A Bragging Grandpa's Pictures

Our First Grandson is Our Blog Here!

One week before I left the United States to come here to the Philippines, I attended my youngest US son's (Bart) wedding. He and Jamie were married a week before I boarded the big 747 jet to fly 8000 miles to meet my second wife after being widowed for almost 10 years. after getting married and living here in Cebu City for over a year, My son Bart and Jamie had an addition to their family. Micah Logan was born in February of 2007 (Hope that's right!) As Grandpa's get older their memory is not as good as it use to be.

Anyway, we have been receiving photographs from Bart and Jamie from time to time and it just occurred to me to share the latest photos that we just received today by email.

It is so cool how we are able to share these photos here on the Internet. Micah will be 2 years old next February and we are praying to be able to go to the states to visit next year sometime.

That's all for this Blog, just wanted to show off Micah to everyone that reads my Blog! - Dave

Current Happenings

Things from This Week!

I decided that in order to keep this Blog more interesting it might be good to add some narrative and pictures from what is currently going on here. This week I was able to get my digital camera working again. It just needed a little maintenance. I took some pictures that I will share with you now. This first picture is the outside front view of our duplex where we reside. It is on two levels with 3 bedroom, a kitchen, two comfort rooms (Bathrooms), a living room/dining rooms combined. The second photo is of the living room/dining room. The kitchen area is next. I may get into a little trouble showing this one because I took it while it

was not totally cleaned up. But you can see

that it is "lived in!

Evelyn was able to find an old couch and chair. She purchased it for a very low price and then a couple of weeks ago we purchased upholstery material and foam. She located an upholstery shop not too far from where we live and with some other contacts got a good deal on the material. It only took the upholstery man 2 days to make over the couch and chair. I only wish I had take a "before" picture. I took the picture at the left after it was completed.

The Other item that she was able to purchase was an antique bed that she had a neighbor lady refinish and make it look very good. She has already resold it to another doctor friend. All in all it was a very interesting week. In addition we went out to eat at a very good restaurant called Don Merto's and I had a mushroom and Swiss hamburger that was so big I had to eat it in sections. French fries and cold slaw were also included. The cost was less than a Big Mac value meal at McDonald's here!

Hope you enjoy this little diversion from the life history story. I thought it work add a little more interest to my Blog.

My Famous Tomato Soup & Grilled Cheese Sandwich

Very Simple and Good Recipe

The tomato experience in the last Blog reminds me of an extremely good tomato soup recipe. One of my favorite meals was tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. My mother-in-law from my first wife taught me how to make real tomato soup from scratch! I would make it many times in my life as it turned out. It became very important especially when I worked as a cook in a retirement home for the elderly really like it when I made the "Real Tomato Soup" with grilled cheese sandwiches. Here is the recipe:

Grandma Herman’s Real Tomato Soup & Grilled Cheese Sandwich

Ingredients

3 cans of diced tomatoes
3 cups whole milk
2 cups of V8 tomato juice (or regular tomato juice will work)
¼ cup diced green peppers
¼ cup diced onions
1 tsp Diced garlic
1 tsp baking soda (add slowly and keep stiring while adding)
1Tbs butter or Margarine

Directions
In a 2-quart sauce pan heat the milk to hot (Do not boil) as the milk heats use a 3 to 4 quart saucepan, sauté the onions, green peppers and the garlic together in 1 Tbs. of butter or margarine. (Just so the onions become clear). On medium heat, place the diced tomatoes and the V8 into the pan with the onions. Bring to a boil and simmer on low for 20 minutes. Place the soda into the tomato mixture stirring constantly (it will foam up) then carefully add the tomato mixture to the hot milk stirring continually.

NEW OLD-FASHIONED GRILLED CHEESE SANDWICH

1/2 pound Cheddar or Velveta cheese,
4 large 1/2-inch-thick slices country, pain levain or other hearty bread.
Thin slice of boiled ham makes an added flavor
3 tablespoons butter
Place sliced cheese (and ham if using) over 4 slices of the buttered bread. Cover with the remaining 4 bread slices.

In a large saute pan, melt the butter over medium-high heat. Place the sandwiches in the pan and cover. Cook until the sandwich is golden brown on the underside, about 3 minutes.
Turn with a spatula and cook the other side until golden brown and the cheese has melted, about 2 more minutes. Serve immediately.

Living with My Aunt & Cousin

Living with my Aunt and Cousin during WWII

Shortly after we originally moved to the fire station, my dad had to leave for the Navy. Mom and I were left alone in the apartment and I guess that she and my aunt Imajean, her sister decided that it would be beneficial for all to live together in my aunt and Uncle’s stucco house on 4th Avenue East. My Uncle Swede, as I called him was also in the Armed Service, the US Coast Guard.
My cousin was 2 years younger than me but we were like brothers. We shared the same bedroom and combined our toys and had a great time playing together. He had bunk beds and I’m not sure, but they may have been purchase when I moved in.

I am not exactly sure of the time when we lived together, but I know I was about five and he was three. We had wonderful times together playing our imaginary games on his bunk beds. We both had a lot of toy trucks building block, Lincoln logs and books. Every night Aunt Imagine and Mom would take turns reading to us.

Mom had a part time job working at the “Red Circle”, a very small grocery store located on about West 5th Street not too far from the Lincoln school. The owners were very good a friend of mom and dad and hired mom to help out for some extra money while dad was in the Navy. Art and Blanch Woolsteincroft were their names. They had no children but were very active in Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. Art and Blanch were to play a very important roll in my life later in my story.

Art & Blanch Woolsteincroft and Me

Art and Blanch had no children, but they did have dogs. (Two real purebred bulldogs, Pudge and Shorty). Pudge was the mother of Shorty. They took very good care of the dogs and treated them just like children. I can recall going over to their house and playing with the dogs. I also remember going to their small grocery store and watching Art cut meat for the small meat case that was there in the store.

Other things I remember about living with Aunt Imagine and Webb where the fun times Webb and I had playing in the sandbox and in the garden. In the fall after the produce was pretty well harvested from the garden, Webb and I would glean the green bean stocks and place the dried-up leftover beans and place them in containers. We did this hour after hour.

Webb and I in the sandbox

Webb and I in the garden

One particularly bad experience in the garden was when we discovered the rotting leftover tomatoes. We decided it would be fun to through them at the stucco house. Well you can about imagine what the reaction to this fun time event was to Mom and Aunt Imagine. The scolded us, I remember there were no spankings, but were given a pail of water and a rag and instructed to clean off the tomatoes from the stucco walls and deposit the remains of the tomatoes
In the garbage cans in the ally behind the house. Needless to say I have never thrown a tomato at anything since then

More about the Fire Station

I Was the Firemen's Mascot

There were about 20 to 25 volunteer firemen all together. They adopted me as their mascot, I guess. My mother lettered shirts on her sewing machine for all of the firemen with “Spencer Fire Department” on the back and each of their names over the pocket. Mom also made me a shirt, same color and design. In addition she made a raincoat, rain hat and found boots that I placed right next to all the real firemen’s equipment.

I remember also the brass pole. I was told that when we first move to the fire station I was just a little past two years old. One afternoon at nap time, I was missing from my bed. After searching everywhere, my parents found me sound asleep with my teddy bear right next to the opening to the brass pole. It was about 30 feet to the cement floor below. This prompted them to construct a wooden enclosure with a lock around the brass pole opening next to our apartment door opening.

After I was a little older, almost three, my parents told me that I had asked so many times to slide down the pole like daddy did that they finally decided to let me try. Mom said she got at the top and dad waited at the bottom and I would grasp the pole like the firemen did and slide down the 30-foot pole to the ground level 30 feet below.

Not every kid has the opportunity to live at a fire station like I did, and as I look back it was a very exciting experience. Playing on the fire trucks whenever I want to was another benefit I experienced... This, of course, was before OCIA and all their safety rules.

The fire station itself was a very interesting place. Down on the ground floor was where two very large fire trucks were parked waiting for the next time they would be called into action. My dad was assigned to the Laverne fire truck when we first moved there. Ted, the other full-time fireman, was assigned to a smaller and older fire truck. A pull cord next to the trucks opened the large doors at the front of the station. One pull and they would rise to allow the trucks to pass out of the station. I recall there were large springs that allowed the doors to open automatically. This was again before all the new electronic garagedoor openers.

The main part of the fire station where the trucks were parked,was a very large area to me at the age of 3. In the rear behind the trucks was a rack where the firemen placed their boots, raincoats right next to mine! There was also a very large workbench where Ted repaired things, I guess. Ted did most of the repair work there at the fire station because my dad was working, when he was not ‘on call’ as a mechanic for my grandpa Rich during the day.

At the very rear of the ground level of the fire station was an area where mom and dad did our laundry. There was also a shower room, again very large in my eyes as I remember it, used where the firemen could shower. There were also lockers placed there for the personal items belonging to the firemen.

Dad always helped mom with the laundry, when he was home in the evenings, because, I guess it was very dark and a little scary going way back there in the dark. I remember we had a Maytag wringer type washing machine. There were also two rinse tubs that my grandpa Rich had made for mom out of two barrels. They had drain spouts on the bottom and I am sure if he had patented them he could have very easily. Cold water was placed in them to rinse the laundry soap out of the washed clothes.

In the winter and when it was too cold to hang the clothes outside to dry, they were hung in the same room where the washing machine was. In the summer and when the weather was such that they would dry outside, there was a small patch of grass out the side door of the fire station where there was a clothesline. This was also the only place with grass that I could play.

All this happened in the mid to late 40’s B.C. & B. T.V. (Before computers and Before Television. What in the world did we do after supper to occupy our time? Well, we did what most other families did; we played a game that today very few families play call “family time”. In the evening we would open the large doors to the fire station, get some chairs and sit and watch the cars and trucks as they passed by. I would continue playing fireman with my “pretend tricycle” fire truck and put out fire after fire every night.

Picture of me on my tricycle

This activity I did of putting out imaginary fires, one after another drew the attention one day from a reported from the Spencer Times, one of the two newspapers in town then. I have since lost my copy of the article, but it was a small write up featuring my tricycle fire truck and me!

The Famous Oyster Stew Story

Oyster Stew for the Firemen

In the winter months The firemen would enjoy a special oyster stew meal with their monthly fire meetings. I think they must have used the old story about when oysters were available in Iowa. All or the months that had an "r" in them where the oyster months when oysters were available in the grocery markets. September, November, December, January, February, March and April. Seven months of the year. Below is the story as I remember it and the recipe as it was prepared:

The delicious oyster stew recipe by
Uncle Cliff and Uncle George

Ingredients (reduced to a 4 bowl serving)
4 tablespoons butter
3 cups whole milk
1 1/2 pints oysters with liquor
Salt and pepper to taste
Chopped fresh parsley for garnish (optional)

Cooking Directions

Heat four bowls and add a tablespoon of butter to each bowl; keep hot. Heat milk to hot but not boiling, and heat oysters and liquor just to the boiling point (ends of the oysters begin to curl); add oysters and bring to almost boiling point once again. Season with salt, and pepper. Ladle into hot bowls and top with chopped parsley, if desired.Serves 4 large bowls.

I remember that every time there was going to be a fire meeting in the those winter months I was always anxiously waiting for the firemen that always prepared the meal to arrive to begin their preparation.

I remember a fireman named Cliff Hodges was always there and the other one I remember was George Franklin. Cliff and George let me help set the tables with them and get the oyster stew cooking on the large commercial stove in the kitchen of the club room. In addition to the stew, they always had ring bologna, cheese and oyster crackers. I guess they also had coffee available, but I never had coffee there at the dinner meeting.

I remember when we opened the large containers of oysters; they search through them for these little red crab-like creatures that would come with the oysters many times. Also George and Cliff would say, “Dave, look at this as they would take and uncooked oyster and with a cracker eat the oyster and cracker at the same time.

All this preparation started about 4:30 in the afternoon. Milk was put on to warm and the oysters were placed in a large pan to warm also. I remember that butter and salt and pepper were added to the oysters as they warmed.

George always told me that you would know when it is time to add the oysters to the warm milk when the oysters start to curl around the edges. While the oysters and milk warmed, we cut the cheese into small bite size chunks and also cut the baloney into pieces.
We placed the plates of cheese and baloney into the refrigerator covered and also placed the oyster crackers on the tables. I would help set the table with spoons, knives and forks. I also helped place the drinking glasses out in a buffet-type fashion.

Growing up in a Fire Station

The Fire Station

My next recollection was that of moving to the fire station. My dad had taken a job as one of two full-time men that were hired to live at the fire station with their families. The apartment where we lived was on the top floor of the fire station and the big fire trucks were parked on the grown level just waiting and always ready to roll out of the station through two very large doors onto the Main street to put out fires. I had many very fond experiences living there at the fire station.
Spence Fire Station

The fire station was located at the south end of the main business district just a few steps from the Grand bridge, as it was called, that went over the Little Sioux river.

Grand Bridge

Directly to the south of the fire station was a Texaco gas station and directly to the north on the other side of “the ally” was a Michelin Tire store. On the other side of the Michelin Tire store was a Standard gas station then South 1st Street. Right behind the fire station was a junkyard for old automobiles and a storage garage. This junkyard is significant because I spent a lot of time playing there as I grew up in the fire station.

The top floor of the fire station was made up of two complete one-bedroom apartments, another room that was used for a bedroom and a large room called the “clubroom” where the firemen held their monthly meetings. There were also two additional storage rooms and bathroom. There was a complete kitchen in the area of the “clubroom” and a small room that was, what I called, the “scary” room. It was a room that was the top of the hose-drying tower. This is where the firemen would hang their fire hoses to dry after they were used. The hole went all the way to the basement level some 40 feet straight down. This room had one window where mom uses to shake out her dust mop.

The “clubroom was a place where I use to play all the time. It was very large and I could run my toy trucks all over the place and even play basketball and build things with my tinker toys.

This picture is a birthday party with

my grandparents and my aunt and

uncle in the club room of the fire station

One very memorable event was the winter fire meetings that the firemen had in the winter months or actually all the month that had an “r” in (like September, October through April. I discovered later in life that “oysters” were available in the Midwest in those months. The firemen would have “oyster stew feeds”, as they were called. I think this was the beginning of my love of cooking. The following is the basic recipe that was used by Cliff and George. I reduced the quantity to 4 bowls, however. We usually made enough for at least 30 to 40 firemen.

Birth and Younger Years Part 2

Some of My First Recollections

The Icebox

My first recollection of anything was the Icebox! Yes, the real honest to goodness “Ice Box”

The thing I remember was the Iceman. Whenever mom would need to get ice she would place a card in our front window. The card had printing on all four sides, as you would rotate it around. The printing on the card would tell the iceman how much ice we needed. As I recall it said whole, one half, one third or one fourth. The iceman always had to use his ice pick and chisel away the right size chunk for us. He always had small chips of ice that he would give me to suck on.

One very interesting event in my early years was the time I decided to run away from home. We were still living across from the Spencer Municipal Hospital where I was born so I must have been about two years old.

Spencer Municipal Hospital

I had gotten angry about something and decided that Grandma Riches house would be a much better place to live. I always called my grandparents by their husband’s first name. Grandpa Rich’s name was Theodore Richard Niemand, but I omitted the Theodore and used the Richard by shorting it to “Rich”. Grandma called Grandpa either “Rich” or “TR”.

I decided that the candy and cookies at Grandma’s was where I wanted to spend the rest of my life. I recall that mom was busy mixing up chocolate chip cookies in the kitchen as I gathered all my important belongings together in a bag to take on my trip. I had a tricycle that I loved dearly and a little red wagon that my dad had adapted to pull behind my tricycle.

After I had everything stuffed into my travel bag and placed in my wagon, I started off down the sidewalk to Grandma’s. I wasn’t aware that mom had been secretly observing my every action. I recall that when I reached the corner I hesitated and remembered that mom had warned me to look both ways before crossing any street. It was then that the thought of her chocolate chip cookies overwhelmed the desire to continue on to Grandma’s. I turned around and went home. That was my first and only experience of running away from home that I can recall.

Birth and Younger Years Part 1

Growing up in Spencer

It was 9:00 PM on August 21, 1941. Dr. Charles Collester had just been notified that a lady under his care was about to deliver a baby. The weather outside was very stormy. The lighting lit up the night skies over the Spencer Municipal Hospital as the thunder rumbled out side.

At exactly 9:15 PM a baby boy was delivered to Leah Logan. Her best friend, Gertrude Ann Mack had flown back from her WAC (Woman’s Army Corp.) headquarters in California to assist the doctor with the delivery.

The Father, Forrest Logan was anxiously awaiting the announcement of his new baby boy. Aunt Gerty, as she was eventually referred to as, came out with the news, “Frosty, you have a son.” She announced to the expectant father.

I can only guess how my dad must have reacted when he got the news. My mom and dad had been living in the house of my maternal grandparents since they got married on September 5, 1937 in Spencer.

My dad had been removed from high school his senior year by his father, my grandfather Logan keeping him from graduating. Grandpa Logan, I was later told by my mother, that the work on the farm came before an education to my Grandpa Logan. After mom and dad got married my dad went to work as a mechanic for my maternal grandfather, Grandpa Niemand, at my Grandfather’s auto repair shop. I will call the auto repair shop,” in the future - “The garage”. Grandpa’s garage was located at the end of 1st Avenue East. On the same street has H & N Auto Dealer and just down from the Tangney Hotel at the North end of the main business district.


Grandpa had a favorite gas station where he purchased most of his gas. The gas station was called Cleabers, after the owner’s name. The last time I was in Spencer in about 2002, the gas station was still there but had changed in appearance and made much more modern. I remember that back in the late 40’s and early 50’s, Grandma and Grandpa would receive dinnerware as incentives for the gas that they purchased and Grandma had at lease 4 or 5 sets of dinnerware that she had stored away for gifts.

Introduction

My Blog of my Life as I Remember

I havedecided to write my autobiography as I remember it here in this Blog. I am doing this for two reasons: I ould like to share ith my family and friends some of the many events in my life that stand out.

My life has been a happy life. That is not to say that I have had only "sunny" days. I have also had "stormy"days.

I have had a lot of help from family and friends during my life to deal with all sorts of events. I have a very strong belief in God and also believe He has a plan for my life and has used these family members and friends to be a part of this plan.

This plan for my life or "path" for my life is what I am trying to recall in this Blog. I have attempted to go back, as best I can, to recall events that stand out in my life.

I must tell you that I write like I think so many times you will discover that I will "ramble". I have let that fact, that I ramble, get in the way of my getting all this "stuff" down in writing in the past. I decided that I could not let that be a factor to hold me back so I have decided to forge on and do my best with the writing knowledge and ability I have.