MOTORCYCLE DAREDEVIL

In the posts on April 27 we learned about some difficulty between Steve and his father.  Their relationship improved after Steve started his own family. My brother Jim remembered that they were on good terms. He said that there was a time in the mid 1950s that Steve and Betty needed a car. Grandpa Miklo lent them a couple of hundred dollars to buy one. (Pauline ended up rolling the car, but that is a story for another day.) Jim remembered visiting Grandpa Miklo and Emera out by the gypsum mills.

My sisters Pauline and Helen also remembered visiting Grandpa Miklo and the Miklo family.  Pauline wrote, “I was spoiled by Mary and Annie because we lived close to them when Daddy worked at the mills. When Johnny was in the hospital we stayed with Grandpa and Grandma Miklo. We got to see Joe and Pete and Grandma was very good to us. She made the nut rolls different [than Betty]; she made it like a bread loaf (very good). Grandpa Miklo was very good to me the little bit I saw and remember of him. I know he gave me a lot of money for my wedding gift.” Helen thought that Grandpa smelled like alcohol and garlic.

Steve used to tell us that when his father was younger he was a daredevil performing tricks on his motorcycle.  Although I never got a recording of Steve telling the story, I did record Betty telling the story almost exactly as Steve had.

Betty: They say old Grandpa Miklo used to ride the motorcycle. He would stand up on the handlebars and steer with the handlebars and that one time they wanted to cut his leg off because his leg was in such bad shape [after a motorcycle accident during one of his stunts].  They wanted to amputate his leg and he said, “If you want to cut anything you can do it right here.”  [He motioned across his neck to demonstrate that he would rather be dead than lose a leg.] Well, evidently they healed his leg up pretty good because he was running around pretty damn good when I knew him. (End of quote.)

Here is a picture of Steve and his father in front of Sacred Heart Church in Fort Dodge.  They are the second and third from the right side of the picture closest to the church. If anyone can identify the other people in the photo, please let us know.  Based on the fashions I estimate that this photo was taken in the 1940s. It may have been at a family wedding. Thanks to Lynn Rojohn, the daughter of Mary (Miklo) Johnson (Steve’s sister), for sending this photo.

FAMILY REUNION UPDATE

The Miklo-Jondle Family Reunion is only three weeks away.  Spread the word to any family member, whether a brother, sister or distant cousin: all are welcome to attend. So that we have an idea about the amount of food to prepare, please RSVP by emailing: robertmiklo@mchsi.com

The reunion will get underway on Saturday, July 13 at 11:00 AM at the north shelter in Dolliver State Park near Fort Dodge.  Pulled pork sandwiches and picnic favorites like baked beans and potato salad will be provided. Feel free to bring something to share, such as a side dish or chips. There will also be a birthday cake to celebrate Steve Miklo’s birth date, July 17, 1913.

If you can’t make it for the picnic lunch there will be a second meal at about 6:00 pm.  And there will be live music between 2:00 and 4:00.

You may wish to bring along a lawn chair or two.  

There will be a display of family “artifacts” and photos.  Bring your photo albums, but most importantly your memories to share.

Here is a faded photo of Steve, Betty, Pauline Helen, Jim, Rose Mary and Barb that was taken about 1952.

HAPPY DAYS

Although Betty hated farming the Miklos enjoyed many happy years on the farm north of Clare.  Steve worked hard to improve the property. He grubbed out four acres of willow brush, hauled out 30 tons of rocks, contended with cockle burrs and contoured 45 acres.   In addition to raising grain crops he tended 32 dairy cows and fed 120 hogs.

Betty, Pauline and Jim pitched in with farm work and helped drive the tractor at times.  Because she suffered from allergies Helen was not able to work in the fields and Rose Mary was too young.

In addition to the hard work there were birthdays, high school graduations and weddings to celebrate for the older kids.  And there were five new babies born while the Miklos lived on the farm:  Barbara (Barb), January 13, 1951, Elizabeth (Beth), March 9, 1955, Donald (Donny or Don), September 6,1958, Robert (Bobby or Bob) August 5, 1960 and Katherine (Kathy) November 25,1962.

Here is a picture of Steve with one of his sows and piglets.

HATED IT WITH A PASSION

Steve wanted to be a farmer, but Betty hated farming with a passion. In this conversation she lets that be known.  She also talks about the mice and rats that plagued the farmhouse and the used furnace that Dr. Beeh installed that lead to the house being too hot.

Bob: So did you enjoy living on the farm north of town?

Betty: No, because we had a rich doctor landlord, everything was 50-50 [the landlord collected 50% of the profits].  Including the chickens and the eggs, the milk and cream.  Finally, we got off the 50-50 but we had to pay for all the seed corn and stuff.  No, I didn’t like it.  I didn’t like it up there.  The house was full of mice and rats.  There was no way of keeping them out.

Bob: Rats?

Betty: It had a rock foundation and you could see cracks out there when you were down (in the basement).  I remember making up my order (Stanley Home Products) and there was one of those cupboards that, you know, it wasn’t built in, it was one of those Hoosiers, making up my order two o’clock in the morning and I heard something.  It was a rat going up the side of the house.

Bob: An actual rat or a mouse?

Betty: Rat. And when we moved [into Clare], when they moved the water heater, under the water heater was the carcass of a dead rat.  No, I hated that house with a passion.

Bob: You didn’t have any cats to keep them under control?

Betty: I think so, I don’t know, but I just hated that place.  I hated to go farming. I loved it out there on the acreage when he [Steve] worked down in the mine but I hated that he had to go farming.  Okay, he found out it wasn’t as rosy as he thought it was going to be.  I hated it.  With a passion.  No, I didn’t like it.  That wasn’t the doctor’s farm; that was that other place, this place out there by Lehigh.  But the doctor’s farm that was full of rats, and mice and the furnace, oh, he put in a used furnace, everything was used, that rich doctor put in.

Bob: That was Dr. Beeh.

Betty: Dr. Beeh. It was an old wood and coal furnace and there was no way of getting down to the basement until you went outside and went through the outside.  He [Steve] had to go outside to add the coal or the wood and your father didn’t want to make that many trips so he would load it up in the evening and it was so damn hot we couldn’t stand it.  There was no control.  No, I didn’t like farming.  Any of it.  I hated it. (End of conversation)

Here is a photo of Steve with his tractor.

PLUMBING (Part 3)
Here is a picture of Barb (Miklo) Hunt taken on her 4th birthday in 1955. In the background (above the cake) you can see the white metal pump that brought well water to the kitchen sink.  The door leads to part of the back porch that was converted to a bathroom.

PROPANE GAS (Part 2)

Here is a picture of Jim and his dog Hank with the Clare farmhouse  in the background. Near the center of the house you can see the propane gas tank that fueled the kitchen stove.  The window on the left is to the living room, Steve and Betty's room was above that.  The large window is the back porch. Note the cellar door, which provided access to the coal burning furnace (we will learn more about that in a couple of posts).

COOKING WITH GAS (Part 1)

We have learned from previous posts that Steve and Betty’s first home was southeast of Fort Dodge near the gypsum mills where Steve worked.  It was just an acreage where they could have a garden and raise some of their own food, but it was not a farm.

Steve had studied horticulture in school in Drahovce and liked the idea of being a farmer.  In 1944 he left his job at the gypsum mines and the family moved to a 160-acre farm near Burnside where Steve became a full time farmer. Betty raised chickens, sold eggs and had a large vegetable garden.  She would also work in the fields and seemed to enjoy running the Allis-Chalmers tractor. They were there for four years.

In 1948 they moved to Dr. Beeh’s 240-acre farm about four miles north of Clare. Betty could not remember how they met Dr. Beeh, their new landlord and business partner. The farm by Clare was 80 acres larger than the farm near Burnside so it provided an opportunity for more profit for the family.  Previously, Ed and Helen Jondle had settled on a farm northeast of Clare, so the Miklos’ move to a new farm allowed Betty to live closer to her parents.

Steve and Betty’s first two homes did not have electricity or running water. The move to the farm near Clare was an improvement because the house had electricity.  But as my sister Barb remembered, the kitchen sink had a pump to bring in well water and they had to heat water on the stovetop. Later Dr. Beeh installed indoor plumbing and there was a water heater in the basement.

Here Betty talks about the three cooking devices: a wood-burning stove, a gas oven and an electric roaster that she had to choose from: “Out on the farm there was electricity but we still had the old cook stove, I don’t know for how long.  Then a real hot summer day, your father came with a small four-burner apartment-size gas stove on propane.  There were those propane tanks right outside the door.  It was real hot and he (Steve) was feeling sorry for me getting the cook stove going so he brought that.

I had both a cook stove and the gas stove on the farm out by Clare, it was a huge kitchen and so we heated the kitchen with the [wood-burning] cook stove and of course as long as it was heating I cooked on that most of the time.  Then we had the gas stove and then I got the brilliant idea of getting an electric roaster, I even baked in that thing.  I baked bread and cakes and stuff in that electric roaster, it worked real good, I really loved it.  It didn’t dry out the baked goods like the gas stove did.  So, when I baked bread I baked great big batches so I used both, the electric roaster and the gas oven.”

Here is a photo taken in the 1950s of Betty in the farmhouse north of Clare.  The apartment-size gas stove is to her right and the electric roaster oven is on the countertop to her left.

BUTTON BOX

Here is Steve with his Hohnor button box accordion, which was used when Steve and Betty bought it.  I have not identified the two men standing next to Steve. If anyone knows please fill us in.

I do not think Steve and Betty owned a camera when these photos were taken. I suspect someone was visiting the farm and took these photos.  Perhaps they show that the family was recovering from the loss of Johnny and was enjoying some good times.   See three proceeding posts for more photos in this series.

Notice the wall paper in the background of all of these photos. It is different from the wallpaper that appears in later photos of the Miklo farmhouse.  Perhaps they repapered or perhaps these were taken while they were visiting another family.

THE “IRISH” BABY

Here is a photo of Betty, Steve and Rose Mary, who probably was between one and two years of age when this photo was taken.  Steve had picked the name for their third daughter, Rose Mary.  Betty joked that he must have had an Irish girlfriend to have chosen the Irish name “Rose.”  See two preceding posts for more about the family’s move to the farm north of Clare.

THREE SISTERS

Here is a photo of Helen, Pauline and Rose Mary that was taken in the late 1940s when the family moved to Dr. Beeh’s farm north of Clare. See the previous post for more on the story.

PIONEER

In 1948 Steve and Betty along with their four children, Pauline (age 10), Helen (9) Jim  (5) and Rose Mary (1) moved to a farm located about four miles north of Clare, Iowa. It was really closer to Pioneer than Clare, but even back then, Pioneer with only 83 residents, was not much of a town.  Today it is pretty much a ghost town with only 8 houses and 23 residents.

The farm was owned by Dr. Beeh, a surgeon in Fort Dodge.  Steve was a sharecropper.  He did all of the work and made all of the investments in equipment and seed. When the crop was sold they split the proceeds: 50% went to Dr. Beeh and 50% went to the Miklo family. Dr. Beeh even got 50% of the profit from the eggs from Betty’s chickens that she sold at the produce market in Fort Dodge.  

Betty described Dr. Beeh as a rich doctor but cheap. He installed a used coal-burning furnace into the house (we will learn more about that later). When the Miklos first moved to the farm there was some indoor plumbing but not a toilet. There was an outhouse just to the west of the house where you had to go outside to go potty.

I suspect to fulfill Betty's demands Dr. Beeh installed a toilet into an area of the house, which appeared to have been converted from a back porch into a bathroom.  I think Betty told me that the bathroom fixtures that Dr Beeh had installed had come from a funeral home in Fort Dodge that moved from their old building into a new building. (It may have been Laufersweiler’s Funeral Home, which moved into their current building in 1952.)

Even after the toilet was installed the outhouse was left in place as a spare.  I was born in 1960 and even I have vague memories of the outhouse being there on the west side of the yard that surrounded the farmhouse.

Like the Mikos and Jondles, Dr Beeh's family had some connection to the Old Country. Here is a link to a short biography of Dr. Beeh: http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/IOWA/2005-06/1119782000

And here is a photo of Steve and Betty in the late 1940s - about the time they moved to Dr. Beeh's farm north of Clare near Pioneer.

CHICKEN HUNTERS

Here is a photo of Pauline, Jim, their cousin Ron Johnson and Helen (click on the photo for a better view).  This was taken about the time the Miklos moved to the farm north of Clare (after the kids killed the rooster).  Ron was the son of Mary (Miklo) Johnson, Steve’s younger half sister.  You can see Mary’s photo in the April 20 post.  Mary married Harold Johnson.  They had two children, Ron (pictured here) and Lynn (Linda).  Linda has provided me with some photos for this history of the Miklo Family.

She wrote about a visit to the Miklo farm north of  Clare, “I remember going out to your dad's house for some holiday.  Your mother had this huge roaster and I was so impressed at how beautiful the turkey was in it. I mostly remember playing in the barn with all the cats and chickens.”

WHITE ROOSTER

Betty told the story of a large white rooster that the Miklos had on the farm by Burnside before they moved to Clare. It would chase Jim, who at the time was about 4 years old, around the yard.  She laughed as she remembered Jim’s little legs pumping as he ran from the rooster.

She thought that Pauline and Helen must have felt sorry for Jim, because one day she came into the kitchen to find the three kids had killed the rooster and were about to drop it into a pot of water.

Pauline, who was about 9 at the time, also remembered the story. She thought that Betty was sick in bed pregnant with Rose Mary.   They were going to make chicken soup for her.  Helen, who would have been about 8, remembered that they had a difficult time chopping the rooster’s head off. She thought Jim might have accomplished the job.  But could that be possible since he was so young? In any event, the rooster was not there to chase him around anymore.

CHARLES JONDLE BIRTHDAY

Betty’s younger brother and only sibling, Charles Edward Jondle, was born on June 13 in 1928 (85 years ago tomorrow).  He went by the nickname “Chuck,” but the Miklo kids knew him as “Uncle Charlie.”

Betty remembered that when she was six years old she got the assignment of rocking Charlie’s cradle while her mother, Helen, worked in the kitchen.  (See the post on May 15 for photo of Betty, Charlie and their parents that was taken in 1928 or 29.)

At the time he was born the Jondles lived on a farm that they rented from Albert Wesley south and east of Moorland and that is where Charlie grew up.  He would have been about nine years old when Betty married Steve and left home.

Charlie was fluent in Czech. I think that Betty told me that he had a little trouble when he first started school, because unlike her, he did not have any English speaking playmates to learn the language from. He may have assumed the job of translating for Helen when Betty married and moved out of the Jondle house.

At some point Michael and Christina Jondle helped Ed and Helen buy a farm northeast of Clare. Charlie may have already left for the Navy by the time Ed and Helen moved there. Here is a picture that I believe is Charlie in his early teens when the Jondles lived near Moorland.

FAMILY REUNION UPDATE
We have been calling this a Miklo Family Reunion, but really it should be called a Miklo & Jondle Reunion.  Members of the Jondle family are welcome to attend.  Please pass this information onto any Jondles that you know. Here are the details:

The reunion will be held on July 13 at the North Shelter in Dolliver State Park. We will announce an indoor back-up location on this site in case of severe weather.

The reunion will begin at 11:00 am and end at 9:00 pm. There will be events throughout the day, so feel free to come for all or part of the day.

There will be a picnic lunch about 12:30 – pulled pork sandwiches, baked beans, potato salad, watermelon, birthday cake  and beverages will be served.  Feel free to bring a dish to share.

There will be an accordion player from about 2:00 to 4:00 to play Steve and Betty’s favorite polkas. He will also take requests.

We will have picnic leftovers and hamburgers and hot dogs at around 6:00 pm.

There will be copies of the Miko and Jondle Family Trees, historic photographs and family artifacts on display.  Please bring old photos and memories to share.

For those who need lodging we have reserved a block of rooms at the American Inn located at the intersection of Old Highways 20 and 169 about 10 miles northwest of Dolliver State Park. The rooms have two queen beds and have a discount rate of $115 per night. To reserve a room call 800-634-3444 and let them know that you are attending the Miklo Family Reunion.

The recently refurbished Quality Inn is also nearby on Highway 169 just south of Old Highway 20 and offers rooms for about $95 per night. I stayed there in May and found that they had done a good job of renovating the hotel. I would recommend it. Here is a link to Quality Inn’s website: http://www.qualityinn.com/hotel-fort_dodge-iowa-IA119

For those who want a more rugged experience and a thriftier night's stay we have two cabins reserved in Dolliver State Park for Friday and Saturday night. Each cabin sleeps six people - in bunk beds. The cost is $35 per night for the entire cabin. Email Bob at robertmiklo@mchsi.com if you would like to stay in one of the cabins. And for the real campers consider reserving your own camping space in the park at: http://www.iowadnr.gov/Destinations/StateParksRecAreas/IowasStateParks/ParkDetails.aspx?ParkID=610107

For general questions about the reunion or to RSVP email: robertmiklo@mchsi.com

JOHNNY'S OBITUARY (Part 3 - start with Part 1 below.)

Here is the obituary of John Miklo that appeared in the Monday, October 28, 1946, edition of the Fort Dodge Messenger. (Click on the image to see the full article.)

A follow-up story in the Wednesday, October 30 edition of the Messenger noted that Johnny's pallbearers were his Uncle Peter Miklo, Bernard Schwering, Fred Mihuski, and Philip Petros (the Petros Family, like the Miklos, came from Drahovce, Slovakia).  Flowers were arranged by Mrs. Harold McGough and his aunt, Mrs. Albert (Mary) Johnson (Steve Miklo's sister). A large bouquet of flowers was sent by the Catholic Slovak Union of Fort Dodge, which Steve Miklo, Sr., was a member.

The article went on with a list of people who had traveled from far away places such as Omaha (Johnny's Aunt Annie (Miklo) Ormand) and Hardy, Iowa (Betty's Aunt Julia (Jondle) and her husband Francis Hefley ),  and a long list of those who came from nearer places, such as Moreland, Elkhorn Township, Burnside, Otho, Clare and Lehigh to attend the funeral.

JOHNNY’S DRAWER (Part 2 - start with Part 1 below)

Steve and Betty grieved for Johnny for a long time. Until her final years Betty was always blue around June 20th, Johnny’s birthday, and again around the last of October when he had died.

When we were kids there was a drawer in the bottom of an old cabinet in the upstairs of our house in Clare.  We were told to stay out of it because it was Johnny’s drawer.  It contained his clothes, his shoes, his few toys (a blue tin car, a red truck missing its back wheels and a small red and blue plastic boat that the dog had chewed on), his schoolbooks, get-well cards that had been sent to him in the hospital and the sympathy cards that were sent to the family after his death.

Rose Mary Miklo, Steve and Betty’s fifth child, was born on September 17, 1947, less then a year after Johnny had died. Rose wrote this about Johnny, “As far as what Johnny died from, that story is pretty accurate.  I had the understanding that gangrene had set in which lead to pneumonia. That was what I remember Mom saying.
 
"Daddy told me that Mom was so sad after Johnny died that he thought if she got pregnant that would make her happy. (I was the result of that.) When I asked Mom about that, she said ‘You were your father’s idea not mine.’  Maybe that is why Dad named me. Mom said Dad must have had an Irish girlfriend to come up with the Irish name of ‘Rose Mary.’

“Had to be tough, being so young and losing a son like that. Mom was so young to be a mother.

“Johnny died October 28th [actually he died on the 27th] I remember that because after George and I met with Father Cullen and picked our wedding date, we were pretty excited to tell mother. Imagine our surprise when she was really upset with us because we didn’t talk to her first.  As it was that was the only date Father had open in October. We actually wanted the 14th date because George had a date for boot camp in November and our bans needed to be announced.

“I do remember his birthday was in June. The reason I remember this is because in June the summer I graduated, I had a dream about a little blond boy who was laying on top of a long box. He looked really familiar, but I didn’t recognize him, nor could I figure out who he was or why I had the vision.  I was telling the dream to Mom and Dad at breakfast, and they looked at each other and Mom started crying.  I was befuddled because, it was just a dream.  Then she said, ‘Today is Johnny’s birthday.’ Dad looked very sad, finished his coffee, patted Mom and went outside without saying a word. It was sometime later, I saw the picture of Johnny in the coffin, and it was him.  Bizarre what the subconscious mind can do.”

Here is a photo of Johnny’s blue tin car, a fabric mask that he must have gotten at school and the get well card sent to him at Mercy Hospital that arrived too late. He got sick and passed  away the last week of October, so perhaps the mask was for Halloween.

JOHNNY (Part 1)

Steve and Betty’s son Johnny got sick in late October of 1946. He had a bad stomach ache during the school day while in kindergarten.  The Miklo kids, Pauline, Helen and Johnny, were the first students to be picked up by the school bus in the morning and the last ones off after school. They attended school in Burnside.

To make time spent on the bus fair, it was school district policy that the bus routes were supposed to be reversed, so the that the first kids to be picked up in the morning would be the first to be dropped off after school. But the high school age daughter of one of the school board members was on the same bus route as the Miklos. She did not want to ride the whole route, so the school district departed from policy and allowed her to be dropped off first, leaving the Miklo kids to be dropped off last.  By the time they got home that day Johnny was really sick.   Betty rushed him to Saint Joseph Mercy Hospital in Fort Dodge.

Steve and Betty were angry with the School Board. If they had not changed the school busing policy to accommodate one of the board members, Johnny might have gotten medical attention earlier.

Johnny was in the hospital being treated for a burst appendix. While there he contracted pneumonia and died at the age of five. His family was of course devastated by the loss.

Steve and Betty did not own a camera so they had no photos to remember their little boy.  The funeral home had a photographer take a picture of him in his coffin (I think that may have been worse than having no photo at all. I will not be posting it here.)

My oldest sister, Pauline, was about nine years old when Johnny died.  She recalled that they had found some black walnuts the day before he got sick.  They cracked and ate the nuts. My sister, Helen, also remembers eating the walnuts. She also got a side ache. There is some thought that a walnut shell may have caused Johnny’s appendicitis.

Pauline remembered the funeral, she wrote, “I do not remember much about Johnny. He was a quiet boy and a mother’s boy. He was 5 and I was 9 when he died.  I remember staying at Grandpa Miklo’s house while Johnny was in the hospital and I remember the funeral and the funeral homily. The priest said that God goes out to the garden and picks his best flowers. I remember red geraniums all over.  To this day I do not like the smell or geraniums. It took me awhile to figure it out. I never did like them.”

Here is a get-well card from Robert and Roberta Coleman that was addressed to: Mr. Johnie Miklo, Fort Dodge, Iowa, c/o Mercy Hospital, 3rd floor.  It was postmarked Saturday, October 26, 4 PM. It arrived at the hospital on Monday the day after Johnny had died.  Someone at the hospital crossed off the address and added Lehigh, Iowa, the Miklos' home address. It was re-postmarked on the back Oct. 28, 12:30 PM 1946. Steve and Betty received the card upon returning home from Johnny’s funeral.

HOME ON LEAVE

Here is a photo of Ed and Helen Jondle, their daughter, Betty Miklo, and son, Charlie. Charlie must have been home on leave when this photo was taken around 1946. He would have been 18 or 19 years old. Betty would have been in her mid twenties.

ALOHA

Betty’s younger brother, Charlie, sent home photos of himself with a Hawaiian girl. Photo booths were set up near the Navy base were sailors could have their photo taken with hulu girls.  Several similar photos appeared in Life Magazine.  I suspect this was before Charlie met Ramona, his wife.

IN THE NAVY

Betty’s younger brother Charlie was old enough to enter the Navy right after the war ended.  He served in the South Pacific where he witnessed the mushroom cloud of an atomic bomb test.  Betty visited him near the end of his life.  It was thought that fallout from the bomb might have been the cause of his cancer. Here is a photo of Charlie in his Navy uniform taken sometime around 1946 when he was about 18 years old.  

WORLD WAR II
I asked Betty about her memories of World War II.  She recalled that on Sunday, December 7, 1941 the family came home from mass and heard on the radio that Pearl Harbor had been attacked by Japan.  The next day President Roosevelt asked Congress to approve a declaration of war, which they did with only one “no” vote.

During the war many consumer products including basic foods, coffee, gasoline and cigarettes were rationed to assure that there were enough supplies to feed the troops and support the war effort in Europe and the Pacific.  Steve and Betty did not normally smoke, but they were issued ration coupons to buy cigarettes along with sugar, butter and coffee coupons.  One day Steve saw people waiting in line to buy cigarettes so he decided to use the ration coupons.  He brought home a pack of Lucky Strikes.  Steve and Betty each tried one and they both felt sick. They never smoked after that.

Steve’s younger brother Pete enlisted in the Navy and witnessed battles at sea in the Pacific.  He told Steve of the horror of the Japanese bombing his ship and his fellow sailors perishing. He served on the USS Ommaney Bay Aircraft Carrier, which was sank by a Japanese suicide bomber. (I don't think Pete was on the carrier at the time it was sunk in  January 1945.) He may have been describing an earlier attack. 
 
At the end of the war, my sisters Pauline and Helen were about seven and six years old. They heard on the radio that the war had ended, and to celebrate office workers in New York City were tossing papers and ticker tapes out of the windows of skyscrapers.   To join in the celebration, they took copies of the FORT DODGE MESSENGER to the second floor of the farmhouse, flung open the windows and threw newspapers into the air.  I wonder what Betty thought of that.

On the left  is a picture of Pete Miklo in his Navy uniform. Betty described him as a “clown” in a good way.  She said he was a lot of fun.  She said that after his enlistment in the Navy was up, he went and joined the Army. (My sister Pauline thinks it was the Air Force) Pete was born in 1925 and died in 1966 at the age of 41.

On the right is Steve and Pete's youngest brother, Joe, who served in the army.  

Here is a link to details about the Ommany Bay Aircraft Carrier on which Pete sailed:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Ommaney_Bay_(CVE-79)

Here is a link to ticker tape parades like the ones at the end of the war:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ticker_tape_parade

HOUSE MICE

Steve and Betty lived on the acreage near the gypsum mills for seven years.  The family then moved to another rental farm near Burnside in 1944. Burnside is near Dolliver State Park.  They lived there for four years.

Steve was happy to move to the new place because it had a nice barn with stanchions for milking cows. Betty was not so happy.  The barn was apparently nicer than the house, which was infested with mice.  There were holes in the floorboards where Betty would occasionally see a mouse poke its head out and then make a run for it.  Steve’s solution to the problem was to take the lids from tin soup cans and tack them down over the holes.

Here is a picture of stanchions with milk cows.