Ex-Superintendent Jim Duncan

ADM School District voted 660 yes to 247 no on a recent bond issue to build a new building for grades 8 and 9, one that will be attached to the high school in Adel. The count in Minburn was 117 to 54. The new building is expected to be finished in the fall of 2005 and will cost $9M. By comparison, the high school building completed in 1986 cost about $5M, reported Tiger Tribune (November 2003). . . . A one-sided news article by student Elena Newton tells how J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter is a “fun and hilarious to read,” all 900 pages [reminding your editor that the book he remembers most from high school was the very long Gone With the Wind]. . . .A well-written article by Melissa Mickael described an almost 6-hour trip made by eleven students with ADM science teacher David Bolluyt to a “Story of Life” two-day Nobel Conference at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota, one in which the discussion was about “Where do we come from?” Speakers included a theologist, two paleontologists, and a molecular biologist [reminding your editor that his science classes contained nothing about evolution or Darwin] . . . . An article by Nicolas Carayon in which French schools are compared to ours, finding that their level of instruction is higher because classes are harder, they cannot talk in class or draw and watch TV and videos during class, their sports classes often finish after 21:00, and their teachers are not seen out of class.

Warren, My name is Jinny Wagner, I am the City Clerk for Minburn.  I am interested in acquiring more of the Pinhooker copies.  Can you tell me what you have and if you have ever tried scanning them and putting them on cd-rom?  I could do this for you as well.  As a project and then I could catalog them so they are available to check out at the library.  Please contact me with info.  Thanks!! Sincerely, Jinny Wagner, City of Minburn, Pop. 391 " <Fallyng@aol.com>
What a pleasant surprise! Jinny Wagner, I am shocked to see that Minburn’s population has jumped from 328 when I was there to 391.  A 19% increase? I hope they’ll all vote for Howard Dean! I have been mailing copies of The Pinhooker to the library for years but was told at some point that the library had apparently discarded them. My dad, Harry Clark Smith, managed one of the two grain elevators in Minburn in the 1920s to 1940s.  He was on the town council (used to brag about being responsible for the town’s first streetlamps) and might have been the city clerk for awhile.  The Minburn Library was also sent a copy of my $125. book, Who’s Who in Hell, in which he is listed along with 10,000+ others as being a freethinker and a Mason who was not attracted to theology.  I wonder if the librarian threw that book out, also.
It would be an excellent project for you to scan the Pinhooker, put them on the CD ROM and make them available.  Congratulations!  When I was in 5th grade, for example, I would have reveled in such information had it been available, and I think any children and adults in Minburn would today, also.   The Indian Mound, Tileyard Hill, shivarees – could present residents possibly know about these?
The first newspaper in Minburn was The Eye Opener (or so the Methodist preacher’s daughter and I used to claim), a mimeographed sheet which we put out while in high school.  She has a large collection of Pinhooker copies and in a telephone conversation just now agreed to mailing you what she has.
What is your correct mailing address, and that Methodist minister’s daughter, Dorothy McDade Johns (707 West Cathy Lane, Mount Prospect, Illinois 60056) will mail you whatever she has
On 11/24/03 11:04 PM, "Fallyng@aol.com" <Fallnyg@aol.com> wrote:
Warren, Thank you for your quick response and for acquiring for me copies of the Pinhooker.  Rest assured these will be taken care of and once put onto CD ROM I will send you and Dorothy a copy when it is finished (it will take me a while but I'll do it!) and also be sure to let her know these can be returned to her or they will be preserved within City Hall's fire safe for at least as long as I have a say in it.  Just have her let me know what her wish is.   I will also be more than happy to reimburse her mailing expenses.  I revel in any history of Minburn and will be sure to see if the librarian has the copy of the book you mentioned.  
Warren replied:

In a few weeks I will be issuing the end-of-year Pinhooker and I will put you on the permanent mailing list.  All of us will be thrilled to hear that once you make the CD ROM all those reminiscences we wrote about will be available to present and future residents of Minburn, that we didn’t just write for each other’s entertainment. One Pinhooker for years has told me that the newsletter has been a waste of my time, and now you are proving him wrong!
   
Just yesterday when my cybergeek was talking about warts on his hand, I told him about Old Mr. Moss in Minburn.  He had the reputation of being able to remove warts. According to my dad, Mr. Moss removed many, many warts from the back of Frank Hoover, a retired farmer who lived across from the lumber yard near the railroad tracks.  So one day I knocked on Mr. Moss’s door (I forget if his name was Jim or Bob), showed him the back of my thumb that was sprouting a wart, and asked if he could remove it.  Bob, I’ll call him, stopped chawing tobacco for a moment, asked if I was Harry Smith’s son, and said he’d remove the wart if I made two promises.  First, I could not look at the wart for 24 hours after I left him.  Second, I must tell him the truth.  Maybe I was 10 or maybe 12, but I had never before had such a serious discussion with an adult, not even with Doc Little or Doc Hinchliff.  “I promise,” I said.  So he took my hand in his, took his other hand and oozed some spit out of his mouth onto his own thumb, then placed the spittle on his thumb directly onto my wart, holding my hand for a minute.  “What is your mother’s name?” he asked.  “Ruth Smith.”  What is your full name?” he asked.  “Warren Allen Smith.”  Is your father Harry Clark Smith?  “Yes.”  And that was it.  Remember, he said as I was leaving on my bicycle, don’t look at the wart and it will come off while you sleep.
   
Anyone who knows anything about kids can easily guess what I immediately did:  Looked.  Dad was pleased that I’d gone to see Bob. Before and after supper I checked, but the wart was still there.  Before turning out the lights that night, I checked again.  Still there.  In the morning, still there.  When I explained to Dad that my wart was not removed and was honest as to why, Dad suggested I return.  I’ve never thought of myself as being brave, but maybe I was braver then than ever since.  I again knocked on Bob’s back door.  “Mr. Moss, my wart is still there, and I know why.  It’s not your fault.  It’s mine.  I peeked.  Several times.”  I rather suppose my eyes had the beginning of tears.  Anyway, good ol’ Bob went through the entire process again, asking me the same questions, demanding to know if I had lied, put his spittle on his thumb and pressed it up against the wart on the back of my thumb.  He held on for a moment, then reminded me as before not to look for 24 hours. The next morning, that damned wart was gone!  To this day I am not sure why, although when I started my M.A. at Columbia University I read several books about warts and got the idea that, I forget exactly, but maybe some are caused psychologically and something in human spittle affects warts, I dunno.  I just know Bob did a job on my wart, and there’s no sign of where it came off.
   
I am pretty sure the above story is contained in one of those issues of the Pinhooker.  But many other tales, even more interesting, also are included by others over the years.
My class of 1939 revered Jim Duncan, who was our superintendent of schools who went on to teach at Drake, and was the voice of the Drake Relays. [Betty Jean Gottschalk has advised me that he was never on Radio WHO’s staff nor, as I previously have stated, succeeded Dutch Reagan as sports announcer.] Mr. Duncan was my inspiration for becoming a teacher.  The Pinhooker also describes other people who inspired us. One such was Paul McDade, Dorothy McDade Johns’s father, the Methodist preacher.  In short, I want to commend you for carrying out The Pinhooker’s original goal: that of helping make a history of the town that we remembered.  When I was a Methodist, I believed that people could go to Heaven when they died. No I don’t think that way, but I do think that people never die so long as someone remembers.  

Jinny responded:
There is sooooo much that current Minburn residents don't know about Minburn history.  Myself included!  I just recently did an article for the Minburn Newsletter which progressed to a story in the Dallas County Newspaper on Virgil Untied (I'm sure you recognize the name!).  I have been amazed at the overwhelming response to my story and at the amount of people that had NO idea it ever happened.  I am working presently to put Virgil Untied's name on the national memorial wall in Washington D.C. for officers who lost their lives in the line of duty.  My mailing address for City Hall is Jinny Wagner, City Clerk, Minburn City Hall, P.O. Box 213, 315 Baker Street, Minburn, Iowa  50167. City Hall's # is: 515-677-2245 Please don't hesitate to contact me anytime for any reason.  Do please keep in touch with any stories that come to mind.  Thank you very much for your assistance and please pass my gratitude along to Dorothy. Sincerely, Jinny Wagner
The night Virgil Untied died I was sleeping in my front yard, our house being almost directly in front of the railroad depot , just across from a grassy area, the second house in from the corner, and part of the store on the corner abutted our front yard, where I was sleeping.  In the morning when I awoke, there was all kinds of activity and I heard stories about the bank being robbed, some people came over to the store’s wall a few feet where I was sleeping outdoors on the hot summer night to find one or maybe even more bullet holes in that wall!  And my mother, anything but a sound sleeper, had not heard a thing all night!  Surely enough, the father of Afton, Doris, and Mildred Untied, all girlfriends of everyone in town, was killed that night.  It was a traumatic moment for everyone in town.   
    
Postscript:  Dorothy has mailed the old newsletters to the City Clerk, who now is on our mailing list. The bottom line?  Everyone named will now be remembered in perpetuity, or something like that. . . .

Doris Untied Bender kindly sent me the above front page from the 23 July 1931 Des Moines Tribune-Capital and the news about the possible memorial. Her father, Virgil, is pictured on the left, Lena West is pictured at the telephone office, and the story gives the details about how the night marshal of a town of 328 was shot five times by thugs who robbed four stores and were able to hold off other armed citizens early the previous Thursday morning. Virgil was shot as he walked in the street toward E. H. Shaw’s Grocery Store, his eye was shot out and the slug lodged in his brain, another passed through his abdomen, another grazed his abdomen, another lodged in his right shoulder, and a fifth was in his right thigh. When the newspaper was printed, little hope was held out for his recovery. More than 10 shots were fired, after which the robbers headed toward Des Moines. A short time later, a gun battle took place between Grimes and Johnston.

In the photo one sees on the left the the back exit of the brick bank, next to which is Shaw’s grocery, then other buildings to the left (The Masonic Hall and Frank Shannon’s restaurant are just to the right but not seen in the photo). Next to the Minneapolis & St. Louis (the M&St L) side track is a wooden structure with a ramp, up which farmers led cattle onto box cars for sale elsewhere. (We kids loved the ramp, which was ideal for sliding down on roller skates until you got to the ground. Your editor still remembers getting a splinter while walking barefoot on the ramp.) According to the reporter, hitchhiker Earl Wilson of Tama had spent the night in the unlocked depot, had seen the robbers break into the grocery store, and reported this to Virgil as well as to Virgil’s brother Jasper Untied and William Hagenstein. The three were armed and were alerted by Lena West, who heard the robbers trying to break into Gottschalk’s safe next door. When Virgil was shot, according to the reporter, he “crawled back to the shelter of the station platform, where he collapsed. (Your editor calls that platform a cattle and merchandise ramp and says the “station platform” was made of bricks extended a long distance in front of the depot adjacent to the main railroad tracks.)  Shots were fired, possibly hitting the car, but the bandits took off with a small amount of money from the gas station’s safe plus 6,000 cigarets and three auto tires. They first had tried to break into Steve Gottschalk’s grocery store safe, alarming telephone operator Lena West in the building next door and who phoned Virgil, the night marshal, and his brother Jasper and Mr. Hagenstein. The robbers found $5 across from Gottschalk’s Store in an open cash register at Butler’s Garage (we kids called it the Shivvy, not Chevrolet, Garage), then went to Shaw’s where Untied and Hagenstein surprised them. After shooting Virgil, the robbers raced to their car at the gas station, then took off toward Des Moines. Doc Hinchliff (mis-spelled as Hinchliffe by the reporter, your editor thinks) gave Virgil first aid treatment, then rushed him to King’s Daughters’ hospital in Perry, where he died.

In the 1930s, when John Dillinger, the Barrow Gang, and other gun-toting groups terrorized the Midwest, I was sleeping out in the front yard one night. Some gang successfully robbed the local bank, killed the town constable (Virgil Untied), and during the gunfight a bullet hit the wall of Rowe's Store next to where I was sleeping, less than 12' away. Ironically, I never heard a sound, nor did my parents, both light sleepers.

My dad found the hole in the wall, circled it, and I don’t remember the wall’s every having been painted over. Where the bullet hit was just above my head in the photo with my dad, below. I’m not sure what is in that jug. The photo on the right shows me with Leo Hagenstein at Rowe’s Department Store adjacent to my house.     Warren

                     

FOLLOWING ARE KNOWN GRADUATES OF MINBURN HIGH SCHOOL

      • Voluntarily contributed toward the newsletter’s cost. Thanks!

[Yep, I cannot tell a lie. It was I. Also, I was the paper boy who on Sunday mornings came to your house across from where Loren Nissly lived on the edge of town. In the summers it was too hot to sleep inside, and all of you were sprawled out on the front porch and the front yard. I had to climb over girls in their pj’s (gasp!) but was careful not to step on your big sister, the one who when she found out I had thrown cow manure on you retaliated by filling my bicycle’s handlebars with what my father euphemistically called “just a mixture of oats and water.” I can still smell how I had to dig the smelly gunk out. I also remember teasing you about no longer being Untied, that now like my shoes you were Tied. In those days we never really thought about our nationalities or whether you and the Sundbys had a link to Scandinavia. Today in New York, my first question when I meet someone is often, “And where did your grandparents come from?”

        The moveable feast continues, abetted by Apple’s latest wonders: the spanking-new Panther operating system; and a 2Ghz G5 Mac with double processors, Sherlock, iSight, iCal, iDVD, iPhoto, iTunes, a 20” monitor, an iPod, an iBook, and a Nokia 3560 mobile phone that takes photos. It’ll take me a decade to learn how to use everything. Having the world’s fastest, virus-free set-up helps me to THINK DIFFERENT.

        • My correspondence and a $1 check from John Dewey have both been donated to the John Dewey Library in Champaign at The University of Illinois.
        • The $403 in pre-1953 $1, $2, $10, and $100 bills I have collected over the years that do not have “In God We Trust” printed on them (Gott ist mit uns was also what I found in 1944 on the belts of Nazi prisoners of war) have been contributed to Freedom From Religion Foundation in Madison, Wisconsin. I spoke at one of their conventions, I escorted Taslima Nasrin to one of their conventions, and I like their determined legal fights to maintain separation of church and state. The Foundation will give the bills to high school essay contest winners.
        • My correspondence with the poet Tram Combs has been donated to The University of Delaware, which replied that the library not only appreciated receiving it but also liked my having included the Orde Coombs letters, unaware that he had been more than just an anthologizer. Coombs, St. Vincent’s intellectual who was on New York’s staff and who sometimes went to movie reviewers’ viewings with me, died mysteriously of an illness just about the time HIV was first written about. I included letters also from his friend, Lindsay Patterson, James Baldwin’s secretary. The librarian, noting that the library did not have my books, “rectified this” by ordering copies of both books. (Parenthetically, few of my NCHS colleagues talked with me about intellectual matters, although they knew that Lionel Trilling had been my advisor at Columbia and knew I was being published during all the time I taught in New Canaan.)
        • My correspondence in the mid-1950s when I was a board member of the American Humanist Association in Washington, DC., has been given to the AHA. It was a time when we voted the first female honorary member (Margaret Sanger) and I served on the Board with Vashti McCollum of McCollum v. Board of Education, the prevailing Supreme Court for half a century, invoked by justices to halt school prayer and bible reading in public schools in the sixties.
        • The other major donation is that of my Gilbert Price mementoes, including the 4-time Tony Award nominee’s old tax forms, which have been given to the Schomberg Center in Harlem. I included new material about his having been Langston Hughes’s protégé, my own personal memories, and a photo of his teaching one of my NCHS classes, all of which can be found at <http://wasm.us/ws_price.html>. After delivering the large sheaf of material to the archivist, I paused for a moment while standing atop Hughes’s ashes, which only the cognoscenti know are encased on the ground floor.
    • It may not be p.c., but I’m an Indian-giver, also. I took back “The Humanist,” the lifesize statue I had donated to Paul Kurtz’s humanistic center in Buffalo. In a moment, I’ll describe why.

Jane St.’s Warren Allen Smith says that the street, which claims to have more published authors per square foot on its five short blocks than anywhere else in the city, now has another distinction. All the street’s buildings are described, many with photos, on the Web at http://wasm.us/ws_Jane_Street.html. There’s also a picture of Smith, who we found out this week also goes by the pseudonyms of Victoria and Hortense, the former whom Smith fired for responding to The Villager’s return e-mail without his permission, but then rehired.