DECORATION DAYS IN KEOKUK
by Bryce Martin

   The city of Keokuk, Iowa, is now and always will be a part of my life. That was first evident in 1949 when my grandparents and my aunt Margaret made the trip there for Decoration Day ceremonies. They went to see the grave in the national cemetery and honor the memory of their son, brother, and my father, Wallace Bryce Martin Sr., killed in World War II along with the entire crew of an Army Air Force bomber on an aborted mission to China.

  I stayed home that first year. In the trips that followed I have many memories, pleasant and sad alike.

 Our federal government relocated the crew in which my father perished at the stateside gravesite in Keokuk, after previously burying them in a mass grave on foreign soil.

  I remember my grandmother, especially somber as she attached her Gold Star Mother’s pin just above the heart. For the ceremonies, she had chosen a black dress, matching black pillbox hat with a dotted veil, and new black dress shoes. She made only one other trip to the cemetery in Keokuk. Each year at the appropriate time, she would hang a gold star in our living room window facing the street in Galena, Kan. I made the journey three times after sitting out that first year in 1949.

 For my grandmother Martin, it was an event meaningfully satisfying since she met parents and other family members of all those killed in the crew of the B-29 bomber with her son. She exchanged letters and photographs with the families for years to come. Grandfather is seen in old photographs often wearing a suit and tie. In his 70s now he was more comfortable, especially in the warmth of late May, in dress slacks, polished shoes, a white short-sleeve shirt and his ever-present hat.

 Although it was not a pleasure trip, there were things to see and do in the city, with the proper perspective taken into consideration.

 One thing you could not miss was the large mass of water you had to cross to enter the city, nor the statue of Chief Keokuk and the inscription explaining the city’s origin.

 Then, there was the Keokuk Dam and Lock, and the bridge whose span crossed over the Mississippi River, and resembled a giant Erector Set when its drawbridge girder mechanisms kicked into gear from the hands of an operator stationed under the mass of steel. The drawbridge opened for river traffic to proceed through the lock.

                          Main road leading into Keokuk to crossing the bridge

   One summer, thousands and thousands of gypsy moths infiltrated the air and thousands more lie dead on the ground. The earthy aroma of the moths was an unforgettable smell.

 There were two main downtown hotels. We always stayed at the same one, the Hotel Iowa, except for one summer. From our room in the other hotel, we could see far down below and the animals in the city’s small zoo. 

 The first time we stayed in the hotel was a first for me. A man with an odd outfit insisted on carrying our bags and escorting us to our room. His outfit reminded me of the little bellhop I had seen in ads for Phillip Morris cigarettes. Once inside, the man drew open the curtains, showed where everything was and then kind of stood still, still as the statue of Chief Keokuk. My grandfather grimaced, reached into his pocket and handed the man a fifty-cent piece. He wanted a tip, explained my grandfather as the man exited. I could tell he did not like the idea of giving someone money for imposing on you for something you could have done for yourself.

   We habitually dined at the Chuck Wagon Café on the main drag. It was a cowboy-styled diner with portions of the inside walls decorated in knotty pine wood. The pork tenderloin sandwich was my favorite.

                                              Chuck Wagon Cafe, 421 Main St. (1954)

   There were trips to Joyce Park to see the Keokuk Kernels play baseball. During some of our first visits, the Kernels were a Class B professional minor league team in the Three-I League. I knew all this from reading the backs of my baseball cards. In reading them, I never imagined ever actually being in one of the many cities mentioned on those cards, except for the ones nearby my hometown that I was already familiar with in the K-O-M- League, such as Joplin, Independence, Chanute, and some others.

  The lobby floor of the Hotel Iowa on Main Street housed the office for the Keokuk Kernels. I met the team’s manager at the hotel in 1954, Jo-Jo White, when they were a farm club for the Cleveland Indians. Do you have anyone who hits the long ball, like Mantle maybe? I asked him. No, he said, seemingly disinterested where the conversation was going. Oh, yes, he lit up, as if he just remembered something. Roger Maris. He can belt them a distance. I'll be looking for him on a baseball card, I told him.

 On a later 1960 trip, Keokuk was a Class D farm club of the St. Louis Cardinals and a member of the Midwest League, along with Clinton, Decatur, Dubuque, Kokomo, Davenport, Quincy and Waterloo. I enjoyed memorizing the names of the league cities. They sounded so alien somehow. Gone was Quad Cities and other teams, along with Keokuk, that had previously helped form the Three-I League.

                                                       1954 Keokuk Kernels uniform top

   A letter to my grandmother was especially troubling. A dark-haired, handsome young man with impeccable manners, dapper in a dark suit, who sang impressively from the stage during wreath ceremonies in Keokuk, had died, and from complications quite unusual. The fact came out that he liked to place redskin peanuts in the bottles of his sodas. That was not all that odd, I and many of my neighborhood friends had done the same thing. However, doctors said an accumulation of the peanut skins had built up in the young man’s body and that is what killed him.

 Because of the effect it had on my grandmother, the stark reminder that death was no respecter of persons or circumstances, that has always left a stronger impression on me than any of my other Keokuk memories have.

 

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