February 2017 Laura Ingalls Wilder Events

February tends to be bad time for Laura Ingalls Wilder events since in the northern part of the country tends to have event cancelling weather, but many people buck the weather and try anyway for local events. (Would it have killed Laura to be born in May? LOL) Here are the ones on my radar.

Pepin WI

150th Celebration of Laura’s Birthday – February 4-5, 2017 – an event in Pepin, Wisconsin in honor of Laura’s 150th birthday – Details coming later, but will include activities at the replica birthplace cabin.

Burr Oak IA

Spaghetti Supper and Silent Auction and 150th Celebration – February 17, 2017 5:30pm – 7:30 pm

Ushers Ferry Historic Village – Cedar Rapids IA

Laura Ingalls Wilder Birthday Party Sunday, February 5, 2017 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm Tickets Required. (Scroll down on page to find tickets)

Pomona Public Library – Pomona CA

Laura Ingalls Wilder Gingerbread Sociable – Saturday, February 4, 2017 1:00pm – 3:00pm
http://www1.youseemore.com/pomona

Old World Wisconsin – Eagle WI

150th Birthday Party at Old World Wisconsin– February 4, 2017  10:00 am to 12:00 pm or 1:30 pm to 3:30 pm More information –Preregistration is required.

National Cowgirl Museum – Fort Worth, Texas

The National Cowgirl Museum had quit their annual Laura party a few years back so thanks to Beyond Little House for giving me a heads up for this one.

Laura Ingalls Wilder’s 150th Birthday Program – February 25, 2017 10am – 1pm

Books

New HarperCollins edition out Feb. 7, 2017 – 1st three “Little House” books, also available as single titles “Return to the world of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s classic series with this gorgeous box set, which includes hardcover, unjacketed editions of the first three Little House novels—all featuring new, iconic cover art, special forewords, and no interior art.”

NOTE: The Little House on the Prairie website uses a more extensive definition of events then I do. So check them out.

Sarah S. Uthoff is the main force behind Trundlebed Tales striving to bring the History, Mystery, Magic and Imagination of Laura Ingalls Wilder and other greats of children’s literature and history to life for a new generation. Uthoff is a nationally known Laura Ingalls Wilder authority and has presented at five of the Wilder homesites, many conferences and numerous libraries, museums, and events around the Midwest. Attend one of her programs, schedule one yourself, watch her videos, listen to her podcast, and find her on  Facebook,  Twitter,  Google+, LinkedIn, and Academia.edu. Professionally she is a reference librarian at Kirkwood Community College and director of the Oxford (Iowa) Public Library.

Flood Recovery From a 500 Year Flood

Same mark looking towards Red Cedar River

I’ve been continuing to go back through my most popular posts and update them and republish them and I’ve just made my way down to the first post I made about the Flood of 2008 which inundated both Cedar Rapids and Iowa City, Iowa where I live and work. This is another post that looking back on it now,  I realize it really wouldn’t update very well, so I decided it was time for a round up and another check in instead.  The original post still holds the record for the number of hits to a single post on my blog in one day while people were searching for information.

https://trundlebedtales.wordpress.com/2008/06/13/500-year-flood/

The after affects of the flood are still with us. Many buildings, businesses, and government agencies have been rebuilt and are now open again. In other places, especially the residential neighborhoods, it’s beginning to become clear that things aren’t going to come back. Many houses have been purchased by the city and have been demolished although you still get occasional reports where a house in the flood plain caught fire (a common event for awhile), many areas are now just empty instead of looking like a war zone. Arguments between the public and various government agencies have delayed rebuilding and flood wall construction and flood protection projects have caused ongoing problems where they have been built. Some places like the Paramont Theater have bounced back remarkably unharmed. Others like Hancher Theater and the National Czech and Slovak Library and Museum have been permanently moved and changed. Ushers Ferry, the historic village where I used to work, was especially hard hit. They lost many of their buildings and have refocused on smaller events and interactions, some very creative (like Zombie Apocolypse Survivor Camp), but much more focused on revenue generation than recreating and preserving a town. Effects both good and bad have been blamed on the flood, some with reason, some without. There are a lot of questions about how things were handled, especially as the city seems to be doubling down its bet on a casino that will likely never be built. We lost a lot in the flood, some individuals more than others, but we’re still here. This summer a hard rain came through causing some flooding and some continuing road closures, but nothing like 2008, even though it made everybody nervous as every hard rain is likely to for some years to come.

Blog Post Roundup

Below is a round up of my blog posts about the Great Iowa Flood of 2008. I left two out because of broken links. The information left in those two posts can be summed up that the following year the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art hosted an exhibit of flood and flood recovery photos and the conservation lab at the University of Iowa had put together some helpful videos that were hosted on the Gazette website for awhile.

Flood Update:
https://trundlebedtales.wordpress.com/2008/06/14/flood-update/

Flood Update 2:
https://trundlebedtales.wordpress.com/2008/06/16/flood-update-2/

Flood 2008 Damage:
https://trundlebedtales.wordpress.com/2008/07/03/flood-2008-damage-update

Flood Recovery Information:
https://trundlebedtales.wordpress.com/2008/07/06/flood-recovery-information/

Cedar Rapids Public Library Flood Update:
https://trundlebedtales.wordpress.com/2008/07/23/crlibrary-flood-update-2008

Flood of 2008 6 Month Update:
https://trundlebedtales.wordpress.com/2008/12/15/flood-6-month-update/

2010 Update on Flood of 2008:
https://trundlebedtales.wordpress.com/2010/01/05/flood-of-june-2008/

Other Sources of Information

Find information about the Flood of 2008 from other sources.

Statistics of Flood:
http://mceer.buffalo.edu/infoservice/disasters/iowa-flood-news-statistics.asp

Although it looks like it hasn’t been updated since 2013, this looks like a good start page if you want to learn more details about the flood recovery:
http://www.cedar-rapids.org/city-news/flood-recovery-progress/pages/default.aspx

2008 Flood Coverage New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/13/us/13flood.html?_r=0

2013 5 Year Anniversary Coverage New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/12/us/iowa-city-rebuilds-from-flooding-but-remains-vulnerable.html?pagewanted=all

Advice What have we learned?

-Move stuff out don’t just sandbag.
-Make copies of things and share with relatives so no single copies of family photos, etc. will be lost.
-Don’t rent bank boxes below ground level. Some of the banks around here (including at least one flooded out) say contents are not insured on their safety deposit leases. Double check yours now.
-Don’t assume that the highest flood you can remember means that the highest flood there has ever been or ever will be.
-Realize that a 500 year flood won’t come every year.
-Don’t get too distracted with pretty, projects you think you can put your name on for government recovery.
-Even if everything works out exactly right, it will still be a long hard fought battle back and somethings are gone for good no matter how badly you wish otherwise.

Sarah S. Uthoff is the main force behind Trundlebed Tales fighting to bring the History, Mystery, Magic and Imagination of Laura Ingalls Wilder and other greats of children’s literature and history to life for a new generation.Attend one of her programs, schedule one yourself, watch her videos, listen to her podcast, and find her on  Facebook,  Twitter,  Google+,  LinkedIn, and Academia.edu. She is currently acting President of the Laura Ingalls Wilder Legacy and Research Association. Professionally she is a reference librarian at Kirkwood Community College and director of the Oxford (Iowa) Public Library.

 

Lost Cuban

Cuban Sandwich

Two left undone projects recently came together nicely.  The Lost Cuban popped up in my Facebook feed about 2 months ago. For a silly reason, I’d been wanting to visit a Cuban restaurant and I couldn’t believe that there was one as close to Cedar Rapids. I’d been plotting how to get to one the next time I hit a larger urban center. My library friend Nancy had said once again that we needed to find a time we could go to lunch so I suggested the Lost Cuban. She agreed and with a little bit of back and forth we set up a time and date. After overcoming the first confusing hurdle to park downtown (watch for another post about that), we found it easily enough.

Lost Cuban

It isn’t very big, but it’s brightly colored and friendly. There aren’t a bunch of tables, so you might want to nab one first. There are menus in a rack to the side and once you know what you want you can order at the counter. There is an interesting assortment of foreign pops (happily including my favorite Mexican Coke where they use real sugar as a sweetener) and then you have a choice of sandwiches. Although I’m not a big chicken fan normally, I was tempted to try their Arroz y Pollo (Rice and Chicken) which is a signature Cuban dish. Instead I went for their Cuban sandwich which was very good, especially with the special mango sauce that they use on their BBQ and (according to the owner) will soon be available at Hy-Vee. It was an interesting change of pace.

Foreign Pop

Besides the sandwich I had rice and black beans that were also very good.  This is what they said about the meal: “The Cuban sandwich has our roasted pork which we marinate for 3 days in a mojo sauce we make in house, a premium ham, Swiss cheese, dill pickles and mustard it is all on the only Cuban Bread in Iowa an then pressed together to make the hot sandwich. The sauce has not been named yet but we are calling it “Sweet and Sassy” as of recently, it consists of mango, pineapple, guava, habaneros and the dry rub we make for our ribs.”

The lunch crowd was present at 11:00 AM, but not overwhelming. Their contact medium of choice is Facebook and most of the week they seem to be primarily a lunch place with later hours a couple of nights a week. They also cater. So if you want to support a downtown business in the fallout area from the Flood of 2008, try something delicious and different, and get a Mexican Coke, check out the Lost Cuban. Find them on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheLostCuban

And watch a story about them on our local CBS News channel: http://www.cbs2iowa.com/community/features/signature/stories/the-lost-cuban-34.shtml?wap=0

UPDATE August 14, 2015: I didn’t have to do much updating here. I added my signature block.

Sarah S. Uthoff is the main force behind Trundlebed Tales striving to bring the History, Mystery, Magic and Imagination of Laura Ingalls Wilder and other greats of children’s literature and history to life for a new generation. Uthoff is a nationally known Laura Ingalls Wilder authority and has presented at five of the Wilder homesites, many conferences and numerous libraries, museums, and events around the Midwest. Attend one of her programs, schedule one yourself, watch her videos, listen to her podcast, and find her on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, and Academia.edu. Professionally she is a reference librarian at Kirkwood Community College and director of the Oxford (Iowa) Public Library.

OPEN FOR BUSINESS – The Hotel at Kirkwood Center

This was the news earlier this week. I’m sharing it because I’m excited about the hotel. With this opening it means that if there is ever an ice storm that I don’t want to drive home through that I can get to a hotel without crossing an interstate bridge. Thank you Kirkwood!

Sarah S. Uthoff

The Hotel at Kirkwood Center and The Class Act Restaurant are open for business. The first hotel guests, a couple from Keokuk, drove up at 8:30 last night. They enjoyed breakfast at The Class Act this morning.

Keep in mind, this facility is open to the public and all Kirkwood employees are welcome to dine and stay. There were multiple groups of employees that enjoyed dinner last night.

President Starcevich wrote an article for The Gazette as a guest columnist to appear this week. Here’s a preview of what he had to say:http://www.kirkwood.edu/site/index.php?p=23190

Update on Kirkwood’s Class Act

With its move over to the new hotel building, lots of people have asked me about the locally famous Kirkwood restaurant, The Class Act. Previously, The Class Act operated for lunch only, Monday-Thursday, 11-1, for about 12 weeks in both the spring and fall semesters. Students worked under the supervision of a chef-instructor and an instructor teaching the service element.

The new Class Act will be open for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day of the year. The restaurant and in-room dining will be fully-staffed by professionals who will work alongside and teach students in every phase of operations. The curriculum for each of the degree programs, i.e., Restaurant Management, Culinary Arts and Hotel Management, has been redesigned to take full advantage of the nature of the new lab, the teaching hotel.  The result is that the Hospitality Arts have moved to a block schedule.

Although there are no plans for any employee discount, The Hotel does plan to run a free shuttle from the main campus to and from The Hotel during lunch. At the moment, there are no plans to cater anywhere other than the president’s house. And, we’re still working on the Chef-to-Go concept. We need to operate The Hotel and the labs for a time before we will know about resuming that service.

Ushers Ferry Update May 2010

Ushers Ferry School Interior Pre-Flood

The fall out from the Floods of 2008 continues. (A fact sadly that Nashville will soon learn.) Ushers Ferry is the historic village I used to work at in Cedar Rapids. A grant from the U.S. Department of Labor paid 4-6 workers (with preference given to local workers who lost either jobs or houses during the flood) since last November and will until June 30th. 34 of 36 historic buildings were damaged or destroyed in the flood. Teresa White, director of the site, says “We’re two, three, four years ahead of where we would have been (without the grant funded workers).” The buildings not destroyed or damaged beyond repair should be fixed and should be opened in June.

Austin N. Palmer Video Uploaded

I uploaded a video this weekend showing how to visit Austin N. Palmer’s grave in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Palmer developed the Palmer Method. Check out my post about my search and more photos.

UPDATED Nov 5 2016: This post originally was posted back in 2010. I fixed the link so the embedded YouTube video and added the bit linking in the information about finding the grave. I also added my current signature block.

Sarah S. Uthoff is the main force behind Trundlebed Tales striving to bring the History, Mystery, Magic and Imagination of Laura Ingalls Wilder and other greats of children’s literature and history to life for a new generation. Uthoff is a nationally known Laura Ingalls Wilder authority and has presented at five of the Wilder homesites, many conferences and numerous libraries, museums, and events around the Midwest. Attend one of her programs, schedule one yourself, watch her videos, listen to her podcast, and find her onFacebook, Twitter,  Google+,  LinkedIn, and Academia.edu. Professionally she is a reference librarian at Kirkwood Community College and director of the Oxford (Iowa) Public Library.

Flood of June 2008

Close up of High Water Mark

Flood of June 2008 – It’s been awhile since I did a post about the flood and I figured we were about due for an update. First, let me point out the image on the left shows a green mark where the water rose to in downtown Cedar Rapids. The photo is taken from my eye level and as you can see the water reached several feet above that.  The photo in the lower right hand corner is the same mark on the pole on the left side of that photo. You can’t really see the river, but white box you can see in the distance under the skywalk is right beside the river. This street is about 3 blocks from the river and on the higher side bank.

Ushers Ferry Historic Village has partially re-opened and is once again offering programming although several buildings were destroyed in the flood and other damaged buildings remain closed. The classic pipe organs from the Paramount and Theater Cedar Rapids, once thought damaged beyond repair are currently under renovation. The National Czech and Slovak Museum has re-opened in a storefront (40 years on and they are back where they started) and their plan is to move the actual building about a block up the hill, building up a berm on the site to put it on. Some businesses, like the Czech Cottage, have returned to the Czech area others will remain in their new location and the meat market, having lost it’s grandfathered in exemption for the way they prepared meat – it tasted great – is officially closed permanently. The public library will probably be finding a new home on higher ground as it doesn’t sound like FEMA supports it going back in the same location. (Frankly I don’t know why they even tried. It’s the worse designed building I’ve ever worked in and if I’d been in charge I’d have thought tossing this albatross was the silver lining of the tragedy of the flood.)

The University of Iowa main library and Memorial Union are open again, but several buildings remain closed, including Hancher, the major performance venue on campus. A plan to rebuild it closer to downtown was scrapped when the owner of the chosen parcel of  land refused to sell. A proposal has been made to pick up Hancher and move it about two blocks to higher ground which would allow the building to be retrofitted and allow the continued use of the parking lots at the current location. However, the plan to simply rebuild elsewhere hasn’t been abandoned, so who knows?

Recent setbacks include the Corp of Engineers announcing that the planned flood control system in Cedar Rapids would cost more than it would be worth, so they are going to urge Congress not to fund it. Also, Blend, a restaurant that was one of the first downtown businesses to re-open post-flood, just announced it was going out of business. They blamed lack of support for downtown businesses post-flood, but frankly in my experience downtown restaurants have been going out of business in Cedar Rapids on a regular basis for years. (For some reason, in contrast to Iowa City or even Marion, there is almost literally NO ONE in downtown Cedar Rapids after 5 or on weekends. That was true pre-flood and it’s just too hard for many restaurants to make it on workday crowds alone. The McDonald’s even closed at 7 pm.)  The flood certainly does continue to make an impact though and I’ll update again.

Same mark looking towards Red Cedar River

Free Land

I recently got an early edition of Rose Wilder Lane’s Free Land. I thought I’d share the jacket blurb.

Story Summary –

This is the story of the days when great adventure lay in conquest of the prairies. In the eighties, when Minnesota was well settled and farmers prosperous, David Beaton left his home and started off with a pair of thoroughbreds and his young bride to make good his claim of three hundred acres of grass land in Dakota.

He was nineteen years old and made of bone and muscle. He knew farming and he had a thousand dollars, but he did not know the rigors of Dakota weather and that he was to experience artic snows, prostrating heat, misery, and hunger.

As he drove west with his little wife, he had his first sample of a blizzard. Later, he was to learn the nature of cyclones, droughts, and snows that isolated them for days in their sod-house shanty. In the spring, he came to know the tenacity of prairie grass.

The transcontinental railroads were spreading their tentacles over the country and David’s land lay along their prospective route. Over its rails, the scattered settlers hoped to transport from back east the food they needed until their farms were fruitful. But no engine of the eighties could plough through the worst of winter’s snows.

The story of David’s dangerous adventure, of his desperate fight against the elements, of his struggles to make habitations for his family and his stock is told with such force and such a wealth of detail, the publishers believe Free Land will be added to the classics of American frontier life. In this story of a stubborn pioneer, the author has surpassed her previous novel, Let the Hurricane Roar.

They said this about Rose which reuses quite a bit from her “Who’s Who and Why” article published in The Saturday Evening Post. Note where she tries to drive me crazy by saying how much she loves Iowa City where I live.

I was born in Dakota territory, in a claim shanty, forty-nine years ago come next December. It doesn’t seem possible.

My father’s people were “county family” in England: his ancestors came to America in 1630, and farming progressively westward, reached Minnesota during my father’s boyhood. Naturally, he took a homestead farther west.

Conditions had changed when I was born: there was no more free land. In the Dakotas, men said that the government put up a quarter-section against $15 and five years’ hard work on a best that a man couldn’t make a living on the land. My father won the bet. It took seven successive complete crop failures, with work, weather, and sickness that wrecked his health permenantly, and interest at 36% on money borrowed to buy food, to dislodge us from that land. I was then seven years old.

Today I’m a plump, middle-western, middle-class, middle-aged woman, with white hair and simple tastes. I like buttered popcorn, salted peanuts and bread-and-milk. I am, however, a marvelous cook of foods for others to eat. I like to see them eat my cooking. I love mountains, the sea – all the seas but the Atlantic, a rather dull ocean – and Tchaikowsky and Epstein and the Italian primitives. I like Arabic architecture and the Moslem way of life. I am mad about Kansas skies, Cedar Rapids by night, Iowa City anytime any time, Miami Beach, San Francisco, and all American boys about fifteen years old playing basketball. At the moment I can’t think of anything I heartily dislike, but I can’t understand sports pages nor what makes radio work, nor why people like to look at people who write fiction.

Update on Wind Turbines

After my last post about the wind turbines (or Giant Windmills), I was shown  this page which shows photos of a tour of the wind turbine factory here in Cedar Rapids that Kirkwood’s Ecology Committee took. I agree they give you a better perspective on the size of these giants. Take a look for yourself and thanks to Genny Yarne who took and posted the photos.

http://www.kirkwood.edu/site/index.php?p=23490