63

The first of my family in Iowa were Sam and Mary (Snyder) Weston who moved in 1855 with their six children, including John.  They bought land in Jasper County, Ira Township, west of Newton.  The previous owners were Native Americans who were displaced, but returned north to Tama, Iowa.  I recognize the violence behind the term "displaced" and regret its implications.  A few farms over was Carolyn Trammel who had moved there in 1849.  John married Carolyn and had eight children, one of whom was my great-grandfather Roy.  The first settlers in the neighborhood began worshiping together despite differences in their Protestant origins.

In the early 1860s they constructed a wooden frame chapel to replace the more rudimentary church building.  They called it “Union Chapel,” for the union of the several Protestant denominations converging for worship.  The chapel was adjacent to the existing cemetery where the original settlers were interred.  That cemetery holds my parents, my paternal grandparents, my paternal great-grandparents, my paternal great-great grandparents, John and Carolyn, and their parents.

At the time of these photos I assumed that I would be buried in that cemetery with my fiancé, Janet Paige Kuller, the blonde in the photos.  At least half of that assumption will likely prove to be inaccurate.

Contact sheet 63 contains some photos of the interior of Union Chapel.  Soon after these photos, someone broke in and stole the potbellied stoves that had been there for over a hundred years.  The trustees then removed the other artifacts, including a horse-hair sofa and Bible, to donate to the county historical society. 

The rest of the contact sheet has miscellaneous photographs of Cornell College.  Two are favorites of mine taken in the college’s dining hall.  One is of Karen Krull holding the infant son of the director of financial aid, Joe Campanelli.  The other is of Jeff Busbee and Bruce Costas, with Dale Goo in the background.  I like the easy friendship displayed in both photos.  They go well with my nostalgia.

The photos discussed in this essay can be seen in the “photos by number” gallery 63.