Monday, March 8, 1938 – the county schoolhouse

Ash Wednesday had been March 2, just before my father's diary began, but the family went to mass every day that week before school.

The diary entry for March 8, following "went to mass":   

The two Heble children, Bernard and Billie, start to school. They and us were the only ones in school.

First, the correct spelling is Hebl, and that family lived on the north-south gravel road that ran along the west edge of the school.The road, now named Hebl Avenue SW, runs south to the landfill. The Hebls had 10 children.

That one-room country school was officially West Lucas No. 1 and unofficially the "Hebl School." Helen M. Cole was the primary schoolteacher who taught at the West Lucas Township country schoolhouse during the late 1930s. It was under the jurisdiction of the Johnson County Superintendent of Schools. The system of township schools eventually ended in the 1950s when West Lucas No. 1 was included in the Iowa City Community School District. 

The Iowa School Law of 1858 mandated and structured public education throughout the state. The goal was for these one-room schoolhouses to be about two miles apart, putting them within walking distance for children living on farms.

Cole was an Iowa City resident and student at the University of Iowa, and it was common for rural schoolteachers obtaining their teaching certificates from the university's education program to take such positions as they began their careers. 

As the teacher, Miss Cole was responsible not only for the daily curriculum (reading, writing, arithmetic, and geography) but also for maintaining the schoolhouse woodstove, organizing the annual Christmas pageant, and prepping the older students for the mandatory county-wide 8th-grade examinations held in Iowa City.

Frank J. Snider served as the Johnson County Superintendent of Schools from 1937-1964. He initially managed over 60 independent, local rural school districts and oversaw the professional certification of teachers.

He led the major legislative shift toward school district consolidation in the 1950s, drastically reducing the number of small country schools to form larger, more resource-rich community school systems. In 1959, he established Johnson County's first daily special education classes for children. Believing public school settings should accommodate everyone, he urged the County Board to transition a former one-room country schoolhouse, the Blackstrap School, into a dedicated daily classroom.

The Blackstrap School (also called Black Strap) was located near Highway 218 just south of the Iowa City airport.

Final thought: Miss Cole must have needed to be extremely flexible with her approach to each day as she seemed to regularly welcome then-11 year old Dorothy and my father for lessons. But the Hebls and several others from nearby farms might show up or might not. I assume many farm children were pressed into needed farm work. Dad mostly referred to others in school by their first names. He never mentioned questioning how many were in school on a particular day, but he did often "take attendance" in his diary entries. 

There were never more than eight in school. 

The school was permanently closed at the end of the 1962–1963 school year due to mandatory statewide school consolidation. In the fall of 1963, students from West Lucas No. 1 and other nearby rural country schools were absorbed into the newly constructed Lucas Elementary School in Iowa City, which was named in honor of Iowa's first territorial governor, Robert Lucas.

Our daughters Lesley and Sara attended Lucas in the 1980s and were able to walk there from our home. Buses would have been required to get West Lucas township students to the school (though later Irving Weber Elementary opened, which was much closer... but not walking distance).

Day three of dad's diary - March 6, 1938

At the risk of losing the handful of readers I can boast...

Here’s a full Sunday’s activities, from my dad's diary, dated March 6, 1938:

Went to Mass. Went to Kennedys this afternoon. Played a marble game. Went to show at Varsity. It was the “Hurricane” with Dorothy Lamour. Fair. Ate supper at Dysarts. Went to Helena’s [there was a Helena Berhens in grandma's line, though she had passed in 1909, who married Wilhelm Schnare... so maybe a daughter?]. Mom went to the mission. Played cards at Helena’s. George and I played Dorothy and Dad. We won two and they won two. It was 11:30 when we got home. Spot and Dummy Dan slept with me all night.

There’s a lot to unpack there. "Hurricane” was Dorothy Lamar’s second starting role, released in 1937, and she became famous in “female Tarzan” roles where she wore sarongs and interacted with “civilized men” in corny love stories. She most famously played a “straight woman” to Bob Hope and Bing Crosby in their series of Road pictures. Nine-year-old Johnny was not a big fan of romantic comedies, it appears.

The Varsity theater was on Washington Street, basically across the street from the Englert. The site was originally the Garden Theater, which burned down in 1932, with the Varsity replacing it that same year. In September 1968, the theater was renamed The Astro. It closed in 1991 and was torn down to become part of the U.S. Bank building. It was sort of a dump, as I remember it, but a building down was Barbara's Bake Shop, where I would buy one of their amazing chocolate cake donuts when I had a spare quarter. I have never had a better one.

Dysart's Dairy Store was located at 218 East Washington Street in downtown Iowa City during the late 1930s. I don't know when it closed, but the building was occupied by other local businesses, including Younkers department store prior to it moving to the Old Capitol Mall in 1981, and currently houses a Target.

Grandma evidently went to “the mission” regularly that year, grandpa much less often. The St. Pat’s parish hall – St. Brendan’s Hall – was located across the street from the church itself (228 East Court Street), was a vital hub for local Catholic charity work, and was informally called the mission, at least by my dad.

There was another mission known as the Iowa City Gospel Mission, run by the Mennonite community and located on Orchard Street, which provided Sunday school, spiritual guidance, and essential community support during the 1930s. There may have been others, most connected to a local church.

Our author never specifies a mission name or location, but my best guess is that grandma devoted her time to working in St. Brendan’s Hall. I would also guess that volunteering there provided many local women opportunities to interact and support one another.

Spot and Dummy Dan (a few days later referred to as Dannie) were dogs that dad was quite fond of (well, Spot, at least) and “sleeping with him all night” was a way he measured his popularity with them. There is no record of how Dorothy felt about that. Dorothy was two years older than dad, born in 1926. 

"The Kennedys" might have referred to my grandfather's parents, who lived outside Oxford, about 15 miles west. Grandma to our author was Ellen "Nellie" Mahoney Kennedy, married to James Matthew Kennedy Sr. James died in 1949, Nellie in 1968.

But considering the timeline of that Sunday, most likely is that "The Kennedys" here were my father's uncle Dennis and his wife Rachel, who lived in Iowa City, near Longfellow Elementary. They had an 8-year-old son at the time, James Edgar Kennedy (Jim), so marbles might have been a solid choice, and THAT may be the best we can come to ascertaining that my grandfather's birth name was John Edgar Kennedy. Grandpa's brother Dennis Edward Kennedy adds the possibility, however, that the brothers had the same middle name. So, crap.

 

And now for a few thoughts on my family heritage, which the diary has sparked.
I grew up thinking we were Irish, probably due to dad deciding that was the case (and who was I to know any better?). He sure loved to sing "Clancy Lowered the Boom" in assorted odd keys while driving me and brothers back from the Elks after a long day of golf. He often was a bit tipsy after some time at the "19th hole" (which would be the 10 hole since the Elks was and is a nine-hole course), and there were no seatbelts in the car. I never thought a thing of it, though I would guess my sainted mother might have had any number of choice things to say as we returned late on a summer evening.

And my grandfather John E. Kennedy could certainly claim Irish roots, with last names Fleming and Berry for his great grandmothers. My grandmother Adelaide was a Burke, with her grandmother being an O'Neill. BTW: Cornelius Burke married Catherine O'Neill and both were born in Limerick. 

She married a German fella, though, evidently not uncommon when the majority of those farming west of Iowa City were Irish or German. It wouldn't have hurt that the guy had money and land. But my grandfather could boast of a lot of Irish blood.

Today would have been my mother's 99th birthday, and she was born Barbara Fern Guffey. The Guffey clan came to America before the Revolutionary War and were the McGuffeys until about 1800. They seem to have emigrated from Scotland. But my grandpa Champ Columbus Guffey (one of the all-time great names) married Sarah Davis, whose ancestors trace back to Wales. 

But my Grandma Estella Lorena Guffey was a Bausman whose mother was a Hurst, with grandmothers named Stoft and Menzemer, and all her grandparents were born in western Germany and mostly from the Alsace-Lorraine region, which regularly shifted from Germany to France due to various wars. It is currently in France, but was in German hands when my ancestors exited Europe for the new world.

Bottom line: my father was Irish/Irish/German/Irish among his grandparents. My mother was Scottish/Welsh/German/German among her grandparents. Add them all up and that leaves me with Irish x 3, German x 3, Scottish and Welsh. 

In other words, my siblings and I are mutts. Most Americans likely are.

Two days in March, 1938

My father, John W. Kennedy, AKA Johnny and Jack and Gus, kept a diary quite faithfully for most of 1938. The first entry is dated Friday, March 4 and he was nine.

How I wish people (including myself) were explicitly encouraged (required?)  to keep a journal or diary. Maybe that's what this blog equals, I guess. But those early years are so unguarded and revealing. 

Full disclosure: I had no idea of the existence of that diary until after dad's death. 

Here’s a quick summary of the setting: The boy lived on a farm just a couple miles west of Iowa City, along with his sister Dorothy and his parents: Jack (really John E., and no one knows what that middle initial stands for!) and Adelaide. They lived in a quite large two-story house that faced south, located on the IWV (Iowa City, Williamsburg, Vinton… towns which the narrow two-lane highway connects).

Not to complicate things too much, but there were three Schnare brothers - Henry, William, and Augustus, each with a farm - and Gus shared the large farmhouse with Bill and his wife and, eventually, my grandpa and grandma and their two children. Augustus Schnare was a bachelor, and after his death in 1937, my grandfather purchased the farm. He had been farming both properties since Bill died and he would farm those lands for 42 years.

Henry's farm passed to his wife Julia in 1929, and their son Leslie eventually sold the land to the Slothowers. There is a busy road that bears that family's name at the current west edge of Iowa City.

A couple hundred yards west of the family home was a one-room schoolhouse, which is immediately mentioned in the diary in that very first entry:

Went to school. Dorothy and I were the only ones there. Played ring toss. I against Miss Cole and Dorothy. I won 12 games. They didn’t win any.

My dad was meticulous about recording winning and losing at age nine, and that was something that never really changed. A very competitive guy. The school's enrollment was no more than a dozen local children, as far as I can tell, and served grades one through eight.

The Saturday, March 5 entry:

Went to dentist. Got a tooth filled. Ate dinner at Grandma’s. Went to kattakize.

He was referring to Catechism, a tough word for even a bright nine-year-old. This was a weekly religious education class that most young Catholics attended at least through Confirmation, and was held at St. Patrick’s just south of Burlington Street. The 2006 tornado collapsed the roof and the church was basically destroyed. Many of the original bricks and other pieces were used in rebuilding the current St. Pat’s, which is now on the northeastern edge of Iowa City.

I am not certain which grandma he was referring to, but my best guess is that it was his Grandma Schnare, who had moved to a house on Gilbert Street at some point following Bill's death in 1928. They had driven to town for that dental appointment, so why not stop by Grandma's? 

I wish I could say I had vivid memories of my Grandma Schnare, but I was twelve when she died and she lived "all the way across town" from our Koser Avenue house. She was 83 when she passed, and the only image I have of her was as a tiny, wizened woman who seemed incredibly ancient to a kid. I'm not sure I ever said one word to her.

I wish I could say more, and I will certainly try to do more digging, but this is one of those many times when I devoutly wish I could grill my mom about all that. One thing becomes quite clear in the diary: the family routinely would drive into town, often multiple days per week.

Grandma Margaret (Maggie) Schnare was in her mid-60s at the time of this diary entry, and she and her late husband Bill had two daughters: Adelaide and Elsie. After Margaret died in 1963, the two Schnare farms were inherited by those sisters, and their grandchildren in turn would eventually split the land ownership 13 ways. The “owners” will continue to multipy and my estimate is that if we don’t sell that last parcel, the total owners will number in the dozens not too far in the future.

My point is to not consider that land as a future nest egg.

Dad wrapped up that Saturday entry with:

Went to the Williams’s tonight. Just talked. No fun. There are floods in California.

Our author often rated his days, using vivid terms such as “no fun” and “fun.” Clearly, a visit with neighbors that did not involve play was not a favorite and "no fun." 

The flood he mentioned was one of the worst in Los Angeles history, bringing nearly 10 inches of rain in back-to-back storms, killing over a thousand and causing what today would be nearly $2 billion in damages. That flood led to converting the Los Angeles River to concrete, which allowed the excess water to rapidly get to the ocean. 

Dad also rated the many movies he would watch downtown. That scale ranged from “bad” to “fair” to “swell,” which appears to have been his highest compliment.

The diary got me doing some research into Iowa City theaters, and eventually I discovered that the house at 528 Iowa Avenue that the family purchased in 1950 was sold by the widow of one of the town’s more flamboyant characters, who owned one of those theaters.

I plan to return to the diary and expand on it with a combination of speculation and research on Iowa City (and maybe wider world events) in the late 1930s. It would give me an excuse to do more family research.

The diary is a great example of how quickly time moves along. I would be born just a dozen years later, and I would bet serious money that nine-year-old Johnny was not imagining that turn of events.

She show did, in fact, go on!

The good news about the readers theater show is that both performances went well, the cast had a great time (they reported), the audiences were smallish (50 for each), and Kathleen was super as one of the podcasters. 

The show wrapped up the 26th seson for the Wesley Players, and the 27th season schedule includes no readers theater... so, that may mean several things. Could be that readers theater is of low interest to the artistic director and board, though they always go out of their way to thank me and tell me how important my efforts are. Could be that they have a vague idea of scheduling a "next" show in the fall or winter of 2027. Could be that small audiences eventually lead to trying things that will draw larger ones, certainly beyond 50. 

In fact, those could all be true to some extent. 

But my gut feeling is that I need to find a different "tent" to fit under -- perhaps back under the Music & Arts ministry of the church. 

I am already sketching out the vaguest outlines of a one-hour show to be presented in the church's backyard... on a small stage there, maybe in September. Having some fun with Old Testament figures and plots that could be given a modern spin (like if Moses had a podcast, with sidekick Aaron and Pharoah as special guest) might connect with youth programs at St. Luke's... without offending everyone. 

Of course, I haven't even shared the barest glimmer of that idea with the ministers yet.

New Testament parodies are more fraught, certainly.

I also have another "early" thought about creating a readers theater troupe, with a roster of those who MIGHT be interested in performing readers theater shows, as their schedules permit.

I also am well aware that I cannot be the only person capable of writing a readers theater show, so maybe the secret is to find ways to present 2-3 shows per year, with various writers. The last show roped in two guys for tech -- a sound director and a lighting director -- and they were there for both technical rehearsals and both performances. That's a lot to expect from volunteers.

Doing that three times per year? Hmmmm...

I could probably find ways to recycle shows, create a "greatest hits" of skits of some sort, or just come up with some new plot and characters... and that might be enough to provide the material. It's all TBD, I guess.

But next week, after the four-week summer course wraps up this Sunday, is for finalizing the St. Luke's history that I have been fiddling with for over two years. 

Thanks for allowing me to fiddle with readers theater ideas for a bit. 

 

Doing my part to keep live theater, well, alive

I have been writing readers theater scripts since 2021, and this weekend will see the world premier of my latest: "Not Dead Yet in Mountainville," a cozy mystery-adjacent rom com with 14 players, including Kathleen.

I had acted in two readers theater productions a few years earlier: "The Princess Bride," playing Miracle Max and the Officious Bishop, and as Andy in the two-person "Love Letters." Why I chose to do some deep research on "Young Frankenstein" in the summer of 2021 must have been due to boredom as we were coming out of the pandemic. The nice thing about adpating a script is that most of the good lines are waiting for you... all you need to do is work out how to minimize all the visual scenes that give movies their richness. Turns out to not be so easy.

I found the movie script online but also found the original stage play that Gene Wilder wrote which led to the screenplay. And then I found the script to a music version of the film, which turned out to be a bit raunchy. Certainly not "church appropriate," and the St. Luke's Fellowship Hall was the space I secured for our one performance, on Saturday, Oct. 9, 2021. 

Nine brave souls showed up for the audition night a week prior, and then I recruited two more (including Kathleen, who had never been on stage before), so we had elevent players for that show. And 75 people attended, all wearing masks, while the players were allowed to NOT wear masks. At some point, all the somewhat haphazard mask wearing will become the stuff we tell disbelieving classrooms of fourth graders...

That show's success led me to think about doing some other adaptations, and I settled on a melding of a Hallmark Holiday movies parody interspersed with famous scenes from holiday movies and TV shows. When we held the auditions for this holiday show, lo and behold but 60 people showed up. 

I recall quickly meeting with Jim and Leigh Ramsey, who had founded the Wesley Players in 2000, and with whom I had worked in numerous Wesley Players musicals, up in the front of the Sanctuary as the masses talked and joked before us. Honestly, this was one of those times when sheer panic led to a flawed but "doable" solution. 

We had the church booked for one Saturday night. There's no way all 60 could be in one show... there would be so many characters that each player would be investing four evenings (we have traditionally had three rehearsals and then just do the show) for just a few lines.

Our makeshift solution was to split the group into two casts and to present the show twice... in one night. We had an early show and a late show and I asked the cast NOT performing to add to each audience. It was crazy and wonderful and funny and (sometimes) moving. The pandemic had pretty much knocked out traditional musicals and main stage productions, so people were eager for a chance to both get together with others and have some fun acting.

That was a November show and the next year I was asked if I could come up with something for September, early in the school year. That led to "Much Ado," which was based on "Much Ado About Nothing," but with our Ben and Beatrice being teachers at the Mountainville High School. I again "stole" scenes from TV shows and movies that featured high schools.

Then came "A Mountainville Christmas Carol," with Ellie Scrooge as our mendacious character who experiences a miraculous change, and last year another holiday show, "Mr. Kringle Goes to Town," based on "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town," a 1938 Frank Capra movie that I first knew through the Adam Sandler movie version. 

The Wesley Players moved me to early June and I found out about three months ago, and June is not a great time for holiday shows. So, I opted to try a cozy mystery. They are quite popular and visible right now. The big difference this time was that I had no script to adapt. I just started. And tomorrow night, an audience will be there to see what our three days of rehearsal have produced. 

My hope is to provide this blog part two of my readers theater history next Tuesday. 

I also hope we get a few laughs. Kathleen is one of two podcasters who do a true crime podcast. It's been fun to work with her on crafting a lot of the script... in fact, we spent a very pleasant hour or so this afternoon editing some of her lines and just practicing. 

We are driving over to the church for the final tech rehearsal in 15 minutes. 

Ignoring what is right in front of us

What would happen if an American president "lost his or her mind"? 

We thought we had an answer in the 25th Amendment, but it turns out that the logical mechanisms to make activating that amendment happen depend on, well, logic. No one really anticipated a chief executive leading a cult of personality, propped up by a combination of greed and fear. 

Of course, defining what "losing your mind" looks like is what pays the bills for pundits and politicians and much of the media. And you can't ignore the clear fact that even discussing another person's mental state is both impolite and inexact. There are endless supplies of hairs to be split and "what abouts" to be suggested. 

So, the government continues to spiral into dysfunction and illogic and anger and meanness. 

But is there any doubt that, at some point in the future, the Current Occupant will be judged as not only the worst president in history but actually insane? Yes, he may be suffering from some mental illness (his narcissism and constant need for revenge) and he may be showing some dementia. 

It occurs to me that those diagnoses are both true and irrelevant. They amount to the same end: he should not be trusted with the nuclear codes or the economy or the armed forces or his social media account. 

Yet we try to remain calm as the insanity continues.

I know I tend to oversimplify, but there is only one clear reason that nothing has been done to remove our Demented Leader from office and that is the fact that the extremely rich continue to grow their riches and power. Those things may not be because of Trump but they are happening under his watch... so why rock the boat?

So sorry to advocate for class warfare, but mechanisms must be found to reduce the wealth and power of the 0.1 percent. Focused tax increases and reduced exemptions and accounting tricks would be involved, of course. And the legal fiction of money possessing free speech needs to be corrected.

There's not going to be a revolution in America. Everyone has too much money for that. I, for one, am not willing to risk my personal finances, much less my health in a revolution. You have to be either desperately poor or fanatically committed to plunge into the chaos of revolution.

Perhaps I'm too old and tired to rush to the "front lines." Perhaps I am just too timid to embrace the unknown and unknowable (until it's too late). 

And, hey, the stock market has hit record highs amidst all the chaos. 

As Mad magazine's Alfred E. Neuman would say, "What? Me worry?"

Modern problems often stem from not caring

Had lunch with some fellow geezers yesterday - two couples who have attended St. Luke's for far longer than we have been members - and one guy mentioned apropos of nothing in particular: "Isn't it funny that Trump is running for every local office, from governor to representative to dog catcher?" I assume he is a Trump voter, though that hardly seems to affect his or my everyday life.

He didn't defend our Fearless Leader but I did take his point: every ad we see on TV focuses on how the candidate will take on Trump or otherwise resist the corrupt regime currently running the country. He is likely correct in his implying that most of those candidates will not have much effect on national politics once in office. And I certainly would like to know more about what policies and philosophies they avow. 

I also heard on some talk show that a recent poll revealed that 57 percent of registered voters plan to vote in the coming midterm elections. That number seems woeful... but then I read that the normal turnout for off-year elections is 40 percent. 

A couple days ago I read that the Texas run-off on May 26 featured a 36 percent drop-off in participation for the Republican senate nomination, and that, in the end, under 10 percent of the estimated eligible Republican-leaning voters bothered to participate. 

Add in the fact that only 57 percent of eligible voters across the country are actually registered to vote, and a guy could start thinking that our democracy is not all that important to about four in ten people around us. 

I want to blame this complacency on something: poor civics education, lack of patriotism, ineffective government, or just social media, in general... but Americans have voted in low numbers for many years, through wars and depressions and recessions and long before the internet dominated everything. 

This may be a stretch, but all this reminds me that there is some "common wisdom" that about 20 percent of high school students are involved in 80 percent of school activities, from sports to clubs to performing groups. Lots of schools love to brag about their co-curricular offerings and most spend quite a large chunk of money on supporting all those offerings.

Often, parents will make decisions about where to send little Billy or Suzie based on those somewhat public activities, along with the overall academic rankings. 

So, comprehensive high schools are often gauged by how a rather small percentage of the student body does in those public situations. Is that all that different from how someone from, say, Spain, might assess the quality of the American government or society in general? 

Every day I am reminded that the Trump administration is indistinguishable from an organized crime family, blatantly fleecing us all with no immediate consequences beyond late night talk show jokes and often unhinged social media posts. 

That motivates me to cast my lonely ballot, of course, but for many Americans, nothing could convince them to exercise their fundamental right to vote. 

That is how we get a current president elected with less than half of even those who bothered to vote, and with about 236 million eligible voters and Trump receiving 77 million votes... well, that means about 33 percent of Americans elected our wannabe King. 

Just typing that makes my spirits sink. 

As Woody Allen once said, "80 percent of success in life is showing up." 

Americans, whether in high school or more generally, often choose to not show up.