Riverbend Journal

  I've been so caught up with cranking out posts on my latest woodworking project or some new find among Clara's Things as I refer to them in my head, that I am neglecting to show signs of spring which are definitely present around here. This picture, taken three days ago as you read this, gives you a good idea of what it is like here in the Midwest. The Serviceberry tree is blooming which for me is always the official start of spring. The Redbuds too are blooming but I don't have any up in my front yard where I can easily monitor them. I do have one down in the ditch and despite my efforts over the years, I've never been able to transplant one or grow one from seed. Above you can also see the two apples and one small sour cherry trees are all leafing out and will be blooming shortly. Below is a shot of our spring garden which we planted nearly a month and a half ago. It is coming up but due to the frequent cold spells we have been getting, has been slow growing. But pr...

  My wife is currently unemployed and has been looking for something to pick up the time. Long story short, ever since the Affordable Care Act was passed, the medical industry has been going through rapid changes and part of those changes have been massive corporations gobbling up and absorbing all the private practices. After several mergers and trades, the clinic my wife practices at was finally just closed since it is without a hospital facility where all the money making procedures occur. Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements generally are only enough to pay the bills and vary state to state. Iowa ranks 50th out of 52 regions in the United States for the amount reimbursed by our federal government under the ACA and so rural places where the population tends to be older and on Medicare and Medicaid are struggling to remain solvent, unless they are partnered with a hospital where more lucrative things like MRI's, ultrasounds and other specialty tests are done.  Despite all th...

  Clara Kuck wrote on the back of this post card that she was seeing the next Emperor of the German Empire though as fate would happen, he never made it and instead ended up without a country. Crown Prince Wilhelm's father would be the last Emperor before German fell during World War I and his father abdicated the throne. He was kicked out of the country for awhile but eventually was allowed back only to try and cozy up with a man named Adolf Hitler to try and regain his kingdom. Hitler would have no part of it. Eventually he fled again to avoid the Russians who seized his estates during the concluding days of World War II. He was captured and held in captivity for awhile as a war criminal but eventually released and died of a heart attack in 1951. The above postcard has writing from Clara Kuck to her older sister Bertha and reads: Dearie; Please save these cards for me. Put them away out of the dust, won’t you? Oh dear, I’m all in from reading about that beautiful "Titanic...

  My post yesterday included this picture of Herbert and wife Clara in the context of Clara's life but blogger friend Steve over at Shadows and Light asked what Herbert was doing in Bahrain which written on the back of the photo above, he was evidently departing for by train. I did not know the answer but I had a bit of time on my hands when responding to Steve's question and so I thought I would just do a quick search to see what there was to find. Prior research told me that Herbert was born in Canada in Oct of 1887 so he was actually 4 years younger than Clara. He immigrated to the United States around 1912 at the age of 25 and married his first wife Annie who was a native of New Zealand six years later at age 31. According to the census records he was a boat builder/designer living in Berkley, California. Annie would died after 20 years of marriage to Herbert at age 54 in 1938 and I have found no records of them having any children. One year later, he married Clara Kuck an...

  Before all this came about, this was the sole picture I had of Clara Kuck, likely taken about mid life. Then when I received the photo album from the Good Samaritan, I suddenly had quite a few taken in the years between around about 1900 to around 1912 when Clara would have been between 17 to 29 years old. More than I had but it still left a lot of gaps. The box of loose photographs filled in all those gaps and I thought I would compose a pictorial of her through the ages for posterity. On the back of the photo above is an inscription saying this was Clara at six months old. Above is one with her as a young toddler on the left with older sister, also a toddler on the right. It wasn't dated but carried the inscription, "Sister Bertha and I". Here she is at age 10 in 1893 evidently playing tea with younger brother Paul and older sister Bertha. Above is her high school commencement photo taken in 1899. Here she is a few years later in 1904 upon her graduation from Carleton...