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CHAPTER FOUR

A Typical Small Town During the Twenties and Thirties

I suppose everyone's hometown is unique, to them. Moulton is to me, but it was typical of many small midwestern railroad-farming towns in the twenties and thirties. No matter what changes take place, some things never change. Although this was once a thriving farming-railroad community, it is now more like a ghost town (by comparison). Not the people, mind you, but the buildings on Main Street and the houses once so familiar and even grand in my eyes.

I visited there some forty years after moving away. My sister Hope and I had spent the night with our cousin-by-marriage, Cleo Forsythe Catherall. When I awoke the first morning, lying close to an open window, I took a deep breath and knew I was back home. No where else would the air smell like that of the town where I grew up. I didn't even need to open my eyes. I knew where I was.

My recall of our early years in Moulton is rather sparse, in spite of the fact that I have earlier memories. Hope, Clint and Bob were all in school and Dad was working. So most of my time was spent with Mom. About the later years, when the family was operating a grocery store, my recall is better. More about those further on.

Moulton, in the twenties, had two livery stables, one on north Main street and one on south. There was a hitching post at the side of the Colonial Theater at the corner of Main and Fifth. For at least ten or fifteen years after we came to Moulton, many farmers came to town driving their teams and tying them up there.

One memory of Main Street on Saturday night during this period is of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) parading. This must have been in the late twenties, since the Klan reached its peak membership nationally in 1924, when they claimed four and a half million members. Such fads usually move westward, so it must have been some time later than that.

All the Kluxers wore their gowns and "dunce caps," so it was practically impossible to tell who they were. As I recall, it was not a large group, but I remember Clint saying he recognized a local doctor by his shoes.

I always thought it strange that the KKK ever had a chapter in Moulton since there were no Jewish people living there at the time, very few Catholics, and only one "colored" family, to the best of my knowledge. The latter lived across the Wabash tracks on 5th street, and I believe the family name was Gray, or Grey. They were very well thought of and I remember them passing our house on the way home just at dusk, almost every night.

(I relate the following for the benefit of those who may be interested in a typical small-town layout of those times, and of course for the younger generation now in Moulton. If you are not in one of those groups, you may want to skip over this.)

The Colonial Theater building, on the northwest corner of Fifth and Main, was owned by Stuart Mace, a local jeweler and watchmaker who also owned a string of buildings on the west side of Main, just across Fifth Street from the theater. The corner store was Bonner Brothers Grocery, owned by Glen Bonner and his brother-in-law, George Barr. The next unit was the ISU (Iowa Southern Utilities) office; next was Mace Jewelry and there were a couple more. (Remember, all these described here were in a town of no more than 1500 people, and business was thriving.)

Stuart Mace was also the official timekeeper for the Wabash Railroad. All trainmen were required to have a special watch, which could only be set by opening the case and pulling a lever. The trainmen were required to have their watches checked and reset periodically.

The Colonial was operated by a Mr. Brumbach. Talking pictures had not yet come on the scene and live piano accompaniment usually went along with the picture. Gertrude Schulz, his girl friend, was the one who usually provided the music. I remember someone in the family remarking at one time that we were in some way related to the Brumbachs, so were probably related to this one.

When I started digging into my genealogy, I ran across an ancestor, "Jost in der Brumbach," who was born in the 1540s in Germany. This is on the Button side of my family tree. My paternal great-grandmother was Dicey Ann Button. How my family knew of this relationship I will never be able to guess. It took a lot of hunting for me to come up with it.

Gertrude Schulz, the pianist, was daughter of "Gus" Schulz who owned and operated a cigar factory and store just south of the Mace buildings on Main Street. He also operated a popcorn machine on the street in front of his store every Saturday night. However, during the depression, Betty Beggs, one of my schoomates and still a very good friend, opened her own stand on Main using a machine that had been handcrafted by her father. She put Gus' machine out of business in short order. Her secret? She added more butter!

Betty's father, Roy Beggs, ran a garage farther on down at the corner of Fourth and Main. The garage and adjacent buildings were destroyed in a fire late one Saturday night in either 1938 or '39, in what to me, a teenager at the time, seemed like the very fires of Hell. I thought the whole town, including our grocery store at the other end of Main and across the street, was going to be destroyed.

On the other side of the Fourth Street was the First National Bank, which folded during the depression.

Although this list will be far from complete, I will continue my attempt to reconstruct Moulton's "main stem," as it was called, for two reasons: Such a conglomeration of businesses would be unheard of today in such a small community, and for the benefit of the Moulton residents of today, who probably have no idea of what the town was like.

Next to the bank, going south, was the (Vanner) Hornstein Pharmacy, the Moulton Tribune office, Bovard's (later Moen's) Funeral Parlor, and the Elmer Wood Co. At that time, "Woodses" as they were called, not only sold groceries on one side, but dry goods and clothing on the other. It was Moulton's largest business, because they also bought produce (cream and eggs), and sold gasoline.

There was also a dry goods store in that block or the next going north, in the very early days, which was called Figgy's (or Figgee's). They had stools at the counter, so customers could sit while choosing their items.

Farther south on Main, Lafe Hetzler ran a Standard Oil gas station. He also had a tank truck and sold fuel to farmers and others in the area.

Across Main street, now going north, was a mill, where corn and other grain could be ground, run by the Robinsons. Nearby, Al Rogers ran a shoe repair shop. On the corner of Main and Third, stood the long-closed Grand Hotel. It later became the site of a Sinclair gas station. Proceeding north, across Third Street, was another gas station which was operated in the 1930s by the Hart Brothers.

The next thing in that line that I recall was Moulton's Town Hall, where it is today. Between that and the corner is a blank in my mind.

Across Fourth Street, stood the State Savings Bank, owned and operated by George Singley. Sr. The number two man in this bank was named McQueen, if I recall correctly. This, too, closed during the depression. Other businesses in that block during the thirties and early forties included Wendell Cassidy's Lincoln-Ford agency and the Montgomery Bros. Grocery, in the Masonic Building. Montgomery's store had a unique odor of newly ground coffee and spices. I cannot recall ever smelling anything else like it, and I would recognize it if I went into it blindfold today. Next to that was the Odd Fellows Building which housed, first a millinery shop operated by Mrs. (Howard?) Bragdon, and then a restaurant operated Mr. Bragdon.

What was in the corner unit of that building, I do not recall; but in later years, it and the Bragdon Cafe unit housed the Bybee Bros. Grocery and Feed Store. More about that later.

Farther down in the next block was Harlan Howard's Fur Warehouse, where pelts of skunks and other animals were stored after he bought them. It had a definite "air" about it! Next was a small gas station and the ice house operated by Walter Starr. He later expanded and gave Moulton its first convenience store. Going back to the west side of the street, there was the livery barn, mentioned earlier, and the Colonial Theater.

That was the "heart" of Moulton and it stayed very much the same, with slight variations, until WWII and the years immediately after.

All four of us children went to Moulton Public School. I was the only one to go the entire twelve years, the others had attended country schools before we moved to town.

My sister, Hope, was small and quite pretty. She was about five foot six and weighed no more than 98 pounds in her early years. Her hair was a darker brown than mine and my mother's. She never saw a dentist until she was about 25 years old because she had no dental problems up until that time. Pearl showed a typical father's jealousy for Hope, especially when any suitors came around. Perhaps that is why she was so late marrying.

Clint, on the other hand, had bone and tooth troubles from his late teen years, and he became quite bald before his 25th birthday. He was of average height, had brown hair and had to wear glasses early in life. He favored the Zellers side of the family. He typically tried to be stronger than he was, injuring his back during late childhood by trying to lift a loaded farm wagon. He had back problems from the time I first remember him.

Bob resembled Pearl more than any of us and he was most probably the healthiest one of the four, but he too had brown hair. None of us inherited Dad's black hair.

Hope graduated in 1925, then took a one-year post-graduate course. Clint graduated in 1927, as did Hope's future husband, Earl D. Sellers, Jr. Clint's wife-to-be, Elizabeth Powell (daughter of John Powell) graduated in 1928. Bob graduated in 1930 and his future bride, Sara Louise Kimmell (daughter of Ben and Mamie Kimmell) in '31. I made it in '38.

I married Frances Mehann from Alton, Maine, so she doesn't show up in Moulton's records.

After Hope's post graduate year, she enrolled at a short-lived business school in Centerville. It folded shortly after she took her first few classes, so that was the end of higher education for our family. The failure of this school was probably the cause of the bias that Pearl and Clint held against higher education of any kind.

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