Corrine Shover, whose memoriam ran in today’s paper, will be remembered by many Cedar Rapids baby boomers as a decades-long  source of grace and fashion.

An interesting article ran on Nov. 5, 1972, that reported on Mrs. Shover’s foray into politics:

SOMETHING DIFFERENT is in the offing this afternoon for voters in the 12th senatorial district embracing all or parts of Jones, Cedar, Jackson, Clinton and Scott counties. Barbara Marian of West Branch, the Democratic candidate running against Senate Republican Leader Clifton Lamborn (R-Maquoketa), will be hostess at a fashion show from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Tipton State bank in Tipton. Corrine Shover, who has her own finishing school and modeling agency in Cedar Rapids, is scripting and narrating the show in which the models will be such personages as Mrs. John Culver and Mrs. Dick Clark, wives of the Democratic candidates for Second district congressman and U. S. senator. There’s been one concession to males. Tom Finley of the Iowa City “Sundance” group will play the guitar.

Here is a Corrine Shover ad from June 1964:

There’s a Duck Pond Pavilion in Ellis Park – but where’s the pond?

   There’s evidence it existed back in the 1920s  according to a July 9, 1921 edition of  The Evening Gazette:

WATER LILIES PUT IN POND IN ELLIS PARK

Lovers of natural beauty particularly those persons who have scoffed at the phrase, “Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these,” should go to Ellis park early tomorrow morning and view the water  lilies of  varied hue which have been placed in the duck pond, according to an announcement made today by Harry Whitfield, park commissioner. For many months the sensitive bulbs have been carefully cultivated in the Bever park greenhouse and it was only yesterday that they were deemed sufficiently hardy to weather outside elements. There are two varieties of  lilies, namely, “Nympheas” and “Marliacea.” To appreciate them one must go to the park at an early hour when they flaunt their beauty.

Pond overhaul, 1976

   I visited often with my mother in the 1950s and ’60s, and with my children in the 1970s and ’80s.   It got a major overhaul  in 1976. It was drained, dredged and new shrubs were planted on the island in the middle.

Pond filled in, 2002

   Then  in 2002, then-Parks Commissioner Wade Wagner had it filled in in a vain attempt to control the city’s population of wild ducks and geese.

   Prior to that, the pond had been a popular spot for youngsters and their parents to watch and feed the ducks and occasional turtles from behind a wire fence.

In light of Cecelia Hanley’s “corny debate” in today’s Gazette, I found this sweet corn party in Vinton in September 1954. There was a Sweet Corn Queen, political speeches and national media chomping on ears of corn.

 Frank Nye covered the event for a Page One story. I love his description of the day:

They arrived early in the morning for the hour-long parade and they stayed late for the street dance.

   Between times they crowned a queen,  ate sweet corn, ”did” the carnival that occupied a block of  Main street, ate sweet corn, listened to a pair of short political speeches, ate sweet corn, watched a Waterloo drum and bugle corps demonstration, ate sweet corn, lolled in the welcome shade of Benton county’s courthouse, ate sweet corn, just plain got better acquainted with one another and ate sweet corn.

   In fact, anybody who didn’t eat at least two ears of sweet corn was considered a piker. Nobody knows who ate the most ears, but many visitors devoured between four and eight.

 

   The Cedar Rapids School Board followed the local tradition of naming schools for presidents when the city’s youngest high school was named after President John F. Kennedy. But a Nov 14, 1965, Gazette story revealed that four other names were suggested for the school:

   “In a letter to school board members, President Ernest Pence listed five possible names for the new school. The names were not his ideas, he said, but were suggestions made to him by taxpayers.

   “The list: John F. Kennedy, Arthur Collins, North High, Alexander Hamilton and Abraham Lincoln.”

   At its Monday, Nov. 15, meeting the board chose “John F. Kennedy” as the school’s name by unanimous vote.

   President Kennedy’s youngest brother, Sen. Ted Kennedy, spoke at the school’s dedication on Oct. 7, 1967.

Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts (Mass.) is pictured speaking at the dedication Saturday of Cedar Rapids' new John F. Kennedy High School in northeast Cedar Rapids. The senator is a brother of the late President for whom the school is named. Shown in profile in the foreground is Robert Fitzsimmons, principal of the school.

The Braille School in Vinton not only had a band in 1950s, the band marched in the Lions International Parade in New York on Tuesday, June 30, 1959. Here’s the photo that ran on the back page of the July 1 Gazette:

                          

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Members of Vinton’s Braille and Sight Saving school band marched down New York’s Fifth avenue Tuesday at the 42nd annual parade of Lions International. Directed by John Best, the band is believed to be the first of its kind in the nation. It is composed entirely of students who are either blind or partially blind.”

Fifty years ago, on June 23, 1959, The Gazette published a small item about vandals and a tombstone.

Why would anyone want to remove a tombstone from a grave and deposit it someplace else? 

But even more mysterious is where that tombstone was in the first place.

An obituary ran July 12, 1957, for Gertrude E. Duncan. She was buried at Cedar Memorial.

This photo ran on Page One in The Gazette on June 16, 1959.  The Mercury-Atlas 6  flight achieved orbit on Feb. 20, 1962.

A story published June 1, 1903, related the relatively minor damage of the Cedar River’s flooding at the end of May. Particularly interesting was how the high water affected the city’s dogs.

Was the cracker plant the Continental Biscuit Co. , whose address in the 1903 City Directory was 321 S. First St., or was it the former Shaver & Dows Cracker Factory at 87-89 S. First, which was sold in August 1890 to the New York Biscuit Co. It was sold again in July 1891 to the National Biscuit Co?

These photos ran on The Gazette's Picture page, July 26, 1954.

 

  In the summer of 1954, the Junior Chamber of Commerce looked into buying a portable playground for the city. They discovered Detroit had purchased one for $30,000. That was too much for their budget, so they set out to create one.

An Around the Town item on Aug. 1, 1954, described its construction: 

WE’VE COME ACROSS a few statistics on construction of the city’s new Playmobile that you might be interested in. Members of the Junior Chamber of Commerce, which constructed the mobile playground and donated it to the city, put in 302 hours of work on the project—in addition to the Iowa Electric Welding Company’s work under the direction of Henry Malek. It took 20 quarts of paint to cover it. Materials that went into it included 222 feet of channel iron and angle iron, 110 square feet of 12 gauge sheet steel, 80 feet of two and a half inch pipe, 320 square feet of marine plywood and 184 lineal feet of two-by-fours. It all adds up to a unique and useful addition to the city’s recreational facilities.

   The Playmobile was used in the  Recreation Department’s summer playground program into the mid-1970s.