Recipes for Living Russell and Jeanette Wetzler

In 2002 Russell and Jeannette celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary. Their granddaughter, Elizabeth Ellen Ruediger, sent the information from her home in New Hampshire for the following article that appeared in the February 28 issue of the Osceola Sentinel-Tribune:

"Jeannette and Russell Wetzler of 805 N. Main have lived at this address since 1954 and in the Osceola area all of their lives.
"They were married Feb. 26, 1937 in Albany, Mo. The couple were driven in a blizzard to Missouri to complete their nuptials by Vera and Lester Gray. Jeannette and Russell were only 17 years old. Russell said he aged four years en route to Albany. They arrived around midnight and had to waken the justice of the peace who they paid $5 for the service and asked for change in return. Due to the inclement weather, they arrived back in Osceola very early the next morning.

"They have two children, Merlyn D. Wetzler of Des Moines and Robert C. Wetzler of Martensdale, three grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

"Russell was employed by Anderson-Erickson as a milk deliveryman and was an automotive salesman in the Osceola area for many years, Jeannette was employed at the Clarke County Courthouse in the auditor and engineer's office from 1942 until she retired in the 1980s. The couple operated the Wetzler Ceramic Studio for nearly 20 years.

"There is no open house scheduled. Cards and letters can be sent to 803 N. Main St., Osceola, Iowa 50213."

There is, of course, much meat to wrap around the skeleton that covers those 65 and more years. There was joy and hardship. Jeannette says,. "We laughed our way through," and she speaks for many of her contemporaries in saying that the Depression was not all bad. "It taught us to save." And save she did, not only in regard to finances, but, "I save everything. We buy something new and I still save the old." She brought out the 40 cards received in' response to the above article. She has clippings and poems she has collected through the years. And by their laughter, hard work, and saving, they provided a rich life for their immediate family and a wonderful heritage that is being passed along to their grandchildren.

Jeannette's spirituality speaks through her original poem "Song in the Meadow:"

Today I walked through a meadow, and God walked there with me too,
The dawn glowed 'round about me, and the sky seemed exceedingly blue.
On the fence a brown thrush was singing, a song filled with hope and with cheer,
And the music that comes with the morning, let me know that my Savior was near.
I talked with God in the meadow, the morning was still fresh and new,
We talked of fields and of harvest, labor so great, workers so few.
I walked with God in the meadow and the sun shone high in the sky,
Then he showed me a field ripe for gleaning, one that the reapers passed by.
A field filled with faces of sorrow, eyes dimmed with hopeless despair,
Hearts aching and breaking and lonely, burdens too heavy to bear.
Then they heard the story of Jesus, how he loves them and how much he cares,
How he came to seek and to save them, and lighten the burdens they bear,
Life now has hope and meaning, no longer oppressed and down trod,
The thrush sings in the meadow while they're walking and talking with God.

Jeannette’s optimism is revealed in "It’s Up There:"

It's up there, under skies of melancholy grey,
Shining just as brightly as it shone yesterday,
Tho' the rain comes in torrents, or drizzles sad and slow,
My spirits can't be dampened, for this I surely know,
That when clouds roll about me, and gloom seems everywhere,
I lift my head, look up and smile, and say, "It's up there."
If you look very carefully, you'll see a bit of blue,
The clouds start rolling by, and the sun starts shining through.
Soon the world will be bright, with sunshine everywhere,
And you'll be glad you remembered, "It's still up there."

Whatever it indicates, on June 4, 2002, Jeannette had cataract surgery at Chariton in the morning, voted, and renewed her driver's license in the afternoon.

Jeannette was born to Ode and Capitola Koble Coyle when they were living in Livingstone County, Missouri near Chillicothe. Ode was of Scotch-Irish descent and had come from Caldwell in Noble County, Ohio. Capitola lived in Liberty Township of Clarke County, Iowa, and was of English descent. Grandfather Koble was in the Union Army in the Civil War and twice was a prisoner of war. He weighed 160 pounds when he went in and 80 pounds when he was released.

Like many others of their time, Ode and his brother wanted to "go west." George settled in Nebraska, Ode in Missouri, where he farmed for three years before he came to Iowa. Jeannette was a year old at the time of the move. She grew up in Clarke County. Her dad farmed until she was three or four years old. She started to school at Ward Township School when she was four. They moved to Osceola, where her father barbered for many years. While he was barbering in Osceola, Iowa, his brother barbered in Osceola, Nebraska.

The Koble grandparents had a big family. They had 13 children but lost six. They raised seven. Capitola had a twin brother, Caddie. Their father died when the twins were 12 years old.

In the Coyle family, Jeannette had an older brother, Clifford, and a younger brother DeWitt. There was another baby boy who was still-born, and the youngest was Loren. When he was 18 days past a year old, he pulled a pot of coffee over on himself. It scalded him and he died. Loren had red curly hair. "You couldn't touch his head without touching a curl," and Jeannette saved one of them. He looked so much like a little angel that a neighbor one time asked Capitola if she thought she would be able to raise him, and two weeks later, he was dead. The family never recovered from the trauma. When Capitola was in the hospital, on her death bed, she wondered what would happen to Loren's shoes, which they had bronzed. Jeannette still has them.

Jeannette has a remarkable memory of her school years in Osceola. Her first grade teacher was Nellie Lewis. There were not single desks and seats, and the teacher told her she could sit with anyone she chose. Her choice was Wanda Mullen who became her closest friend and remains so now. Not a day goes by that she doesn't think of Wanda, who lives in Truro.

For second grade, Jeannette went to West Ward, where Miss Bonham was her teacher. The Coyle family lived on North Main, which meant that Jeannette and Clifford needed to go through the subway on Fillmore. Eldon Gilchrist and Russell Iwed charged them 5¢ for passage. Eldon told stories and Jeannette repeated one to Miss Bonham adding that she thought it was probably ''just a bunch of b.s." She had heard that comment and didn't have a clue what it meant. She learned that she was not to say that.

Jeannette remembers particularly that there was a dollhouse in Miss Bonham's room and if you brought a doll to school, you could put it in the dollhouse. Milk was served to the students but only some of the kids got milk. Jeannette sat with her hands folded on the desk, waiting for milk, which she never was given. She thought she had done something wrong and wasn't told or didn't understand that the parents had to pay for it. She had plenty of milk to drink so that wasn't a problem.

Miss Davis was Jeannette's third grade teacher. It was during that year that Loren died. Capitola had brought Loren with her when she visited school, so the teacher and children knew him well. Loren crumpled one of their papers that were displayed on the wall and the teacher was so sad about his death that she left the crumpled paper there all year long. At that time, Jeannette began looking after DeWitt, who was about three. She felt such a responsibility for him that she couldn't sit down to eat if he wasn't in from playing.

In fourth grade Lela Adamson Carson was Jeannette's teacher. She still remembers method of grading. Papers with bunches of grapes on them were put on the wall. If a child got spelling words right, he or she could color in a purple grape. If not, it would have to be a green grape. The children were allowed to bring visitors and Jeannette had taken DeWitt to school one day. She thinks her attention must have been diverted by something he was doing and she missed a word. It just about killed her that she had to color in a green grape.

Jeannette remembers Audrey Fisher, her fifth grade teacher, as very pretty and a good teacher. Nova Wentz, the music teacher, had a trilly voice. It was so different that the kids kind of chuckled about it. There was one song that had to do with fall and had a line about nuts being browner than they had been. The trilly voice amused one of the girls and she laughed. The teacher asked why she laughed. All she could think to say was that the nuts were browner.

The kids could hardly wait to get into sixth grade where they had Mrs. Smith. She gave only A's and B's and the kids didn't learn a thing except about her daughter and her husband, Mr. Anderson. During the time they went to West Ward, Clifford usually made Jeannette walk behind him because he didn't want anyone to think he had a girlfriend.

Jeannette started declamatory work at that time. On her first attempt at public speaking she had stage fright. She cried and couldn't go on. She took elocution lessons from Mrs. Joe Goodman, whose husband was the postmaster. She did quite well, but Carmen Waller Byers always beat her. She never did win first, but she decided second was not too bad.

For seventh grade the students were seated alphabetically, so Jeannette was near the back of the room. She loved chewy candy kisses and got away with eating lots of them, until she switched to the ones with peanut butter. They were easily detected. Some teachers were good, some she didn't like. She recalls that Mr. Bean taught history. Additionally they had English, arithmetic, and geography. The Great Wall of China was one of the featured lessons and when one student was asked what it was for, all that she could remember was that it was wide enough for horses and wagons to drive on, so that was what she told as its purpose.

In eighth grade, Dorothy Gibson was Jeannette's English teacher. Jeannette had a gift that was sometimes a detriment. She could learn a declamatory speech in one evening, but when Mrs. Gibson gave an assignment that required the students to read something and then tell it in their own words, Jeannette recited word for word what she had read. Even today Jeannette could probably recite the poem "Annabelle Lee," which everyone had to learn. For home economics in eighth grade, the students used high school facilities and walked from and to West Ward.

Jeannette was 13 when she entered the ninth grade. She remembers how big the high school kids looked. The first year was hard. They had algebra, English, general science, Latin, with home economics twice a week. They learned cooking and sewing. She baked cookies but the consensus of the family was that she should leave cookie baking to Grandma. She made a pair of pajamas that were pink with a flowered top. She outgrew them before they were finished, but in those days no one threw anything away so DeWitt inherited them.

In tenth grade, Jeannette finished the second year of Latin. She barely made it through algebra, which grade kept her from having a star behind her name at graduation. She had Miss Nelson for history, "a peach of a teacher," which nearly all students agreed.

In her junior and senior years she took shorthand and typing as well as American history in her junior year and world history as a senior. They had the same arrangement for American and English literature. All through high school she continued in declam and was in the junior/ senior class play. She also sang. Ode thought she had such a lovely voice that when someone he was working on in his shop mentioned that they needed a singer for a special occasion, he recommended her. "I don't know what happened to my voice. I can't sing at all now- even to the grandchildren."

Jeannette and Clifford graduated from high school in 1936. When he was ice skating during his freshman year, he fell and broke a rib. He nearly died as a result and missed that year of school. That put them in the same grade.

Russell was born in LeGrand, Iowa on July 26, 1919 to John Harlan and Mary Esther Hough Wetzler. They were both school teachers and had met in Neola, Iowa. John was superintendent in most of the school systems where they were employed. After they were married, Mary Esther quit teaching to raise the family of eight children. They lost three. The surviving ones, in order of age, were Harlan, Russell, Barbara, John, and Lawrence. Harlan was in the Navy for 12 years and is now deceased. Barbara is in Dearborn, Michigan, John is in the California Bay area, and Lawrence in Des Moines.

Like Jeannette, Russell started to school when he was four years old but due to his parents' career, he was in several school systems- Epworth, Persia, Neola, and beginning with his seventh grade year, Woodburn.

Jeannette had graduated from eighth grade in Osceola the same year that Russell graduated from eighth grade in Woodburn. Although they didn't know one another, at some time Russell had seen and been attracted to her. He knew one night that she was attending a prayer meeting in Woodburn and sat on the church steps while it was going on.

Russell and Jeannette began dating steadily in the fall of 1936, after Russell returned from working during the summer for his uncle who was a wheat farmer near Rosetown, Saskatchewan, Canada. He would call from Allison's Drug Store, just off the square on North Main, to ask if he could come see Jeannette and "it seemed like by the time I hung up the phone, he would be at the door." Their dates were at home, sitting on the couch, talking. They were well chaperoned. The house wasn't that big and Jeannette's father slept right in the next room.

They were just 17 years old when they were married in 1937. They lived in a two-room apartment in the Praether house. Russell went to work for Joe Adamson, who did cement work, and took a job with a milk dairy. He would get up at 3:00a.m. to work at the dairy, work for Joe Adamson during the day, then go back to the dairy for the evening chores. Jeannette remembers going to work with Russell one day, sitting on the manger while he milked. He looked at her and said, "When I think of you, I could scoop manure all day." She laughingly said that was one of the best compliments he ever gave her.

When an opportunity came along to work in a grocery store for George Hogan, Russell took that job. He worked from 7:00a.m.until 7:00p.m. six days a week and until noon on Sundays for $6 a week, which after awhile was raised to $7. The accounting was: rent $6 a month, which they paid by the week- $1.25. Groceries were about $3. They bought a radio from Paul Ostrus and paid for it 25¢ a week. They spent 10¢ a week for a double-dip ice cream cone for each and saved the rest.

Merlin was born on September 17, 1938, at the home of Jeannette's parents. She remembers Dr. Stroy coming with a big portable table that had a sign, "Confinement cases are cash.” By having saved at least 75¢ a week, Russell and Jeannette had almost enough to pay for the delivery. George Hogan gave them an advance for the rest. Russell was so proud of the new baby that he carried him around uptown in a basket

In 1942, Jeannette went to work in the auditor's office at the Clarke County Courthouse. She was there for 13 years and was in the engineer's office another 28. She was there until she retired in the 1980s.

In 1943, after five years of marriage, Russell was called into military service. He trained in Washington State for the medical corps. He served as a male nurse in a hospital in England for one year to the day. He could look out the windows and see German planes flying over. "It was scary but for us there was no bombing. If the war hadn't ended when it did, I would have been shipped to the Pacific area." Russell was discharged in 1946.

Jeannette lived with her parents while Russell was gone and on his return they moved onto "The Knoll," in one of Dr. Sells' houses. Robert was born on October 23, 1946.

Russell went to work in Hylton's Grocery Store and for Rindy until 1949, when he took over one of A & E's (Anderson-Erickson Dairy) biggest routes. It included Osceola, Woodburn, Leon, Davis City, Decatur City, Lamoni, Kellerton, Grand River, Chariton, and Centerville. At one time it included New Virginia and Truro but they were taken off the route. The work included servicing the towns and most of the schools. The company brought the milk to Osceola and Russell would leave at 7:00a.m.and arrive home at 8:00 or 9:00 at night. His compensation was $1200 a month before taxes, or about $750 take home pay. It is hardly surprising that in 1960, in Grand River, Russell suffered a heart attack.

Prior to 1969, Jeannette and Russell became interested in ceramics in a shop owned by Mona Crawford. In 1969 they took over the business by erecting a building east of the present garage. They started with one kiln and one building, which evolved into four kilns and two more buildings, one of the latter because Russell wanted to pour the green ware.

They were heavily engrossed in this project for 20 years during which time they attracted many students-adults and children. "Such nice people" from Leon, Decatur City, Lucas, Woodburn, and some from Missouri. They were open four days a week and Saturday mornings. Popular items to make were bowls, cats and dogs, the seven dwarfs, and others. On display in their home is a three-piece set of Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer and Becky; and decorative plates on the wall. There are also pieces too large to be displayed: a pitcher with the seven stages of Christ's life, Infant of Prague, an 18-piece nativity scene so large that it took two kilns to fire the three camels; a set about 30 inches tall of a school girl with books under her arm and a boy with fishing gear. They discontinued in 1989; sold the green ware but still have the kilns. Grandchildren Abigail and Anna become interested and to reminisce, Jeannette sometimes takes a "tour" just to look at it.

Merlyn went to barber school in Des Moines and barbered for several years. He served in the military and met his wife in Germany. Jeannette remembers that after they returned to America, they all went to church one Sunday. It happened to be the day they were talking about pledges and Mr. Hagie gave a talk. He said he was going to stand up front so he could see the crowd better. Merlyn's wife, Christa, misunderstood when he said "crowd" and thought he wanted to better see the "kraut," which was a nickname sometimes applied to Germans. There was the usual tittering when money was being talked about and she didn't understand the humor. She thought it was all quite strange. When someone asked if she was going to become an American, she said it was good to be German.

Christa did become a citizen, however. Buck and Grace Likes thought the world of her and were her sponsors. They, Russell and Jeannette, Robby, and Merlyn went with her the day she was sworn in. Paul Beeman helped her get her drivers' license.
Merlyn took a job in the postal service in Des Moines and retired in 2002. Merlyn and Christa have a daughter, Suzanne, "who is awfully cute and smart."

God painted us an angel
And He gently brushed her hair
With a golden sunbeam
And left it playing there.
Then He took a little blue
From out the summer skies,
Dipped his brush in sparkling dew
And made her lovely eyes.
Into a blushing rose
The artist's brush was dipped
And deftly added color
To her pretty smiling lips.
From out the deepest ocean
God found the finest pearl
To paint the dainty face
Of this darling little girl.
His masterpiece was finished.
And we took her by the hand.
God painted us an angel
When He gave us sweet Suzanne.

Suzanne and her husband, David, have two children, Michelle and Michael. Jeannette taught Michelle a little piano song while she and Russell baby sat Michelle, when her parents were on vacation. She showed such promise that Jeannette provided lessons for her and wishes she could do that for all the grandchildren. However, the crunch that many people find themselves in have struck her and Russell as well. Both are diabetic and require medication for that and other physical problems, while its cost continues to increase. They have the added complication of having being "notch babies,'' born between 1917 and 1921, which affected their Social Security benefits after the congressional adjustments made in 1977.

Robert (Bob) married Cynthia Brim. He attended Northwest Missouri University, majoring in history. He lived in Kansas City, went into law enforcement work, and sold Gateway Computers. Their son Robby also graduated from Northwest Missouri University. He spent a lot of time with his grandparents, to the point that he almost regarded it as his home.

Hair soft and gold as the silk of the com,
Blue eyes that sparkle like dew in the mom,
Lips that are smiling, a cute little nose,
Cheeks that are. pink as my favorite rose.

Little Fellow plays from morn until night,
There's mountains to climb and battles to fight,
Make believe journeys to strange distant lands,
Where toy soldiers march through make believe sands.

With a puppy to feed, a kitten to love,
A handful of cookies, a ball and a glove,
And a kiss from his mother, a pat from his dad,
Makes the end of the day for a tired little lad.

Tucked safely in bed, I whisper, "Sleep tight,
Rock-a-by Robby, dream sweetly tonight."
God bless you and keep you, I ask in my prayer,
And give thanks for the boy with the gold colored hair.

Robby and Christine live in Martensdale, Iowa, and have two children - Abigail who is seven at the time of this writing (spring, 2002) and Anastasia, who is four.

Robert and Cynthia's daughter Elizabeth (Beth) Ellen, who sent the newspaper notice, met her husband when she was a student in Kansas City. They now live in Berlin (pronounced Ber'lin), New Hampshire, and have a three year old son, Calvin Ludwig Von Ruediger.

A highlight for the grandparents is when their family comes to visit. Russell says, "The best part is when they come around the corner of the room and give me a kiss."

To be in the Wetzler's home is to be reminded of values and customs that are fading away, the contribution they have made through hard work and accountability. The present culture no longer visits in one another's homes, sitting to watch the Baltimore Orioles and Purple Finches at the feeder outside the Wetzler's picture window. We are the poorer for the stress of time that doesn't allow such simple pleasures, like Jeannette's poem "Violets:"

I wandered through my garden
And along the garland wall,
Unto each tiny flower plot
And to a flowerlet small
I turned my head and looked away,
Unto the roses blooming there.
I lifted up my eyes and saw
Each lovely blossom gay and fair.
Yet with all their fragrant beauty
And with all my tender care
They compared not with the violets
That God had planted there.