After I had my Sunday morning spiritual exercise completed, and then shortly after, finding I really didn’t have anything pressing on my plate, I decided to take that drive I’d spoken about some weeks ago which ended up being a longer journey than I’d expected, and only because I decided to stop and take some photos on my way there and back.
The end-point of my journey was to visit the site which happened be a section of land my great-great grandfather homesteaded back in the late 1850’s, and since I’d not been anywhere near that particular area, I managed to get a good look at what the landscape must’ve been like well over 100 years ago. Thank goodness at least the grove and one building that must’ve been built later is still standing, and as much as I wanted to drive up that long driveway to where the building site must’ve been located, I decided not to because there were ‘No Trespassing’ signs clearly posted. At least I did get a photo of that site which I’m sharing with you as tonight’s.
When a youngster, I always enjoyed listening to the ‘old ones’ talking about their parents and grandparents, which always helped to provide a few more mental visuals as to what their daily lives must’ve been like, and especially back before the rapid population growth began in the 1880’s. I was happy about finding that homestead, but also a little sad when thinking how a once prominent farm family’s legacy is now nothing but a big chunk of land out in the boonies with one building, a large grove of trees, and likely some old stone foundations amongst the new growth. From what I’d been told, my great-great grandfather was an exceptionally successful farmer whose spread was so large, he’d have to keep hired help on a regular basis. I had to laugh when reading about how he could distinguish if a man was a worker by asking, “Do you like to eat?”, and if the answer was “Yes”, he’d hire the guy because he believed if a man liked to eat, he wasn’t afraid of work.
On my way back, I decided to drive thru a small town, and wouldn’t you know, all along one rickety tin building’s wall was spray-painted in various sections in bold letters, ‘Trump 2024’. Gee, I couldn’t help wondering if whomever did all that spray-painting, is now having some serious second thoughts, and especially when just recently seeing where China has placed tariffs on our agricultural products like soybeans and corn. If that be the case, I’m sure they’re already looking to sign purchase orders from those many South American producers, which in the end, will drive the price of corn and beans down here in the United States. I do know that a large percentage of our farmers voted for him, so we’ll see what’s gonna happen with this year’s profit margins on their crops. I still can’t get my brain wrapped around why people voted for a person who’d been in bankruptcy at least a half-dozen times. Oh well, there’s gonna be some hard lessons to be learned out of all of this.
When I arrived back at office, I putzed around a little bit and then changed my clothes and went to work at stripping a wardrobe which one of my mother’s cousins had given me after selling their home, and the reason they gave it to me, was because I happened to notice it tucked-away in the back of their garage. At the time, my mother’s cousin said it belonged to his wife’s grandmother, and ended up in his garage after she died, where it stood for heaven only knows how many years.
Well, after their home sold, he approached me and asked if I would like to have that rickety wardrobe, which of course I agreed to take, and since I had far too many other more pressing chores on my plate, it ended up in my storeroom for at least ten or more years until just recently when I decided it was either gonna get gifted or stripped, so today was by first crack at getting started on it.
Oh my goodness! That shellac was so blistered and black, one could hardly tell what type of wood it was, but after a good two hours of working on it, I now have the two bottom drawers stripped, along with one of the tall doors, so at least I’ve got a good start which will have me motivated to get it completely restored. For sure it needs some re-glueing and several repairs, but at least it’ll have a new lease on life.
To my surprise, I happened to notice a stamp on the side of one of those drawers which said, ‘Meir Wolf’ which I believed was a very large furniture store here in Mason City many years ago, and then later confirming my suspicions when I went searching for the company in a1927 City Directory I happen to own. Sure enough, I found their advertisement in that directory which stated, ‘Meir Wolf and Sons Co…North Iowa’s Largest Furniture Store located at 309 – 311 & 313 S. Federal, Mason City, Iowa.’ Of course that building was completely demolished back when they built that now decrepit Southbridge Mall. Meir Wolf ended up building his new home at 811 N. Adams which is now on the National Register of Historic Places which is a lasting legacy of his prominence at the time.
Tonight’s One-liner is: If we continue to accumulate only power and not wisdom, we will surely destroy ourselves.
