Mary Allen Talbert: Remembering Slavery

Mary Allen Talbert of Ottumwa, Iowa, was featured in the Des Moines Register on July 5, 1924. Born on Christmas Day in 1799, she was believed to be 115 years old. She had been born into slavery in Garrett County, Kentucky.

Talbert said long life ran in her family. Her mother lived to be 120.

 

She’d been sold three times in her 66 years as a slave. Her second owner, a man named Alford, sold Talbert and one of her daughters to John Bird Hamilton of La Grange, Missouri. Hamilton paid $1,000 for Talbert and $500 for her daughter. The sale separated her from her other children.

 

When Hamilton moved west, he sold Talbert to a man named Price, who also owned her husband. Hamilton kept four of her children—two sons and a daughter.

 

One of her sons joined the army and was killed. Another son, John Hays, also served in the army and later fought with Custer in the Big Horn. By 1924, Hays was 90 years old. One of Talbert’s daughters, then 87, was living in Kentucky. She did not know what had become of her other daughter.

Photo Ackley High School Baseball Team 1913

The Des Moines Register printed this picture of the Ackley High School baseball team. They won seven out of eight games played in the season. The only team that defeated them was Union high school.

Top row: Fakers, Snater, DeNul
Middle row: Reinhardt, Bolender, R. Leach, Bleeks.
Bottom row: Penning, G. Leach.

The Bomb Was Only The Beginning

Howard Drenter

Howard Drenter lived at home with his parents.

He was twenty-eight years old, a Scott County farmer, and he’d never lived anywhere else. He worked the fields during the day and came back to the same house every night. People described him as reliable. A man who didn’t waste words or draw attention. He didn’t drink, fight, or have a record. If anything, he blended in.

For a while, he kept company with Edna Smith, a teacher at the Argo School. She was young, attractive, and well liked. Parents trusted her their children. She and Drenter had been seeing each other since the spring of 1925. Things appeared good. They talked, danced, and went to the movies.

Over time, the questions started. At first, they sounded casual, almost playful. Until they didn’t. Drenter wanted details. Names. He watched her every move, wanted to know who she spoke to, who walked her home, and who sat near her at school functions. Edna noticed it. So did her friends.

By January 1926, she’d had enough. She broke things off, but Drenter didn’t let go. He kept asking her out. He showed up. Sent messages through others. She kept refusing. Each time, the refusals seemed to harden him. He stopped sounding disappointed and started sounding offended. At some point, the requests turned into warnings.

Photograph of Schools in Amana Colonies 1922

 

School building in the Amana Colonies, circa 1922. (Des Moines Register. October 22, 1922)

Photograph of Chariton Iowa in 1871

The Des Moines Register (October 22, 1922) printed this picture of downtown Chariton, Iowa in 1871. They said the picket fence around the courthouse yard had a stile around it to prevent the cattle from getting in. When farmers came to town, they unhitched their horses and fed them from the wagons.

Iowa Poet Edwin Ford Piper

Edwin Ford Piper joined the faculty at the University of Iowa in 1905 and stayed there for decades, writing and teaching until his death in 1939.

He wrote about the Midwest the way it really felt. Dirt roads. Wind. Work. And long days that didn’t care if you were tired.

 

Barbed Wire was published in 1917. The Land of the Aiouwas followed in 1922. Then came Paintrock Road in 1927.

 

People compared him to Robert Frost and Carl Sandburg. Maybe. But Piper had his own style. He favored simple words, sharp images, and no fake drama.

 

And here’s the wild part. He didn’t just write poems. He collected Americana—828 folk songs, work songs, ballads, and little rhymes people sang without thinking.

 

Edwin Ford Piper wasn’t just writing Iowa’s story. He was recording its voice.

Dance Troupe of Miss Elizabeth Werblosky

Miss Elizabeth Werblosky

Miss Elizabeth Werblosky brought her ballet troupe to the stage of the President Theater in Des Moines on June 1, 1930, for a full evening dance recital that aimed to show just how many directions the art form could go.

The program featured thirty-three numbers, each one designed to illustrate a different phase of dance. Werblosky shaped the show from top to bottom, conceiving all but five of the pieces herself.

One of the evening’s most striking moments came in “Death and the Maiden,” with Julius Goldensen appearing as Death, wearing a mask that gave the number its eerie edge. The mask was designed by Clara Jane Goddard of Drake University, adding a strong visual punch to a performance built around movement, mood, and storytelling. (colorized pictures from the Des Moines Register. May 25, 1930)

Dancers (from left to right) Dorothy Abramson, Margaret
Ann Chambers, and Jean Schneider

Council Oak In Riverside Park Sioux City

Council Oak in 1921

Council Oak, often described as the most famous tree in Iowa, was nominated for a Hall of Fame for trees in 1921 by Miss Susie Brown of Marion.

The 265-year-old tree tree in Sioux City’s Riverside Park is located a few hundred yards from the junction of the Missouri and the Big Sioux Rivers. The surrounding area includes summer cottages and the lodges of two area boat clubs.

Tradition holds that white settlers and Native Americans met under the tree to plan wars against other tribes and to plan proposed raids on settlements of encroaching white men.

The oak measures nearly four feet in diameter and rises nearly 100 feet high. The tree died out in the 1970s.

Jarvis Doughnut Shop Advertisement Davenport 1921

Nice 1921 advertisement for the Jarvis Donut Shop in Davenport, Iowa. Note they had tables for the ladies, or you could take home a bag.

Shop The Kahl Building

This advertisement encouraging people to shop the Kahl Building in downtown Davenport was published in the Davenport Democrat and Leader on September 25, 1921.

The Burzette Gang of Sioux City

Everett Burzette

Some criminals aren’t born in the dark. They’re trained there.

And Everett Burzette—sitting in a jail cell in Mason City, Iowa, accused of first-degree murder—was raised in the shadow of a name that carried fear like a headline.

Burzette.

A name tied to stolen automobiles, gun smoke, and a man who didn’t plan on surrendering. A name made infamous by Everett’s older brother—Red Burzette—who, as one account put it, “met his death with a belching revolver in his hand,” fighting the police in Sioux City.

That was the family legacy Everett inherited. Now it was his turn to face the rope.

His cousin, Melvin Burzette, was locked up on the same charge in the cell next to him. They were accused of murdering Morris G. Van Note, a well-to-do farmer, shot down in the yard of a rural school building near Mason City. He’d tried to stop them from stealing school property, and—bang . . . Van Note was dead.

An Unsual Golf Tournament at the Newton Country Club

(colorized image, from a black and white photo)

The Des Moines Register printed this picture of an unusal golf tournament at the Newton Country Club on August 28, 1927. The players (left to right) are: Harlan Bailey - Newton postmaster, and Harry Cross - a local attorney. Bailey played the course with his clubs, while Cross attacked the balloons with his bow and arrow. The final score was 5 up, in favor of Cross.

Villisca Muder House

The Des Moines Register printed this picture of the Villisca muder house on July 10, 1927, fifteen years after the brutal axe murders of eight people.

There had been may confessions since then. All of them false. The most recent confession had come from Frank Carter, the "Omaha Sniper." He took credit for the murders before his execution in the electric chair, saying they were his "most notorious kill." Officials ignored the confession, figuring it was a last ditch effort to buy himself more time.

Previous supects were Sentor Frank Jones, William "Blackie" Mansfield, and Reverend Lyn George J. Kelly. None of the leads panned out--114 years later the case is still open.

Moonshine and Murder in Red Oak

Albert Girardi and his family

Albert Girardi was dead. George Austin checked the pulse, pressed his ear to the lifeless chest. There were no signs of life. None. So, you can imagine his surprise when Girardi sat up as they headed out to dispose of the body.

“For God’s sake, hit him again!” John Stewart screamed. “He is raising up.”

Austin hit Girardi with the king bolt. “This blow finished him,” he said. “I didn’t notice any more life to him.”

Austin rifled through Girardi’s billfold. He counted $82 in cash, pocketed the money, and tucked the wallet back in Girardi’s jacket. No sense taking evidence with him.

That was the second time they killed Girardi. But let’s start at the beginning.

Albert Girardi was a produce salesman from the Little Italy district of Omaha, Nebraska. He had a wife, two small children, Arto, 4, and Lucrezia, 9 months—and a booming business.

Monkey Island at Fejervary Park in Davenport

Visitors at Monkey Island

Fejervary Park has an island inhabited by seventy monkeys, running around the rocks like they’ve got somewhere urgent to be, splashing in the water, screaming at each other. Acting like the place is one wrong look away from turning into a full-blown riot.

From a distance, it looks cute. Up close, you realize it’s a setup.

There’s a concrete wall around the lagoon, and the water’s kept low on purpose so the monkeys can’t use it like a springboard and launch themselves out of there. No grand escape. No heroic leap. Just a shallow moat and a reminder that the island is more stage than wilderness.

Still, they’ve made a life in it. A whole little kingdom.