“SON OF A BITCH”

Michael Jondle owned over 300 acres of farmland and at least one important commercial building, the Garmoe Building, located on Central Avenue adjacent to the Square, a prime location in downtown Fort Dodge.  Betty was given the impression that he was a drinker, a gambler, and lost some of his properties as a result.  He may not have actually gambled, like playing poker, but made risky real-estate investments. Betty's impression of Michael may have been colored by her parents difficult relationship with him.  If anyone knows more details, please fill us in.

At one point in the early 1930s Michael and Christina Jondle were living on a farm four miles west and one mile south of Clare.  Today the address is 1524 Baxter Avenue.  One summer Betty spent some time on her grandparent’s farm. Here is a story she told about a bad day that her grandpa had:

Betty: I remember I was eleven years old when I spent a week or so with Grandma.  That was out here (west of Clare). Grandpa never drove a car.  At that time Dale, their grandson across the street, Bill’s boy, he did all their driving for them, and I remember we went to town (to Fort Dodge) one day and we stayed at Julia’s.  Julia was the sister of Daddy, of my dad, and Grandpa got drunk.  And they had one cow and Grandpa always milked the cow and then Grandma took care of it, the milk.

Well that day Grandpa got drunk, he paced up and down the backyard and all the words he ever said was, “Son of a bitch, son of a bitch, son of a bitch.”  Up and down, back and forth.  “Son of a bitch, son of a bitch.”  Grandma went out and milked the cow.

“Son of a bitch, son of a bitch, son of a bitch.”  That’s all he said and then she took the pan of water, I was barefooted, to wash my feet and put me to bed and he was still out there.  “Son of a bitch, son of a bitch, son of a bitch.”

I remember that, I was eleven years old.  I remember that.  He wasn’t mean, that time he just . . . She didn’t bother him because if she did he probably would have gotten mean.  She just left him. (end of Betty’s quote)

Sometime around 2004 or 2005 I drove Betty to mass in Mason on a Saturday night.  She enjoyed going there because the priest was very funny and she appreciated that the church was handicapped accessible.  On the way back to Clare I asked her to show me where her grandparents’ farm was located.  I had remembered that she had told me that Michael and Christina Jondle farmed near Lizard Creek.

As we were driving east toward Clare, Betty told me where to turn on the gravel road and then where to turn into a driveway where there was a stand of timber on the east side of the road and open fields to the south.  We sat there for a few minutes and looked at the green fields on to the right and dense growth of trees to the left.  This was the location of the “son of a bitch” story. The house and the farm buildings are long gone (There was a corncrib that appeared to be relatively new).

Betty said that some of her cousins lived on the other side of the road.  That farm on the west side of the road is still owned by a Jondle family.

Here is a picture of what was Michael and Christina's farm in the 1930s.