Paved Roads

I have to rely on my memory here, which is not too good. Partly because the roads in Ft. Madison, Iowa, in the Forties, were in the process of being paved.

I was born in 1936 in an inexpensive house built for Railroad workers, that has since been torn down. My parents couldn't really afford me, because of the Depression, but they had me anyway.

WWII ended the Depression, my father bought a car, and we moved one block west, to a new house, on a paved street (paved with bricks). But we still visited the older parts of town (where my father's family still lived) that were not paved - but were deeply rutted mud.

In 1947, when I was 11, we moved across the Mississippi River to my mother's home town, of Nauvoo, Illinois. All the roads there were paved, with Limestone gravel (that was cheap). There were graders, that kept the road surface flat, so cars could travel them rapidly.

Nauvoo was a fruit growing city (of 1000 people) that specialized in growing table grapes, that were shipped, on the Railroads, to the large cities of Chicago, St. Louis, and Kansas City. Grapes were also used to make Wine, and the town had some active taverns, and alcoholics (including Mayor Horton, who was a recovered alcoholic himself).

The Red Front tavern was owned by a RLDS family that employed my mother's father in a Monument (Graver Marker) business in the same building.