What Cheer Opera House

More catch up at the end of May I visited the What Cheer Opera House for the first time. What Cheer, Iowa is now known for its opera house and the major antique sale they host on their fairgrounds 3 times a year. They were one of the first communities to restore their opera house and still keep it up as a theater. When it was first opened it was a hot ticket and acts like Porter Wagoner and the Glen Miller band played there. Now it’s mostly local talent. The first few rows are wood and the back rows are padded. It’s really a nice example. One of the Iowa Heritage episodes put out by Iowa Public Television back in the 1970s was on Main Street and showed a family coming to this opera house soon after it was restored in about 1973. It’s still worth a visit.

I also really like their antique show/flea market. I’ve gotten several things there I really liked including a Missouri extension service pamphlet that I think Laura used to move the spring. All the steps she describes in her article are there.  Check out the schedule.

http://www.whatcheerfleamarket.com/opera-house-schedule.html

Iowa Historic Preservation Alliance One-Room School Workshop

The IHPA’s one-room school workshop will be held Oct. 10 and 11, 2008 in Ames, Iowa. As always, Bill Sherman has set up a jam packed schedule. While aimed mostly at people who are involved with one-room school museums, people just interested will find it interesting as well, especially the tour of school museums the second day.

Registration will cost $30 for each day. For more information or a brochure, contact:
Bill Sherman 1-800-434-2039 or wsherman@networkiowa.com
or Carole Jensen 1-515-233-2431 or HMJensen@aol.com

They have provided one motel with a conference rate and camper parking is available. 

Also, as a preview hold the first weekend of October 2009 for the workshop to be held at Independence.  I’m going to be speaking at 2009 about one-room school lunches. Stay tuned.

Brandon IA

Catching up on some delayed stuff. I always think of Laura and the spider frying pan she describes in Little House on the Prairie when I see the advertisement for the world’s largest frying pan along I-380. They host a yearly pancake breakfast for the town with a cowboy theme, hence the giant, metal skillet. You can’t see it from the highway, in fact I was surprised it was on the opposite side of town from the Interstate in a park next to a community center, partially paid for with money from the pancake breakfast. It’s an odd town. They have some beautiful buidlings including two beautiful old bank buildings (now other things) and the cemetery at the top of the hill is beautiful and impressive, but it is an incredibly empty town now with several important things in temporary buildings and what seems to be the most important business operating out of the now converted old high school building. There isn’t much happening in Brandon, but I think it makes a nice photo op and place to stop and stretch and an unusual Laura photo for your collection. Here’s mine!

Tribute to Bob Brimacomb

I’m home again and the flood waters are receeding. They have left a big mess to clean up. It’s still too early to know just how much of a loss it will be.

On a happier note, I missed the Laura Days in Burr Oak, but they went on as scheduled. Bad weather didn’t really hit until mid-afternoon on Sunday, so I don’t think it caused too much trouble. As many of you may know, the Burr Oak Laura museum lost one of its best friends last summer. Bob Brimacomb was the husband of Ferneva Brimacomb, the former director of the site, who did such an outstanding job. Bob was with her every step of the way. He always helped them with the Days celebration and often lent a hammer or an idea when something was needed around the museum. He traveled with Ferneva to many Laura events, including the big DeSmet event of a couple of years ago where some of you may have met him. He was a Laura fan and a local historian. He was a big loss to the Burr Oak bus trip out to Malone last year and to the community every day since. To honor Bob ,the Burr Oak Laura Days parade this year featured a riderless horse, with backwards boots in the stir-ups, a symbol of a rider lost. A similar tribute was part of the JFK Presidential funeral procession. I’m sure Bob appreciated it. Ferneva shared this photo with me and gave me permission to share it.

One-Room Conference In Spite of Floods

Originally I was supposed to go to the one-room school conference in Oxford, Ohio this week. Most of the week I thought I wasn’t going to be here, but my friend LeighAnn Randak of the Johnson County Historical Society (which is currently fighting of the flood) wouldn’t be stopped. It look us 13 hours door to door, but we made it, although getting around Iowa City and I-80 were the hardest part of the trip. Illinois was fine, but we had to keep detouring around high water and road damage in Indianna.

We had a single track yesterday with subjects ranging from one-room school lunches (me) to the use of reed organs and Victorolas to the McGuffey Readers. McGuffey taught here and they have a special collection of McGuffey Readers, papers and other writings. Yesterday we saw a special display from that collection and a copy of the world’s largest book which was also currently on display (although it was unrelated). Today in addition to the program we’ll be having a tour of the McGuffey house.

Flood Update 2

The water continues to recede in Cedar Rapids, but it will be a long time before the infrastructure is repaired. There is terrible flooding in Des Moines as well. At present the only way we can get to Cedar Rapids is through Des Moines (added time 4 hours). The downtown is now visible in places and park benches and concrete planters, art work and a few sad sandbags remain on the street.  Good news that the Czech museum got out two full semi loads of materials before the water came. The Johnson County Historical Society in Coralville also got out a lot of their materials which is good because the water is very high there and still rising. 

I’m speaking at a conference tomorrow and things lined up so I decided to go. The hardest part was getting around Iowa City (only 2 bridges still open this morning and 1 due to close soon). Then we had to get out of Iowa without using I-80 (2 feet of water over the road in Cedar County). Illinois was fine, but we had a terrible time getting around the flood again in Indiana, but finally got here! Hope I can get back home!

Flood Update

The water is starting to go down in Cedar Rapids. It’s crested and dropped a little bit leaving a scum line. Iowa  City and Coralville who are on the Iowa River still have a couple of days to crest. They are going to be closing the rest of the Iowa City bridges except I-80’s.

The Cedar Rapids Public Library said that they only moved books to higher shelves. That means that most likely a lot of those books, including a very extensive and somewhat irreplaceable genealogy collection is likely gone. The clipping file which had been cut back, but one I was just getting copies out of a couple of months ago is likely gone and they lost a lot of computers.

Ushers Ferry Historic Village is in water up to the porch of the visitors center. It is likely that there is water damage to all, but 3 of the buildings (they have over 30) and the log cabin is gone. The video footage of May’s Island shows the Grant Wood stain glass window is still there. Czech village is totally under water to the awning. The Coralville strip is under water.

This afternoon we had another severe thunderstorm and hail.

500 Year Flood

Right now we’re in the middle of a 500 year flood. That means there is a 1 in 500 chance that we will have a flood this bad every year. We’ve actually had bad floods in 1851, 1929, 1961, and 1993 in Cedar Rapids. The 1929 flood was the record setter at roughly 21 feet. We’re now pushing 30 feet. 1993 was known as the year without a summer. Flood was high several times. I was working at Ushers Ferry Historic Village at the time and we watched many a day as the log cabin (the lowest point in the building) and then the depot (next in line)  were slowly surrounded, made islands, then water going in.  At the high point the water came just up to the top edge of the village green. We’re 10 feet of flood water above that.

The entire downtown is underwater up to the top of the first floor. Smulekoff’s furniture store had furniture floating around in it yesterday.  The Czech museum is in water about up to its roof. The first floor of the public library is gone.  Water has reached Mercy Hospital, which is blocks out of the 500 year flood plain, has been reached by water and been evacuated.

Upstream Vinton, home of the state School for the Blind, has been having terrible trouble. Much of the town has been evacuated. Water got into the power substation and they have been without power. Bridges going into and out of Vinton are closed. There is a shelter in the Blind School gym.

Water is 4 feet over the spillway and pouring down. The lowest parts of Iowa City are already under deep water and the water won’t crest there for four days at least.

Our farm is well out of the water because it was one of the things my grandmother insisted on when she picked it out. Several family members have lost power temporarily. A neighbor on a different power company now has a good share of one of our freezers.

Tractorcade

This week is Tractorcade, over 400 tractors of all makes and models driving through the Iowa countryside. This is their 9th year, but brother went on two of them. It’s quite a sight. A few years ago it went right by our house.

Read about it in the New York Times. Find that link and more information about the ride on their official website.

http://dev.wmtradio.com/cc-common/mainheadlines2.html?feed=119017&article=3104227
Old Tractors Don’t Die, They Just Ride in Parades

Tornados, Severe Thunderstorms, and Flooding, OH MY!

I missed Laura Ingalls Wilder Days in Burr Oak. Some things just came up, but it turns out it was lucky it didn’t work out.  Two weeks ago an EF5 tornado took out the town of Parkersburg in NE Iowa, a couple of counties away from Burr Oak. The pattern of cold and warm fronts running into each other over Iowa has continued. There was a tornado yesterday near Tama. Nothing that bad in Burr Oak, but severe thunderstorms (heavy rain, lightning, hail, and straight line winds). The build up of rain has also caused flooding, some they are predicting at over 1993 100 year flood levels. Travel is not advised in Winneshiek County and several others I would have had to drive through to get home. I hope their event wasn’t completely ruined and I invite people to visit Burr Oak during the rest of the summer, as I’m sure I will.