Pinching Pennies and Cedar Rapids, Then and Now

Time to catch up on days gone by, from saving a few watts of electricity to pinch pennies and overcoming the effects of polio, to what downtown Cedar Rapids used to look like and predictions of what it could become.

Alice Milligan of Manchester, who died in March at age 100, used to talk about carrying her own light bulb. The story was passed on to me by Charlie Becker, executive director of Camp Courageous who fondly remembers Alice, a 30-year volunteer at the continuous Camp Courageous Garage Sale in Manchester.

At 13, Alice began working as a cook and, later, as a "hired man" milking cows, all for $2 a week which she gave to her parents. At 20, in the 1930s, she came to Cedar Rapids to work for the Killian family of the former department store with the same name.

When Alice wasn't working, she loved to do needlework. But the light bulbs in the Killian house weren't very bright, so Alice brought her own brighter one. When she left, Alice had to make sure to remove her bulb or Mrs. Killian would replace it with a lower wattage one. No sense in wasting electricity.

Before she turned 30, Alice worked for the Howard Halls as a cook at Brucemore. She remembered her first night, in 1947, when the roar of Leo the Lion nearly scared her to death. Otherwise, she enjoyed her work with them, especially setting the table and cooking for "dignitaries." She left the Halls in 1949 to marry.

I never met Alice, but 18 years ago I had the pleasure to sit down with Gerry Boots of Olin, one of the toughest, most gracious and accepting woman I've ever met. She died Tuesday at age 95.

In 1954, a year before Jonas Salk's vaccine became available, Gerry was stricken with polio. She was 38 and married with two children. She would use a wheelchair the rest of her life.

In 1994 when I met Gerry, she lived alone in a small house. But she was happy, sewing 23 quilts the year before, rising with the sun every morning to bake pies, breads and kolaches. Later in the day she tended to the tomatoes, beans, peppers, cucumbers and cabbage in her backyard garden.

I loved her gardening philosophy, one that can be applied to overcoming any challenge in life.

"I dig a hole and throw the seeds at it," Gerry said, chuckling. "What comes up is OK. What doesn't, that's OK, too."

Sometimes, that's how it seems I come across a story - purely by accident. Last year while working on one story I saw a 50-year-old Gazette story about architectural student Jim Rieniets' idea of what Cedar Rapids could look like in the year 2000. I was fortunate enough to locate him in Bradenton, Fla., and we had a wonderful chat that led to a column last July about his visions. They seemed uncannily close to what's going on now - an auditorium on the west side of the river (amphitheater), high rise buildings near Eighth Street SE (the federal courthouse) and a new civic center (including a library) adjacent to Greene Square Park.

It would have been cool if Jim could have visited Cedar Rapids in a couple of years to see how it emerges from the Flood of 2008. But he died June 16.

Speaking of downtown, Dave Lodge called recently to say the HO gauge railroad model of downtown Cedar Rapids in 1954 built by his cousin, Don Lodge, is going to the Carl and Mary Koehler History Center as promised. Don, who lives in Atlanta, grew up in Cedar Rapids.

"We're packing it up now," Dave said from his office at Guarantee Bank. "They said they have a room for it."