Riverbend Journal

With the people of Ottumwa offering a $500 reward for the capture of the men who murdered Laura Harvey, the Governor of Iowa offering another $500 and later on the Wapello County Board of Supervisors offering up a $500 reward, it is not surprising that false sightings and innocent people got swept up in the fervor to find the killers. The first person swept up happened in Omaha, Nebraska where a man was arrested and charges with larceny for stealing a purse containing $160. The larceny was said to have occurred just across the river in Council Bluffs, Iowa and the lawmen who had tracked him across the river to Omaha, soon thought the captured man bore an uncanny resemblance to Lant McComb. A Nebraska judge headed the case but wouldn't release the man into Iowa custody until a formal requisition was made by Iowa Governor Kirkwood.  The man who was only identified by the last name of Tubbs, of course protested that he was from Kentucky and feared that is he were taken back to Ottumwa...

  I have to ask myself, why did I plant to many tomato plants again this year? I did cut back considerably from last year in which I ended up planting over 70 tomato plants. Two dozen of those were due to my mother-in-law getting carried away and planting a whole packet of seeds. The rest were due to a friend of ours who plants a community garden who over ordered and was having a hard time finding homes for all of them. Flash forward to this year, I planted an entire package of seeds and planned on giving away most of the extras. I did give away quite a bit but ended up with 16 plants remaining, 13 which I stuck in the garden and three which my MIL adopted. One of those adopted three were stuck in the dirt outside the greenhouse and quickly died and two more were stuck in small pots on the deck where they have been starved and have produced only two or three fifty cent sized fruits. I tried to impart that tomatoes don't like small containers that get their roots warm and dry out qu...

Over the years, I have been to the above Abbey a few times as a stop with guests. It is a place about three hours drive from home and a great chance to stretch your legs. The grounds are beautiful and has been a picnic spot for us. They also have a chapel that one can visit as well as a gift shop. One of their amenities is that you can stay there for a retreat to get away from your hectic life and live life as a monk, at least until you get back in your car and drive off. So recently on a spur of the moment decision, fresh from shipping our eldest off to college, my wife and I headed there for an overnight stay. We got there about 9:30 in the morning and checked in at the front desk. This is a picture of our actual room. Lest you think two people shared that small bed, I'm actually standing just inside the door and right next to the second bed. There were no queen beds with plush mattresses, which I guess I didn't expect living the life of a monk. The mattresses were really thi...

 Laura Jane Harvey Laura Jane Harvey was the oldest daughter of Rufus J. and Sarah R. Harvey. She was one of eight children with two older brothers, two younger brothers and three younger sisters. Her father Rufus has come from New Hampshire/Maine area as a child and lived in various places in Wisconsin where Laura had been born around 1845 and Illinois. He started off as a Methodist preacher but at some point became an attorney and at the time of Laura's death, was a respected lawyer for the firm Barnap & Harvey in Rockford.  Mr. Harvey had done some professional business for George Lawrence which is how he came to know Laura and her family. It seems that whenever he was in town, George used the opportunity to stop in to see the Harvey family and to court Laura however her parents weren't too keen on this due to her young age.  Laura's parents forbid George from coming into their house but they still found time to meet clandestinely for buggy rides or to meet up "...

It is hard to believe this picture is a little over 18 years ago. It was posted on this very blog along with a lot of posts of a very wet behind the ears father rambling about this and that without really knowing what he was doing. It certainly wasn't very good writing about something that turned out to be one of two masterpieces I created. One of my most vivid memories of that time was the drive home from the hospital after ten days spent mostly in the NICU due to a tough delivery that ended up with a sick baby and mother. As we made the 20 mile drive home, we had to stop several times to prop our daughter's head up to make sure she wasn't choking off her airflow as she slept in her car seat. Of course she wasn't but we were that new to parenting, she meant the world to us and we weren't prepared to take the chance. Funny how of all the stories of my life I've written on this blog, I've never written that one. Now, seemingly weeks later, we are dropping her...