Oct. 15
About 60 miles (at the 1,634.2 mile mark of the trip), and almost due south of Wayland, Iowa is Wayland, Missouri, where 400 or so people call home.
Like a distinguished lady whose dress is a bit tattered and showing its age, Wayland, Mo. has lost the luster of its earlier more vibrant days. But the people there show why it is the heart that matters and wear with pride the moniker of Waylandites.
The bar I pulled up to, once a bank, Aunt Nancy’s, where I talked with the bartender in 1995was boarded up as were most of the Main Street businesses. Where once there was two, now only the lone grain elevator showed signs of activity. D.T.’s Tattoo parlor was closed and Reed’s Bar and Grill wouldn’t be open for an hour or so.
I headed to the Post Office, the only other place that seemed to busy and quickly ran into folks who welcomed me to their burg once they heard of the purpose of my visit. A pastor (whose name I didn’t get), who is a member of the fire department, called his wife and asked her to bring me a patch that was meant to go on one of his shirts.
While I waited for his wife to come, I ran into one of those characters that definitely follow their own drummer. Ron Christner pulled up to the Post Office on an ATV, announcing that he loved his green machine for the fact you didn’t need insurance for it but that he could still get around town.
He was about 5’5”, slim and still wiry for his 71 years and wore his faded bib overalls and leather cowboy hat like he was born to casual dress. Once he heard my tale, he told me that he was originally from Wayland, Iowa and lived there until an old law that seemed to have pioneer if not biblical roots came into play.
He was a long haul trucker and in the vein of “long haul,” he by necessity gone for long periods as he traversed the country delivering goods. Well, unbeknownst to Ron, his wife wasn’t exactly happy with him and found an arcane Iowa law that said if a man abandoned his wife for five days or more she could divorce him. Which she did.
Ron said he moved around a bit, remarrying a “gal” in Colorado (they split amiably a few years back) until he was told by the insurance company that he was too old to drive truck anymore. This might have been added to by the fact that he claims they also told him by their data, that Ron was the #3 driver in the U.S. with tickets – 830 plus to be exact
But before he roared off, he said his forced retirement in Wayland, Mo. wasn’t all that bad, he just needed more money and knew that he could still navigate a big rig as good as the next man. He certainly could navigate a good story and just proved what so many others have said; that there is a story in everyone out there.
I was heading out when the honorable mayor of Wayland, Mr. Boatman, approached me with a big grin and a handshake. He had heard I was in town and was soon quick with stories of growing up in his little farm town.
As is repeated almost everywhere, he said when he grew up, he’s 64, there were still businesses in town. A couple of grocery stores, hardware stores, a meat vault, etc. he laughed about the high school days where the kids would hang around one particular restaurant and on the back roads where beer and talk of the future prevailed.
He, as so many have so far, lamented the fact that so many of the town’s graduates had to move out of town to find work. But, his pride in his town was all there and he smiled the whole time we talked up to the point where his brother drove by to tell him he was supposed to be somewhere at that moment. He was smiling as he drove away for his appointment.
After a great lunch at Reed’s (chicken fried chicken and mashed potatoes) I was directed to take Route B and C to Kahoka where I could find a library and history museum for Clark County.
The drive was a curvy one, with Mennonite and Amish farms dotting the landscape, the sun shining again (not a cloudy day since hitting the PA border) on the fields of varying harvest stage.
The library yielded up that, like Iowa and Michigan, surveying of the territory happened in the 1830s and the town was established soon after the Keohuk and Western Railroad depot was up and running.
The name of the town is once again lost to the ages, but at the museum, one its volunteers gave me the proof that one Jeremiah Wayland (with many more references to Wayland kin folk) was the first to settle in the area, at St. Francesville (just up the road) to be specific. Like a detective, I don’t believe in coincidences and the clue of Jeremiah leads me to believe he may have been recognized by Wayland’s first settlers.
At one point Wayland was a bustling little burg, with two blacksmith shops, three general stores, a hardware store, a drug store, a livery stable, a saloon, a grain warehouse, a boarding house, a hat shop, and a hotel. Not bad for a town of 400 or so (the town never really grew much). In a precursor to today’s Dollar General and the other closely named stores, a photo taken in 1896 showed The Bargain Store that once took care of the residents needs.
The town’s newest claim to fame is its Rust Revival Car Show, now in its sixth year that started out as just fun and has now grown into a weekend that brings them all to Wayland for the love of the great American car.
She may have seen better days, but there was no lack of hospitality and pride in Missouri that I could find.
Tomorrow I head out for a two day meander to Tejas.
(The first two photos are of Aunt Nancy’s, the bar I stopped into in ’95. Starting with the straw reindeer, the last photos were from the Swedish Museum in Swedesburg, just down the road from Wayland, Iowa I visited on the way back to the motel from the Missouri visit. It was a two building joint filled with old farming tools, daily items of furniture, kitchen stuff, history books, dolls and an expansive genealogy library local folks had contributed to. The wagon with the drawers is a “huckster wagon,” which was used by local general store owners to deliver goods (rice, coffee, sugar---candy, talk about the first impulse buying for kids---it didn’t happen first at the checkout in modern stores) to house wives and to pick up their farm goods (eggs, cream, etc.). Nice way to finish the day out.)
Like a distinguished lady whose dress is a bit tattered and showing its age, Wayland, Mo. has lost the luster of its earlier more vibrant days. But the people there show why it is the heart that matters and wear with pride the moniker of Waylandites.
The bar I pulled up to, once a bank, Aunt Nancy’s, where I talked with the bartender in 1995was boarded up as were most of the Main Street businesses. Where once there was two, now only the lone grain elevator showed signs of activity. D.T.’s Tattoo parlor was closed and Reed’s Bar and Grill wouldn’t be open for an hour or so.
I headed to the Post Office, the only other place that seemed to busy and quickly ran into folks who welcomed me to their burg once they heard of the purpose of my visit. A pastor (whose name I didn’t get), who is a member of the fire department, called his wife and asked her to bring me a patch that was meant to go on one of his shirts.
While I waited for his wife to come, I ran into one of those characters that definitely follow their own drummer. Ron Christner pulled up to the Post Office on an ATV, announcing that he loved his green machine for the fact you didn’t need insurance for it but that he could still get around town.
He was about 5’5”, slim and still wiry for his 71 years and wore his faded bib overalls and leather cowboy hat like he was born to casual dress. Once he heard my tale, he told me that he was originally from Wayland, Iowa and lived there until an old law that seemed to have pioneer if not biblical roots came into play.
He was a long haul trucker and in the vein of “long haul,” he by necessity gone for long periods as he traversed the country delivering goods. Well, unbeknownst to Ron, his wife wasn’t exactly happy with him and found an arcane Iowa law that said if a man abandoned his wife for five days or more she could divorce him. Which she did.
Ron said he moved around a bit, remarrying a “gal” in Colorado (they split amiably a few years back) until he was told by the insurance company that he was too old to drive truck anymore. This might have been added to by the fact that he claims they also told him by their data, that Ron was the #3 driver in the U.S. with tickets – 830 plus to be exact
But before he roared off, he said his forced retirement in Wayland, Mo. wasn’t all that bad, he just needed more money and knew that he could still navigate a big rig as good as the next man. He certainly could navigate a good story and just proved what so many others have said; that there is a story in everyone out there.
I was heading out when the honorable mayor of Wayland, Mr. Boatman, approached me with a big grin and a handshake. He had heard I was in town and was soon quick with stories of growing up in his little farm town.
As is repeated almost everywhere, he said when he grew up, he’s 64, there were still businesses in town. A couple of grocery stores, hardware stores, a meat vault, etc. he laughed about the high school days where the kids would hang around one particular restaurant and on the back roads where beer and talk of the future prevailed.
He, as so many have so far, lamented the fact that so many of the town’s graduates had to move out of town to find work. But, his pride in his town was all there and he smiled the whole time we talked up to the point where his brother drove by to tell him he was supposed to be somewhere at that moment. He was smiling as he drove away for his appointment.
After a great lunch at Reed’s (chicken fried chicken and mashed potatoes) I was directed to take Route B and C to Kahoka where I could find a library and history museum for Clark County.
The drive was a curvy one, with Mennonite and Amish farms dotting the landscape, the sun shining again (not a cloudy day since hitting the PA border) on the fields of varying harvest stage.
The library yielded up that, like Iowa and Michigan, surveying of the territory happened in the 1830s and the town was established soon after the Keohuk and Western Railroad depot was up and running.
The name of the town is once again lost to the ages, but at the museum, one its volunteers gave me the proof that one Jeremiah Wayland (with many more references to Wayland kin folk) was the first to settle in the area, at St. Francesville (just up the road) to be specific. Like a detective, I don’t believe in coincidences and the clue of Jeremiah leads me to believe he may have been recognized by Wayland’s first settlers.
At one point Wayland was a bustling little burg, with two blacksmith shops, three general stores, a hardware store, a drug store, a livery stable, a saloon, a grain warehouse, a boarding house, a hat shop, and a hotel. Not bad for a town of 400 or so (the town never really grew much). In a precursor to today’s Dollar General and the other closely named stores, a photo taken in 1896 showed The Bargain Store that once took care of the residents needs.
The town’s newest claim to fame is its Rust Revival Car Show, now in its sixth year that started out as just fun and has now grown into a weekend that brings them all to Wayland for the love of the great American car.
She may have seen better days, but there was no lack of hospitality and pride in Missouri that I could find.
Tomorrow I head out for a two day meander to Tejas.
(The first two photos are of Aunt Nancy’s, the bar I stopped into in ’95. Starting with the straw reindeer, the last photos were from the Swedish Museum in Swedesburg, just down the road from Wayland, Iowa I visited on the way back to the motel from the Missouri visit. It was a two building joint filled with old farming tools, daily items of furniture, kitchen stuff, history books, dolls and an expansive genealogy library local folks had contributed to. The wagon with the drawers is a “huckster wagon,” which was used by local general store owners to deliver goods (rice, coffee, sugar---candy, talk about the first impulse buying for kids---it didn’t happen first at the checkout in modern stores) to house wives and to pick up their farm goods (eggs, cream, etc.). Nice way to finish the day out.)