An Iversen sighting

July 28, 1932 - Annie brought the car in this a.m.  Mrs. Davenport, Larry, and Valta Witte went with us.  Had our dinner at the Tourist Park, R.N.A. picnic.  I went down town with Eulalie Brugger in p.m.  Bought a new dress and shoes.  Had supper at a Tourist Park on South 13th Street.  Went wading in the Elkhorn River.
July 29, 1932 - Rainy and foggy all day.  Ray came in a few minutes this afternoon.  I slept and read.
July 30, 1932 - Cleaned house.  Alma L. came on the evening train.  We went to Carroll to the dance with Ray.  We were down town a few minutes before we went.  Alice Fleer, Ethel Lewis, Helen Iversen and another girl asked to go along.  We took them, but didn't have to bring them home.  Dorothy Jochens birthday.

No Howard, but little sis Helen makes an appearance in 1932.  I wonder when Grandpa will finally earn an entry in Grandma's diary.

The photo has nothing to do with anything other than the fact that I noticed Grandma's shoes.  All I ever remember her wearing were (sorry Grandma) old lady shoes.  I got to wear a pair of the black ones she used to favor in one of our high school plays.  They immediately added years to my age, which was good since I was playing a man-crazy old spinster.  By the end of the play my spinster married a character played by my real-life brother, Dale.  It got a chuckle out of the audience since they knew we were related.

Anyway, I like the pretty sandals Grandma is wearing.  Is that Little Grandma or maybe Aunt Clara in the photo with her -- Mom or Nancy?

Old Settlers?

July 25, 1932 - I'm all tired out.  Slept all morning.  Annie and the kids came in this afternoon.  Mom cut out a dress for Annie.
July 26, 1932 - We washed and we had a whopper of a washing.  Washed and finger-waved my hair this afternoon.  Went to bed early.
July 27, 1932 - Mom and I did the ironing this morning.  Called up Jane and asked her to come tonite and then to Norfolk to the R.N.A. picnic tomorrow.  Her Grandad is sick and she couldn't come.  I went down town tonite.  Tried to rain, and sent quite a few people home.

The last post mentioned going down town to watch the people, and now we have a comment about the rain sending quite a few people home.  I wonder if Old Settler's was going on.  Grandma doesn't mention it directly, here or later, but that is my guess.

I think I have written previously about how I felt so wonderfully special when Old Settler's would be coming up and Grandpa would buy me what I considered an exorbitant amount of tickets.  It seems I always had lots more tickets than my friends.  The photo of me is from my Old-Settler's-enjoying days.

Crazy fun it seems

July 22, 1932 - Cleaned the upstairs today and moved back into the kitchen.  Instead of going to lodge this evening I mowed the back yard.  Jane Jeffrey's birthday.
July 23, 1932 - Finished mowing the lawn this morning and cleaned downstairs.  Arnold brought the girls (Lydia, Evelyn and Mildred) tonite, we went down town and sat in the car and watched the people.  Came home about 10:30, laughed and talked until 1:00 a.m.
July 24, 1932 - To S.S. and church this a.m.  We walked down town this p.m.  When we got back each of the girls gave their speech for the oratorial contest next Sunday eve.  The girls, Ray and I had a pick up supper in the kitchen.  Lydia got apple butter on her dress, Ray ate pepper and the rest laughed.  The girls and I went to League tonite.  Arnold came for them about 10 o'clock.

Surely there is a story to the wearing of apple butter and eating of pepper, but it is now lost to the ages.

Since I do not have anything in particular to add to the above, I will regale you all with more Winside history.  The entry for 1900 is long, but the ending is rather cute, so I'll just dive in.

     June 7, Commencement exercises were held last week, graduating one of the largest classes we have ever had so far.  Mrs. I. O. Brown sang a vocal solo.  Those having perfect attendance during the month of May were:  High school, Robert Elliott, Mary Gabler and Louie Needham, C.H. Bright, principal; Grammar room, Hazel Perrin, Mrs. C. H. Bright, teacher; Intermediate room, Louis Dimmel and Eddie Weible, Lizzie Brown, teacher; Primary room, A. T. Cavanaugh, Irvin Leary, Johnny Elliott, Abbie Lound, Fritz Dimmel, Vic Siman, Tottie Chapin, Carl Goltz, Mrs. W. I. Lowry, teacher.
    June 14, Real Estate bargains:  A good hotel property, priced to sell.  Very fine house and lot, good location $600.  Quarter section of land 5 1/2 miles from Winside, well improved, $28.50 per acre.
     August 2, Wayne county held their annual Sunday school convention last Friday with a good sized attendance from every Sunday school in the county.  Among the speakers was W. L. Robinson, who spoke on the subject, "What the Sunday school has a right to expect from the community."  (Mr. Robinson is a brother of Mrs. Ernest Elders.)  Mr. Ferman Lewis came to visit George, Mina and Bert rather unexpectedly last week.  The baseball game between Wayne and Winside turned out to be a real thriller, Winside won by the small margin of 23-22.  The Winside team consisted of the following:  Miller C, McClusky P, Ramsey 1B, Johnson 2B, Needham CF, Olmstead SS, Carter LF, Templeton 3B, and Colbert RF.  Errors on both sides were "too numerous to mention."  The main features of the game were a double play by Ramsey, base running by Templeton and McClusky, also the very nice weather.  Time 3 hours and 5 minutes.
     Winside markets:  Hogs, $4.40, $4.50; cattle, $4.75, $5.25; flax, $1.27; new wheat, 58 cents; oats, 17 cents; corn, 28.5 cents; butter, 15 cents; eggs 10 cents.
     September 6, "Last Sunday there were four or five young men got their horses and run them past the teams going home from church, and came near making some of them run away.  That is not right and some of the boys will be arrested yet and made an example of."  (There were other threats similar to this one in later issues but no record of the above threat being carried into court.)
     November 15, the Ladies Aid have leased the first floor of the opera house and will give their entertainments in it.
     December 3, A. T. Chapin resigned as village treasurer.  Dr. A. B. Cherry was appointed to fill out his term.
     December 4, L. S. Needham, Frank Wieble and John Elliott looked up a place for a public dump.
     December 27, some of our boys think that they have a laugh on a lad in the country.  He comes to see a lady in town and hitched his horse on the street.  The marshal placed it in the livery stable.  When the hour had passed, the small one of night, he thought it time to depart.  His horse being gone, he was obliged to go to the livery stable and get another but found his own had been placed inside by the town marshal.  Moral -- Do not stop to see your girl longer than six hours, because the marshal has orders to put teams up after standing that long.

Even more painting

July 19, 1932 - Gave the kitchen floor a second coat of paint, painted the kitchen table, stool and chair, and some more small things.  Mom canned 3 quarts of bean pickles.  I was down town awhile this afternoon.  Washed curtains, a dress and a shirt.
July 20, 1932 - We fixed the border on the kitchen floor and three small rugs, varnished the stair steps and ironed a few clothes.  Florence came up this evening and we went down town.
July 21, 1932 - Finished our odds and ends of painting today.  Fixed kitchen curtains and tie-backs for upstairs.  Tonite F.S. and I walked out to Annie's. We came back at about 9:30.  We could hear the band playing in town and sat down in the road to listen to it.

I am not sure which road Grandma is talking about, but I certainly don't recommend sitting in the road in the dark, or near-dark at the very least, to listen to a band.  But then, the traffic around Winside isn't, and probably wasn't, that nutty so they were likely just fine.  Actually, the more I think about it, that sounds like a nice time. (Much better than sitting in the grass or weeds by the side of the road.)  One of my favorite things to do is drive around at night in the heat of summer with the windows down, so sitting with a friend listening to music like they did was probably very pleasant.

I don't have a photo of Florence, nor of Winside at night, nor of me driving around in the summer, so the best I could do was a photo of Grandma sitting, though not in the road.  At least I think she is sitting down here.

Lots o' painting

July 16, 1932 - I painted Ray's dresser, my shoe cabinet and some other things today.  Did some ironing and cleaning.  Ray and I went to the dance at Carroll tonite.  Had a good time.  I came home with Lyle Jenkins.
July 17, 1932 - All the family except myself went up to Uncle Hans' today.  Willie Kahler's stopped here and asked the way to Uncle Hans'.  I slept and read all afternoon.  Cloudy all day, rained a little this evening.  Edwin Brogren birthday.
July 18, 1932 - We painted the kitchen floor, varnished the steps, and painted some more odds and ends in the kitchen.  Canned 13 pints of beans, peas and carrots together.  Mildred Moses' birthday.

I think I remember Grandma saying that she liked, or at the very least didn't mind, painting.  Perhaps that is where I get it from.  Of course, she did great work on those complicated paint-by-numbers, so she enjoyed that kind of painting for sure.

The photo is obviously from much later than 1932, but it looks that we have Grandma and Aunt Irene painting screens on a nice day.

Since I am short on further commentary about Grandma's comings and goings, here are some facts from Wikipedia about July 1932; some of these things I know a little about, some absolutely nothing:

July 5 - Antonio de Oliveira Salazar becomes the fascist prime minister of Portugal (for the next 36 years).

July 8 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average reaches its lowest level of the Great Depression, bottoming out at 41.22.

July 12 - Norway annexes northern Greenland.

July 17 - Altona Bloody Sunday:  In Altona, Germany, armed communists attack a National Socialist demonstration; 18 are killed and many other political street fights follow.

July 20 - The Papen government sends out the Reichswehr under General Gerd von Rundstedt to depose the elected SPD government in Prussia under Otto Braun.  The coup gives Papen control of Prussia, the most powerful land in Germany, and is a major blow to German democracy.

July 28 - U.S. President Herbert Hoover orders the U.S. Army to forcibly evict the Bonus Army of World War I veterans gathered in Washington, D.C. Troops disperse the last of the Bonus Army the next day.

July 30 - Walt Disney's Flowers and Trees, the first animated cartoon to be presented in full Technicolor, premieres in Los Angeles. It releases in theaters, along with Eugene O'Neill's experimental play Strange Interlude (starring Norma Shearer and Clark Gable), and will go on to win the first Academy Award for Best Animated Short.

July 31 - Reichstag election sees the Nazis win 37% of the vote, becoming the largest party in the Reichstag.

Seems things are a bit chaotic in Germany.