Martin Tweeten Family Martin 1891 – 1976 & Ruth 1897-1984
Martin Tweeten was born January 2, 1891, the fifth child of Bendick and Olava, at the farm home in Mt. Valley Township. Here are some memories Martin and Ruth had written about their life:
We were born and raised near Forest City, Iowa, in Winnebago County, Mount Valley Township. After our marriage in 1917, we lived on the Tweeten Farm homestead for three years. In 1921, we moved to the Charley Sanden farm three mile west of Fertile and purchased it August 1935, during the depression and paid for it in cash, we lived there until 1958. Since then, we have lived in Fertile.
Martin bought his first car in 1917. There was a sale called a “Henry Ford Special” 3 Model-T Fords for $1,000, and that’s when Martin and two others bought their cars. The lights on the early Fords were very poor. The tail light was fueled by Kerosene so we had to carry a supply of wooden matches. When we went to Forest City, we waited until we got to the Mill bridge and then we would get out and light the tail light. The front lights on a Ford were powered so that the faster the engine ran the brighter the lights. One dark and rainy night, we were driving home in the mud. Our lights went out so we took a lantern, which we kept in the car, and hung it on the radiator cap. It kept blowing out in the wind and when we hit a bump, the lantern fell and we ran over it. we ended up driving home in the dark.
We attended the one-room country schools. built two miles apart and some children had to walk the full two miles to school and back home. When schools consolidated, children rode in school buses drawn by horses. Joe Hill was our bus driver for years. In the Spring of the year, Joe often got out to clear the mud out of the spokes and to rest the horses. Later, Bert Lee was the bus driver. At one time, our six year old, Barbara (Elthon), got stuck in a snow drift. Bert got out of the bus and pulled her out of her boots and carried her to the bus, while Barb cried from embarrassment. The first threshing machine we used was owned by a group of neighbors. It was powered by six teams pulling a “sweep” to run the thresher. Grain was fed into the machine by two men standing on kind of a table. Two boys cut the twine on every bundle of grain before it was thrown in to be threshed. The straw came out on a kind of a flat bed and then two men stacked it. The next thresher, owned by Tom Gunderson, was run by a steam engine. When the machine pulled into the yard to thresh, the engineer blew the whistle. It sounded just like a train coming up the driveway. The engineer and the water “monkey” stayed with the machine, sleeping at the farm home where they were threshing. They got up about 5 o’clock to fire up.
When the threshing was all done the neighborhood had a “thresher’s meeting” to settle up all of the accounts. The whole family came and enjoyed a social evening and good food. Some threshing machine owners would furnish the ice cream for his patrons and their families. We bought our first tractor in 1935. It was an Allis-Chalmers and cost $500. We bought it from Dewey Ouverson. was on steel wheels and had to be cranked to start. In the 1920’s, the County Extension Service organized clubs for women to teach sewing, cooking and furnishing a home. We met once a month in the winter at each other’s homes. The Home Economist came out from Northwood and gave us the lesson. It was a “short course” college education and we really enjoyed it. I remember that Mrs. Jim Kirk, Mrs. Minnie Oswald, Mrs. Roy Larson, and Mrs. Jim Purcell were very active in this work. One summer the women from Worth County, who could go, spent several days at a camp in Clear Lake. I was surprised to learn that some things don’t change though. This morning, I heard our neighbor children playing “London Bridge is Falling Down”. Our children played that game and I did too, when I was young.
Martin passed away September 5, 1976, at the age of 85. Ruth went to live with her daughter Evelyn at Mesa, Arizona, and passed away at Mesa Christian Home in Mesa on November 7, 1984, at the age of 87. They are both buried at Brush Point Cemetery, Fertile, Iowa. They have two daughters:
A: Evelyn R. Tweeten Juvet was born May 11, 1931. This story of some of the events in my life is being written in Vienna, Austria, where my husband, Dick, and I are living for one year. Looking back, I am an Iowa farm girl. I graduated from Fertile High School and attended Hamilton Business College in Mason City. In 1950, David Elthon and I were married. We are the parents of four children. Our family moved to Phoenix, Arizona, in 1972. A few years later I was divorced. I have been employed at Arizona State University for 16 years. It was through the University that I met my husband Dr. Richard Juvet, a Professor of Chemistry. We married July 1, 1984, and live in Phoenix. It has been an interesting time to be in Europe, with the many changes taking place. We have seen a lot of beautiful scenery and historical places and have traveled to other countries. Vienna is a German speaking City very little English is spoken. Our four children are:
a. Ray A. Elthon was born July 9, 1951, in Forest City, Iowa. He married Susan Latta on December 22, 1972. He is a carpenter and lives in Iowa City, Iowa.
b. Donald L. Elthon was born December 15, 1953, in Forest City, Iowa. He married Brenda Lee Eddy, March 9, 1979. He is on the faculty of the University of Houston, in Texas where they live.
c. Thomas Elthon was born in Forest City, Iowa, February 7, 1954. Tom is on the faculty at the University of Nebraska and lives in Lincoln, Nebraska. He is not married.
d. Barbara Elthon Weigt was born July 10, 1955, in Forest City, Iowa. She married Jan Weigt June 30, 1984 He and Jan both work for Mt. Bell Telephone Company. They live in Phoenix, Arizona.
B. Mary Tweeten Myers was born August 7, 1933. I married Myron Myers September 5, 1953. We have spent our married life living on the Mitchell-Howard County Line, south of Riceville. The farm, where we reside at present, is 2 ½ miles south of Riceville and we have lived here since 1959. Myron enjoys farming and has farmed up to 1500 acres of land over the years. He had also been involved with stock: cows, hogs, and sheep. Our livestock enterprise is now about a dozen cows, enough pasture, and some permanent grass acres. Myron has also, at different times, worked for a local machine dealer, area veterinarians, and retired from the Pioneer Dealership a year ago after fifteen years. I have spent many hours on tractors in the fields and also helped with livestock, particularly the sheep. We have always had a large yard and plenty of garden area. Over the years, I have enjoyed the challenge of starting growing my own seedlings. Since the family has gone, the gardens have gone to more flowers. I enjoy handiwork and recently have done a number of quilting projects. Our four children were all born in Osage, Iowa, and grew up in the Riceville schools, graduating from there. Over the years, Myron and I have traveled all over the states and a good portion of Canada. Most of our travel time is now spent going to and from Phoenix, Arizona, where we spend the winter months enjoying family and many friends. We are both still in good health and looking forward to spending many years together yet. Our four children are:
a. Cindy Myers McDaniel was born September 1, 1954. She had worked for Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Stanford University in San Francisco, Land Sing Commercial Real Estate in both San Francisco and Tulsa, Oklahoma. She married Bart McDaniel in 1985, in Tulsa. They reside in Phoenix, Arizona, where her husband is an engineer at Intel.
b. Randy Myers was born January 16, 1958. He attended Iowa State University in Ames, obtaining his Bachelors and Masters Degrees in Agronomy. He later transferred to the University of Illinois where he obtained his Doctorate, July 8, 1978, he married Carol Comisky. Randy is employed by Mobay Chemical Company in Urbana, Illinois, doing research work there. Carol is a teacher in the Urbana School System.
c. Russell (Rusty) Myers was born September 6, 1961. attended Northwestern College in Orange City, Iowa, majoring in Agri-Business. November 28, 1981, he married Marina Worple. They reside on an acreage north of Elma, Iowa, where Rusty farrows feeder pigs and works at Donaldsons in Cresco. Marina is employed by a clinic Pharmacy in Charles City.