Our Yesterdays

The old Packwood school, after 59 years of existence, is now a memory. The building was demolished by Kimple and Bresch Enterprises. The building has been vacant since middle school classes were moved in 1978. The Packwood Consolidated School District was formed in 1919 after the community voted to construct a new school to replace a two-story, four room school house built during the turn of the century. The $95,000 project was completed in 1921, and the classes began there in the fall of that year with an enrollment of 153 elementary students and 53 high school students. In 1961, the last high school classes were held in that building. The independent districts of Packwood, Richland, Farson, Martinsburg, and Ollie merged to form the Pekin Community District.

Larry Hunter, Brighton post office carrier, retired his post after spending 24 years and three months in the government service and had accumulated one year of sick leave.

Several towns in the area were hit by high storms and high winds the last two weeks. Damage to the Packwood Elevator was extensive.

Bill Cobb, of Cobb Oil Company in Richland, received an award in recognition of Amoco Oil Company’s involvement with the Gasohol Program in Iowa.

Dick Forinash of Liberty Center was honored at the Southwest Warren High School for his twenty year coaching career. Forinash, a former Richland resident, is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Leo V. Forinash.

1940, 83 years ago

Louie Egbert, Mayer garage mechanic, is having a home built on the lot he recently bought from Jake Hendrickson. He is using usable material from the barn that was on the lot. Lafe Ingle of Ollie is doing the work, with Roy Campbell and another helping.

Mr. and Mrs. Maurice Gould of Fairfield have purchased the Allen Furniture and Funeral business and will take possession at once. Mr. and Mrs. Gould were born and grew up near Birmingham. They have been associated with this line of work for the past five years, both having graduated from the College of Mortuary Science of St. Louis in 1937.

R.M. Warner of Los Angeles passed away. He was for about eighteen years a successful dry goods merchant on the north side of the square in Richland, under the firm name of Risk and Warner. About 1890 Mr. Warner came to Richland from Libertyville. In 1891 he met his future wife, Miss Maude La Roche, a native Irish girl who was then a leading lady with the Georgia Hamlin Company, playing in the Opera House here.

Veo got its name from unfortunate merchant

The little village of Veo, located at the north edge of Jefferson County in Penn Township, was named after Velenzi Ovington Jones who came to the area to open a store in 1882 when the Burlington and Western Railroad arrived.

Unfortunately Jones never had the privilege of operating his new store. He died the day his first shipment of merchandise arrived.

Although there is no proof available, it was believed at the time he died of lead poisoning from the paint used in decorating the interior of his store.

Mrs. Jones, with a small child, was faced with the task of operating the store. Relatives assisted her for about a year, then purchased the business in 1883.

At first it was decided to call the new little village Lune, but it was discovered there was another settlement along the railroad by the same name. It was then decided to name the village after the initials of V.O. Jones.

Soon after, the stockyards were built east of the store and depot. In 1887 Perry Cole operated a blacksmith shop in a small building west of the store.

In 1897 a cheese factory was built and operated by John Alter. The first building was destroyed by fire but it was immediately replaced.

Carrell Johnson, 91, now a resident of Fairfield and a former resident of the Veo Community, said he can remember when he hauled milk from his father’s farm, and that of a neighbor, to the cheese factory. On the return trip he hauled whey from the factory to the farm to be fed to the hogs.

Merril Gowey, 87, who is a native of the Veo vicinity and has lived in his present home west of Veo since 1926, has many recollections concerning Veo’s history.

For a number of years Gowey was manager of the Veo Shipping Association and remembers when hogs and cattle were shipped from the stockyards by the carload.

He managed the coal yard operated by the Veo Farmers Union. He also managed the ice house during the summer. The ice was harvested from a nearby pond during the winter.

Gowey remembers when the railroad was widened from narrow gauge to standard gauge in 1900. Extra workers were brought in and the entire distance from Burlington to Oskaloosa was widened on a Sunday. The ties had all been leveled and heavier rails had been placed along the right of way prior to the one-day project.

Since the cars that were used on the narrow gauge line were no longer usable they were sold by the railroad. A number of box cars were purchased by farmers along the line and were used for grain storage.

June 6, 1944, D-Day, was a memorable day for the village of Veo. The last six cars of an eastbound freight train derailed and rolled over on their side a short distance east of the depot, but the caboose remained upright.

Donald Bray, who operated the Bray Upholstery Shop at Veo, well remembers the train wreck and helped salvage some of the freight from the overturned cars.

Four cars of shelled corn posed no problem, but the two cars of sheep tallow from Australia in 400 pound barrels was something else. Bray helped salvage the barrels and when he was through he had to burn the clothes he was wearing because of the smell. The tallow was on the way to a soap factory.

The Burlington Western came across northern Jefferson County in 1882 and the first Veo store came into existence a short time later.

At the same time the B&W was working westward, it was racing with the Minneapolis and St. Louis Railroad extending westward a short distance to the north. Each wanted to be the first to cross Iowa. Crews from the two railroads engaged in brawls and there was frequent vandalism along the right-of-ways.

In 1903, the B&W Railroad was sold to the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, CB&Q. In 1934 the M. & St. L. purchased the CB&Q line and abandoned the tracks to the north. The last train passed through Veo in October, 1971, and the tracks were later removed.

Bray, Gowey and Johnson all remembered where the various buildings were located. All buildings are gone except the depot. These structures included the stockyards which closed in 1939, blacksmith shop, coal yard and ice house and the cheese factory, all east of the depot. The cheese factory closed about the turn of the century. The Veo post office was discontinued in 1909.

The store had a number of owners after the turn of the century. The last was Donald Bray. He closed the store in 1927 and moved to Perlee where he operated a store.

After the railroad was abandoned Mr. and Mrs. Welter Bray purchased the depot and residence, all one building, in 1931. He opened a filling station and carried a few staples. He also operated a welding shop in another building nearby.

His major business however, was the saw mill business. He started with a steam powered outfit and wound up with a modern portable outfit powered by a gasoline engine and equipped with a portable hoist. It could be set up in a timber in about an hour.

During his many years in the sawmill business Bray estimated he had sawed enough lumber to erect over 400 average sized houses.

Welter Bray died Sept. 30, 1972, while working in the timber, and Mrs. Bray died Jan. 8, 1982. He was a native of the Veo Community, born and reared on the farm just west of Veo. Their son and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Donald Bray, operated an upholstering business in Iowa City from 1968 until 1980 when they occupied their new home at Veo and moved their business to a new building erected near the home. The little town lived again.