CHAPTER 1

The Early Years

It was late afternoon in 1934, and I was three. I had been watching Mother'shelper, Mrs. Derry, darning socks by the kitchen window. This was beforethe invention of more durable synthetic fibers. A widow whose only moneysource was her monthly thirty dollars of county old-age assistance, Mrs. Derryneeded the work.

It suddenly turned dark, and Mrs. Derry turned on the lights to see herwork. We heard distant rolling thunder and saw flashes of lightning. Motherrushed from window to window, visibly worried.

I do not recall if there was a damaging windstorm with pelting rain ormore Kansas dust caught in the downpour (this was Dust Bowl time). Perhapsit was only a light spring shower, but it was the apprehension that fixed theevent in my mind.

Another early memory: From that kitchen window or our fenceddooryard, I would watch Dad or his "hired man" on the tractor, a gray FarmallRegular, pulling a wagon to or from the feedlot. If only I were big enough todrive it! The Regular's rear steel wheels seemed huge and had wide, pointedlugs for traction. What caught my attention was a contraption on each rearwheel that scraped off the feedlot mud as the wheel turned, essential after thespring thaw.

A more exciting memory: Dad wheeling up the drive on a new, bright-redFarmall F-20, successor to that gray Regular. It was 1936. McCormick Deeringhad introduced this new line of rubber-tired tractors in 1932 but had notchanged the color. When Dad was ready to trade, McCormick Deering hadannounced the F-20's color would shift to red, but the tractor on the dealer'sfloor was gray. He bought the tractor on the condition it be repainted red.Red was and still is my favorite color.

It was that same year that Dad rented cropland on the other side of thecreek from a retired neighbor, Andy Thiel. From that I carry two visions,exciting because this was a new family venture more than a mile away. Thefirst is Thiel sitting in a small shed, shelling the end kernels off selected ears ofcorn. Dad told me Thiel had chosen the larger ears, thinking the larger seedsfrom larger ears would yield a larger crop.

Thiel was either not aware or had not yet accepted college research thatcorn yield was not related to size of the seed or size of the ear from which itcame. Yields could be increased, though, by using hybrids, seeds from a crossbetween two parent lines, each selected and self-mated several generationsto fix desirable traits. Though Dad did not explain all that to me, I knew heplanned to purchase some hybrid seed and that he would need to convinceThiel of its merits; in a crop-share lease, the landlord provided half the seed.

My second vision is following Dad and a "CCC field man" (the newCommodity Credit Corporation) as they measured the width of a field to beplanted with corn near the Thiel farmstead. The field man carried a ring ofwire stakes and a chain. He planted a stake just inside the gate and, while Dadheld the chain's end at that stake, the man extended the chain and plantedanother stake, and that process continued across the field.

As we returned from the far end, he pulled and counted the stakes andthen calculated the distance. From that and the field's length, he calculatedthe acreage. It was all part of the Depression's New Deal farm program ofFranklin Roosevelt and Henry Wallace, with some crop price protection orsubsidy from the CCC.

The 1930s

The first half of the 1930s was not an easy time in rural America. There hadbeen a farm depression in the early twenties, and then good times, explodingland values, and optimism. But the 1929 stock market crash and other eventstook the wind out of the sails for most families. The Dow Jones IndustrialAverage, above 300 in early 1929, had dropped to 80 or below by 1932.Mortgage holders foreclosed on farms, and small-town businesses and banksfailed. A loaf of bread cost eight cents, a gallon of gas ten cents, and a new carabout five hundred dollars.

My father once told about needing to sell some corn in early 1929 so hecould pay off a bank note. His father-in-law offered to loan him the moneyto pay the note and suggested Dad hold the corn for a higher price. Withindays, the corn price had dropped by half.

My dad's younger brother was married in Omaha on December 10, 1932.His wife once told me that when they returned later that day to buy groceriesat Atlantic's Nord's store, their check was no good. Two of Atlantic's threebanks had closed; her savings were in one, his in the other. Though one of thebanks would eventually reopen and the newlyweds retrieved enough moneyto buy a bedroom set, that day they had only the little cash in their pockets.

Then it would turn dry across the corn belt and the plains. My parents,as Dad described, "dried out in '34, hailed out in '35, and dried out again in'36." That they would maintain their optimism and good spirits and see toit that my sister and I would have a reasonably comfortable and secure earlylife deserves our respect. We were oblivious to the economic severity of thetime.

In later years I would spend an evening among farm retirees in theBrookings, South Dakota, area, listening to their reminiscences of the early1930s, when they were raising families and trying to make ends meet. Theyprimarily recalled the happy times: "Sure we were poor, and our mortgagepayments were overdue, but we were all in the same boat. We could gatherwith our neighbors, play cards, and still enjoy life. We got along."

Friday the Thirteenth

It was Friday, March 13, 1931, in our modest farm home overlookingTroublesome Creek, seven miles northeast of Atlantic. My mother, attendedby Dr. Agnes Wilder, had been lifted onto the dining room table and wasexperiencing a very difficult birth.

It was likely cold; March in Iowa is that. Odds are there were severalinches of snow on the ground, but that was not recorded. At least the roadwas not blocked with drifts, or Dr. Wilder and her driver/houseman wouldnot have made it.

Dr. Wilder had practiced with her physician father and continued afterhis death in a solo practice in their Atlantic home. A cage full of monkeys onher enclosed porch, which I would watch from her waiting/living room, mademy later visits to Dr. Wilder with my mother not only tolerable but fun.

My birth must have been difficult; it apparently took days for my head,misshapen by forceps, to return to some normalcy. In later years, when Imisbehaved, Mother would tell me my birth had been painful enough thatshe hardly deserved such behavior. It must have been rough!

Mother, Ruth Fay Kimball Acker, was the youngest of six Kimball childrenand had lived in this farm home until, while she was still in her teens, herfather retired from farming and she and her parents moved to Atlantic. Shehad completed eight grades in country school, alternating between PymosaNo. 7 and Benton No. 9, depending on which school had attracted the bestteacher and whether the swinging bridge over Troublesome Creek betweenhome and Benton No. 9 had been repaired after a spring flood.

I know little of her education beyond the country school. She oncementioned a private commercial college in Atlantic she had attended, andfrom other evidence, I deduce she completed one or two years of high schoolbefore that.

My father, William Clayton Acker, was also from a family of six siblings,a girl followed by five boys, including Dad and his identical twin. The twins'first names, William and George, were those of their grandfathers. Middlenames Clayton and Clifton were considered their given names.

I was about six when, at a livestock auction, a man approached my fatherwith the greeting, "Hi, Bill!" Dad had to explain. They had served togetherin WWI and my father's first name, William, had been used in all militaryrecords. He was "Bill" to his army buddies and Clayton to his family, thecommunity, and in the local Masonic Lodge, an important part of his life.

My parents were likely apprehensive about my approaching birth.By early 1931, my mother was near her thirty-fourth birthday; Dad wasthirty-five. Their first child, Maria, was stillborn in 1927, and within about ayear they had adopted a girl, Virginia Lorraine. Adoptions were not generallytalked about in those days. At school or on the school bus I would overhear acomment that Lorraine (again, the middle name and not the first was used)was adopted, but I took no stock in such a comment. She was my sister.

Lorraine's adoption was never mentioned to me by my parents noralluded to until I was thirty-two. A childless uncle and aunt had died andleft their estate in equal proportions to their nieces and nephews. My fathercommented to me, "I am so thankful they included Lorraine." No elaborationwas given or needed.

At no time did I see any difference in the regard or esteem with which mysister and I were held or treated by our parents, other relatives, or teachers thatcould be attributed to adoption. As brother and sister, Lorraine and I probablyhad the normal range of disagreements, competitiveness for attention, andpride in each other that exists among siblings in most families. From myperspective, natural births are a matter of chance; adoptions are chosen.

My parents had been married in 1920, two years after my father's returnfrom eighteen months' service in WWI, including six months in France.While he was in the service, Mother worked in the Atlantic offices of Shraugerand Johnson, a manufacturer of ventilation equipment and windows for farmbuildings. They lived on and worked rented farms until the spring of 1924,when they moved to what had been her parents' farm.

Send Me a Person Who Reads

My sister Lorraine started school two years ahead of me and dreamed of beinga teacher. When she got off the school bus in the evening, she wanted someoneto teach, and I was available. She sat me down and drilled me enough withflash cards: 2+2, 2+3 and cat, dog, hen so I had a head start when it came myturn for the first grade. Today I thank her for that.

My parents received three daily newspapers and five or six farmpublications. The six-day Atlantic News Telegraph kept them posted on localpeople and community. They never missed the back page local news briefs,and I picked up the habit. They knew Editor Ted Simpson and ad salesmanRay Neff and through them sometimes contributed to those briefs.

Less common in area homes was the Des Moines Register. Though theRegister today can be called exceedingly liberal, Cowles family ownership inthe l930s and '40s kept it conservative in both editorial content and news tone.The Register was then also statewide in coverage and had its own Washingtoncorrespondent. Even the News Telegraph carried a Washington column. Theywere my early windows to the world, and, perhaps, among the roots of myfiscal and political conservatism.

The third newspaper, the Daily Journal Stockman, published in a littlebrick building perched above the Omaha Stockyards cattle pens, was likelysent courtesy of a commission company through which Dad sold fed cattleonce or twice each year.

Dailies came by mail, the Sunday Register by a contract carrier. Saturdaynight a quarter went into a small tray outside our east porch door, and beforeDad and I headed to the barn to milk at five thirty or six Sunday morning,the Sunday Register would be in a big clip above that tray.

Many evenings during my school years, when I should have been readingthe next day's school assignment, I would have my knees on a chair and myelbows on the dining room table while reading those papers, perhaps whilelistening with one ear to District Attorney or other radio serials.

When I was old enough to join Dad in the milking barn, he moved thefamily's old tabletop radio to a barn shelf so I would not have to miss thefifteen-minute after-school episodes, such as Jack Armstrong, the All-AmericanBoy. That barn radio also widened my window to the world. About fiveforty-five came World News, H. V. Kaltenborn, and reports from the WWIIEuropean and Asian theatres.

Most of the farm magazines, such as Successful Farming, Farm Journal,Country Gentleman, Capper's Farmer, and Hoard's Dairyman were monthlies.An exception was Wallace's Farmer, a biweekly Iowa publication foundedin the 1800s by "Uncle Henry" Wallace, the father and grandfather of twoUSDA secretaries, Henry C. and Henry A. Wallace.

It was either Country Gentleman or Capper's Farmer that carried a series,Little Black Sambo. Not knowing any blacks (then called Negroes), I wasfascinated by the series. Each installment told me more about that differentexistence, a society and life experiences far from my own. The evening thateach issue arrived, I would be on the lap of Mother or Dad, listening to thelatest adventures of Sambo.

Hoard's Dairyman was probably Dad's favorite magazine; he took pridein his milk cows and their production. Though he kept no numerical records,he could see how full the pail from each cow was morning and evening, andthe biweekly check from the Exira Creamery gave him feedback incentive.Hoard's Dairyman was probably read cover-to-cover, but I would sometimescatch Dad asleep partway through one of the others.

During the 1960s, a major wood pulp supplier's advertisementshighlighted the theme, "Send me a person who reads!" Few advertisementshave been as constructive. Few gifts that a parent or teacher can give a childare as valuable as the skill, opportunity, and desire to read.

Roots

I believe it is important for each of us to have a sense of place, both geographicand in time. It gives us reference points; the more we know about ourancestors and the society and environment in which they lived, the more wemay understand our own setting and bases for our future.

My geographic parameters were our farm, the neighborhood, the Kimballsand their kin on six farms contiguous with ours, the Wiota School and theschool bus ride to and from, and gatherings at the several Acker farms in thecounty. Family acquaintances, as well as shopping, the courthouse, livestockauction, and doctors in Atlantic enhanced my sense of place. I knew where Iwas, where I belonged.

My sense of place was also enhanced by annual summer visits by Kimballcousins and my mother's uncle from Illinois, and my listening to reminiscencesover sweet corn, fresh tomatoes, and fried chicken. Before I was eight, wewould drive to visit the Ackers in Nebraska and the Noyers (my grandmotherAcker's brother) in Wyoming, as well as my father's Acker cousins in adjacentAdair County and his more distant Ibach cousins in Hardin County.

Over time I would discover deeper and branched roots, focused onthe four surnames of my grandparents. A fifth surname, Ibach, that of mygrandmother Acker's mother, is also mentioned, including Ibach linkages inSouth Dakota, as well as in Iowa.

The Ackers. In my youth, I would only hear the Ackers were "PennsylvaniaDutch" who had come to Iowa from Pennsylvania. In time I would learn theAckers had migrated from Germany in the early 1700s, most through thePhiladelphia port. The first of my line documented was Reverend CasperAcker, who became a citizen about 1730 in Chester County, Pennsylvania,just west of Philadelphia.

Some Ackers's spelling was changed to Ocker, Auker, Aucker, or Ocher.Though some name changes (and relocations) may have been prompted toescape bondage, more likely they were spelling errors by immigration officialsat the port.

German tradition was that the oldest son inherited the farm, and fromReverend Casper, none in my lineage was the "first son." According to recordsI have found, each of my lineage had moved on west, if only to the adjacentcounty.

My great-great-grandfather Christian (a "second son") and his wifepurchased a farm in Blair County, Pennsylvania, in 1823, and I have visited itseveral times. When Christian died in 1880, his oldest son inherited the farm,and George (the second son and my great-grandfather) and his siblings, theirspouses, and families headed on west. George and his wife and family settledin Cass County, Iowa; a brother and sister and their spouses went on to theGeneva, Nebraska, area.

A late-1800s clipping lists George, my great-grandfather, and mygrandfather Thaddeus Acker as members of a Cass County "corn club," aforerunner of the Cooperative Extension Service.

* * *

There was no mention in my youth of communication with the Ackers whoremained in Pennsylvania. However, I later learned that about 1890, someof my grandfather's Pennsylvania cousins, then in their late teens or earlytwenties, had ridden their bicycles out to Iowa to visit him and his brothers.It had to be quite a ride, more than nine hundred miles on hard rubber tires,few marked or surfaced roads, and some tolls to be paid. According to thestory told me in 1986 by the son-in-law of one of the Pennsylvania lads, whoby then was in his late eighties, major roads were maintained by adjacentfarmers and they charged a toll. The bicycling cousins would ride past a tollstation single file, motioning that the last rider would pay the toll. The lastrider would have only a five-dollar bill, the toll taker could not make change,and he was waved on. (Assuredly, for the return trip, the toll-takers were readywith change.)