Get Your Bess Fix Here

I mentioned in my last post that my neighbor, Julie, was writing a great blog. She continues to weave an intriguing tale, and makes my posting easier too. Julie has managed to plow through January to June 1935-39 in Bess' diary. I have never been able to get through more than a couple pages at a time. I admire her perseverance! Use the links below to read what Bess had to say about the Wilsons.

• The Neighbor's Perspective
  
• More From the Neighbor's Diary
  

All those entries made me realize that I don't think I've ever posted a picture of either Helen or Bess. Here is one of the two of them in front of Foxcroft, 1929, which would have been one year after they moved in.


This photo was taken after Helen had spent the summer in France on a UI study tour. She was 19 in this picture, Bess would have been about 47. The dress Helen is wearing is one she made with fabric she brought back from Paris.

Post Holiday Update

Greetings. it's time to update on what happened, house-wise, over vacation. The answer is "not much." We spent most of vacation visiting my dad who spent four weeks, Dec. 3rd through 31st, in UI hospitals. He was dismissed to rehabilitation in Cedar Rapids on New Year's Eve, and continues to make good progress.

I did manage to surprise Lisa with her Christmas gift. Some time probably in the 1940's Helen made a needlepoint picture of Foxcroft, which she promptly then attached to a folding camp stool. Wouldn't you do exactly the same? We bought the stool at the house sale, 5 years ago this coming March. I took it to our favorite framer, (and A&C maven) Kathleen Rash, at the Art Mission. Here is what she did with it:


Here is a close up of Helen's needlework:


The house also got a gift this year. The phone niche in the dining room once again has a candlestick phone in it:


I put the decorative grill back below the phone niche, I'd found it when we emptied out the attic, put it in the basement and forgot about it. The label on the top of the grill contains Foxcroft's original 4 digit number 4452. Anne, Helen's cousin who was her resident caretaker here, still has that phone number.

My much appreciated house related gift this year was a new pair of overalls, which I will probably wear out next summer as I continue to paint.

Opinionated

As I mentioned in a comment to last week's post, Disappointed But Not Surprised, I wrote a guest opinion for the Iowa City Press Citizen.

Introducing myself to the developer after the meeting, and talking about my blog, is what crystalized my approach to what I wanted to say.

I made copies of my letter and the real estate brochure and hand delivered them to our five city council members (took about 25 minutes including visiting with three of them, there are some positives to a small town) on Tuesday evening. Then I then emailed it to the paper Tuesday night.

Wednesday morning I found three emails back from the paper. The first asked for a copy of the brochure that they could run with the piece, the second asked could I send a picture of myself and a one sentence biography, and the third said they would run it on Friday and would not have room for any image of the brochure. I had a hard time finding a decent picture of myself in a hurry, and to be honest, it wasn't the time element that made it difficult.

So here what I said:

I found a map the other day that the original owner of our house drew showing all the trees and plantings in her yard. Bess Fox built our house in 1928 in University Heights’ second addition. The map was drawn in 1956. On the map she listed 19 trees: 4 apple, 3 cherry, 3 peach, 3 plum, 2 pear, 1 pine, 1 elm, 1 redbud, and 1 magnolia. Today NONE of those trees are in our yard. What also fascinates me is that the 3 walnuts, each over 30 feet high that completely dominate our yard are not listed. There is also a very large oak tree between us and our neighbors, that visitors frequently comment must be over 150 years old, I smile, and being the polite type, don’t disagree. However I have a 1929 picture of our house and the neighbor’s that show no trees at all, not surprising since the land was a pasture before it was developed. Driving our shady woodland neighborhood today it’s only logical to assume it has always been this way.

I mention this because my town’s city council will face an extremely difficult decision on June 9th when they hear an application for the rezoning of the St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church parcel. The developer there has proposed a commercial center at the front of the site and a residential building toward the rear. In the three voluntary meetings he held prior to submission of his application, the developer presented ideas and asked for community feedback. When the official proposal was submitted to the U-H Planning and Zoning Commission the final project reflected input from the community that said it was too tall and too dense. The residential building was lowered from 9 stories in the middle with 7 story wings to 6 stories in the middle with a 3 story wing to the west and a 4 story wing to the east. The commercial building was moved back further from the street, also as a result of community input.

Not surprisingly even though these changes were made, there are many people still opposed to the project. Two frequent criticisms I heard, at both the voluntary meetings held by the developer and the two sessions of the formal Planning & Zoning Commission hearing, were that “University Heights is a town of single family residences” and “University Heights was deliberately created without any commercial district.” I think it would be fair to summarize those arguments as “The way it pretty much is now is the way it has always been.” I beg to differ.

Besides being a pretty fair cartographer, Bess was a documentarian and a saver. A prized artifact I have is an original advertising brochure for the sale of lots in University Heights Second Addition. This document dates to 1927. It touts, in red letters no less, University Heights as “The Coral Gables Sub-Division of Iowa City.” Koser Brothers, the developers of University Heights, predicted “A lot in University Heights is a safe investment because the $6,000,000 building program of the UNIVERSITY on the West Side will make a big demand for West Side property and will cause values to increase very rapidly.” Their next statement was, “In a few years we predict the West Side Campus of the University will be larger than the East Side, and this will develop a residence section on the West Side of the river as large as we now have on the East Side---a business district with hotels, stores, etc. Iowa City will grow and develop as the University develops… A future vision of Iowa City must be a vision of a New City on the West Side.” To be absolutely clear of their intention, at another portion of the brochure is the statement, “University Heights has ample building restriction sufficient to protect all parties. A business district has been planned.”

Maybe it’s unfair to say that University Heights was planned with a business district, since the advertising brochure predates municipal incorporation by at least 7 years. Perhaps the thinking changed during that time? In a Cedar Rapids Gazette article written shortly after the first municipal election, following incorporation in 1935, it notes as highly unusual that there are currently no businesses in town. But it should be mentioned that the first mayor of University Heights was Lee Koser, the real estate developer half of Koser Brothers, and presumed author of the quotes above.

With the stock market crash and subsequent depression, it seemed as though no businesses would ever locate within city limits, but the post World War II years brought commercial construction on the very east edge of town, and Iowa’s fairly restrictive alcohol sales laws brought commercial construction to the very west edge. For more about that I highly recommend David Belgum’s book “Memoirs of Iowa’s Only Socialist Mayor.”

So even though things seem to have always been the same, perhaps they weren’t. I have to think Bess found it highly amusing to live on Golfview Ave. My University-Heights real estate brochure extols the proximity of town to the “golf links” making it a country club like setting. Golfview Ave. was to be the most prestigious street in town. There was only one problem, the same year that Bess built her house, the University of Iowa, with no prior warning, announced that it was relocating the football field to the West Campus area occupied by Finkbine Golf Course, and moving the golfing even further west. And rest, as they say, is history.

I would urge University Heights City Council to approve the zoning change for the One University Place development.

To see my bio and picture (and read the snarky comments that will soon be posted, I'm sure) You'll need to go to the P-C's online article:

Approve One University Place

Edit at 10:00 AM: Due to requests, here is the complete photo that was edited down for my head shot:



Rowan took it a couple months ago. I'm sitting at the breakfast nook, maybe doing the crossword or suduko?

1956 Yard Map

In going through "stuff" I found a letter that Bess wrote to her nieces in 1956 that came back to her somehow. The letter includes a lengthy description of her vegetable garden and a hand drawn map, complete with numbers and a list of items in the yard:


Our yard layout, the little red dots are flagstone walks to garden, garage, and shed

1. house
2. garage
3. tool shed
4. pool
5. driveway
6. turn around place
7. garden – mostly vegetables
8. raspberries – currants – goosberries
9. Sweet cherry tree
10. peach trees
11. peach trees
12. green gage plum tree
13. northern spy apple
14. apple tree
15. cherry tree
16. pine tree
17. apple tree
18. cherry tree
19. pear tree
20. apple tree
21. sweet pear tree
22. plum tree
23. plum tree
24. elm tree
25. red bud
26. magnolia
27. red leaf peach
28. golden rain
29. strawberries (150 plants)
30. strawberry pyramid

And how much is left today?

1. house YES
2. garage YES
3. tool shed NO (our garden is here)
4. pool YES
5. driveway YES
6. turn around place YES
7. garden – mostly vegetables NO (Sold in early 1980's)
8. raspberries – currants – goosberries NO (our garden is here)
9. Sweet cherry tree NO (our garden is here)
10. peach tree NO (swingset)
11. peach tree NO
12. green gage plum tree NO (tree house)
13. northern spy apple NO
14. apple tree NO
15. cherry tree NO
16. pine tree NO
17. apple tree NO
18. cherry tree NO (limestone patio)
19. pear tree NO
20. apple tree NO
21. sweet pear tree NO (crabapple)
22. plum tree NO (maple tree)
23. plum tree Sort Of (We cut down the original in 2005 it was growing sideways out of the hill, a sprout from the roots has come back)
24. elm tree NO
25. red bud NO
26. magnolia NO
27. red leaf peach NO
28. golden rain NO
29. strawberries (150 plants)NO
30. strawberry pyramid NO

Items of note:

• Most of the path stones are around, we've moved them some. The line to the garage is now sidewalk, I know the flagstones are underneath the cement.
  
• I'm very curious about what the red letters are.
  
• None of the three enormous walnut trees that dominate our yard today are marked. They lie roughly between 13 and 2, between 6 and 23, and at 28. I would trade at least two of them for half the fruit trees listed...
  
• None of the lilac bushes along the southwestern edge of the yard are listed.
  
• Bess lists the front dimension of the lot as 125 feet. In the letter she says she has all but finalized the purchase of a 25 foot wide strip of land north of the driveway that ran along the northwest side of the lot. That must have never been purchased because last night I stepped off 125 feet from the eastern corner of the lot and ended up all the way down across the neighbor's driveway. The house north of ours was the last one built in the neighborhood in 1968.
  

49 Years Ago Today at Foxcroft

From Bess' diary for May 5th, 1960:


Thursday
Usual lunch, puppy, and home jobs. Took onions over to Ray’s. Rain part of mid day – Heard Pitt beat Cubs + part of Mil-LA game. Ditto and I napped – Fran phoned about coffee for Mrs. Focht Sat. but I can’t go. Nice asparagus.
Amy Jo Ray is 6 today.

The Fish Letters #4

December 5, 1933

My Dear Miss Fox:

Yesterday afternoon we shipped your entire order of remedies, accessories and three pair of Zebras. The weather is quite favorable for shipping tropical fish at the present time and we sincerely hope that they reached you in good condition. We included an extra pair of Zebras on the order as a replacement for the one which you lost on the previous order.

The small transparent creatures which you discovered in your aquarium are possibly Fresh Water Shrimp. They are not harmful to the fish or aquarium. Ordinarily fish will destroy them.

Bettas are usually very fond of live food and it is possible that they may attack the snails for that purpose. If they continue to bother the snails it might be advisable to transfer the latter to a small bowl with a couple of plants and a leaf of lettuce, temporarily.
The Edison Heater should not be immersed below the point where the rubber connects to the tubing, although it is water tight it is not advisable. You could, however, put it about a half inch above the rubber lining. The heat will be well distributed as the heating elements are clear down at the bottom, therefore by immersing it a half inch or so more it will not change the temperature very much. We sincerely hope that you enjoy the aquarium and collection of plants and fish thoroughly and it will be our pleasure to have the opportunity to serve you again.

We are sending Mrs., Schroder, of Iowa City a copy of our catalogue which we are sure will be of interest to her.

Yours very truly,

WILLIAM TRICKER INC.
J.T. Charleson (signature)
Manager
JTC :JB

The Fish Letters #2

November 20, 1933
Miss Helen Fox
315 Golfview
Iowa City, Iowa

My dear Miss Fox:-
Your letter of November the 15th and valued order was received for which please accept our thanks.
We shall comply with your request by sending the aquarium, the stand, plants and the accessories a couple of days ahead of the fish. The fish you have ordered will live peaceably with one another. We have a nice supply of Black Hybrids this Fall and are including a pair with your order free of charge.

An aquarium, in which tropical fish are harbored, should be covered so we are sending you a glass cover to use on the top of your aquarium, the price of which is 65¢. We shall refund you the $2.35 as soon as the jug is returned.

On our heaters, we have changed from the original Watchman Model and are using a thermostat heater made by Edison Electric. We find it much more satisfactory and although this heater sells at $8.25, we are including this with your order. I am sure that you will like it very much and if you are well pleased with it, we wonder if you would wish to pay the difference. Our aim is to please you and we would appreciated the opportunity of hear from you at your earliest convenience.
Very truly yours,

WILLIAM TRICKER INC

JT Charleson (signature)
Manager

Jtc/ac

---

Sold To
Miss Helen Fox
315 Golfview
Iowa City, Iowa
INVOICE AND NOTICE OF SHIPMENT
Your Order Was Shipped Today By Express NOV 28 1933


1 #120 Eureka aquarium with Imperial stand 24.00
1 1 ½ gal. handy aquarium 1.25
1 Coll#34 E 3.15
1 Watchman Model heater 6.00
1 Four inch net (Tropical) .35
1 Spirit four inch floating bulb thermometer .35
1 Lb. dried shrimp .75
1 Tin Fish Vim .20
1 Tin Tonic .25
1 Tin dried Daphniae .20
1 Tin Hygiene .25
1 Pint Turk’s sea salt .35
1 Pint German fungus cure .35
1 Ounce bottle C.D.T. .40
1 Each of pink and blue chemical shells .20
1 Pair dwarf Gourami 2.00
1 Pair Angel fish 2.50
1 Pair Zebras 1.00
1 Pair Silver Barbs 1.25
1 Pair Mex. Swordtails 1.25
1 Pair Betta Trickeri 3.00
1 Pair B. Cambodia 2.50
1 Pair Betta Cyana 5.00
1 Pair Black Hybrids n/c
DEPOSIT ON INSULATED CAN 2.35
$59.55
1 Glass cover .65¢.

The Fish Letters #1

In honor of what would have been Helen's 98th birthday today here is #1 in an occasional series I'll refer as the "Fish Letters." Helen and her mother dug a fishpond in their back yard in 1933. Last spring I found where it was and started to excavate it back out. It had been filled in for over 40 years.

Since the upstairs attic was their archive, (with 1200 sq ft of space nothing was ever thrown away) I found among all the papers a series of letters dealing with fish for the pond. Here is the first one:

October 21, 19933

My Dear Miss Fox,

We do not ordinarily advise that the goldfish or fancy goldfish be placed in the same aquarium with the tropicals. Goldfish require a cooler water temperature than tropical fish and also more water per fish.

Tropical fish, which have asterisks in front of their names, are not scrappy and will live peaceably with others, providing that the temperature of the water is maintained at 72 to 75 degrees. We therefore, do not recommend that you keep the two varieties together. Keep them separate.

At present, you could obtain an excellent pair of Calico Veiltails at $3.00 per pair, Japanese Veiltails at $3.00 per pair, Veiltail Moors, Medium at $3.00 per pair, Veiltail Moors, Large at $5.00 per pair and Lionheads at $2.00 and $5.00 per pair.

We trust that you will be in the market for some of these beautiful fish and may we have the opportunity to serve you.

Very truly yours,

WILLIAM TRICKER INC
J T Charleson (Signature)
Manager

jtc/ac


And like so many other companies I've looked for in the history of Foxcroft William Tricker, Inc. is still in business! The patch I put in the bottom of the pond last fall seems to be holding, maybe I'll order some plants from them. We did put in two goldfish from the local pet store, one survived the summer, but I haven't seen him lately in the tank in the basement...

75 Years Ago at Foxcroft- March 2, 1934

Bess' Diary:

March 2, 1934
40
"Lump Sum" came. Paul McN 38.00 - Bertha 70 - Helen 77 - 1/2 farm tax 106 - office tax 6.60 - 1/2 Iowa City tax 24.29 - got new battery for car 7.40. Paid OES, DAR + Shrine dues - Mrs. Eastman here for dinner- Helen took us both to see Laurel and Hardy in Fra Diavolo

Comments:

The "lump sum" may have been payment by her tenant of farm rent? I know from my own family history that farm leases typically began March 1. (Hence many February weddings among my ancestors) Bess still owned farm land back in Waucoma.

Bess' payments above totaled $329.29 plus dues to her clubs.

The "Iowa City tax" is interesting, at that time University Heights was still unincorporated Johnson County. It has never been a part of Iowa City, incorporating on July 10, 1935 as its own municipality. Postal service has always been via Iowa City however.

Fra Diavolo from www.laurelandhardycentral.com

STORY: Laurel and Hardy's first period operetta. In the early 18th century, northern Italy is terrorized by a notorious gang of thieves led by Fra Diavolo, "The Devil's Brother." Wanderers Stanlio and Ollio are held up by a band of Diavolo's men, and lose their hard-earned life savings. They determine that they too will lead a life of crime, and proceed to bungle a series of robbery attempts with Ollio posing as the dreaded Diavolo. They make the mistake of holding up the real Diavolo; he in turn threatens their lives, but spares them and makes them his personal servants. Diavolo is enamored with the charms of the lovely Lady Rocberg and the 500,000 francs she has hidden in her petticoat. The Boys help to expose Diavolo, and all escape unharmed.

And Now For Something COMPLETELY Different

In the midst of our flood angst on Saturday the phone rang. Our six year old answered and then listened and then turned to me and said in her absolute best British accent, "Daddy there is a man on the phone for you."

Imagine my total shock when in true "Monty Python" fashion I hear an English voice say, "Mike? This is Bernard with LoMax Records in London, we've corresponded regarding Chubby Parker."

Bear with here. I have a fair amount of old sheet music that I pick up at garage sales and junk shops to learn songs for both my solo performances and for the band. Mostly I tend to get 1920's Novelty Rags and other goofy comic songs. One time at least 10 years ago I mentioned on the Banjo-L listserv that I had sheet music by a banjo player named Chubby Parker.

That lead to an email several years ago from Bernard, an Englishman who was researching Parker. I scanned the cover and sent it to him. He called Saturday saying that their project (my guess is that is a boxed CD set of early WLS Chicago Barn Dance performers) is set for an October release. Would I consider sending a high resolution scan of the sheet music for the liner notes?

Here's where it all ties together...

I knew I had moved a big pile of sheet music up to the second floor storage room at the Tech Center. It had sat in my office for years. I told Bernard I might not be able to get to it for a while because of flooding. He was very understanding.

After I hung up I decided to look through what I had here at Foxcroft. When Bess built the house in 1928 Helen was already an accomplished musician, having taken piano lessons from age four. Helen also played clarinet and accordion.



The grand piano sat in the living room next to the front hall closet, both pictured above, and Bess designed the closet with a set of shelves for sheet music. I had kept some of Helen's music and added more of my own.



I looked through the pile, that you can see in the picture above, below the hats. I found not only the cover I knew I had, but ANOTHER Chubby Parker song. Apparently I am the only person on the planet with these things!




I emailed Bernard and he was delighted. I will scan both and send them along to him.

His reply also included this:

P.S. The Royal Festival Hall in London is hosting an exhibition to celebrate this release, running for six weeks from late September through to early November. It will contain photographs of many of these artists, some instruments, memorabilia and film, footage. I wondered if you might consider allowing us to exhibit your sheet music with a credit to your good self. It would be as safe as if it was exhibited at the Metropolitan in New York. I think people would find it a delightful thing.


So of course I will send the physical copies as well.

May 15-16, 1933

From Helen's Diary:

May 15
Monday
Gardened most of day. Fed Buster every hour or so. Put in seeds + transplanted artichokes + tomatoes. France and England worried over Hitler's aim of arming Germany. Sunny till evening then rain. Made rhubarb fluff + ham souffle.

May 16
Tuesday
Gardened in morning and dug worms. Saw "Farewell to Arms" Helen Hayes and Gary Cooper. Very good. Went to Mortar Board picnic in park. Took Mrs. Wilson. Bed + read.
Roosevelt sends message to 54 nations warning against aggression. Fair- rainstorm in evening

My Comments:
Helen would have been 22 years old and would have lived at Foxcroft for 4 years with her mother when she wrote this. The spring term at the University of Iowa was already over, the previous week she wrote about working on a correspondence course. I believe she would have graduated the year before, but worked on grad level classes. "Buster" was a baby robin that had been pushed out of it's nest by his mother. She was digging worms for him.

Helen probably made rhubarb fluff from their rhubarb patch in the yard now owned by our neighbors behind us. The neighbor's lawn service just mowed all the rhubarb down last night while cutting the grass.

"Farewell to Arms" probably made a major impression on Helen. Her father had volunteered for World War I at age 40, and since he was a physician, was commissioned as a captain and sent to field hospital in France. He was sent to Serbia to help fight a typhoid outbreak after the armistice, but before his enlistment expired. It was there that he contracted pneumonia and died. Helen was seven when he passed away, Bess was a widow at 36. She never remarried.

"Mortar Board" was an honor society that Helen belonged to. "Mrs. Wilson" was their neighbor two houses down. Mr. Wilson, was Eric Wilson a former University of Iowa track star, who ran in the 1924 Olympics. The Wilson's were neighbors for 40 years.

On May 10, 1933 German students burned 20,00 "Jewish books" in front of the University of Berlin. By 1933 Helen had already been to France twice, something that certainly set her apart from young Iowa girls of the 1930's. We found her ticket stubs and a 78 rpm recording of Josephine Baker from Helen's 1931 tour. As a French major she was keenly interested in European events. I find her comments to be ominous foreshadowing considering that 10 years later she would leave her high school teaching job in Milwaukee and volunteer for the American Red Cross. Due to her fluency French she was posted to England prior to the Normandy invastion and went to France right behind the allied troops.

Come on in, the Water is...

... months away from going into the pool. Here are a few more pictures.

I managed to work some on the pool Sunday between the 5K Riverfest Run that Rowan ran in as part of Girls on the Run, (she finished in a very respectable 41 minutes) dance rehearsal, the GOTR banquet and the season opener for my D league softball team.

I was able to find the entire perimeter. The pool is roughly a right triangle. I had thought it would be more kidney shaped. Each "leg" is about 8 feet long and the "hypotenuse" is nearly 12 feet. The shallower side of the small end that I completely excavated is 18 inches deep. It appears that it will get deeper as I dig toward the wide end. golf/pool2008-03.JPG


All the dirt I dug I dumped into the garden. After I finished around the outside I realized the irony that I am recreating Helen and Bess' steps, in digging around the edge first then digging out the middle. golf/pool2008-04.JPG

Dirty Pool

I really was not planning to start yesterday, honestly! I had plenty of other outside projects that needed my attention;

• burn winter deadfall
  
• move walk planks into garage
  
• make a splash block for southwest corner where water overflows the gutter
  
• fence up the peas
  
• drag brush to ravine
  

You get the idea. Well I actually completed those, and with an imminent deadline for a 15 page paper staring me in the face (I'm taking a grad class this semester) it took only the gentlest of nods from Lisa "Maybe we should get rid of some of the junk near where the old pool is?" to get me started.

I thought I'd just see what is still there, so at 3:30 in the afternoon I started to dig to see if I could find the outline. You can see the cement wall in that shot


After I dug a little more it looked as though the wall was intact


I was under the impression that the walls had been pulled down when the pool was filled in. I had to have a place to put the dirt as I was taking it out. Fortunately 2 weeks ago I built an enclosure at the end of the garden for potatoes. Lisa cut our seed potatoes and spread them out in the potato enclosure, I ended up dumping 10 wheelbarrow loads of dirt on top of them.

After supper I dug down to see if I could find bottom. by checking with the original picture I knew I had found the perimeter of the bottom smaller end.


I don't have any additional pictures right now, but I could now almost sit down where Helen is in the picture above.

The additional 5 wheelbarrow loads of dirt went to other spots in the garden and the compost pile. I'm guessing it will take at least 50 more wheelbarrow loads to excavate the pool.

BEST NEWS: Since the dirt gets WETTER the farther down I dig I'm certain that the bottom was not broken out either. The below ground portion looks to have been painted green.

"Tired As Hell" Helen's Diary Again

April 21, 1934
Sat.

Cleaned aquarium. Worked on pool. Sprayed trees, washed hair, made 4 doz. cakes and decorated them.
Tired as hell.

Here is a photo of cleaning the pool:

The caption says "Spring '34" so it may have been this day. Bess and Helen finished the pool in 1933. Here it is in progress:






Some day we will dig it back out.

HELEN's Diary!

I've posted from Bess' diary before, but haven't ever posted from her daughter, Helen's. Here is a post from 1933 when Helen would have been a senior at the University of Iowa:

APRIL 17, 1993 Monday

Up at 9. In town, shopped. Made divinity. Made over sleeves of green dress. Had Progressive party 8- 1:30. Williams, Olsens, Williams & here. Marg, Izzy, Hilly, Ilse, Self, Bob Mudge, Tom Miller, Ippen, Carl Drumm. Bob Mudge kissed me in the kitchen on a bet.

Wow, I'll need to go read more of her stuff more often!

Spring? Cleaning/CULTURE

Finally a post about doing something here at Foxcroft. The girls and I have been on Spring Break this week. We have also had three days in a row above 50 degrees so a lot of our snow has melted. Never fear, the forecast for today and tomorrow has a mix of rain and snow. I'm not optimistic about getting any of our early garden (peas, lettuce, spinach) in by my usual target date of the end of March.

March is when we trim back the lilacs, which like everything else here, seems to have been growing unchecked since Bess died in 1970. I hacked out the last of the really overgrown stuff this week. Pete came over yesterday and we chainsawed out two volunteer hackberry trees. Laurel counted 28 rings on the bigger one, which is just about right with my estimation of when Helen let the yard "grow wild." As we were working I realized that March 20 was Helen's birthday, she would have been 97 this year. Lisa raked up the leaf litter we hadn't gotten last fall from around the flower beds in back, our cilla and a few other early things like snow drops, and crocuses are just peeking through.

Since the weather has been nice we got the bikes out of the garage, fortunately none of the tires were stuck in the two inches of ice that has frozen many other things to the floor inside the garage. We rode down to the University of Iowa Art Museum to see Robert Wilson's VOOM exhibit.

Coyright Robert Wilson

These are high definition video "portraits" that are video loops of varying length that seem to have no beginning or ending. All are displayed using HD video screens. There is also sound edited for each work. Literally EVERYTHING else has been taken out of the museum and with darkened lighting the viusal effect is dramatic. The still above is Steve Buscemi. The girls liked the hedgehog portrait the best. Brad Pitt standing in the rain shooting a water pistol is pretty good too.

To find out more about the exhibit go to:

University of Iowa Art Museum

Googling "Robert Wilson VOOM Portraits" gives a faint idea of what the exhibit is like too.

March 12 1930-35

Entries from Bess' Daily Diary for today

MARCH 12

1930 Wed. White Shrine picnic dinner. H played her accordion


1931 50 Thurs. Wash. H + I to movie "Kiss Me Again" Home at 4:30. H to rifle practice. Shower at 8.


1932 20 Sat. Nice bright day but still cold. Up at 9 Made cream puffs + orange shebert. H, Buff + I home alone all day. H covered roses Shower at 9. Chains off


1933 68 Sun. 20 more puzzle pieces. Wrote chain letter + 3 others H and Hildegarde cooked picnic supper then roller skated til 8:30. Heard Roosevelt give a good talk on banking. Shower at 10.


1934 64 Mon. Mr. Floyd bushed 6 more pram ship. (?) Nice box from Aunt May. Worked on Scout decorations + Amy's pillow slips. H ordered 56.00 records- H to movie evening.

----------------------------------------
The number after the year is the high temperature for the day. H is always Bess' daughter, Helen. Rifle practice was for the University of Iowa's women's rifle team. Roosevelt's "good talk on banking" was FDR's very first "fireside chat." Helen was an adult leader for the local Girl Scout troop. I have no idea what "Mr. Floyd bushed 6 more pram ship." is about, Bess' handwriting is not always easy to read.

"THE BOX" Revisited

I wrote about "THE BOX" in my very first blog post, and then I don't think I've ever mentioned it again. I usually keep "THE BOX" at my office at work. It's an old cardboard (when I say old I mean 1920's old) box that says "Abraham Chocolates A.G Abraham Co. Moline" (Illinois) Here is "THE BOX"

Here is "THE BOX" in its original context: the upstairs before we started cleaning it out and finishing the space. I took this picture before I knew what "THE BOX" was. It's underneath the Pabst Beer and Campbells Tomato Juice boxes:

While "THE BOX" is interesting and somewhat unusal its what's INSIDE that is important.

"THE BOX" was the respository of all Bess' material regarding the building of Foxcroft. The box contained:

1. all the correspondence with the architects/builders 20+
2. The notebook Bess sent the architect with the floor plan and detailed descriptions of every room, electrical, roof, porch, etc.
3. The builder's contract
4. all the correspondence with the realtors 10+
5. A wall sized plat map of the entire development
6. Source books and catalogs galore:

• Original 1926 Gordon Van Tine catalog and "Building Material" supplement with doors, millwork, andirons, etc
• "28 Better Homes" catalog from Portland Cement Co.
• "Enjoyable Living Rooms" from Kroehler Furniture Co.
• Kohler of Kohler Enameled Plumbing Ware 1927.
• Hardware for Utility and Ornamentation, Sargent 1927
• "Better Homes at a Lower Cost" Standard Homes Co. Washington D.C. 1926
• "Bungalowcraft American Lumberman's Special Edition" a HARDBACK book of house plans from the Bungalowcraft Co of Los Angeles
• "Dustman's Book of Plans and Building Construction" Charles C. Thompson Co.
  Chicago copyright 1910. HARDBACK book of house plans
• Multiple wallpaper books
• Sargent door hardware catalog
• Moe Bridges lighting catalog
• Armstrong flooring catalogs
• Fireplace catalog

You get the idea:

It was an incredible find, and one that I still pore over!

Ghosts of Christmas Past (Part 2)

From when I was born in 1960 until 1969 we went to my grandparents’ home in northwest Iowa for Christmas each year. For several years we flew (Ozark Airlines DC-3 propeller planes Iowa City to Sioux City) because it was much easier than trying to fight snow and ice for a seven hour drive.

My grandparents always had long needle pine Christmas trees. The tree was always set up in the parlor off the living room, a room whose only other regular use was to provide a place for Grandpa to take his after noon-dinner naps for 15 minutes before going back to work as an independent electrician. What made their tree spectacular were the lights. The lights on their tree looked like glowing snowballs. They were enormous and multi-colored. I didn’t know of anyone else who had lights like them.

In 2005 when we moved in here at Foxcroft my dad gave me an Ocean Spray Cranberry Juice box and said he thought I would appreciate the contents. I opened it up and found this:



And these:


All together I have over two dozen bulbs. Now they are on our tree:


I think they look great, especially since to go along with the snowball lights, we have these behind our regular lights:


That make this:



I had bought a huge box of old Christmas stuff over 20 years ago at an auction, and 15 of these were in there. I’m embarrassed to admit it took me three Christmases to figure out what they were.

In an age where we are buying incredibly expensive, but reputedly long lasting compact florescent lights, why are these lights all working nearly 50 years later?

Ghosts of Christmas Past (Part 1)

I don’t know why I started in the north corner of the attic when I began cleaning it out in December of 2004, shortly after Helen’s death. Perhaps it seemed the least daunting. There were a set of wooden shelves built into the eaves, and one of the very first things I found there, as I started going through, was a wooden block that had been carved to show the front of the house:

It was in a box with printer’s ink and rollers. I saved the wood block away and thought it was cool. I knew that Helen was a very accomplished artist, and knew it was her work.

Three months later, while STILL working to clear out the attic I found a hand printed Christmas card/booklet. It was tied together with a fancy green, red and gold string. The front looked familiar:

At the bottom of the card is printed:

This is the house our jack built

“Jack” being a slang term for money

This was page two of the card:

This is the Cat that lives in the house our jack built

Page three:

These are the people who care for the Cat who lives in the house our jack built

Page four:

This is the greeting card sent by the people who care for the Cat that lives in the house our jack built “A Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to each of you”


And in the manner of Bess' and Helen's verse, I humbly add the following:

And this is the story made by the people who lovingly cherish the greeting card sent by the people who care for the Cat that lives in the house their jack built

2008 Update: This post was written for Houseblogs.net as part of a sweepstakes sponsored by SC Johnson’s Right At Home cdate:ontest:
http://www.rightathome.com

2019 Update: Some time around 2010 a whole lot of images from this blog disappeared when my ISPcrashed. I'm slowly trying to replace them. The originals above were shot BEFORE we mounted the block and card, which have hung year-round in our dining room since probably 2011 or so,