Did you know that nostalgia is good for the brain? Those happy memories help us to live longer. So consider giving a fun and healthy gift this Christmas season! I’m offering a great sale on my books as I know that inflation is hitting us all in the wallet this season. Books available at Burlington By The Book, 301 Jefferson St., Burlington, Iowa, or call the store at 319-753-9981 for mail order. Credit cards accepted. Thank you for shopping local!
The word “ecstatic” doesn’t begin to describe how I feel about the publishing of my new book Beloved Burlington Volume II: Featuring businesses you knew and loved!”
This book would not have happened if it were not for the enthusiastic buyers of the first edition. Your passion for nostalgia convinced me that you wanted more. Thank you!
Volume II is being printed this month in Rochester, New York, where I now live. On Nov. 13, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., I’ll be signing copies of the book at Burlington By The Book, 300 Jefferson St., in Burlington, Iowa. On Nov. 14, I’ll give a talk about the book and share some behind-the-scenes anecdotes at 1:30 p.m. at the Des Moines County Historical Society’s Heritage Center, 501 N. Fourth Street. This is a free event, but registration is requested by calling (319) 752-7449 or emailing dmchsevents@dmchs.org.
In the coming weeks, I’ll write more about the book. In the meantime, here’s a sneak peek at some of the 130-plus photos in the book!
If diamonds are a girl’s best friend, then Paule Jewelry beckoned many a man inside to fulfill his heartthrob’s dream.
For 107 years, silver and gold shimmered behind the glass of polished maple cases. Brides-to-be rode the elevator with their intended to the second floor to choose their china and sterling silver patterns. Tiny engraved silver spoons and cups commemorated the birth of a child. The gift of a gold watch signified a young man’s passage into adulthood.
Paule Jewelry was there for all of life’s special moments: birthdays, graduations, engagements, weddings, anniversaries, job promotions, and retirements. Stepping into the store, you entered a quiet world of dignity and class, giving the feeling that you were part of something special, and you were worthy of the finer things of life.
An advertisement for Paule Jewelry in The Burlington Hawk-Eye in July 1914 captured some of that feeling. In part, it read: “The jeweler is very close to life in all its variations. His art expresses and typifies victory, achievement, superior performance, as well as beauty, utility, joy, and refinement … Life’s heroic moments are marked with a jewel or a bit of gold or silver.”
The ad ended with the store’s motto of that time: “Our name on the box your guarantee.”
That Paule name never lost its significance. In later years, the motto was “Paule’s on the box is like sterling on silver.” Unwrapping a gift to see the diagonal silver and white stripes on the box with the “Paule Jewelry Co.” name and logo stamped in deep blue no doubt sent a shiver of delight through the recipient.
Related post: Beautiful artwork reflects “Beloved Burlington” businesses
Modest beginning
In 1889, Charles Christian Paule opened Paule Jewelry at 405 Jefferson St. with less than $500. A Burlington native, Paule (known as C.C.) had purchased the stock of jeweler August Stucke at that location. Paule started his career at age 19 as an apprentice watchmaker for Stucke, before moving to Chicago, then Kenosha, Wisconsin, and back to Chicago. Paule, by then about 26 years old, heard that Stucke was closing his business and seized the opportunity to go into business for himself. He kept at least one of Stucke’s employees on staff, Emil Baumle, who became secretary-treasurer when Paule incorporated the business.
Those early years may have been awfully lean. According to Paule’s obituary in The Burlington Hawk-Eye Gazette in 1943, the jeweler had just a small stock when he started, and a man named George Finck proved to be a savior. “George represented a big jewelry firm, and at Christmas time brought his trunks into the store, and the contents became Paule’s stock over the holiday period,” the newspaper stated.
Did you enjoy this excerpt from “Beloved Burlington: Featuring businesses you knew and loved?”
The book, which contains chapters on 10 other businesses and many historical photos, is available for $19.99 at Burlington By The Book, 301 Jefferson St., Burlington, Iowa and by mail order. For details, click here.
I just love my trips back to Burlington, Iowa, especially in the warm months. The highlight of my trip in June was attending my reunion for the Notre Dame High School class of 1977. It was a blast to see old friends, meet their spouses, and see a few of our teachers, too!
Class reunions don’t happen every summer of course, so I’m sharing with you my top three things to do when my husband, Gary Brandt, and I visit Burlington. (There are lots of other things we love, but these are at the top.)
2. Cheer for the Burlington Bees. Fortunately, that was the Friday night activity for the Class of ’77. I have to say that I was so busy talking to my classmates that I barely watched the game, until the final inning when the Bees had a chance to tie the game. Alas, that didn’t happen and they lost to Peoria, 3-2.
3. Buy some Sterzing’s potato chips to take back to Rochester. I found out at my reunion that one of my classmates (Gary Schmeiser) is a co-owner of this iconic company! How cool is that. The bag of Sterzing’s never lasts long but at least I didn’t eat all of them on the 14-hour car ride home. (Yes, I could take more than one bag home but if I ate them too often, then they wouldn’t taste so special when I do get some!)
What are your must-do’s in Burlington?
You never know how something you write will resonate with a reader. Such was the case recently when I gave a copy of my book, Sutter’s Sodas Satisfy: A Memoir of 90 Years of Sutter Drug Co. , to a former colleague.
My husband, Gary, and I, were driving back to our home in Rochester, N.Y., from Florida, where we had a spent a few months. At the last minute, we decided to stop overnight in Winchester, Va., which just happens to be where my good friend, Maria Hileman Montgomery lives. She is a former Democrat and Chronicle colleague of mine, and now is the managing editor of the The Winchester Star newspaper. We were lucky that Maria and her husband, Roger, were available for dinner on such short notice. We had a great time catching up, especially since Maria and I had not seen each other in several years. I gave her a copy of my book, never dreaming that even though she had not visited Burlington, Iowa, let alone Sutter Drug, the story would touch a chord for her. She wrote this touching column, and it was published in The Winchester Star.
Before the 1960s and ‘70s, when people started flocking to strip malls and chain restaurants and, more recently, to “virtual” internet communities like Facebook, they often met at lunch counters in drug stores, diners and five-and-dimes.
My own parents met in 1947 in Washington, D.C. when he was a soda jerk and she was a customer at People’s drug store across 10th Street from Ford’s Theater.
One of my earliest and fondest childhood memories is of ordering mouth-watering buttered toast and “sunny side up” eggs on Sunday mornings in the late 1950s with my mother at a lunch counter in downtown Staunton after Mass at St. Francis of Assisi church.
A friend and former newspaper colleague of mine from Rochester, N.Y., Jane Sutter Brandt, has just published a book of memoirs about her family’s 90 years in the pharmacy business in Burlington, Iowa. Her father, grandfather and great-grandfather operated the Sutter Drug Co. in several locations in that city from 1902 to 1993, and the lunch counter was an intrinsic part of the business.
When she and her husband, Gary, stopped in Winchester and had dinner with us a couple weeks ago on their way back to Rochester from Florida, she gave me a signed copy of her self-published book “Sutter’s Sodas Satisfy.”
I started to read it this past weekend more out of devotion to Jane, who was managing editor of the Democrat and Chronicle during my half dozen years as metro editor there, than out of any real interest in the topic.
But after burying myself in the book for an afternoon, I came away impressed with how careful attention to historical detail and strong narrative writing can uncover the universal nature of so much of human experience.
While Sutter’s was a particularly local institution, I found threads of informational nostalgia that resonated in surprising ways with me. Her explanation of how Sutter’s carried Cara Nome cosmetics, for instance, took me back to conversations between my mother and father in the 1950s and ‘60s, when he would ask her what she wanted for her birthday or anniversary.
“Cara Nome,” she’d reply, rolling the ‘r’ expressively and lifting her eyes heavenward. I haven’t heard the phrase in years.
As Jane explains in her book, Cara Nome was a popular Rexall brand for high-end cosmetics. Her great-grandfather, Joseph R. Sutter, became a “Rexall agent” in 1907, meaning he held an exclusive franchise to sell the products in Burlington and West Burlington.
Rexall distributors displayed a distinctive bright orange and navy blue sign, and it was the name brand for products sold by United Drug Co. of New Jersey. Other Rexall products included Super Plenamin vitamins and Liggett’s $50,000 chocolates.
The word “Rexall” meant “king of all,” and was probably an allusion to the Rx used in prescriptions. Customers will recall the popular semi-annual Rexall One Cent sale when you could get a second item for a penny if you bought one.
Photos in the book show customers lined up the whole way up the city block and cramming the newly air-conditioned store and soda fountain when Sutter’s reopened after remodeling in 1949.
The photos show not only Cara Nome products and Kodak’s new Hawkeye cameras, but the gleaming “full-vision windows” on the display cases and the modern fluorescent lights.
In a chapter headed “Changing Times,” Jane describes the changes that came in the 1960s with the advent of chain pharmacies, costly prescription drugs and third-party prescriptions such as Medicaid. The death knell sounded in the 1980s when insurance companies forced customers to buy prescriptions from certain pharmacies and big-box retailers added pharmacies to their stores.
It is hard, in the end, not to bemoan the passing of the era of the independent drug store when you view it through the prism of such a long-time family business.
I found this cardboard in the Sutter Drug Store scrapbook that my great-aunt Ursula Sutter Schuetze compiled. The little newspaper clipping is the only printed reference we have to the first store, which was located at 311 N. Third in the Tama Building. (Although Joseph bought the store in 1902, he did not officially open it as Sutter Drug until 1903.)
The photo is of the interior of the first store. Notice how all the merchandise was behind glass doors or in cases, so the clerks had to get it out for the customer. Shopping wasn’t self-service like it is today!
Aunt Ursie was the youngest of four children that my great-grandfather Joseph Robert Sutter and his wife, Anna Schlacter Sutter, had. Being the youngest and the last to leave home, she was probably considered “the baby of the family.” Neither of her parents ever drove and so she drove them around in the car my great-grandfather owned. I recall her telling me that when she was about 18 years old, she drove herself and her mother all the way from Burlington, Iowa, to Boise, Idaho, so they could visit Gertrude Sutter Moore, the elder daughter. That would have been around 1923! I remember being amazed by that story. It probably took them at least a week to get there, given the roads and slower speeds of cars. My great-grandfather must have had a lot of confidence in his wife and daughter to let them take such a long trip by themselves.
My dad was born Dec. 8, 1925. He lived to be 87 and I think of him every day. In honor of my dad’s birthday, I’m writing about three life lessons he taught me. Of course, I learned much more than these three, but these are the ones on my mind today.
So I came up with a solution. The next day, I went into the office at LaMont, and asked if I could switch to the second shift. No problem. The following Monday, I reported to work at 3:30 p.m. and I got off at midnight. There were a lot of 20somethings working that shift, so I made some friends. (We occasionally went across the river to Downers nightclub in Gulfport when our shift ended — don’t tell my mother!) And best of all, I could sleep as late as I wanted each morning, and still fit in some sun-bathing time at the club pool. I’m glad I stuck with that job, because there were life lessons I learned there, but that’s a topic for another blog. Another lesson I learned was…
2. Do business with those who do business with you. As part of the family owning Sutter Drug, my dad made sure that when it came time for us to buy a product or service, we were buying it from merchants who did business at Sutter’s. I remember one day suggesting we buy something from someone (I don’t remember the details), and my dad said, “No, we’re buying it from (fill in the blank), because they do business at Sutter’s.” Oh. Now that I own Sutter Communications, I practice the same philosophy and I try to buy from local merchants and entrepreneurs as much as possible, even when it may cost more. And the third rule I learned…
3. Follow the Golden Rule. My dad led by example on this one. He was a quiet man, respectful of others and their opinions, and extremely kind. I seldom heard him complain or say anything negative about anyone. On the rare occasions when his temper flared at something we kids had done, we knew we had really screwed up. As an editor for many years, I tried to keep that Golden Rule in mind; some days I succeeded and other days I failed.
So, happy birthday to Joe. Thinking about you today, with a smile and a tear.
Related post: Joe Sutter had patience in abundance.
I got a surprise Facebook message from Bill Ewinger in Burlington recently. He was in the same class at St. Paul’s as my older sister, Tracey, when we were growing up.
Bill told me that he had found a newspaper article about a fire that happened in the basement of Sutter Drug Co. on Oct. 9, 1939. I didn’t know about that fire, and Bill was kind enough to mail to me a copy of the article. (He came upon it when he and a friend were going through microfilm at the Burlington Public Library.)
The headline of the article is “BAD START ON BLAZE DRIVE,” which made me think it was talking about a street called “Blaze Drive.” But the subhead is “Prevention Week Opened with Five Alarms Including $1,000 Loss.”
So the headline writer was trying to be clever with “Blaze Drive” but it didn’t work. As someone who has had to write headlines in her career, I cringed.
But here’s the meat of the article:
Burlington made anything but an auspicious start for Fire Prevention week, with five weekend alarms answered — including one at the Sutter Drug Co. store at Third and Jefferson streets this morning. The loss at the drug store, where there was a basement fire at 2:40 a.m. today, may reach $1,000, Fire Chief R.P. Collatt said. Both he and Joseph Sutter of the drug company were at loss to establish definite cause of the fire. Most of the loss, however, was from water.
Fire In Basement
The blaze, apparently starting under the basement steps at the extreme north end of the store, set off the sprinkler system in spouting water automatically sent in a fire alarm.
Mr. Sutter said all basement rubbish is kept in metal containers with lids, and was of the opinion a can of wax or paint may have been responsible. Only slight fire damage to the basement or stock was reported. The loss was covered by insurance.
The article goes on to document some other small blazes that happened around Burlington; two dump fires, one grass fire, and a car fire.
This wasn’t the first fire that has happened to Sutter Drug while in the Tama Building. The most dramatic one that I know of happened in 1915 and you can read my post about it here.
Two years ago as I was starting to research my book Sutter’s Sodas Satisfy, I met Russ Fry by chance in downtown Burlington, Iowa. He was one of several people who encouraged me to publish the book, telling me how people in Burlington love local history.
One of the more well-known figures in the history of Burlington, Iowa, is the Sauk war chief, Black Hawk. How did you get interested in writing about his final resting place?
I self-publish with print-on-demand. There is little up-front money involved. If you self-publish, you will have to do your own promotion. I do that with speaking engagements and Facebook. I am not getting rich, but I make enough to keep working on new projects.
I was cleaning out a storage bin and came across this empty blue bottle with a cork for a lid. I know it came from Sutter Drug, and I think it was one of those things I latched on to many years ago because I liked the blue color and the bottle has three sides to it.
I had completely forgotten about it. So I took a moment to read the labels and look up a few things.
According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, “Mercuric chloride is a very poisonous form of mercury. It is a type of mercury salt.” The article says it was sometimes used in antiseptics, and a label on this bottle says “Bernays Antiseptic.” It apparently contained tablets that were made up of mercuric chloride and citric acid. In fact, the third side of the bottle that doesn’t have a label on it has the word “Poison” etched into it.
What stood out to me, though, are the words “United Drug Co.” The Sutter Drug Stores all carried Rexall Brand products, which were the name brand products for United Drug Co.
I’m convinced that one of the reasons that my great-grandfather found success as the owner of pharmacies was that he decided in 1907 to become a “Rexall Agent.” Sutter’s stores were the only place in Burlington and West Burlington, Iowa, where you could buy Rexall products.
The semi-annual One-Cent sale was highly popular. You could buy one Rexall item at regular price and get the second for a mere penny.
I know many people around the country lived in towns that had Rexall drug stores in them, and they remember the bright orange and navy blue lettering.
Beloved Burlington Blog 