Humboldt County
Historical Association
PO Box 162
Humboldt, Iowa
50548
Return to FEATURES
FEATURES
Historic Bridges
Humboldt College
Des Moines River-Rutland to
Humboldt
George Flower’s Diary
by Pat Baker
Last summer while copying documents at the Humboldt County Historical Museum, I picked up an 1869 diary that was placed with Civil War diaries in a cabinet. Out fell a swatch of cloth, some folded receipts and a tintype photo. Each carried the name of George Flower. It was his college diary. The tintype photo was taken while George was in college. The piece of linen cloth was stamped G. FLOWER in four places---name tags, to be cut out and sewn into his clothes so that they weren’t lost in the laundry.
George Flower was the youngest son of Roswell Flower, one of the first Corinth Township settlers in 1857. Roswell was a successful farmer who ran the stagecoach stop and the post office in the town of Addison. He drew the town plat in Section 26.
George started his diary in March, 1869, at the age of twenty-one. That is when he began college at Iowa Agricultural College in Ames (now Iowa State University). The diary is remarkable, not only for the glimpse it gives us of young George’s life at college, but because it was written the first year the college opened. The Iowa State Agricultural College and Model Farm was intended to provide a practical education in agriculture and mechanic arts to residents of the state.
Along with the other students, George took up residence in the Main Building (left in photo), which held the administrative offices, classrooms, a chapel, the library, dining room and kitchen, and student living quarters. It was winter when that first term began and George found the building to be chilly and sparse. Furnishings in each double room included two chairs, a wardrobe, a study table, a washbowl and pitcher, and bedsteads. George brought his own bed tick which was filled with straw piled near the entrance of the Main Building at the beginning of each term.
There was no tuition. In addition to their studies, students were expected to engage in manual labor 2 ½ hours a day, five days a week. The boys worked on the college farm or on the grounds, and the girls worked in the laundry or kitchen. They were paid—from one-and-a-half cents to nine cents per hour.
George’s 1870 statement of expenses for 1870:
Board: 254 days $108.90 [in 2006 dollars=$1735.51]
Laundry: 102 pieces
4.25
Fires and lights: 9.00
Stationery .20
Credit for wages earned 40.13
George went to the store on Saturday. A haircut and a quire of paper each cost twenty-five cents; ink was ten cents a bottle. The diary itself cost sixty-five cents and he spent seventy-five cents on a singing book. He bought a box of collars for twenty cents and spent fifteen cents on a coconut. He had his picture taken—sixteen tintypes cost fifty cents. He traded pictures with friends, writing their names in his diary.
His first books were arithmetic, grammar, and geography. These subjects indicate that he was among the eighty students [out of 173] in his class who needed a year of preparatory classes before taking on college level work. Fall preparatory classes were botany, natural philosophy, and algebra.
During his second year, as a freshman George’s classes were rhetoric, German, bookkeeping, criticism and geometry. From this year on students had to furnish their own candles—6 for 20 cents—and matches—5 cents.
In 1872, George began working for a chemistry professor before classes started in March. “Wed. Feb. 14, ’72: Arrived at Ames about 3 o’clock yesterday afternoon. Came up to the college to supper. Saw Prof. Foote and made arrangements to go to work this morning. Built a fire in the laboratory & worked 4 ½ hours, then from 9 ½ to 12 sweeping & cleaning up. Commenced to scour lamp stands but left that to sweep. In the P.M. worked 5 ½ hours in Alcove, unpacking minerals.” He worked ten hours a day for eleven days, mostly scouring lamp stands, but always starting the stove and sweeping the floor. After that he spent a week or two sanding the lab tables and oiling them. After classes started George worked only four or five hours a day. He took organic chemistry, vegetable physiology, landscape gardening, farm engineering, applied chemistry, and Shakespeare.
In 1873, George cut short his winter break and returned to Ames to work for Dr. Foote as well as the college. He helped the professor move, laid carpet, and ran errands. George was something like a lab assistant, setting up lab equipment and apparatus, conducting some experiments for his own research, and preparing chemicals for student experiments. Some of these chemicals were toxic.
George got the mumps. “Sun. Feb. 23 – Since Tuesday I have been seriously troubled with swelling and pains in my jaw and gonads. Have been unable to work except a little by the stove.” After a week, he recovered. Courses in the first part of his senior year were geology, mineralogy, applied chemistry, agriculture and psychology.
George received a Bachelor of Science degree in November, 1873, the second year degrees were awarded by the College. However, he was extremely ill when he returned home and he never recovered his health. A year later on December 21, 1874, George R. Flower died.
The local newspaper said George suffered “by a too close application to his books while a student of the Agricultural College at Ames. He was well-beloved among his friends and acquaintances and his loss was felt by many.” George was buried on top of the hill in Indian Mound Cemetery by his grieving family.