The Palimpsest

Myers-Verhage, Shelby

The Diaries of Anne Frank and Birdie Mathewsby Shelby Myers-VerhageWhile sightseeing in Washington, D.C. in August 1941, Birdie Matthews wrote in her travel diarv that she had seen the Magna Carta, “which has been sent here from England for safe keeping during the bombing.” In Amsterdam, far closer to the bombing, Anne Frank had not even begun her diary yet. She would re­ceive it as a birthday gift from her father the next June.Frank's diary would be short but intense and emo­tionally honest. Mathews’s di- ary would be at first kept spo­radically (during her travels), but then almost daily as she detailed her life in Danville, Iowa, as a retired teacher. Each diarist wrote about what was important to her. Each diary—as all diaries do—gives a unique view of the world.Yet the Anne Frank diarv/that became known around the world was not exactly the same diary in which Anne first wrote. There are actuallythree versions. She began her cloth-bound diary on her thirteenth birthday, June 12, 1942. She wrote about the war (the families in hiding lis­tened to the wireless daily) and her everyday experiences with those in the secret an­nex. She wrote mostly for her- self, using the diary as a place where she could be alone and express her feelings.On March 28, 1944, Anne heard a radio broadcast re­questing letters and diaries detailing individual wartime experiences. She began to consider writing her experi­ences as a book, calling it het Achterhuis (“the house be­hind” or “secret annex”).That May she began in ear­nest to rework her original di­ary for publication, recopying the entries onto loose-leaf pa­per, adding and editing selec­tions, changing the names of some of the people in the an­nex. She edited her entries through March 29, 1944.At the time of her arreston August 4, 1944, Anne’s original diary and her revi­sion were left behind. Otto Frank’s co-worker Miep Gies gathered them up to save for Anne. When Anne's death was confirmed, Gies gave them to Otto, who had not read his daughter's diary be­fore this.Otto Frank soon began to translate excerpts into Ger­man to send to his mother in Switzerland. At first he trans­lated portions for family and friends only, but after ex- cerpts were shared with the publishing community, thediarv soon became a work for/a larger audience. A pub­lisher worked closelv with/Otto Frank in editing the di­ary, selecting largely from his excerpts. (Otto did not wish passages about Anne's diffi­culties with her mother and certain intimate entries to ap­pear.) This version was pub­lished in the Netherlands in 1947 and in the United States in 1952. All three versions ofNOTE ON SOURCES FOR PAGES 152-161Besides the various editions o f  the A nne Frank diary m en tioned  in die p reced ing  articles, the biographies AnneFrank (1985) by Tina T ridenti; AnneFrank: Beyond the Diary (1992) by Ruud van der Rol and Rian Verhoeven; and  The Last Seven Months o f Anne Frank by Willy Lindwer (1991) were useful. T he Frank sisters’ co rrespondence  to the W agner sisters is at the Simon Wiesenthal C en ter in Los Angeles. Sec the Los Angeles Times (July 24, 1988) for a com m ent from C ornelius Suijk, in te rna tional director of the A nne Frank Foundation  in A m sterdam . R egarding Birdie Mathews, the au th o r interview ed o r corresponded  with Mathews’s relatives and  fo rm er students (Bob Dodds, B onnie Ja n e  Hayward, Don Kellar, Vivian Kellar, Don Mathews, Cyrene Wagner, Vera Mathews, and  Roger and  C aroline P arro tt). Betty Ann W agner was particularly helpful. M arjorie Fitzsimmons loaned co rrespondence  from  Mathews. J o h n  H aefner, professor em eritus, University o f  Iowa, provided background on school­ing practices in Iowa p rio r to World War II. Local sources include the Burlington Hawkeye and  Des Moines County News, Jan  .-June 1940, and The History o f the Danville Community (1966) by Jam es I. Garrels and David R. Gerdes. T h e  Birdie Mathews Papers, now in the State H istorical Society o f Iowa collections (Iowa City), includes Nancy B auer's 1967 Burlington Hawkeye interview, other clippings, teaching m em entos, and  postcards. A nnotations to these articles are in The Palimpsest p roduction  files.160 THE PATIMPSESTthe diary now appear to­gether in The Diary of Anne Frank: The Critical Edition (1989). An unabridged ver­sion of the 1952 diary was#also recently published.Birdie Mathews, theteacher who arranged the pen-pal exchange for Anne Frank and Juanita Wagner, also was a devoted diarist. Her diaries, recently donated to the State Histori­cal Society of Iowa by Vivian and Don Kellar (Birdie Mathews’s grandnephew) be­gin with travel diaries kept during her frequent trips and her post-retirement winters in Florida and California. Each entry was carefully handwrit­ten on loose-leaf or plain typ­ing paper, or in composition books or unused teacher record books.Once retired, Mathews de­voted even more time to her diaries, writing nearly every day until her death at age ninety-four in 1974. She de- tailed her everyday activities and daily regimens with greatcare. For example, an entry from October 15, 1967, reads: “Rainy all day. The chili supper scheduled for to­morrow night called off on account of the flu epidemic.” In an entry from February 22, 1959, she wrote, “Washington’s 228th birth­day. Cold. The Gerdes boys came with their snow plow and shovel and cleaned the snow from my walks. Paid them $1.25.” At times her topics expanded to world events. On July 19, 1950, the eve of the Korean War, she noted: “Listened to President Truman’s message tonight. Sounds exactly like Dec.41941. Must we go through all that again? God forbid.” Mathews seldom recorded deeply personal perspectives, although some of her earlier travel diaries include a few poems and reflections on her travels. Although lacking the emotional impact or histori­cal significance of Anne Frank’s adolescent diary kept while hiding from the Nazis, the Birdie Mathews diariesgive us a glimpse into the or­derly life of a rural Iowa teacher who tried to broaden her students’ and commu­nity’s world view by sharing her experiences. The portrait that emerges from the Ma­thews diaries is of a career school teacher who organized her life as she did her diary pages—with clarity and de­tail.“lowans are fortunate tohave rediscovered the story of/Birdie Mathews, as it serves as a strong reminder of the role lowans can play in world af­fairs,” remarked Mary Ben­nett, audiovisual archivist at the State 1 listorical Society of Iowa (Iowa City), where the Mathews diaries are now housed. “Rather than remain complacent and uninvolved, this school teacher took an active interest in events across the globe. She encouraged her students to look outside of their relatively secure lives in Iowa in order to gain in­sights about the turmoil faced by people like Anne Frank. Her diaries and writ­ings are significant because they document her worldly attitude and the experiences she gained while traveling abroad. It is fortuitous that her family preserved these re­search materials for future generations, so we can gain a new perspective on how World War II impacted lowans.” □Left: Selections from the Birdie Mathews papers: her letters from Europe published in the local newspaper: diary entries for 1945 in a teacher’s planning book; and loose-leaf pages of her 1961 diary.WINTER 1995 161",l" • w4  ^....j f y j,  --r •  ̂Ify S & frSIL, a-

English

The Diaries of Anne Frank and Birdie Mathews

Grant, H Roger

Kate Shelley and the North Western Railway

Allen, Anne Beiser

Her Honor the Mayor: Iowa City\u27s Emma Harvat

Smetak, Jacqueline

Women on the Home Front:The Iowa WIPEsby Jacqueline SmetakRosie the Riveter," the glamorous fac­tory girl introduced in 1942 as a part of a federal campaign to encourage women to apply for defense jobs and to encourage employers to hire them, has long been a familiar icon of the Second World War [see above]. Less familiar, how­ever, are the real life “Rosies," the women who overcame prejudice and their own doubts to contribute to the war effort, an ef­fort that required both a massive increase in industrial production and radical changes in how things were produced and who pro­duced them.In Iowa, some of the real life “Rosies” were the women shown in the following images taken by Allison-Lighthall Photographers of Chicago, Illinois, for the Chicago and North Western Railway. Eight of the seventeen pho­tos were published in the Clinton Herald May 18, 1943; all seventeen are now in the collec­tions of the State Historical Societv of Iowa./The North Western hired women to work as WIPEs, or engine wipers, to clean and ser­vice their locomotives in Boone, Council174 THE PALIMPSESTALL PHOTOS THROUGH PAGE 181 SHSI (OES MOINES)\\ INTER <><> 175-Marcella Kees, one of the Clinton WIPEs, gives a locomotive a bath—a job, according to the Clinton Herald, “far different from the chore of washing out a few things at home.” In order to make women doing such heavy work seem "natural,” traditionally male jobs held by women were often described in feminized terms.Women on theHome FrontThe Iowa WIPEsby Jacqueline SmetakRosie the Riveter,” the glamorous fac­tory girl introduced in 1942 as a part of a federal campaign to encourage women to apply for defense jobs and to encourage employers to hire them, has long been a familiar icon of the Second World War [see above]. Less familiar, how­ever, are the real life “Rosies,” the women who overcame prejudice and their own doubts to contribute to the war effort, an ef­fort that required both a massive increase in industrial production and radical changes in how things were produced and who pro­duced them.In Iowa, some of the real life “Rosies” were the women shown in the following images taken by Allison-Lighthall Photographers of Chicago, Illinois, for the Chicago and North Western Railway. Eight of the seventeen pho­tos were published in the Clinton Herald May 18, 1943; all seventeen are now' in the collec­tions of the State Historical Societv of Iowa.__ jThe North Western hired women to work as WIPEs, or engine wipers, to clean and ser­vice their locomotives in Boone, Council174 THE PALIMPSESTALL PHOTOS THROUGH PAGE 101 SHSI (DES MOINES)Marcella Kees, one of the Clinton WIPEs, gives a locomotive a bath—a job, according to the Clinton Hero/d,"far different from the chore of washing out a few things at home." In order to make women doing such heavy work seem "natural," traditionally male jobs held by women were often described in feminized terms.WINTER 1995 175Edith Bennis (in window on right) had run a beauty parlor and her father’s eighty-acre farm; now in 1943 she is running the turntable at the Clinton roundhouse while her husband works on an army construction project in Alaska. Women were often depicted as temporarily ‘‘stepping in" on the home front for their husbands and sweethearts away at the battlefront. However, according to historian Shema Gluck, by 1944, although one out of three female defense workers had been a full time homemaker before the war, only one in ten was actually married to a service man.Bluffs, and Clinton, Iowa, as well as Chicago and Proviso, Illinois, and Green Bay, Milwau­kee, and Madison, Wisconsin.There were eleven and a half million women in the U. S. work force in 1940, most of them employed in low-paid, traditionally female jobs in light industry, domestic work, or the service sector. The overwhelming ma­jority worked only out of grinding economic necessity largely because of the widely held opinion that women, particularly married women, shouldn’t he working and thus tak­ing scarce jobs away from men. In rural Iowa where manufacturing and professional jobs were scarce, women generally worked beside their husbands, brothers, or fathers on the farm, in small businesses, or took on short­term seasonal work for a little extra money.By 1941, the war in Europe had changed all of that. Within a matter of months the na­tion went from chronically high levels of un­employment—20 percent in 1938; 14.6 per­cent in 1940—to sudden and severe labor shortages, most alarmingly in crucial de-176 THE PAL.IMPSESTThelma Cuvage, right, screens sand that will be used to add friction to the locomotive’s driver wheels. Her husband also contributed to the war effort by working in a defense plant in Savannah, Illinois, about twenty miles north of Clinton.“The WIPEs,” the Clinton Herald explained, “are the feminine engine wipers, who for the first time since World War I, have invaded the shops and roundhouses of the Northwestern railroad.”AnnaWeseman cleans the cab of a Class H locomotive. “At first we did not know how they'd take to the job," remarked labor foreman W.J.Whalen about the WIPEs. “But the women soon convinced us that they look at all those dusty locomotives in the same way they do the job at a big, dirty house.” The Class H locomotives were the “largest of the Iron Horses in service on the Northwestern Line.”Marcella Kees [or Martin?] shovels wet sand into a dryer.“The sand will be used in locomotives to add friction to driver wheels,” the Herald reported.‘‘The job is one of many formerly held by men and now handled by women."fense-related industries. Industry and gov­ernment responded to the need for more workers by hiring massive numbers of the previously excluded. In Iowa, the number of people employed in manufacturing nearly doubled from 64.773 in 1939 to 112,490 in1947.In the summer of 1941, President Roose­velt issued Executive Order 8802 forbidding racial discrimination in defense industries, perhaps the first effective civil rights order since the Fourteenth Amendment. Many states suspended child labor laws—by 1943 over three million children, aged twelve to seventeen, were employed in war work—and in some areas, vagrants were arrested and those with usable skills were offered amnesty if they’d go to work.But the most significant addition to the de­fense work force were the six million women who donned coveralls and bandannas to do a man’s job as well as any man. Iowa women were no exception as they stepped into tough jobs, replacing, as the Clinton [Iowa] Herald stated it, “their male predecessors who have gone to war or into higher-paying war plants.” The Chicago and North Western’s railroad yard at Clinton averaged about twelve trains a day, with seventeen women employed as WIPEs “greeting the grimy loco­motives” as they came off the line: ‘They [the women] swarm over the steel giants and give them a bath of live steam and hot water un­der pressure,” the Herald reported.WIPEs worked a full eight-hour shift and then went home to their second job. This from the Clinton Herald: "The fact that shehas four children did not keep Mrs. Ralph O.178 THE PALIMPSESTtdith Bennis, a former beauty operator, stands on top of a locomotive to service the sand dome. A year later, in anticipation of the end of the war, newspaper articles would focus on the problems of juvenile delinquency supposedly caused by women abandoning their children in order to work, and the need to find jobs for GIs who, it was assumed, would be coming home soon.TO =5*1“Lunch time—and time for feminine gossip for women laborers in the Northwestern railroad shops where the fair sex has taken over on the labor gang,” the Herald reported. W.J.Whalen, labor foreman in charge of the crew, spoke highly of the women:“They do the job with care and thoroughness that is difficult for a man to equal” From left to right: Marcella Kees, Bonnie Smith, Libby Seematter, Irene Brecher.Thelma Cuvage, Katherine Anderson, Emily Atzen, Viola Sievers, Dorothy Lucke, Marcella Hart, and Anna Weseman.Weaver . . . from joining the WIPEs. Two of Mrs. Weaver’s children were old enough to take care of the youngsters each day until Mr. Weaver, who is employed at the Clinton Bridge Works, had time to slip on an apron and get the supper going, while his wife worked the 4 p.m., to midnight shift.”But not to fear. Mrs. Weaver's sister came to live with them, joined the WIPEs, and signed up for the 8 a.m., to 4 p.m. shift, “so Mr. Weaver no longer will have to worry about the culinary end of this all-out for Vic-tory business.”/Women worked tough jobs in spite of dis­crimination, unequal pay, notions about what they could and could not do, the difficulties of taking care of children and a house in the days before modern household appliances were common, a lack of help and child care, and the frustrations of chronic shortages and long lines at the grocery store. In a very real sense these women—of all ages, races, creeds, and colors—helped spell the differ­ence between victory and defeat. □NOTE ON SOURCESSources for this article included World War II: The Home Front: U.S.A. (Time-Life Books, 1977); Shem a Gluck. Rosie the Riveter Revisited: Women, The War, and Social Change (1987); R obert McElvaine, The Great Depression: America, 1929-1941 (1993); Leland Sage, d  History o f Iowa (1974); Jacob Swisher, Iowa in Times of War (1943); and the Clinton Herald, May 18, 1943, pp. 3, 14.180 THE PALIMPSESTWINTER 1995_  4 * r  : — rJS '■«r* —-  C . r * 1“Lunch time—and time for feminine gossip for women laborers in the Northwestern railroad shops where the fair sex has taken over on the labor gang,” the Herald reported. W.J.Whalen, labor foreman in charge of the crew, spoke highly of the women:"They do the job with care and thoroughness that is difficult for a man to equal.” From left to right: Marcella Kees. Bonnie Smith, Libby Seematter, Irene Brecher,Thelma Cuvage, Katherine Anderson, Emily Atzen, Viola Sievers, Dorothy Lucke, Marcella Hart, and Anna Weseman.Weaver . . . from joining the WIPEs. Two of Mrs. Weaver’s children were old enough to take care of the youngsters each day until Mr. Weaver, who is employed at the Clinton Bridge Works, had time to slip on an apron and get the supper going, while his wife worked the 4 p.m., to midnight shift.”But not to fear. Mrs. Weaver's sister came to live with them, joined the WIPEs, and signed up for the 8 a.m., to 4 p.m. shift, “so Mr. Weaver no longer will have to worry about the culinary end of this all-out for Vic- torv business.JWomen worked tough jobs in spite of dis­crimination, unequal pay, notions about what they could and could not do, the difficulties of taking care of children and a house in the days before modern household appliances were common, a lack of help and child care, and the frustrations of chronic shortages and long lines at the grocery store. In a very real sense these women—of all ages, races, creeds, and colors—helped spell the differ­ence between victory and defeat.NOTE ON SOURCESSources fo r this article included  World War II: The Home Frort: U.S.A. (Time-Life Books, 1977); Shem a Gluck, Rosie the Riveter Revisited: Women, The War, and Social Change (1987); R obert McElvaine, The Great Depression: America, 1929-1941 (1993); Leland Sage. A History uj Iowa (1974); Jacob Swisher. Iowa in Times o f War (1943); an d  the Clinton Herald, May 18, 1943, pp. 3, 14.180 THE PALIMPSESTWINTER 1995 181

Women on the Home Front: The Iowa WIPEs

Swaim, Ginalie

Underwater Iowa - Where Graceful Crinoids Once Swayed in Ancient Seas

Monitoring Hitler Stories and Selecting Draft Boards: Excerpts from John D. Zug\u27s Memoirs

The Palimpsest, vol.76 no.2, Summer 1995

Exciting news from your editorA n O ld  F rien d  w ith  a N e w  N a m eRecently a reader wrote to us: “Ialways avoided your magazine be­cause I didn’t know what a palimp­sest was or how to pronounce the word (I still don’t know how!). But then I re­ceived a gift subscription to the magazine and was delighted to discover it's about Iowa history. I ll bet there are many others like me who would enjoy the magazine if they weren’t scared off by its strange name."This is a story all too familiar to me. As editor of the magazine, I'm naturally inter­ested in reaching as wide an audience as possible. It’s frustrating to know that the name on the cover of the magazine may alienate people before they have a chance to discover what’s inside.So it is with great excitement—and a few tears—that I announce that the magazine vou hold in your hands will be rechristened in 1996. For seventy-six years it has borne the intriguing and unique name The Palimpsest. Starting with the spring 1996 issue, our new name will be Iowa Heritage Illustrated. (We’re following the standard publishing custom of naming a magazine what it is, and we think it has a nice lilt, too.) Our bigger size, about 8x11, will allow more variety in design and layout and more eco­nomical use of paper.This won’t be the first change, as you can see from a few sample covers shown here. Since 1920, it has grown from roughly 5x7 inches to 7x10. The design of the nameplate has changed four times. Illustrations have in­creased from none at all, to an insert of black-and-white plates, to today’s color im­ages of photos, artifacts, and documents.The cover has changed from a small brown cover, to a glossy solid-color cover with a small black-and-white photo, to our current showcase covers with full-size color photog­raphy.The growing visual richness of the maga­zine reflects basic truths about the past—that history is more than words, and that it isn’t black and white. We are reminded, too, that history isn’t just for people who recog­nize unusual words like “palimpsest." There­fore, after long study, we have decided the magazine needs a new, friendlier name.“Why change the name now, after seventy- six years?” you ask. “It's a venerable and tin-usual title. What’s more, I finally know how/to pronounce it.”I agree that the word “palimpsest," once learned, “trips along softly on the tongue this way” (as Meredith Willson says of “Gary, Indiana”). But, oh! to master that word "pal­impsest.”We’ve taken to heart what many of you, our loyal readers, have told us—in your let­ters, survey responses, and phone calls with research questions or subscription orders. For nine years I’ve listened to our readers and researchers and writers puzzle over the word. I’ve provided it in awkward pauses in a conversation, modeled it when I sensed the speaker was deliberately skirting it. With146 THE PALIMPSESTfoot-high flashcards, one per syllable, I’ve coached a busload of history enthusiasts on how to pronounce die name. And still people stumble over it, or ask, “Now, what does it mean again?”Our reasons for changing the name are threefold. First, people who don't know The Palimpsest won't get a feel for the magazine from the name alone. As one reader advised some time ago: “Change the name to reflect Iowa history—nobody knows what it's about.”Second, people have a hard time pro­nouncing the name. “Even college graduates slur over it/' another reader confessed. “I haven't found an ordinary person who could pronounce the name.” Another re­marked, "If you can't pronounce it, it is hard to sell it!”Perhaps most important, for the magazine to k*eep bringing Iowahistorv to more/people, it needs a name more people can understand. “I realizethe historical signifi­cance of the name,” a reader commented,“but perhaps another name might attract more subscribers.”Even American writer Gore Vidal, whose au­tobiography was just published, in a 1994 interview remarkedabout those memoirs: “They’re entitled Palimpsest—a word nobody will know.”Many of our readers and writers and edi­tors (including me) cherish the name and its long tradition. Some appreciate the title because history, like a palimpsest, has mul­tiple layers. “It is probably the only unique name in the world repertoire of magazines, one reader wrote. Another thought the name “gives it distinction.” I agree, and I want you to know that this has not been an easy or quick decision. My colleagues and I at the State Historical Society of Iowa have struggled with this issue for years.We have become convinced that we mustI've listened to our readers and researchers and writerspuzzle over the word. I've provided it in awkward pauses in a conversation, or when I sensed the speaker was deliberately skirting it.focus less on our affection and respect for the word “palimpsest,” and more on our greater goal (and official mandate) of reach­ing ever wider audiences with the fascinating story of Iowa’s past. A clearer title will also help you share your enthusiasm for the magazine with your friends who don’t yet subscribe. (Can it be that there are curious, thoughtful people who don't yet subscribe? Let’s bring them on board!) What’s more, a clearer name will bring more researchers to the magazine's solid research, and more classroom teachers and students to its acces­sible information.In the premiere Palimpsest in July 1920, founder Benjamin Shambaugh explained the magazine's aim: “that the story of our Commonwealth may be more widely read and cherished.” We are now taking another step forward in this tradition by replacing atitle on the cover thatunfortunately has been#to many a locked door with a secret password. We are changing it to a name that will be a wide-open door with a welcome sign.What will not change is our commitment to bringing you four is­sues a year chockfull of compelling Iowa his­tory. In fact, we’re planning exciting new ways of presentingmore stories and photos in every issue.Over the decades of The Palimpsest's exist­ence, we have been heartened by your loy- alty to the magazine and to the cause of dis­seminating Iowa history. Thank you. As we enter Iowa's 150th year of statehood, we want to count on your ongoing support for the magazine and its revitalized mission.And for those of you have especially cher­ished the name The Palimpsest, please give the new title—Iowa Heritage Illustrated—a try.I think you'll soon find that this is a change for the better. Look at it as an old friend with a new name.— The EditorWINTER 1995 147

An Old Friend with a New Name

Norstrud, Karen Beane

Crinoids in the Sugar Bowl: Remembering my Grandfather, Amateur Paleontologist B.H. Beane

The Palimpsest, vol.76 no.1, Spring 1995

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