About the diary writer
- Barbara McDowell Whitt
- Kansas City, Missouri, Alexandria, Virginia, United States
- ~ About: A 1961-65 Park College Diary ~ As a high school girl and then a college coed in the first half of the 1960s, I wrote nightly entries on the pages of one-year diaries. In January 2010 I began transcribing the entries into a blog and gave each one a title. I grew up on three farms within 30 miles of Iowa City and the University of Iowa with its Iowa Writers' Workshop. As the oldest of four daughters, in my diaries I sometimes referred to my sisters as "the kids" or "the girls." We helped our parents, but we also had good, wholesome fun - a characteristic I took with me to Park. Park is 300 miles southwest of West Chester, Iowa, in Parkville, Missouri, on the Missouri River 10 miles northwest of Kansas City, Missouri, and across the river from Kansas City, Kansas. In 2000 Park College became Park University. Today Park's flagship campus is in Parkville and there are an additional 41 campus centers across the nation. Park was one of the first educational institutions in the United States to offer online learning. My last post was on May 22, 2018. I may be followed on Twitter @BarbaraMcDWhitt.
The Iowa Old Capitol Building - Friday, July 7, 1961
I went with Mom to the Old Capitol Building this morning to turn in her thesis at the graduate office. I saw the pretty white and brown spiral staircase that starts in the basement and goes to the dome. We kidsshopped while Mom went to the library. I had a banana split at Woolworth's; then found out you could break a balloon and pay from 1 cent to 39 cents. I got 36 cents. I started sewing my white terry cloth housecoat. Phyllis took me for a ride on Duke. They are putting an addition on the culvert and filling in the ditch in the field below the barnlot.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
Barb—
I was sitting here at my computer facing the Old Capitol (but blocked by a building!) and your entry today prompted me to stop by and see the stairway. That led to some photos and a blog entry. There are photos of Old Cap and Main Library 50 years later but I can't remember Woolworths! It is at http://bit.ly/rbutIx
Ron, I love your statement "I was sitting here at my computer facing the Old Capitol (but blocked by a building!)....
We cannot fathom how many times someone's pristine view has been blocked by SOMETHING.
Any chance you remember where the Woolworths was located? Like it really matters but I was curious. I could not remember it at all until I started writing this! Last week I looked in a book we have and it described it as in the block south of the IA State Bank. Just now I remembered buying a rubber tree plant at Woolworths for my room. I would go to Iowa City—where I thought the whole world was—to Things and Things and to a bookstore called Paper Place that I recall as being somewhat of a "beat" bookstore probably because I bought Camus and Ferlinghetti books there. Glad you solved that mystery for me!
Ron, you are asking me if I remember where Woolworth's was? Not a chance that I would remember. You have asked a then- directions-challenged person (me) when I have spent a lifetime thinking Wellman's main street runs east and west. I must have missed a curve in my mind while traveling from West Chester to Wellman way back then.
Barb,
That's very funny!
My aunt's farm sat on an east/west road and you turned south into their lane. My mom would always be fine on the E/W road and the minute she turned into the lane the entire farm shifted 90ยบ so she was still going west!
So therefore I was always confused as to which geographical direction Kalona is from Wellman and which direction Iowa City is from Kalona. The turn on Hwy 1 was not helpful either to a child/adolescent/young adult who confused the east-west and north-south quadrants within the cornfields of Iowa. (I just now saw your second paragraph about your Mom's E/W and N/S dilemma. Glad to know it's a common Hawkeye State predicament.)
Post a Comment