Riverbend Journal

A couple weeks ago, I had an appointment to get new tires put on my vehicle. It is an AWD and I have learned, it really chews through tires, the price I pay for being able to drive on the horrible slick river bluffs all winter long around here. From experience, I knew it would be a fairly lengthy wait and also based on past experiences, an unpleasant one. Let me explain. The waiting room at the local dealership is a small room with 8 or so chairs arranged around two walls, a television on a faux fireplace on the third and the fourth side being open to the restrooms across the hallway. The television is forever blaring and people in the waiting room are always making lots of noise which means for me the book reader, I have a hard time concentrating. This wait started off as no exception. The television was tuned to some loud program excitedly talking about sharks who apparently ate someone who had been trying to record their night adventures. They would excitedly talk about some discove...

Perhaps as to be expected when a sentence that excited the general public wasn't carried out in front of the general public, McComb still lived on in the news for a time. Several people claimed that McComb was still alive in the days following the hanging and one woman who saw his body on display afterwards at the Court House claimed McComb had winked at her. Yet another woman claimed that McComb had laughed in her face.  The Rockford newspaper published a brief stating that McComb's remains had reached them three days later on the Monday following his execution and that they had been given to his relatives to commit to McComb's final resting place. I have found no word of where that final resting place ended up being.  McComb had been prophetic about future reported confessions because a couple weeks later, one of McComb's lawyers related that McComb had confessed over the course of many conversations they had over the courses of his trials. According to M. J. Williams...

  John Baker (left), Blanche McKee Baker (right) and their first three children John Baker was born with humble roots. His father died at age 37 for reasons unknown to me and his family was split up. John at age 11, disappears from the records for awhile, presumably working as a servant of some sort until he became an adult, while his younger siblings were farmed out to other relatives to raise. When the records pick up on John's life, he is working as a gate maker and would continue that profession for the rest of his life, which turned out to not be terribly long lived.  During his 61 years though, he had a total of 10 children from two different wives. I descend from his first wife Blanche, the one seen above and his first born son sitting on his lap in the picture above. Blanche bore him seven of those children before dying young, at age 37, of an infection that was a complication due to the birth of her last child. John would have three more children with his second wife....

I don't remember why but sometime while living in an apartment, the first one since graduating from college, I bought my first wood working tool, a skilsaw. I suspect that it had to do with sizing a chunk of basswood for hand carving which I used to do on those long weekend nights before I knew many people. But I can't guarantee that I didn't buy if for some other reason that I've since forgotten. When I was leaving my second job post college for the third one, I do remember buying a table saw, my first big purchase of my still developing woodworking hobby, simply because the company I was going to work for were paying for my move. I decided to get a washer, dryer and a table saw for them to move while they were at it. Eventually during those years of working at the third (and final) job, I got into remodeling more seriously and picked up other tools of the trade and started developing a love of more fine woodworking.  After I left that job for the stay-at-home-dad/reti...

On the morning of February 17, 1865, it was cloudy and snowing moderately in Ottumwa. The streets were wet and muddy. A military company from nearby Kirkville arrived and joined forces with two Ottumwa companies to act as guards for the expiation of the great crime. By 10 o'clock, there were a considerable number of strangers in town and some estimates were that some 2000 people were by noon there for the hanging. It was also noted that despite the crowd, people were still able to move freely around.  The city mayor, in an attend to keep things calm, had already ordered that all saloons be closed for the day and surprisingly, they had listened. Twelve respected individuals from around the community were called upon to witness the execution to ensure that it was duly carried out as prescribed by law. It was said that although McComb did not sleep well the night before his execution, he was in fair spirits when the morning arrived. The Catholic priest, Fr. Kreckle, the same one who g...