As most of us enjoy the love and friendship of the holiday season, some peoples’ hearts are with our soldiers serving our country all over the world, who didn’t come home for Christmas.

“Christmas is just toned down quite a bit,” Margie Oleson said of her family’s plans with husband, Tom, serving as a captain in the Army Reserves in Iraq.

Oleson has been gone from their home in Ryan since July and has been in Iraq since October. He is part of the headquarters that run the entire theatre of operations in Iraq.

“I email him everyday to let him know what’s going on here – the simplest things like the kids grades and what the weather is like,” Margie said of her ability to communicate with her husband.

The Olesons have three children. Ashley is a freshman at Coe College, Emily is in 8th grade at West Delaware and T.J. is in 5th grade.

“Overall I think we’re doing okay thinking of ways to adjust,” Margie commented.

Ashley stays at school most of the time and Emily stays active with basketball, but it has been hard for T.J. to adjust to his father being gone.
Margie said with T.J. being 10, he is at the age where he knows what is going on, but doesn’t fully understand it.

“He has no concept of how big Iraq is. Really there is no grasp of that for a 10-year old,” Margie added.

Oleson is thankful her husband isn’t in Baghdad, where she said most of the “bad things” happen.
Tom is stationed in Balad, which is about 30 miles outside of Baghdad. He is in charge of watching convoys from Camp Anaconda by video, but does have to go to Baghdad from time to time.

“I prefer he don’t tell me,” Margie said of Tom’s trips into Baghdad. “He can tell me when he gets back.”

Oleson has requested leave in June and Margie said they hope he returns home for good by next Thanksgiving.

This Christmas will be a little different as they try to bridge the distance with technology. Margie sent him a web cam so they will be able to see each other. The family is going to wait until Tom calls before they start opening presents.

“Thank goodness for technology,” Margie added. “People used to wait weeks, if not months for letters.”

Wife in Kuwait
Todd Tomlin of Manchester won’t have his wife at home this holiday season, but he realizes it just part of the job. Chief Warrant Officer 4 Lynn Ryan is in the Army National Guard. She was called up in June and went to Kuwait in August to work in the Wisconsin 32nd Brigade Headquarters.

Todd says he communicate with Lynn at least once a week through email or the phone. They are used to spending time apart and are far from being dependent on one another.

Todd and Lynn moved to Manchester four years ago from Wisconsin. Lynn is a native of Manchester having grown up on a farm north of town. Her parents are Lavonda and Val Ryan.

Lynn runs the EEO Office for the Wisconsin National Guard. So before she was called to active duty, she was used to spending her weeks away from Todd, staying at an apartment in Wisconsin.

“It can be a bah humbug type of thing if you try everywhere and do everything,” Todd, who retired in 1994 after 30 years of service himself in the Guard, said of getting caught up in the holidays. “I worry about the things I can do something about. I can’t do anything about this.”

Lynn is scheduled to stay in Kuwait until next August, but may get to come home on leave this spring. Todd is glad Lynn is serving in Kuwait rather than Iraq.

“To keep perspective, being in downtown Baghdad as opposed to Kuwait – it’s night and day difference,” Todd explained.

Son held captive
Christine Richmond of Edgewood will not rest easy until her son, Cody Hansel, who is serving in Iraq with the U.S. Army returns home safe and sound. Her fears are not the unfounded worries of a mother for her son. Christine has had to get over the shock of learning Cody’s life was in serious danger as Iraqis held him hostage.

Cody wasn’t supposed to go to Iraq until January of 2006, but he reported to Fort Riley Kansas on June 21, and got his deployment papers on June 23.

“It was a day I’ll never forget,” Christine said of the day she heard Cody was going to Iraq. “At 4:37 p.m., when Cody called with the news that he was being deployed so quickly. I was angry at first thinking ‘How could they send him – he is so fresh out of training and so young,’ and I cried for three days. But then I had to change my attitude about it. Cody’s life is in God’s hands and there is nothing I can do but pray every day for his safety and his return home.”

Two weeks after arriving in Iraq, Cody was sent out on a mission with eight other soldiers to find a group of Iraqis causing trouble. They didn’t know how many they were going to find when they got there, but thought they had eliminated all the Iraqis they were looking for in the firefight. But some of the people they had been looking for sneaked around behind his group, found and captured them.

Cody and the others were kept in a shack for five days with no food and just dirty water. After they didn’t return in three days another unit was sent out to find them. That unit eliminated the Iraqis who were holding Cody captive.

Christine didn’t hear from her son for five days, but didn’t know anything was wrong and didn’t think he would have been out on a mission having just gotten to Iraq. Cody called his mother from the hospital the morning he was rescued. He had injuries to his head and ribs from the treatment he received from his captors and was dehydrated.

“I thought he would get to come home. I would have liked for him to come home, but his injuries weren’t severe enough to be released and come home,” Christine said relating her frustration with not being able to see her son to make sure he was okay. “You spend 18-19 years protecting and making a good life for them and then you can’t do anything for them. For the first time since he was born, I feel disconnected from him. I don’t know if he’s okay – what he’s doing.”

Understandably, Christine says she is having a hard time getting into the spirit of things this Christmas.

“I’m kind of in a funk,” Christine adds.

Still she has another son, Caleb, who is 12 at home to help celebrate Christmas. She said her family, including her huge church family, has been a great support.

In an effort to keep the holidays the same, they plan to serve Cody’s favorite meal at Christmas in his honor, with roast beef, potatoes and gravy, corn and biscuits.

For the past five years the family has rented a cabin at Backbone State Park during Christmas.
Christine said she would wait and get the cabin in February when Cody is scheduled to come home on leave.

“People have become so angry with the fact that our troops are still over there, that they have lost sight of the reality that there are many of us who will not have our loved ones with us this holiday season. Those people should be thankful for the sacrifice that is being made for them – and my heart goes out to those families that have lost a loved one in Iraq,” Christine related.

Rich history grows with Delaware County
by Latisha Sand - Last in a Series

Delaware County is rich in history. Without the settlers, without the heritage, this county would not be what it is today. When it became a county in 1840, it was already a home for many people. Schools and churches were already up and running and people were making a living off the county’s excellent land.

Belle Bailey, author of “A Three Volume History of Delaware County” and many local historians believe that Henry Bennett and his wife Elizabeth, who came in 1835, were the first settlers. Although Henry was never around because of his horse thief business, Elizabeth lived at their log cabin, located three miles west of Greeley, for many years.

There are stories that Elizabeth had trouble with bears and during that time, bears, deer and elk were killed for their meat and hide. In Dubuque, bear hides were sold for $10 per hide and deer was 50 cents per hide, and since money was scarce, they often used the hides as trade.

The first roads were along Indian trails that were later made wider to accommodate the wagons and carriages.

Houses were made out of logs with dirt or wood floors. The fireplace was at one end of the house and was used for cooking and heating. There was always at least one window, to the south, for light. The houses contained only one room, which was the kitchen, the sitting room, the dining room, the bedrooms and the parlor.

Schools were built out of logs and then later bricks. School time was from daylight until dark with the children who lived the farthest away leaving first and the teachers taught the three ‘R’s,’ reading, writing and arithmetic. Each schoolhouse had rules that were read out load every Monday morning. If a student broke a rule three times or broke three rules, then he or she would be punished with a beating. In some schools, there was a lookout person, usually the person just punished, who had to sit in front of the classroom and throw a ruler at another rule breaker. However, that was soon outlawed by the directors because students would throw the black walnut ruler measuring two and a half feet long, two inches wide and 3/4 inches thick at just anyone.

Since there was no police force in the towns, the residents had to enforce their own laws - laws that were mostly from the old English common law. Difficulties between people were usually settled by a group of neighbors called a council or by fistfights. But there was an organized group of men who called themselves ‘regulators’ who helped with crime fighting.

Money, although hard to come by, was important to keep the county up and running. The first deed recorded took place on Jan. 4, 1842 when John and Cynthia Hinkle sold John Clark 120 acres for $1,500, an extremely high amount for that time. The first tax was assessed in 1842 and the assessment roll of 1843 showed 112 taxpayers with a total tax of $198.35. By 1848, the county’s tax was $1,027.45 with the population increasing from 168 to 1,759.

People were finally thinking the hard days of pioneering were over but, according to Bailey, “the tower of speculation in railroads, paper cities, unsound banks and other enterprises toppled from its own weight and the ‘panic of 1857’ ensued.”

The crash hurt a lot of the residents. The county was flooded with worthless paper currency that had been released from private banks in the West after the gold rush. All businesses within the county were at a stand still until the government finally issued currency for the Civil War.

About 1,200 Delaware County men served during the Civil War with nearly 80,000 of the state’s population serving. The war increased many of the prices of supplies and the newspapers quoted the 1861 market prices as follows: wheat was 35 to 40 cents per bushel; potatoes were 25 cents per bushel; beans were 50 cents per bushel; flour was $2 a hundred; butter was 7 cents per pound and eggs were 5 cents per dozen. As the war came to a close, the prices went even higher.

The period after the war showed an extreme building boom and the “wooden era” as the 1860’s could be called, was off and running. Everything was made of wood – buildings, wagons, furniture, washboards and farm machinery. Newspapers were advertising dressmakers that would keep the women within the fashion of the East, but most sewed at home with the help of the first sewing machines.

The population continued to grow during those years and in 1880 the county’s population was 17,973. In 1887, the total tax expenditures were $41,371 and almost 10 years later, the total tax expenditures were $155,000.

The beginning of a new century brought on many improvements for the residents of Delaware County but it also brought wars. In April of 1917, the United States declared war on Germany and every man between the ages of 21 and 30 had to register. Of the 1,453 men registered in the county, 840 claimed exemption and 165 were preparing for duty. The county purchased $150,000 worth of Liberty bonds to help finance the war. By Sept. 1, 182 Delaware County boys were enrolled in the service.

Delaware County has come a long way since the log cabins and horse and buggy days. According to the Auditor’s office, Delaware County’s population today is approximately 18,400. The county continues to grow and many of the old buildings from the 1800’s and 1900’s are still in use and the county’s history is just beginning.

“We can learn from history how past generations thought and acted, how they responded to the demands of their time and how they solved their problems. We can learn by analogy, not by example, for our circumstances will always be different than theirs were. The main thing history can teach us is that human actions have consequences and that certain choices, once made, cannot be undone. They foreclose the possibility of making other choices and thus they determine future events.” – Gerda Lerner.

Council holds special meetin
by Brian Cook