Past Time • March 23

By ROBERT MAHARRY TIMES-REPUBLICAN

Anyone who’s ever worked in the media business is extremely familiar with a fiveword phrase that, for better and usually worse, has come to define the news, especially at the state and national level, over the years: if it bleeds, it leads.

It’s reductive and perhaps an oversimplification, sure, but it highlights a fundamental truth. We’re often drawn to morbid stories about the worst things humans are capable of, and

as a result, journalists can find themselves circling the drain on the hunt for the most lurid scenarios imaginable — the 2014 Jake Gylenhaal film “Nightcrawler” is a prime example of the phenomenon.

Every once in a while, however, a story comes along that sweeps the nation and, against all odds, makes people happy. Last month, we were lucky enough to witness one right here in Marshalltown, with none other than Past Times columnist and Riverside General Manager Dorie Tammen playing the central role.

I won’t rehash all of the details because, let’s be honest, you should all

know them by now — It was on CBS Nightly News, for Pete’s sake! But even playing a small role in documenting the journey that ultimately brought Blossom and Frankie together will always be a highlight of my reporting career if I’m ever lucky enough to retire. Perhaps more importantly, on my end, was the fact that it gave me the chance to get to know someone who I work with on a regular basis but had rarely if ever interacted with in person. So Dorie,

thank you for being a true Marshalltown original and bringing our community into the spotlight with your ingenious personal ad and subsequent love story that ultimately made it all the way to Maine, Scandinavia and several places in between.

In true Marshalltown fashion, Adland Engraving, fresh off of the success of their “Top Gun: Maverick” themed shirts, is offering a new one referencing the Great Wild Goose Chase of 2023, and our beloved

cemetery is getting some much-deserved national attention as one of the most unique and historically relevant in the nation.

With Frankie and Blossom’s viral moment behind them and the cameras turning back toward the pressing news items of the day — a bankrupt bank, the 2024 presidential race already heating up and Aaron Rodgers to the Jets?!

— they’re now free to settle into their new life together, spend their days frolicking near the lake and reminisce

on that first day they met. Frankie, of course, was a bit apprehensive, but once they were finally paired up, it was a match made in heaven.

And amidst all of the turmoil both local and national, it gave us here in Marshalltown something to smile about. So thank you, Dorie, for being the catalyst behind this wonderful story, and thank you Frankie and Blossom for reminding us of the power of love.

Preserving the past

Historical Society of Marshall County

Buggy manufacturing in Marshalltown

By MIKE DONAHEY PAST TIMES COLUMNIST

Beginning in the 1880s, Marshalltown businessmen William Fisher, Dave Lennox, E. Lester Williams and Jesse Williams were developing robust markets for barbed wire, furnaces, regulators, valves and trowels.

Lost but to history were the buggy, also known as a carriage, and wagon manufacturers who were equally ambitious. Some failed, but others prospered before the onset of automobiles.

Buggy manufacturing was started in Marshalltown in 1868 by Coburn and Rewey, according to Historical Society of Marshall County (HSMC) archives.

That company later went out of business as did other carriage makers. However, the Marshalltown Buggy Co. the Rhodes-Carmean Co. and Ketchum Wagon Co. were more successful, and helped put Marshalltown on the map along with Fisher, Lennox and the Williams brothers according to the Marshalltown Illustrated, which was published by the Times-Republican under the supervision of the Marshalltown Retail Merchants’ Association.

“There are few products manufactured in Marshalltown which make our city so familiar throughout the middle-western states as the Marshalltown buggies,” reported the publication. “Almost everywhere throughout Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, the Dakotas, Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, Texas and the southwest, Marshalltown buggies are known and used. They manufacture more than 60 varieties of buggies, carriages, and spring wagons for the consumer.”

The companies not only enhanced Marshalltown as a growing manufacturing,

railroad and retail center of 14,000, they contributed significantly to the local economy. The Marshalltown Buggy Co. was established 1903-1904 according to T-R archives, had a staff of 165 and a payroll of $80,000 annually.

More than 100 local resi dents were stockholders, including company officers L.M. Osborn, president; W.A. Tuttle, vice-president, F.E. Gates, manager; and R.R. East; secretary and treasurer.

Gates, Osborn and Tuttle had extensive carriage manu facturing experience. They had moved to Marshalltown from Indianapolis, Ind., where they had worked at the Gates-Osborn Carriage Man ufacturing Co.

They saw a business op portunity in markets west of Indianapolis and moved. East was a Marshalltown resident.

The team purchased a three-story vacant factory building at the southwest corner of Third Avenue and Church Street. It covered three-quarters of a block and was previously occupied by the Rhodes-Carmean Co., also a buggy manufacturer.

The Marshalltown Buggy Co. then embarked on the production of a new line. Prices ranged from $60 to $400 per unit, depending on accessories.

In their first year of business, they sold and manufactured 2,400 buggies. The next year saw sales of 4,655, followed in the next year by 7,000 units.

As sales increased so did local investment, with residents purchasing an additional $60,000 in shares. Carriage sales were made for customers not only in the midwest, but in California, Oregon, Utah and Washington.

Antique dealers Roger and Vivian Yeager of State Center owned a Marshalltown Buggy. They and their business were

History is alive at Riverside

Dorie Tammen

The Cootie Garment Makers

By DORIE TAMMEN RIVERSIDE CEMETERY

Jthink most folks, of a cer tain age at least, are familiar with the word “cootie,” used as a childhood mostly-joking insult about imagi nary germs.

Do kids still use this term today?

I’ve heard it only very rarely in recent years. But there’s a lot more to the term than I ever knew, and I had no idea how it originated.

During WWI, body lice were a torment to soldiers, particularly those who were involved in trench warfare or held in POW camps. “Cooties” was the slang term these soldiers gave to the infestations of lice, their eggs, and sometimes other bugs, which they frequently suffered from.

I found photos online of WWII soldiers picking the lice and their eggs out of their clothing and hair, scrubbing the lice off of each other, and tossing their uniforms and blan kets into huge steamers to fumigate the fabrics. Trench soldiers were known to keep 18-inch-long wooden “scratchers” in their leggings to help fight the cooties.

featured in an April 4, 1991

T-R story by reporter Curt Hodgdon.

Hodgdon wrote the unique buggy was one of their prized possessions.

The words “Marshalltown Buggy Co.” were clearly visible on a brass plate on the body.

Roger Yeager told the T-R he estimated the buggy had once belonged to a physician, and it had been produced between 1911 and 1913.

“This was the ‘Cadillac’ of buggies,” he said.

The buggy had largerthan-normal wooden spoked wheels — 45-inch rear and 41-inch front — and included a hard rubber strip for a more comfortable ride. The larger wheels provided more wheel

Then came the Cootie Garment Movement, which began in Iowa early in 1918, and is considered by some to be one of Iowa’s most impor tant contributions to the war effort.

Charlotte Eastman, a widow from Iowa City, decided that underwear made of chemically-treated cloth would help alleviate the cootie problem for Iowa’s soldiers fighting in Europe, and she was determined to do something about it.

She enlisted the help of a laboratory at the University of Iowa, which came up with vermin-resistant chemicals that could be infused into the garments. The cost for one cootie garment was said to be 60 cents. There was some initial controversy about these garments: too little of the chemicals would cause the garments to lose effectiveness in short order; too much of the chemicals could cause skin irritation. Apparently, they soon got the process perfected, and a drive was started across the state to make the garments and provide them to Iowa soldiers.

Charlotte Eastman set up a state-

wide headquarters in Des Moines, and soon soldiers at Camp Dodge received the treated underwear. By June, several shipments had gone overseas.

The Red Cross was criticized by some for not getting involved in the movement from the beginning. They sent a representative to France to investigate the effectiveness of the garments, resulting in a report that endorsed them. General Pershing even endorsed cootie garments, and as a result, the war department ordered thousands of them.

Women’s Clubs in at least 40 communities across Iowa set about raising funds to make the cootie gar-

ments, and the ladies of Marshalltown were among them. Women here had already been making surgical dressing for the war effort as early as November of 1917. Now they would turn to making cootie garments as well.

The first mention of cootie garments found in the Evening TimesRepublican was on July 6, 1918. That article reported that 7000 garments were needed, and quickly. Mrs. Eastman is quoted as saying, “Almost all of the towns have become interested in the work after they have received letters from their boys over there telling of the effectiveness of the garments. One Winterset young man

writes that he put his suit on in the morning and by night every cootie had left him.”

Evaporation and washing would weaken the effectiveness of the chemicals over time, so soldiers were provided with a supply of the chemicals to re-treat the garments as needed.

The Evening T-R reported on July 19 that the Congregational Aide Society had held a regular meeting and time was spent making cootie garments while music was played, readings were given, and refreshments were served. On July 22, the paper printed an ad: “Wanted — Fifty patriotic women to work on cootie garments at Elks’ parlors Tuesday.”

On July 23, a Cootie Garment Benefit was announced, to be held in a private home on West State Street.

An annual Victory Picnic was held by the Marshalltown Green Corn Association, which raised funds for the

local Red Cross and “cootie garment enthusiasts,” according to a July 26 newspaper report.

The local newspaper coverage continued quite frequently into the fall. The war ended Nov. 11, 1918, but the cootie garment movement would continue “until the last Iowa boy is home from overseas,” declared Charlotte Eastman’s anti-vermin garment association in the Nov. 26 paper.

It was also reported that “every haystack and home in the war zone is infested with cooties,” so the garments were now also needed as sleepwear. It appears that the work gradually slowed down and came to a halt in the spring of 1919. On April 7, 1919, the newspaper reported that “the women of Iowa had made 27,652 cootie garments for Iowa soldiers.”

A two-wheel cart manufactured by Ketchum Wagon Works of Marshalltown is shown. The company was established in 1880, and manufactured carts, farm, freight and spring wagons among other products.

“Cootie Garment Makers” from the book, “The World War in Marshall County,” with Dr. Cora W. Choat front and center in the black dress.

CONTRIBUTED PHOTOS

The full page feature about Billy Petrone from the Sunday Register’s Magazine, 10-28-1923.

An advertisement for the Marshalltown Buggy Co. is shown. The company was a major producer of buggies and sold to customers throughout the United States.

Ads for Dr. Cora W. Choate and her dentist husband, from the 9/19/1917 Evening Times-Republican.

Buggy CONTINUED | FROM A1

surface on the road creating a more stable ride.

Also unique to the upscale buggy were the hubs on each wheel, which were equipped with two special locking nuts. The individual locking design provided a means of adjustment, which would lessen play on the wheel.

The increasing popularity of automobiles spelled the company’s demise, and it went out of business circa 1915.

Rhodes-Carmean Co.

The firm was established in 1880, according to HSMC archives. They were manufacturers and jobbers of buggies, spring wagons and cutters. With offices at 20 and 22 N. Center St., Marshalltown,

Cootie CONTINUED | FROM A1

There were many Marshalltown ladies involved in the cootie garment movement. We found photos of some of them in the book, “Marshall County in the World War 1917-1918.” No doubt a number of them now rest at Riverside. One of them, in particular, was Dr. Cora W. Choate, who is front and center in one of the photos. She was a lead ing figure in the movement in Marshalltown and she was frequently in the newspaper for speaking at meetings of various clubs and organiza tions in town. At least one of the meetings where she spoke was a women’s suf frage group, the “Political Equality League. Cora prac ticed medicine in her office over the Fidelity Bank (later Commercial State Bank, and now county offices) at 102 E. Main St. Her office phone number was “62!”

She lived at 808 W. Main St. in 1918. At the time of her death in 1950, she lived at 907 W. Main. Both of her homes are still standing today.

they produced 800 to 1,000 vehicles annually with sales of approximately $75,000. They employed 25 mechanics. A company’s factory was at 101 S. Third Ave., according to The History of Marshall County 1955 by Gerard Schultz.

“It later expanded into a three-story building at the southwest corner of the Third Avenue and Church Street intersections,” according to Schultz.

Newton Carmean of the company built the Carmean Home at 607 W. Main St., Marshalltown.

It was completed in 1901.

The house is unique architecturally, with 16 rooms, three floors, plus basement and attic. It is also known as the “Heart House” for its heart-shaped windows.

Ketchum Wagon Co.

Established Nov. 26, 1880, with $100,000 in stock, the company manufactured farm, freight and spring wagons, drays, trucks, road carts and bobsleds.

“Manufacturing as they do none but the best quality vehicles, their goods have already found their way into the western and southwestern states and territories as well as those surrounding Iowa,” according to HSMC archives. Ketchum Wagon Co. was in a two story brick building and at one time had 75 employees. Business managers were N.S. Ketchum and S.D. Palmer.

Like many other Marshalltown businesses, local residents purchased stock in the company.

Ketchum sold his stock in 1890. Machinery was moved to Chicago, and the company closed a few years later.

In January of 1919, while the Spanish flu pandemic was raging worldwide, Cora, her husband, and her fatherin-law spent 5 weeks in Cali fornia. After their return, the Evening Times-Republican interviewed Cora about their experiences there, in a region especially hard hit by the flu. Apparently, there were a number of folks here in town who were interested in the conditions there before plan ning trips to the west coast.

According to her obitu ary, Cora was born in 1872 in Wisconsin and at the age of 8, moved to State Center with her family. She received her medical degree at Northwestern University in 1868, and for a time, interned at Mary Thompson hospital for women and children. She married Dr. William Choate, a dentist, in 1895, and the couple came to Marshalltown to live and work.

Cora was a member of the American Medical Association, served as secretary

ly, she was a member of the Marshalltown library board for over 40 years, and was active in obtaining the Binford House for the use of Marshalltown’s women’s clubs.

She was also the first manager of the Binford House, which remains the home of local women’s clubs today. At one 1910 meeting of the Federation of Women’s Clubs, Cora gave an address entitled, “Americanitis.” I

the age of 78 in 1950 of blas tomycosis, a fungal infection. She had been in poor health prior to that due to a car accident 12 years earlier. She is buried with her husband and in-laws in a family plot here at Riverside.

Despite searching an abundance of online information, I was disappointed to find no photo or drawing of a cootie garment that I could be certain was correct.

Shown is a page from a Chapman-Larmar Account Book used at Ketchum Wagon Co. of Marshalltown. The company also sold products under the Ketchum & Gaston Co. name. Ketchum Wagon Co. prospered in Marshalltown for a time before closing and moving to Chicago.

“An Ode to a Cootie” WWI-era drawing by PFC Walter R. Sabel.

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