm families while avoiding the disadvantages. Furthermore, he came highly recommended by Chalice himself.4 Chalice maintained close personal ties with many persons in the Buck Creek Church, and he and his family frequently returned to Buck Creek for short visits. No doubt he also maintained a keen interest in the success of the community-building effort he had begun but did not fully complete in the Buck Creek area.5 Although accepting a call to a town church, the regional superintendency he had accepted entailed heading up rural parish work in the Iowa conference for the Board of Home Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church under the general directorship of Paul L. Vogt. Buck Creek remained the centerpiece, the exemplar, for this work; hence, his success in this capacity was still linked to Buck Creek.6 When Grant arrived, the war had been over for almost a year and yet the farm economy continued to boom as agriculture in Europe struggled to get back on its feet. Because of high levels of production at prices guaranteed by the federal government, most farm families in the Buck Creek Parish continued to earn profits at a rate rivaling those of the war years. The most obvious evidence of this continuing prosperity was found in the prices landowners and speculators received from the sale of farmland. As theHopkinton Leader put it, Delaware County experienced the ‘‘greatest turnover of dirt’’ in its history in the fall of 1919 as 345 farms totaling more than 46,000 acres exchanged hands at the then unheard-of average price of $190 per acre.7 In commenting on the causes of the boom and on the future of the agricultural land market in Delaware County and the Midwest in general , W. S. Beels, the Leader editor, opined: The waves of landbuying which sweep like a blizzard over the country are popularly charged up to the activities of the landsharks, but this is far from fact. It is a crop of young folks who must get out of the home nest or shoulder out the old folks who start the booms. The young men must have farms and they are willing to pay the price. The old folks must retire and go to...

Share