Copyright 1999 Des Moines Register

All Rights Reserved

Des Moines Register
December 31, 1999 Friday
SECTION: MAIN NEWS; Pg. 6A
LENGTH: 964 words
HEADLINE: 20th century journey of one family -my family
BYLINE: Buttry Stephen, Register Staff Writer
BODY:
Stephen Buttry
This special section in today's Des Moines Register tells the story of the
20th century through the experiences of 10 Iowa families and through pictures
gathered and submitted by readers.
This started out to be an essay about wars and inventions and depression and
racism, about all the momentous events, world leaders and social movements of
the century that closes tonight. As if you haven't read that kind of thing
already.
I scrapped that idea and decided to write about my family's century. It
wasn't just my family's century, of course. It was the Moore family's century,
too. And the Huynh family's. And the Somsky family's. And the Johnson family's.
History is most profound when it is most personal. Images of the 1906 San
Francisco earthquake stayed with my grandfather his whole life because he helped
in the relief effort. I remember the Cuban missile crisis because my father
bought a bicycle, so Mom would have the car to drive us children to a bomb
shelter. The 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building stands out among
the century's disasters for me because I'll never forget the feeling of grit in
my mouth and nose as I looked at the building's wreckage.
In a special "Iowa Family Album" section inside today's Des Moines Register,
we try to make the 20th century's story personal. We tell the story through the
experiences of 10 Iowa families, one for each decade, and through pictures
gathered from our files and submitted by readers.

It's a story of families who fought the wars, bought the inventions, endured
the Depression, withstood the racism.
It's the story of your family and mine.
The album is personal to me, both because I was a contributing writer and
because it includes a piece of my family's story. Carl and Augusta Swanson were
my wife's great-grandparents. They immigrated to Iowa late in the 19th century,
settling in the fertile farm country southwest of Stanton.
Their letters home to relatives in Sweden provide the basis for the first
story in "Iowa Family Album." The letters reflect the Swansons' pioneer spirit
and tell of such marvels as rural telephone service and automobiles (though
Augusta didn't approve of how much time boys spent with their cars, nor of how
fast they drove).
My family experienced some of the century's historic developments and events
acutely.
Medical advances, for instance, saved my life. My father's sister died in the
1920s of pneumonia before the development of antibiotics. I survived pneumonia
four times as a child, hating the foul-tasting pink medicine that my parents
forced down my throat.
As with many baby boomers, my wife and I owe our very existence to the social
upheaval caused by World War II. Because of the war, Wes Johnson (Carl and
Augusta Swanson's grandson), a farm boy from Essex, Ia., met Irene Barone, a
city girl from Bayonne, N.J. They served in the Navy together, fell in love and
settled in Iowa after the war. Their fourth daughter is my wife, Mimi.
Luke Buttry, a country boy from Chenoa, Ill., might not have gone to college
without the GI Bill. After serving in the Army Air Corps, he used GI benefits to
become the first collegian in his family. At college, he met Harriet Arnold, a
city girl from Chicago. I am their third son.
Other developments and events of the century were more distant.
As white folks, we watched the civil rights movement with interest but
without much personal stake. It changed our lives, integrating our
neighborhoods, schools and workplaces. However, we couldn't feel the impact as
profoundly as Frank and Helen Johnson of Marshalltown, the black family profiled
for the 1950s in the "Iowa Family Album."
We felt the impact of the Vietnam War a bit more. My father was in the Air
Force during most of the war, and we always worried about an assignment to 'Nam,
but it never came. I sweated out the possibility of the draft (my lottery number

was 9), but the draft ended with my class.

The war had much greater meaning for the Smith and Huynh families, profiled
for the 1960s and '70s in "Iowa Family Album." The Smith family was rocked by
domestic protests against the war. The Huynhs fled Vietnam, their homeland, to
start a new life in Iowa.
Even when the news was distant, changing communication technology through the
century made us feel close.
My grandparents listened to Franklin D. Roosevelt's "fireside chats" on the
radio. The radio brought my parents the news of the Japanese attack on Pearl
Harbor.
Television brought my generation news of President Kennedy's assassination.
My parents had been holding out against the "idiot box," but caved in and bought
one after we spent hour after hour at a neighbor's house, watching the funeral
and the assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald. We were able to watch the funerals
of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy on our own TV.
My sons, growing up in the era of cable, have watched such hour-upon-hour
coverage of a host of events: the assassination attempt on President Reagan, the
Challenger explosion, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Persian Gulf War, the
O.J. Simpson chase and trial, more school shootings and natural disasters than I
can remember.
Through the decades, generations and many momentous events, life in Iowa
developed from what Carl and Augusta Swanson described in their hand-written
letters to the life Mimi and I describe in quickly crafted e-mails.
Along with my colleagues at the Register, I hope you enjoy reading "Iowa
Family Album" as much as we enjoyed compiling it. As the 20th century closes
today, we hope it will prompt some reflection on your own family's journey
through the past 100 years.
-----Reporter Stephen Buttry can be reached at (515) 699-7058 or buttrys
@news.dmreg.com
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Des Moines Register

December 31, 1999 Friday
SECTION: SOUVENIR; Pg. 10I
LENGTH: 890 words
HEADLINE: 1910s: Olive Fisher recorded the trauma and trivia of Iowa life in
1918 the way only a young woman with a diary could.
BYLINE: Buttry Stephen, Staff
BODY:
Filling a small notebook from Aug. 26 to Nov. 14, Fisher told of war and flu,
of the State Fair and teaching wages, of unruly school children and muddy roads.
The diary, written in the closing months of World War I, is punctuated with
written laughter that shows the 18-year-old teacher at a rural school outside
Grand Junction was hardly more than a schoolgirl herself.
She was, though, in the prime of her life. Fisher died of nephritis, a kidney
disease, in 1932 at the age of 32.
Edited excerpts follow:
Monday, Aug. 26. After church Amelia and I went up to the Post Office, as
usual, and the first thing we heard was that Earl Haseltine was drowned about an
hour or two ago at the gravel pit. No one had told Helen about it just then.
Helen finally heard someone talking on the phone line about it and that was the
first she knew of it. That was an awful way of finding out.
Wednesday, Sept. 4. School was pretty good today except that Carroll and
Orville can't play together, they begin fighting. Carroll told me to put my
horse in their barn but as long as the weather isn't too bad I guess I will let
her on the school ground.
Of course I put some powder on my face before I started home tonight. When I
came out of the schoolhouse Carroll noticed it and said, "Oh, teacher's
powdered, I'll bet she expects to see her fellow on the way home, I believe she
used chalk dust" etc. haha.
Saturday, Sept 7. We had a big washing today. It took us all forenoon and we
used up three irons full of gasoline this afternoon ironing, and then we aren't
through yet. Papa hauled home two loads of coal today. That's all we are getting

for this winter.

Thursday, Sept. 12. Today was registration day for men 18-45. Uncle Eli and
Uncle John registered as well as lots of others. Carroll has been quite unruly
at school this week. Last night Papa and Mrs. Powell talked it over and decided
that I should give him a good whipping and make him toe the mark. Papa made me a
rope whip and sent it along with a load of instructions this morning.
Sunday, Sept. 22. Amelia and I packed a box of cookies and candy for Henry
Busch. We put frosting on the cookies and then wrote little greetings on them
with red sugar. They looked pretty cute. Some of the cookies had on "USA,
Greetings, Loyal Lad 1918."
Friday, Sept. 27. We read in the paper tonight that the Oct. 7-11 draft of
men is to be postponed because of Spanish influenza in the camps.
Saturday, Sept. 28. This was Liberty Bond Day and there was a crowd in Grand
Junction all day.
Monday, Sept. 30. Uncle Iver bought a big "Samson" tractor today and plowed
an acre in just a little while. He thinks it is all OK.
Wednesday, Oct. 2. Howard and Earl weren't there today. Shelling corn. School
was just fine too (except I gave Kempton a licking for starting fires).
Wednesday, Oct. 16. Kempton is staying out of school now because his mother
is afraid that he will get the influenza. I don't know whether we will have to
close schools. Town school, movies and churches were ordered closed today.
Saturday, Oct. 19. Yesterday Amelia got a letter from Joe saying that he
would have to go to Camp Greenleaf, Ga., first of next week.
The Board of Health decided that all rural schools as well as town schools
should be closed 'till further notice. We will have a little rest now.
Thursday, Oct. 24 (after Amelia returned from seeing Joe off). Mamma asked
Amelia this evening if she kissed anyone while she was gone, if she remembered
that they shouldn't because of the flu. Yes, she said she remembered. Well,
Mabel said, "Did you hug?" haha. My, but we laughed, even Papa.
Saturday, Oct. 26. The school board had a meeting today and raised the
teachers' wages 15 percent. That means I will get $62.79 a month this winter
instead of $54.60. Pretty good, I think. haha. We hear that Vanhorns in
Minnesota have the flu and Earnest, Ronnie, Lela and Merle have died of it
already, the rest of them are sick and Mr. Vanhorn is at the point of death. It
is just too terrible to believe.

Wednesday, Oct. 30 (during harvest). We got out three big loads today, 120
bushels. Amelia, Papa and I husked last load. Amelia got a letter from Joe today
and he sent a picture of his mother for Amelia to take care of for him. It is
the only one he has and he doesn't want to leave it at home with no one living
there. It is a picture of her in her coffin. Quite good though.
Monday, Nov. 4. Germany is alone now. Turkey and Austria have both signed our
peace terms. Sounds pretty good.
Saturday, Nov. 9. We don't have to make up the time lost when the schools
were closed but Porterfield absolutely refuses to give our wages. He says we can
go to court. War!!?? I hope peace comes soon. haha.
Monday, Nov. 11. PEACE HAS COME!!! Hurrah! Not with Porterfield, but with
Germany. Big celebrations. School was dismissed at 11:30 a.m. and they
celebrated all afternoon.
Wednesday, Nov. 13. Amelia had quite a talk with Porterfield last night. Told
him a few truths. Just what he needed. When we went to the Post Office tonight
Amelia's check was there and so was mine. Over $80 apiece. Peace in another
respect. haha.
Thursday, Nov. 14. Finished husking corn today, seems good to be through so
early.
Reporter Stephen Buttry can be reached at (515) 699-7058 or buttrys
@news.dmreg.com
GRAPHIC: _By: Van Newman, Grand Junction; Olive Fisher and her sister Amelia of
Grand Junction in 1919. At right, Olive Fisher in 1918.
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December 31, 1999 Friday
SECTION: SOUVENIR; Pg. 10I
LENGTH: 352 words

HEADLINE: 1910's Iowans struggle for normal lives

BYLINE: Buttry Stephen, Staff
BODY:
Greenleaf, Ga., first of next week.
The Board of Health decided that all rural schools as well as town schools
should be closed 'till further notice. We will have a little rest now.
Thursday, Oct. 24 (after Amelia returned from seeing Joe off). Mamma asked
Amelia this evening if she kissed anyone while she was gone, if she remembered
that they shouldn't because of the flu. Yes, she said she remembered. Well,
Mabel said, "Did you hug?" haha. My, but we laughed, even Papa.
Saturday, Oct. 26. The school board had a meeting today and raised the
teachers' wages 15 percent. That means I will get $62.79 a month this winter
instead of $54.60. Pretty good, I think. haha. We hear that Vanhorns in
Minnesota have the flu and Earnest, Ronnie, Lela and Merle have died of it
already, the rest of them are sick and Mr. Vanhorn is at the point of death. It
is just too terrible to believe.
Wednesday, Oct. 30 (during harvest). We got out three big loads today, 120
bushels. Amelia, Papa and I husked last load. Amelia got a letter from Joe today
and he sent a picture of his mother for Amelia to take care of for him. It is
the only one he has and he doesn't want to leave it at home with no one living
there. It is a picture of her in her coffin. Quite good though.
Monday, Nov. 4. Germany is alone now. Turkey and Austria have both signed our
peace terms. Sounds pretty good.
Saturday, Nov. 9. We don't have to make up the time lost when the schools
were closed but Porterfield absolutely refuses to give our wages. He says we can
go to court. War!!?? I hope peace comes soon. haha.
Monday, Nov. 11. PEACE HAS COME!!! Hurrah! Not with Porterfield, but with
Germany. Big celebrations. School was dismissed at 11:30 a.m. and they
celebrated all afternoon.
Wednesday, Nov. 13. Amelia had quite a talk with Porterfield last night. Told
him a few truths. Just what he needed. When we went to the Post Office tonight
Amelia's check was there and so was mine. Over $80 apiece. Peace in another
respect. haha.

Thursday, Nov. 14. Finished husking corn today, seems good to be through so
early.
GRAPHIC: _By: Doris Wright, Stuart; Cora Wright of Morning Sun and seven other
girls leave the University of Iowa and travel to Washington, D.C. to aid the war
effort. She returned to Iowa in 1920 and taught high school. Shown are the seven
girls and Cora, who is second from right._By: Roberta Olsen, Nevada; Frederick
L. Maytag founded the Newton company that bears his name.
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December 31, 1999 Friday
SECTION: SOUVENIR; Pg. 14I
LENGTH: 818 words
HEADLINE: Photo Page;
1920s From Prohibition to jazz age, Iowans adjusted to the times; A determined
woman
BYLINE: Buttry Stephen, Staff
BODY:
Libbie Marie Kups Cohea roared through the '20s.
She grew from bloomers to flapper, from Bohemian daughter to American wife,
from farm girl to urban woman.
At 12 she learned to drive, at 14 she delivered bootleg liquor, at 16 she won
a Charleston contest, and at 18 she succumbed to jazz age rebellion by marrying
against her parents' wishes.
Libbie's daughter, J. Barbara Alvord of Des Moines, is writing a biography of
her grandmother. This story, of Libbie's life in the 1920s, is condensed and
adapted from Chapter Five of Alvord's "Through Different Eyes: The Life and
Times of Anna Mrkvicka Kups, 1889-1956."

A 1919 outbreak of hog cholera wiped out the Center Point farm of struggling
immigrants Jake and Anna Mrkvicka Kups. They moved to Cedar Rapids with Libbie,
9, and Lloyd, 2, eventually settling in a two-bedroom bungalow at 838 Daniels
St.
Libbie's mother sent her daughter off to city school wearing sensible rural
clothes -a starched dress over long-sleeved, long-legged white underwear, black
stockings pulled up to her knees. As soon as Libbie was out of her mother's
sight she stopped to roll and pin up the underwear so it wouldn't show. She was
desperate to "belong" as she mingled with students already wizened to urban
ways.
At the Saturday picture shows, Libbie spent a nickel to watch such stars as
Rudolf Valentino, Tom Mix and Lillian Gish. She dreamed of the romance and
glamour on the movie screen.
Libbie loved to read and used the public library every chance she could. She
explained newspaper articles to her mother, who struggled to read English.
The girl was athletic, beating neighborhood children in races and practicing
until she could kick her foot higher above her head than almost anyone.
When Jake bought a Chandler car, neither he nor Anna could drive.
Twelve-year-old Libbie became the family driver, with instructions from Anna's
sister, Louise, and her boyfriend. Within a couple weeks, she had her first
accident, costing Jake and Anna $16.
Shortly after the 18th Amendment passed in 1919, starting Prohibition, Anna's
brother-in-law, Walter Maciejewsky, built a still in his basement.
After Maciejewsky was burned in a still explosion, Anna and her foster
brother, Tony Prochaska, became partners in distributing his liquor. Anna sent
Libbie to deliver the homemade brew in Mason jars. She filled a basket for her
daughter and covered the jars with a dish towel, then accompanied the girl to
the trolley stop and gave her careful directions.
No one ever challenged the quiet young lady with innocent brown eyes and a
basket full of "jelly" jars.
She jiggled safely over trolley tracks all over town. Her mother met her
again at the trolley stop and the two counted the wadded bills and loose change
over the kitchen table.
The innocent-looking bootlegger was growing quickly into a headstrong young
woman. The determined wills of old-world mother and new-world American daughter
clashed repeatedly.

Libbie loved to dance. One night, after her mother had forbidden her to
leave, she crawled out a basement window in her faded flapper finery. Still able
to kick up her heels, Libbie won a Charleston contest at a neighborhood theater.
At 17, Libbie was working for her lunch at Wixstead's Drug Store when she met
a tall, slim man of Irish heritage, Jack Cohea.
Over mashed potatoes and meatloaf at the lunch counter, their romance
blossomed. By the girl's 18th birthday, Cohea was calling on her at her parents'
home and "My Blue Heaven" had become "their song."
Anna saw trouble ahead. He was 32, too old, Anna felt, for a high school
senior. Cohea was divorced, with five children. Six weeks before Anna's
firstborn was to graduate from high school, her opposition to Cohea erupted. In
an emotional confrontation on the front porch, Anna told Cohea to leave her
daughter alone.
Libbie packed her clothes and moved out, getting her own room at a boarding
house. She quit school and went to work in the Quaker Oats plant.
Libbie Marie Kups and Jack Cohea married April 18, 1928, before a justice of
the peace, with no family members present.
Their 2-inch-square bridal picture was taken in a 25-cent photo arcade.
Cohea took his young bride to Waterloo, where the John Deere plant was
hiring.
Jack Cohea would not be welcome in Anna's home until the birth of the
couple's daughter, Barbara, in 1931.
Libbie began her married life in Waterloo in rented rooms filled with
second-hand furniture, copying the frugal approach to living she had learned
from her Czech parents. But soon she found that she had been taught nothing
about the mysterious American stock market that crashed into her family's lives
Oct. 29, 1929.
Libbie's Roaring '20s quickly faded as events leading to the Great Depression
devastated the world she thought she knew.
Reporter Stephen Buttry can be reached at (515) 699-7058 or buttrys
@news.dmreg.com
GRAPHIC: _By: Barbara Alvord, Urbandale; The 25-cent arcade wedding photo of
Libbie Kups and Jack Cohea._By: Barbara Alvord, Urbandale; Libbie Kups was

driving this Chandler at age 12._By: Register; West Branch native Herbert Hoover
was elected president on Nov. 6, 1928._By: ODDS AND ENDS; Runs on banks,
pictured at left, and the stock market crash, pictured at right, ended the
high-flying '20s.
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December 31, 1999 Friday
SECTION: SOUVENIR; Pg. 18I
LENGTH: 864 words
HEADLINE: 1930s:Even during the Depression, Iowans remained optimistic;
Life in the mines
BYLINE: Buttry Stephen, Staff
BODY:
Even by Depression standards, the Somsky family lived a bleak life around the
Dallas County coal mines in the 1930s.
Miner Thomas Somsky and his wife, Anna, had 11 children, born in
Smokeyhollow, Wanlock and other Iowa coal towns from 1910 to 1932. At the Dallas
Coal Camp near Woodward, the family shared a four-room, unpainted house. Toilets
were outdoors, frigid in the winter and steamy in the summer, with mail-order
catalogs as toilet paper. Dirt roads made everything dusty or muddy.
"I did not realize the squalor of it all," Joe Somsky, the eighth child,
would recall. "This was life, and I enjoyed being. I didn't know it was a
miserable existence."
Patty Bittner and Sue Varley, granddaughters of Thomas and Anna, compiled the
family history for a 1998 reunion. They gathered the memories of Joe, who wrote
about the family's history before his death in 1997, and his brothers and
sisters. This account is adapted from that history.
Thomas Somsky, a Slovakian immigrant who moved about wherever mines were

hiring, went ahead of the family to Dallas County to rent a home in the "coal
camp," shacks built to house miners and their families.
The family followed, walking the last five miles from Granger. "Picture
this," Joe recalled. "The entourage: Ma, Marge, Agnes, George, Tommy, Catherine,
John and Joe and Gyp, the big German shepherd dog."
Anna, the oldest child, left home at age 15 to become a housekeeper. The
youngest three children, Dorothy, Paul and Albert, would be born in Woodward.
Anna Somsky did the laundry with "no washing machine, no dryer, just a tub
and washboard and the water heated on a coal-fired stove," Joe said. "After the
hand washing and hand wringing, the clothes were hung on a line outside, summer
and winter. I remember the stiff-frozen clothes being carried back into the
house."
Feeding so many mouths was a similarly huge task. "Always Ma was cooking,"
Joe said. "She seemed to be baking every day. Homemade bread, we always had
homemade bread. It became a rare treat to have store-bought bread."
Dorothy remembered "going with Catherine and Margaret Abramavich to get milk
from a farmer every day. We had to take our special pail with a lid on it to
carry the milk home."
Josephine Somsky, widow of George, told how Thomas and the boys contributed
to the family diet: "In the winter they hunted rabbits and squirrels to put meat
on the table. In cold weather, rabbits and squirrels were hung on the clothes
line after being skinned and dressed."
The Somsky parents, who had only a few years of school themselves, took
education seriously. "I can hear to this day, especially Ma, urging, 'Get the
schooling, you will get nowhere without it,' " Joe recalled.
Catherine received an eighth-grade diploma on June 1, 1933. In a letter to
sister Margaret, dated July 6, 1933, Catherine told of helping with religious
vacation school, playing bingo at a July 4 celebration and watching boys play
baseball.
She closed on an upbeat tone: "We are all feeling fine. And hope you are the
same. Will you please send me a package of bobby pins? I am going to try to set
my hair."
Eleven days later Catherine died of kidney infection.
Joe, five years younger, remembered the small children fighting at the dinner
table when Agnes, who turned 19 that day, came in and said, "What are you doing

fighting when Catherine has just died?"

It was Joe's first encounter with death. "I remember sitting on the porch on
the north side of the house, facing an open field and crying. Someone, I don't
know who, tried to console me. I remember riding from church to the cemetery,
with my hand out the car window and moving up and down in the wind."
Two 12-year-old boys in the camp died that summer. "I remember being
terrified that I would die next," recalled Dorothy Somsky Meng, 6 at the time.
In 1935 the family moved to the Granger Homesteads, a federal program to ease
poverty by helping miners buy homes and land. "Pa had about 5 acres," Joe said.
"He had a cow, a few pigs and a very large garden. And the house was large
enough to hold the whole family."
The Somskys were great admirers of Monsignor Luigi Ligutti, the priest whose
innovation and persistence brought about the Granger Homestead. Raised in the
Greek Rite Catholic Church, they faithfully attended Ligutti's Latin Mass.
"Pa's religion was one of rules and regulations, of prayers and fasts, of
Mass and confessions, based on the stern-faced, old-bearded-creator-figure-God
of the Old Testament," Joe said. "Pa attempted to pass this faith on to his
children and succeeded at different degrees with each child."
Work at the mines was sporadic. Thomas Somsky probably worked half of any
year.
"Eleven children is a very large family at any time in history," Joe said.
"But especially in hard times and these were extremely hard times."
"I remember sitting on the porch on the north side of the house, facing an
open field and crying. Someone, I don't know who, tried to console me."
- Joe Somsky
Whose family lived a bleak life around the Dallas County coal mines in the
1930s
Reporter Stephen Buttry can be reached at (515) 699-7058 or buttrys
@news.dmreg.com
GRAPHIC: _By: Patty Bittner, Urbandale; The Somsky family stands outside their
home in the Dallas Coal Camp in 1931. In the front from left are Paul, Tom and
Dorothy. In the rear are mother Anna, Agnes, father Thomas, George, Ann and
Catherine. In the back at right is the family dog, Gyp. ODDS AND ENDS_By: Henry
A. Wallace founded Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc. in Johnston._By: Nile

Kinnick won the Heisman Trophy in 1939. His No. 4 jersey was retired in
recognition of his prowess as a scholar-athlete at the University of Iowa, which
named the football stadium in his honor in 1972._By: Register File Photo;
Grandview Park Baptist Church in Des Moines had a bus to take children to Sunday
school and church._By: Drive-up curb service for ice was available in 1938.
Register File Photo
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December 31, 1999 Friday
SECTION: SOUVENIR; Pg. 22I
LENGTH: 923 words
HEADLINE: Stoic Iowans pitch in for the war effort
BYLINE: Buttry Stephen, Staff
BODY:
"Dear Daddy," wrote 6-year-old Nancy Moore on Sept. 26, 1942. It was a
salutation repeated countless times by countless boys and girls writing to
daddies fighting a horrible war.
Nancy's letters, and Daddy's letters home, told of the trivial events of
their daily lives, with one heartfelt hope behind each word: that Daddy would
come home safely.
Daddy was Maj. Robert Moore, commander of Company F from Villisca, Ia.,
training in Northern Ireland. Moore saved Nancy's letter. It expressed the
request and the wish of nearly all boys and girls to daddies who have gone away:
"Are you going to send me something? I wish you were home to play with me."
Moore did, of course, send Nancy something. After Company F moved to
Scotland, he sent home some tartan fabric, writing to his daughter on Oct. 4,
1942, "Mommy can make you a skirt like the little 'boys' wear over here."
Indeed, Dorothy Moore made Nancy a kilt. Years later, Nancy Moore Watt bought

her own daughter, Debra Jo, a similar skirt.

Nancy died in a car crash in 1984. Her father died of a stroke in 1991. Their
story survives in yellowing newspaper clippings, in the memories of family
members, in a classic photograph and in poignant letters between father and
daughter.
"I sure wish I could be home to play with you. We sure used to have fun,
didn't we?" Moore wrote in the Oct. 4 letter. He sent Nancy comic books, along
with encouragement to read. "I want to see you get all A's on your report card
-you must study and learn. Then when I come home you can read to me every night.
. . . Remember your Daddy loves you with all his heart and thinks of you many
times a day."
Soon after he sent the letter, Moore and the rest of Company F shipped out,
landing in Algeria on Nov. 8, 1942. He earned a Silver Star for gallantry and
became commander of the Iowa troops in the 2nd Battalion. Moore was assigned to
protect the mountain of Djebel Lessouda, a vital lookout protecting the route
through Faid Pass in Tunisia.
For two days in mid-February, 1943, Moore and his men fought the German
troops led by Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, the fabled "Desert Fox." Under an
onslaught of infantry, tanks and artillery, Moore lost only three men. But the
other American troops at Faid Pass were captured or forced to retreat.
Moore's troops were surrounded. One of his captured commanders, in a message
scrawled on three squares of toilet paper, assessed the bleak situation for the
2nd Battalion: "Unless help from air and army comes immediately . . . infantry
will lose immeasurably."
No help was coming. A typed note dropped at dusk by an American plane told
Moore to withdraw. Forty tanks surrounded his troops. To fight their way out
would be suicide. So Moore decided to march right past the enemy under cover of
darkness.
"We walked past a German 88-millimeter gun position so close we could have
touched the gun," Moore told The Associated Press. "The gun crews must have
thought we were Germans, because they did nothing."
When German soldiers called out, the Americans kept marching in silence. When
the enemy finally opened fire, Moore's troops were far enough down the mountain
they were able to scatter in the darkness. Some wounded who couldn't make the
march and a chaplain who had stayed behind with them on the mountain were
captured.
War correspondents reported the daring escape, and Nancy's Daddy became a war

hero. He was promoted to lieutenant colonel.

Moore soon returned to battle and a bomb exploded 15 feet away on April 9.
The concussion cost him his eyesight for several days.
Sgt. Milo Green of Company F wrote in one of his regular dispatches to the
Villisca Review and the Adams County Free Press in Corning about meeting a "sad
and worried" Moore returning to the front after he regained his vision.
"He spoke several times of his wife, Dorothy, and of little Nancy and
wondered if he would ever see them again," Green told the folks back home.
Moore would see Nancy and Dorothy soon. The Army wanted him to teach the
lessons learned in the North African desert to troops training at Fort Benning,
Ga.
Moore arrived in New York City on Saturday, July 10, 1943, and called his
wife with the news that he would be home soon. Excited residents decorated
Villisca with signs and flags welcoming the returning hero of Company F. The
family waited seven hours in Omaha for his plane on July 14. At the Omaha
Municipal Airport, 7-year-old Nancy impatiently climbed the fence for each Piper
Cub trainer that landed.
But Daddy wasn't coming home that day. Bad weather delayed his flight to
Chicago, so he couldn't make his connection to Omaha. He flew to Kansas City and
sent word that he would arrive in Villisca by train at 9:30 a.m. on Thursday,
July 15. He would return to the same depot he and Company F departed more than
two years earlier.
Nancy could neither eat nor sleep that night.
A crowd of about 50 gathered at the station to greet Moore. Nancy would be
the first. "Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!" she screamed, running forward as Moore stepped
off the train, carrying his helmet and bedroll. He dropped them to the platform
and embraced Nancy, who reached up to welcome Daddy with a hug.
Omaha World-Herald photographer Earle "Buddy" Bunker captured the moment. The
picture won a Pulitzer Prize and became one of the most famous images of World
War II, republished years later in history and photography books that Nancy's
children would read in school.
Nancy's joy reflected the prayers of a war-weary nation: Daddy was home.
GRAPHIC: _By: Omaha World-Herald; Nancy Moore got a homecoming hug from her
father, Lt. Col. Robert Moore._By: Register Photo; In January 1943, children
sold stamps to support the war effort.

LOAD-DATE: October 15, 2002