A NEW CENTURY

Mildred Dunn Lepper in her book, “Tell Me About the Old Days, Grandma” gives an account of her childhood in the early part of the century in Steamboat Rock. 

Mrs. Lepper also wrote the introduction to the 1981 edition of the “History of Hardin County” 

Mildred was not a native of this county, or even of Iowa, but of Kansas. She lived in Kansas and two other states before coming to the town of Steamboat Rock in 1918, where she lived until she graduated from high school and left for teachers college in Cedar Falls. 

Her ties to Steamboat Rock were greater than the years she spent here. Her grandfather came to Steamboat Rock shortly after the Civil War. He was an early stone mason and served on the town’s first town council. 

Excerpts from her book shed light on many aspects of Steamboat Rock’s early history. 

“My mother, Harriet Mary Seabury, was born in the picturesque village of Steamboat Rock, Iowa on March 23, 1872. She was the first of four daughters born to Jerome Bonaparte Seabury and Mary Sophia (Taylor) Seabury Jerome’s little daughter by his first wife, also shared their home. The family moved to Union, Iowa, also in Hardin County, when my mother was about twelve years old. Her sisters, Bertha and Belle were both natives of Steamboat Rock, but the youngest, Nellie, was born in Union, Iowa.” 

“Mother was a young lady in her twenties when she decided to pack her trunk and travel by train to Kansas to visit an uncle, George Taylor, her mother’s brother, and his wife, Kate, and their daughter Addie. They ran a rooming house in St. Marys. Since mother was a dressmaker, she was soon busy, making new friends. One of these friends was the young man Frank Dunn, who had come from Wisconsin. Their courtship lasted until October 12, 1900, when their marriage took place in Topeka, the capital. The minister who performed the ceremony was Rev. Thomas J. Pegarson. Some of the furnishings and dishes for their new home came from Frank’s store. Before long he was operating stores not only in St. Marys, but in Emmet and I believe, Bonner Springs.” 

“For the earliest happenings in my life, I must rely on what others have told me. On April 8, 1908, little Mildred came into the big world. This was when my parents, Frank Dunn and his wife, the former Harriet Mary Seabury, were living in the little town of Tonganoxie, Kansas. My father was not in very good health at this time, and had decided to leave his mercantile business which he had carried on in several towns in Kansas before coming to Tonganoxie, where he also ran a store. He had heard much about Excelsior Springs, Missouri, a resort town near Kansas City where many mineral springs were being developed. People came from all over the country to drink the mineral water which, it was believed, could help to heal various ailments. The water was used both for drinking and for bathing.” 

“My father bought an acreage at the south edge of Excelsior Springs, and paid a thousand dollars an acre, a goodly amount for those days. The town was booming, and property values were rising.” 

“After my arrival and as soon as my mother was strong enough to travel, I was taken by train, together with my brother Francis and sister Dorothy to the new home in Missouri.” 

“My father, Frank Dunn, thought the change of work from merchant to “small farmer,” together with the mineral water, could help his health. This was not to be, for he became weaker and was in great pain. He was not a person to have much to do with doctors, even though a sister, Clara, was a medical doctor at that early time. Finally, in the fall of 1909, two of his brothers came and took him to the University hospital in Kansas City, where he died during an operation.” 

Mildred relates in her book of how her mother struggled to keep the family together for nine years before deciding to move back to her birthplace in Steamboat Rock. 

Here she operated a small restaurant on Market Street next to Mel Baker’s drugstore. 

Mildred and her older sister had been staying with aunts and uncles while their mother and brother got settled in Steamboat and goes on to relate their arrival in town in 1918. 

“Oh, joy! Mama and Francis were at the station to meet us! How good it was to be together once again. It had been so long. Francis had grown bigger since I saw him in Kansas. He was twelve years old and would be thirteen in November. Mr. Eckhoff (Aaron Eckhoff) took us from the depot. He always met the trains and delivered the mail up to the post office. We had to go across the river on an iron bridge, then up a hill and around a corner to the street where the post office was.” 

“As we rode up main street, I had never seen a town anything like this! It was so little and the street had no paving on it. There were just a few buildings on each side, reaching only a couple of blocks. Right in the middle of Main Street hung a large service flag. It was white in the center with a wide red border around it, and there were a number of blue stars and one gold one. I knew what all this meant, because Medford had a service flag, too. The blue stars were for the soldiers who had gone to war, and the gold star stood for a soldier who had lost his life in the awful war. A brief feeling of sadness swept over me, but was soon lost in the excitement of being with my dear mother again.” 

“Mr. Eckhoff let us off at a little store with a sign that said BAKERY hanging out in front. This was not now a bakery, but was my mother’s little restaurant. Inside were glass show cases, one holding candies and one holding cigars and pipe tobacco, and still another held loaves of bread. Bread was not wrapped in wax paper as in later years. In back was a counter with high wood stools in front of it. There were no tables, for the room was not big enough. Along the walls were some shelves holding a few cans of food such as pork and beans, canned milk, sardines, etc.” 

“Through a door at the back, we went into a fairly large room. At one end was the cook stove, a table and some chairs, a cupboard and a few shelves. At the other end was our beloved piano, the center table with its hard-to-open drawer, the greatgrandpa Dunn bookcase with the dear, familiar books. There was nothing very lovely about this arrangement nothing like the homes we had lived in before but with the beautiful oil painting of sheep which Aunt Essie had made long ago, and a few other familiar pictures, and crisp new curtains at the window, it was “home”. 

“Beyond this room was a tiny bedroom where Mama slept. We wondered where we would sleep. There were no more bedrooms, but a door on the west wall of the room that was the restaurant, opened into a large room that was separated from the restaurant by the wall, and also faced the street. This our mother had curtained at the street end so no one could see in. This room still had the baker’s oven at the back, and he must have mixed the dough in the front part, as there were large tables built out against the wall and shelves above to hold the finished products. We curtained this room off into two separate parts, one making a “room” for our brother and the other for us girls. We tried to make them as livable as possible, but they were very makeshift quarters, to say the least. My sister was a sensitive young lady, and I can see now, although too young then to realize, why she hated the place. At the age of ten, I did not mind too much. Perhaps I was one to make the best of things, and at an early age, learned it did no good to get upset over what I knew could not be helped. At any rate, I soon made friends and learned to like living in the little town.” 

“Mother told us that her parents, Jerome and Mary Seabury, had come to Steamboat Rock soon after their marriage in Freeport, Illinois in 1869. I believe they first lived in a one room house near Elk Creek. Another couple lived in it, too, and in order for each to have a window, the house was partitioned diagonally My grandpa was a stone mason, born in New York State. He found work building stone foundations, cisterns and basements. He had fought in the cavalry in the Civil War for three years and was hurt when thrown from his horse. Before long he and grandma moved to a better house in the north part of town. It was there my mother was born on March 23, 1872. That house was still in use when we came back to Steamboat Rock. Grandpa served on the first council in Steamboat and several afterward.”