Month: July 2023

A few weeks ago I reported we had an unexpected visit from brother and sister David and Sharon Stute. (The Stute family had lived in this house from 1903-1973.) During that visit, Pam asked for photos, if any, of some of the Stute ancestors who had lived here. Sharon recently did mail us photos of the house and, more importantly, some of the previous occupants. This post will delve a bit more into the history of Heart House and its former family.

Heart House was built in 1894 by Edward D. Kelly at a cost of $1,500.00. He sold the house in 1903 to Denis (yes, only one “n”) R. Tierney and his wife Hannah Kane Tierney for $2,500.00. Denis died in November 1904, and Hannah became the sole owner.

The photo below was not labeled but the couple are believed to be Denis and Hannah.

The couple had two daughters, Evelyn and Gertrude.

Evelyn Bertha Tierney (1883 – 1973) is listed as living in the house in the 1910 and 1920 census reports. She trained as a teacher, moved to the East Coast, remained single and died in Morris County, New Jersey.

Gertrude Josephine Tierney (1884 – 1971) married Frederick Nickolas Stute in November of 1907. The pair, and their children, lived in the house with Hannah and paid her $20.00 a month in rent.

The Stutes had three children: Frederick Wallace, known as Wally, (1908 – 1998), Josephine Lorraine (1920 – 1993) and Francis Bernard (1928 – 2020) who was known as “Corky.”

Hannah died in 1940 and her two daughters inherited the house. Evelyn sold her half to Gertrude. When Gertrude died in 1971 her children kept the residence empty for a few years, then sold the house to Charles and Clara Boyle. We had heard that Charles died shortly after their purchase, and thereafter the house became known as “Grandma Clara’s house” by both their descendants and Elma residents.

This history illustrates an important side note: The house was titled in a female name for 70 years in an era where male property possession predominated.

After the 1990s the house’s history becomes a bit muddy and random. It went through several owners who used the property as a short and long term rental, until we bought it in September 2019, from an elderly couple who had only owned it for 18 months.

Sharon was able to send us a couple photos of the house as it appeared in February of 1993 at the time of Josephine Lorraine’s funeral. (Note that a portion of a barn is showing at the lower left-hand corner of the house.) Instead of Victorian porch spindles on the wrap around porch, the 1993 home had solid wood porch surrounds in the Farmhouse style. Where we now have shrubs planted, there were trees in the 90’s.

Sharon confirmed our suspicions that the current laundry room was once the kitchen, and the current kitchen was a living room. She did not remember a bathroom on the first floor. (Sharon and David are Corky’s children and were the only grandchildren of Gert and Fred. Neither Wally nor Lorraine had any children.)

Both David and Sharon visited Grandma Gert in their childhoods, but Sharon, being the older child, has more exact memories of the house than her younger brother. David did remember being forbidden to go into the basement due to the dirty and dark coal bin that took up most of the basement floor space.

Pam and I would like to give David and Sharon a big “Thank You” for providing the photos, history, and personal recollections of past history at Heart House. We really appreciate it — just exactly the info we have been seeking since we moved in.

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Penny

Speaking of old-timey things, the Grandpa Ott morning glories blooming so prolifically on our west arbor are a variety developed in Iowa from an older German strain of morning glories. Iowa Public Television had an interesting documentary [which aired a few years ago] detailing preservation efforts of these older seed types. The Otts are smaller in size than other morning glories I’ve planted, but the deep purple with red accents is second to none in arbor color.

The white phlox has finally started to bloom; the whites seem to be always later blooming than the pinks. Whenever a breeze blows across the phlox patch a delightful-but-gentle scent wafts across the lawn.

Happy Trails.

Breaking News…

We knew a neighborhood cat Pam calls Frito had had kittens. Pam opened the catio this morning and found this…

More to come in a future post!

I mentioned, in my last post, that I would be attending an antique power show. This week’s post covers that event with a lot of photos and three videos. I hope it is not boring but it is definitely aimed at those who enjoy looking at old machinery.

In addition to old tractors, including some very rare models, there were garden tractors, steam engines, threshing machines, two-man chainsaws, draft horses, hit-and-miss engines, antique waggons and vehicles, miniature railroads, and a flea market. Not all are pictured below but all were interesting to see and visit.

Live demonstrations of threshing and sawmilling were done. Corn shelling and lumber planing were on the show’s schedule. A parade of antique power was part of the show. Let’s move on the the imagery!

The tractor below is a rare unit. Around 150 were ever built and very few remain. Designed to be part car (with a heater installed) and a road gear giving up to about 45 mph speeds, it was thought a farmer could work his fields and go to town with the same unit. The idea did not go over very well.

A number of old waggons and antique trucks were included.

Antique cars were well represented, including this 1913 International Harvester.

There were row upon row of tractors, separated into brands, including these red Farmalls.

Even garden tractors had their own display area. These are getting quite collectible now.

When we think of steam tractors, we normally think of very large machines, but smaller samples were also produced. This show had some of each. Here is a smaller Case model.

Off to one side of the show arena a model railroad, with several miniature engines and cars, offered rides through a forested park.

Several demonstrations were scheduled, including threshing and sawmilling. Here is a photo of the later. It is quite likely that lumber for our 1894 home was produced on mills like this one. (A video is included below.)

I enjoyed the visit and taking in the demonstrations and looking at all the machinery. While I won’t go every year, it had been some time since I last attended a show and not a swap meet.

I put together three videos, one dealing with the parade of old equipment, the sawmill in operation, and threshing. Run times are 2:03 for the parade, 2:50 for the sawmill, and 1:23 for threshing.

I apologize of the jerkiness of the first part of this video. I had tried going back to hand-holding the camera, a mistake. The second half is better quality.

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Penny

Who-da-thunk the guy running the antique power show Himself attended is my brother Craig’s friend Les Radcliffe. That’s the Midwest for you.

Happy Trails.

There are several unrelated topics to cover this time. I attended a family reunion, went antique hunting, and reviewed photos (taken by the painters) of just how bad the tower needs work. More flowers are blooming around the yard and Elma had its annual celebration, Elma Trail Days. Onward!

I will begin with photos of the tower as that is the oldest topic this week. While the painters were here with their bucket trucks we asked them to get close to the tower and take photos so we could see what we were going to have to deal with. The results are not pretty.

It does appear that the “skirt” was built over regular shingles so removing it will not involve disturbing any structural elements. The “cap”, on the other hand, will need extensive rebuilding. However, the top is a piece of metal that was installed sometimes in the ’90s and is not original to the house. It appears to be salvageable, but the decorative elements are in pretty bad shape.

This is worse than we had anticipated but not completely unanticipated. We are currently discussing how to approach the repair work, if we can find someone to do it. Definitely NOT something I care to take on.

Elma celebrated Elma Trail Days with a parade and other events, but I did not take photos of anything. The parade was pretty lame with few decorated floats and no bands. Area service company trucks made up most of the entries, along with fire engines from various nearby communities. Let’s just say that if the parade did not come past our house we would not bother driving anywhere to attend it.

Becky did come up to visit us and watch the parade from our front porch. Here is a photo of Pam and Becky among the festive bunting.

Last Sunday, July 9th, I attended a Rohland family reunion. (My mother was a Rohland.) This gave me the chance to visit quite a few of my many cousins for a few hours and catch up with a bit of family news and lots of “where are they now” stories.

Back in Elma, utility workers have been around to set “pedestals” for the new underground wiring and running cable to them. Not exciting, but here is a pedestal near the west side of our lot.

Friday afternoon I went antique hunting. Pam, Becky, and I had met an antique dealer a few weeks ago during our jaunt to an arts and crafts fair and it made sense to see his “home store.” I was hoping he would have more furniture, but that was not to be. He did have quite a variety of steel wheels and lots of bottles of various vintages and, to be honest, a lot of stuff in his 5,000 square foot shop. Outside he had more ‘mechanical’ items such as old wheels, some antique farm implements, and other odds and ends. I spent a few hours there going through the shop and yard but bought only one small item.

It was a pleasant way to spend a morning.

Around the yard, the phlox are now in full bloom. Along with the hostas, daylilies, and other blooming flowers the yard is quite colorful.

My next event to attend is an antique power show north of Elma, in Spring Valley. I will try not to overload the next post with pictures of old motors…

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Penny

Re: Elma Trail Days, when did hogs in a pen on a flatbed become a float? Or a pickup with a handwritten sign taped on the door an entry? Is the bar that low?

With a hefty budget, I’d alter the entire tower design by cutting it in half and installing a metal-fence widow’s walk around the [new] top. But that is NOT going to happen. So I vote for a basic “tidy up” approach; take off the wood around the middle (mostly rotting/falling off anyway), scrape and paint the decorative top elements and call it good. Even that very basic plan will be hard to implement.

Happy Trails.

There is a lot to cover this week. Pam’s high school classmate, Ed Allen, staged a concert and we attended. Along the way we stopped to visit Pam’s older brother, Larry. Heart House was decorated for the 4th of July. A squirrel was filmed while eating from our corn cob feeder. We had an added bonus when a brother – sister pair stopped by; their grandmother had lived in this house and the pair had set out to find it again. Quite the activity going on!

I will mention, at the outset, that my hands are not as steady as they used to be. The included videos are proof of that. More use of a tripod is in order for future videos.

Last Saturday was the concert day. Onalaska was on the way so we stopped to see Pam’s older brother Larry. A carry-out from Culver’s provided lunch and we had a good chat. (Becky drove up from Greene to watch the dogs for the day. A thank you to her for that.)

From Onalaska we drove a bit north and then west to Trempealeau to attend a two-person concert featuring one of Pam’s high school classmates, Ed Allen, and another artist named Clara Byom. The Allen name may be familiar to regular readers of this blog as we had made a similar trip last year to help celebrate Annie Allen’s birthday.

Below is a 5:58 clip of Eddie and Clara. Ed solos first then is joined by Clara who provided some background music to another number. There is some wind noise, but the breeze was welcomed in the heat.

We enjoyed the 5-hour concert and Pam was able to connect with a few of her classmates.

Since I am including video clips, here is one featuring a squirrel eating from a cob of corn on one of our feeders. Run time is 1:07. Shot through the upstairs bathroom window, the quality is not the best but you will get the idea.

This squirrel lives in one of our trees, we think, as we see it often on the cob feeder and water dish. It is identifiable by a white pattern on its chest.

As has become a custom with us, Heart House is decorated for the 4th of July and this weekend’s Elma Trail Days parade. A few new items are included – a change from last year.

Around the yard, daylilies are really coming into their own.

Even the “board buddies” are looking good near the catio.

We had a pair of unexpected visitors. A brother and sister, David and Sharon Stute, stopped in. Heart House was “home” for their grandmother and great-grandmother from 1903 – 1971; the two siblings embarked on a nostalgic drive from Wisconsin to track down the place as part of ongoing genealogy research. Both David and Sharon related memories of visiting the house that were of interest to us.

A tour of the house was in order, as well as a discussion of their memories and the history of 702 Main, including Elma’s growth in the early 1900s. Sharon had a large binder of family documents drawn from Ancestry.com. These confirmed much of what Pam had learned through independent research about the previous occupants. Addresses and contact info was exchanged between us, and an offer to stop by any time they are in the area was extended. It’s highly possible photographs of the Tierneys and Stute families will be sent via our smartphones. Finally, we may see the faces of the folks who lived in this multi-generational house.

Other projects received attention. The equipment trailer was fitted with four new tires and some additional paint was sprayed on. Pam put up the holiday decorations mentioned earlier and spent time in the quilt room going through boxes. The Quimby Quilt was unpacked and hung on one wall.

The only bummer of the week was on the 4th; we had driven to Charles City for an evening outdoor concert and fireworks, only to find the concert had been moved indoors and the fireworks display canceled due to approaching severe weather. (Which never materialized, by the way.) An outdoor concert would have been appropriate for the 4th, particularly on the banks of the Cedar River.

It was a busy week with some fun ad a few surprises thrown in. The weather cooled down a bit over the last couple days making outside work more bearable. On tap for next week is some lawn repair (where the painter’s lift trucks left some ruts), more paint on the equipment trailer, and my final physical therapy session.

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Penny

Here I am at the afore-mentioned concert in Trempealeau, with my high school classmate Diane [Stuhr] Wittenberg, and going through our senior yearbook. We’re attempting to determine who’s alive, who’s dead, and how many of these folks we still have any contact with.

Why? Since our 50th high school reunion fell during the COVID-19 lockdown period, there’s been a conversation re: if the class of ’71 will ever meet again en masse. A gathering next year has been proposed, loosely called “Class of ’71 turns ’71.” It may all come down to the numbers — out of a class of 92, 16 are already deceased. Of the remaining classmates, if one third are willing to attend a gathering, it may make sense to purdue the possibilities. Currently, Diane and I were able to identify only one quarter who could be contacted by verified phone, postal, or social media addresses. Will be interesting if the one third number can be reached.

Re: the visit by the Stute siblings, I remember thinking on Memorial Day (when we put flowers from our yard on the gravestones of the Tierney and Stute family members at the Catholic cemetery) how nice it would be if someone from that family visited Heart House during our residency. The Universe delivered.

Happy Trails!

The main news this week involves painting. Gable painting began on Tuesday and the results are looking terrific! Other activity saw the power company working on the Main Street/north side, burying cables. (This necessitated digging holes in the median.) More flowers are in bloom and I have a short clip of neighborhood cat Autumn Calico rolling around on the sidewalk. A quick medical update will round out the narrative. Onward!

Both Pam and I took a lot of photos of the painting work in progress. Here are a few work-in-progress shots and I will include finished results below.

Last week I had included a photo of the power company putting guards around the power line that leads to the house. This photo below shows why guards were a good idea. The painter is in a bucket between the house and power line.

Above is over the east porch. The west side was somewhat more open.

The north and south sides had trees to contend with but the crew managed to get positioned OK. (Two guys, Will and Troy, each with a boom lift, did the work.)

Here are a few photos of the finished work.

As you can see, the painters were able to fulfill Pam’s request to paint the east gable under the electrical wire. We are very pleased we won’t have to try to negotiate rental bucket lift equipment under that wire. The house is looking better than ever. Now we just need to repair remaining [mint green] broken siding sections, and finish the second floor red painting.

The Tower: One of the painters will do some photography of the tower to establish a scope of work. A wooden decorative “skirt,” about half-way up, could possibly be removed, depending on what is underneath it. Photos may confirm it was built over the cedar shakes which could stay in place while permitting the removal of the “skirt” with no ill effects.

The top “cap” of the tower is problematic. It looks to have quite a bit of rot – can it be painted? Does it need complete replacement? Replacement would be more than I can personally do. Whatever we decide, it may just be “lipstick on a pig.” Our resources are not endless.

Moving onto other topics…

One of the outside cats, mentioned before, is Autumn Calico. Here is a – shaky – 57 second video of her grooming and rolling around on the sidewalk.

As if having two lift trucks in the yard was not enough excitement, the power company, Alliant Energy, dug a couple holes in our Main Street median. Power lines are going underground and junction boxes need to be installed on small pedestals at a few points. The following photos show one hole (of two in our median) and the plastic pipes that will eventually house the power cables.

At least the workers backfilled the holes when they were done and did a good job raking and leveling the area. We will throw some grass seed down and see if we get some green to come back yet this summer.

Around the yard, hostas are beginning to bloom as are daylilies. Regular lilies and hollyhocks are continuing to show their colors so we have a pretty good show going right now.

Finally, a medical note. I went to the dentist for impressions that will result in a casting for my replacement front tooth. The new tooth should be ready for fitting in a couple weeks. I broke it last September and getting the implant has been a long process, now nearing an end.

The Civil War Reenactment we had planned to attend last weekend did get rained out, but we really needed the rain and did not mind staying inside to read and work on quiet projects. Elmo, Bru, and Blondie had a quiet afternoon napping in the laundry room. (JoJo was elsewhere in the house.)

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Penny

Oh, Heart House. Look under the roof overhang below and see wood that hasn’t seen paint in decades (the dirty looking bit at the bottom of the photo). No wonder the house has looked so bedraggled. When I question why we took on this exterior paint “experience” I’ll remember this photo.

The paint crew was very thorough when cleaning the wood trim in the gables prior to painting, wood trim I refer to as the “lace” of the gables. Spindles and decorative circles fell off the lace left and right during paint prep. One wonders how they stayed up under the eaves all these decades? In the end, the lace is still attractive without these”artifacts” but it’s less intricate than it was originally. (The only piece of lace with most of the spindles intact is in the south gable, an area protected by the giant oak trees.)

Happy Trails.