A PICTORIAL NARRATIVE OF A TRIP TO SEVERAL STATES IN
THE MIDDLE WEST OF THE UNITED STATES
PART II
James Barney Marsh
Driving around town we found &
photographed the Pitman house, 
no longer a funeral home, as well as the neighboring
Weiner house. 
On the corner was the Palmquist 
house with its large, wrap-around porch on
which I once sat, in some earlier century, with a certain Palmquist daughter, in blissful
ecstasy. The Farquhar house 
had been
thoroughly renovated almost beyond recognition. In comparing it with old photos
(below), it was clear that the front windows remained intact, but IT’s stone
front porch, on which he sat on his retirement rocker for almost 30 years was
transformed into modern, child-friendly redwood. I. T. Jones, my grandfather,
would have been outraged. But his attitude toward anything "child-friendly"
would have been close to that of W. C. Fields. George Farquhar might have been similarly but not as
noisily disturbed by the elimination of his rickety old garage which had housed
some kind of ancient auto. His collection of hundreds of antique tools had
disappeared with the garage. Also gone was the big, red barn as well as the
acreage on which the cow grazed. Elementary school children now ruminate on
these acres.
Left: Blanche & IT with grandsons Jim, John & Dick Weiner’s dog.
Middle: Blanche in front of IT’s porch & rocker. Dick Weiner & his
younger brother also appear. Right: IT, John and Dick Weiner. Background right is George Farquhar’s garage.
Compare the outline of the house and the placement of the windows. It
was shadier back then. Dutch Elm Disease eliminated most of Villisca's trees.
Each of those houses had been
barely affordable when the Weiners, Pitmans, Palmquists and Farquhars purchased
them a century ago for (my guess) less than $4000. Today they still are barely
affordable to Villiscans at less than $40000. However, considering the size,
numbers of rooms, neighborhoods, amounts of land, proximity to good schools and
places of work, each of them would go for several million in
Do Villiscans live in the past? Yes
they do (so do I), but they do not concentrate on the one event for which the
town once became world famous. In 1912, someone (never identified or captured)
hacked to death an entire family of 7 in what was the worst multiple murder in
Midwestern history: the Villisca Axe Murders. Several websites are devoted to
this ancient horror; the house, it seems, is now a tourism destination. We did
not see it, nor did anyone urge us to or even mention it. The fact that the
killer remains at large to this day, if not dead, should have excited the
imagination of Steven King, but I guess he missed this one. Later, while
searching in the cemetery for my ancestors’ graves, I stumbled on a long,
continuous gravestone with the seven names of the victims. Some were children,
but all were named
At the City Hall, 
the mayor
proved to be extremely helpful. She dug through the town’s archives for relevant
information, provided copies of the Farquhar obituaries and advised us how to
find the graves at the town cemetery. We purchased sweat shirts which say just
“Villisca” rather than “
where
Blanche, my grandmother, was a librarian. In the basement they still had the
old hutch, with curved glass front and side panels, which had held the Haviland
that we now have in our 
Blanche Jones with daughters Lizbeth (my mother) and
Billie. We searched the cemetery long and hard before finding the graves of the
Farquhars and the Joneses (another faulty map). I paused briefly to
pay respects and to remember some of the good times I once had had with them. I
think there are more stones in that cemetery than living people in the town.
The Tyler Barn, mentioned above,
engendered an amusing memory. When John & I were about 7 or 8, IT walked
with us to the fairgrounds area next to the swimming pool and across the road
from the Tyler Barn. A traveling circus was setting up their tent, so we went
to watch. At a moment when IT was out of sight, some lowlife from the circus
group suddenly grabbed the two of us and shouted that if we wanted to watch we
had to work. He handed us buckets and ordered us to go over to that barn and
fetch some water. Frightened, we went over to do so, but found only a large
tank full of rather green water. That is exactly what the lowlife got, which
induced him to start yelling at us even louder. By now, IT was back; he
immediately recited a list of laws, penalties, and jail terms having to do with
child labor, wages, salaries, and other violations. The lowlife shouted back
accusing IT of being a “hick lawyer.” You would have to have known IT to be
able to imagine the ensuing explosion. The whole tent blew away into the next
county. The main poles rose from the ground and began pounding themselves on
the top of the lowlife’s head. The nearby
Topping off this Villisca visit, I
ventured out alone to do some sketching. Selena was tired from the heat and,
let’s face it, the boredom of the whole thing. In the late afternoon &
early evening (it stays light until after 