The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1929-08-28
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST %, 1929
'YOU CAN'T TELL WHERE
YOU'RE GOING" LIFE STORY
OF LOCAL BANK PRESIDENT
CONTINUED from Page Two.)

Continued from Page Two.)
of Wyoming, to work there in the
mines, so that cash for food might
be sent to those at home. Hidden be-
tween two cars, he had ridden "blind
baggage" the only way he could af-
ford to ride on trains.
So now, by "blind baggage" and
devious ways, Klingman came to the
flourishing town of Red Oak, Iowa.
He was clad in his Sunday suit of
clean overalls and he wore a store
hat of felt. He felt mighty impor-
tant. What fourteen-year-old would
MT?
Here were fields golden and heavy
in harvest, here were frame houses,
rose trellises, vegetable .~ardens,
busy stores. The hustle and the pros
perity confused and frightened him.
Every face was strange. Young
Wash" felt woefully self-conscious
in his overalls which had seemed so
fine to him back home He almost
wished somebody else had been sent.
He wished
Morning. young man. Maybe
there's somethin' l could do for you
here, sort O. help you get your bear
ings."
Klingman started, for the voice
was directed at him. A big, jovial-
faced citizen of Red Oak confronted
him and his smile was friendly. The
boy blurted out his story, not the
carefully prepared recital he had re-
hearsed in his mind, but a stumbling
and limping tale, it seemed.
,r,ho ~ bntI IL of
he thought. Why had he consented
to come?
"The man took me into a store"
said Kllngman, "and had me tell my
story again there. Then he introduc-
ed me to people and to each I told
the story over. Finally he got a
buggy and we went out into the coun-
try to see farmers. l guess l told
that story hundred times, and not
once did l tell it the way I'd planned"
That night he slept in the house
of his new-found friend, boy filled
with awe and wonder. All day,
wherever he had gone, he had been
showered with kindnesses. A whole
community was rising to the aid of
the folks in the sod huts-to the aid
of people it didn't know and would
never see.
''This world" the boy muttered,
wide-eyed and sleepless in his strange
bed, must be filled with people who
are eager to help!"
Tears of sheer gratitude and love
welled up in his eyes. He wanted to
hug every man and woman in Red
Oak. Remember, he was only four
teen.
A few days later he went home,
and with him went five carloads of
clothing and food, of furniture and
implements, of seed grain, medicines,
shoes, tobacco.
Then, as his exploit grew old,
reality again. The sod hut; the stub
born land; in winter the grind of
the copper mines-in summer, the
grind of the prairie farm. Looking
back in memory, how soft had been
that bed in Red Oak; how green the
gardens; how fine the painted homes!
He had 'been to places" and now, for
the first time in his life, there STIR
red within him to urge to move, to
push on to better things.
He told me:
Il didn't know where l wanted to
So diNIi hllOW "Ildl L WduISu W
do. simply wanted to go, to be
somebody, to do something bigger,
but my want was blind"
And there was the farm. The in
terest had to be paid on the $500 NOR
tgage, sizable responsibility. There
We're the family and his dependent
mother. Schools had come, and he
didn't want his younger brothers and
sisters to be deprived of schooling
Poor seasons wiped out the savings
of the good ones, and the years kept
slipping by.
Then he gambled, and his stake
was wheat. He put every acre that
he could pillow and seed into wheat.
And in 1901 he got a bumper crop;
it paid him almost a thousand dol
lars!
That year, 1901, the village of Eu-
sits. Nebraska, had an increase of
or man and horse in its popula-
ton. The man was Klingman, and
the horse with a carriage attached to
it represented his entry into the liv-
prU business II xyaSp't 1yor1, ,,,,ch