Iowa Highway Ends (etc.)

Girls in Ankeny and Ottumwa are the first two in central Iowa to become Eagle Scouts after changes to Scouting opened the doors to them. Stories: Des Moines Register, KYOU (with video).

They are among the first 1,000 girls nationwide to make Eagle, all with an official date of February 8 to coincide with the anniversary of the creation of the Boy Scouts of America. Interestingly, the Register’s article pegs the percentage of Scouts who become Eagles at 6%, not 4% as (formerly?) promoted by the National Eagle Scout Association.

Tama County is included in the Mid-Iowa Council, so they are my sorta-cohorts, organization-wise. The Mid-Iowa Council’s summer camp, Mitigwa, means “Maker of Men”, so we might have to fudge things slightly on that end from now on. It’s the Scout spirit that counts, after all.

Large Group All-State Speech honors were given out to Iowa high school students last week. (See, for example, here and here and here and here.) Each locally-focused story, though, contains one sad detail: There will be no All-State performance day. Again.

I think that All-State Speech is the first notable Iowa event to be cancelled for the second year in a row. Cedar Rapids is having a drive-thru parade for St. Patrick’s Day, or maybe a better term is reverse parade, where people go past the floats.

As someone who made All-State Speech, I know what two years of kids are missing out on, and that’s very sad.

When Tom Vilsack is confirmed as secretary of agriculture (again), he will join nine other men who have served in the same Cabinet post more than eight years — and the first to do it nonconsecutively. To meet Tama Jim Wilson’s record, though, he’d have to serve until a few months into 2029.

Transcribed here is an article from the Ames Daily Tribune and Times, August 27, 1920, remembering Tama Jim’s departure from Ames to be new President McKinley’s ag secretary.

When Ames united to honor ‘Tama Jim’ Wilson

Ex-secretary’s death recalls old time fete here

Friends tribute unmans stoic Scot; had many friends

The death, yesterday at Traer, of “Tama Jim” Wilson, for 16 consecutive years secretary of agriculture under the McKinley, Roosevelt and Taft administrations, and from 1891 to 1897 professor of agriculture, recalls the banquet tendered him by Ames people on February 12, 1897, after he had been notified of his appointment to a cabinet position by President McKinley and prior to his leaving for Washington.

“Friday night last,” says the Ames Times of February 18, 1897, “will pass into the archives that go to make up the history of the city of Ames and the state of Iowa. The reception tendered Professor Wilson on this occasion by his fellow citizens of Ames was an affair of which every citizen of Ames was proud. It was purely and entirely a nonpartisan affair from start to finish, simply an uprising of friends and neighbors of this good man to show in a fitting manner that they appreciate the honor that has come to their town thru him. It was a veritable love feast, a hearty hand-shaking time, with Tama Jim and his daughter as the center of attraction.”

Reception elaborate

A reception was held for “Tama Jim” Wilson at the Odd Fellows’ and Masonic hall, followed by a banquet, the most elaborate ever served in Ames, in the Ames opera house, second floor of the Stevens-Budd building, now the location of the Paradise Candy company.

Guests from out of town included [a long list of names that I did not transcribe].

“At the reception hall,” the Times says, “Mrs. Julia McLain and Mrs. Abbie Drake by special request sang most beautifully, the ‘Suanee River,’ Mrs. Margaret Hamilton playing the accompaniment.”

Hall handsomely decorated

The banquet started at 9 o’clock at the opera house. “Here a sight such as never before was presented in the city met the gaze of those who entered. The hall was wonderfully decorated. On either side of the stage in large letters formed of corn with a green background were the two words ‘Tama Jim,’ while strung from the pillars were beets, turnips, potatoes and numerous agricultural products. Over the stage hung portraits of Washington, Lincoln, Grant and McKinley, draped with flags.”

Two hundred and thirty-seven people were served at the banquet. Souvenir menu cards were distributed. The following menu was served:

Cold turkey, cold boiled ham, cranberry sauce, cold tongue, scalloped oysters, pickles, celery, olives, French rolls, I.A.C. creamery butter, oranges, bananas, Malaga grapes, coconut cake, chocolate cake, coffee, I.A.C. creamery cheese and wafers.

Dr. Richmond presides

Dr. Richmond was president of the evening and made the address of welcome. Congressman E.H. Conger of Des Moines responded.

The follow toasts were attributed to

• Contribution of Good Citizenship to the Welfare of the Government, Parley Sheldon, Ames.
• The Western Farmer, Judge Stevens, then of Boone.
• Grant Club, Colonel E.G. Pratt, Des Moines.
• The Iowa National Guard, General Lincoln, Ames.
• The Scotch Away From Home, Hon. John Morrison, Keokuk county
• Scientific Farming and the Public Schools, Professor E.D.Y. Culbertson, Ames.
• Iowa Experiment Station, Professor C.F. Curtiss.
• Presentation of legislative resolutions, engrossed, by J.D. Rowen, Des Moines.

Honors halt tongue

Tama Jim was then called upon. The Times quotes him as saying with great feeling, in part

I am to some extent unmanned tonight. More things have been said to me than I ever expected in my life. When I was a boy and was following the plow and the team went right ahead of its own accord, I used to build castles in the air, but you have built an edifice tonight much higher than I ever dared to build. A seat in the cabinet is not the highest honor in the world – not has high as I have received tonight. You have made me utterly bankrupt in gratitude. I can never pay a fraction of a cent on the dollar.

The Young Ladies’ Cooking Club waited upon the tables. Those who assisted were Alice Stuckslager, Velva Bradley, Dick McLain, Louise Hamilton, Grace Lang, Gene Hutchison, Cassie Lincoln, Jesse Christman, Julia Lanning, Cora Thompson, Anna Richmond, Rose Rummel, Hattie McCarthy, Kate Christman and Tet Bigelow.

The banquet committee was composed of C.R. Quade, J.S. Cavell, H. Kelso, Jule Davis, G.W. Rogers, Fred Hodson, A.B. Maxwell, C.E. Hunt, C.E. Haverly and Cal Giddings.

In 2019 I took note of a longtime columnist in southwestern Iowa who was hanging it up after seven decades, at the age of 100. Evelyn Birkby died Sunday.

The UI has a collection of old photos and columns. UI Press’ entry about her says she was “a writer and broadcaster for KMA Radio and Kitchen-Klatter, part of the longest-running homemaker program in the history of radio.” The Shenandoah radio station’s obituary calls her “the last of the great KMA radio homemakers.” See also this story.

At the time of her death, Birkby’s columns covered 40% of Iowa’s time as a state.