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Dorothy Frantzen's Scrapbook, c. 1968-1980

As a young girl and college student, Dorothy Mae Birmingham kept a memory book (1927-1932) and a photograph album (1926-1933). As the mother of six grown children, four of whom had married and left home, she started a scrapbook of newspaper clippings (about 1968 to 1980). That book is reproduced here. Many pages are layered, meaning mother taped one article or picture over another; in those cases there are two pictures for the page so that all the contents can be seen. There is a guide to pages and an index of names below the cover.

INDEX	Pages 1-4.	Pages 5-8.	Pages 9-12.	Pages 13-16.
Pages 17-20.	Pages 21-24.	Pages 25-28.	Pages 28-31.	Pages 32-35.
Iowa history	Hockspeier Farm	First church	World War I veteran	Grocery store

Page 1. Two unidentified young women. The article below identifies 4 from a previous mystery photograph, all of them waitresses at the marriage of another Dorothy, Dorothy Frantzen, sister of John Frantzen (Dorothy Birmingham's husband), to Dorothy Frantzen's husband Tom Reynolds (no date given; Dorothy Reynolds lived 1913-2000, Tom 1900-1982).
Page 2 (layered content). An essay on Good Friday by Patricia Penton Leimbach, source unknown.
Page 2, beneath Good Friday essay: Photo of Communion Class of 1954 from St. Bernard's Church, Alta Vista, Iowa.

Date of the article is unknown, but all the girls in the picture are given married names in the article (e.g., Mary Heying Elliott, the flower girl on the right). I am the short acolyte on the left, my cousin David Frantzen is the acolyte standing next to me. Back to top

Pages 3 and 4, layed content on right.

Left side, advertisement for Frantzen Photography, Maquoketa, Iowa, no date but about 1965.
Right side, top: invitation to Spring 1969 graduation party hosted by Allen Frantzen at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Rhomberg, where he rented a room his last semester at Loras College.
The invitation was sent to my parents; I don't know who wrote it. The short clipped, bottom left, says that my parents attended the party. Next to it is an article from a Dubuque newspaper, probably the Catholic paper, giving the names of 15 students from the Archdiocese of Dubuque who were on the honor roll at Loras College (Spring 1969).

My graduation picture and an article summing up my Loras days. The last line: "He will enlist in the Army in July." And I did. Back to top

Pages 5 and 6

Graduation announcement and pictures for David Frantzen and for me, presumably from the New Hampton weekly newspaper. Articles at bottom note that I was included in a collegiate Who's Who and that I won a poetry award at Loras, Spring 1969.

Right side: an article about my parents' trip to Minneapolis to pick up my sister Mary Ann and her daugher Helen at the airport, also noting other visits they made.
Upper right: reference to death of a friend of my parents. Bottom picture: at left, Ellen and Wayne Frantzen with friends at a Chamber of Commerce dinner, Maquoketa, Iowa. Below that, I went to Waterloo to meet my friend from Dublin, Patrick O'Neill, then a grad student at the Univerity of Toronto. Christmas 1977 or -78?

Pages 7 and 8. Layered content

Time marches on. I graduate from the University of Virginia, Ph.D., 1976. Out of sequence is an article about an award won by the college newspaper I edited (1969).
Right side: I get a grant from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for a year in Germany, Spring 1979.
Next to that, article about the tragic death of my first cousin Patrick Fair in an auto accident on December 21, 1976. He was only 24, married, with 2 children.
Beneath these articles, two more notices of untimely deaths: my first cousin Lee Maruska (1972); and the suicide of Thomas Determan; I am not sure how he was related to Jack Determan, who was best man at my parents' wedding in 1935.
Beneath these three notices is a notice of death of my grandmother, Rose Stalzer Frantzen (1977).

Pages 9 and 10

Left, Sharon Frantzen named student of the week in New Hampton newspaper.
Right, a former New Hampton football coach died at 42, leaving 7 children and his wife. To the right, a poem, and below the picture of a neighbor's son, Randy Erion, who began coaching in Maquoketa. Also on this page, an article by Billy Graham, beginning just below his picture, which is cut off.

Pages 11 and 12

Left page, center bottom, notice of visitors to Rose Stalzer Frantzen in New Hampton for her 93rd brthday.
Right page, right bottom: Mother's sister Cyrilla and her husband John celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary in 1979. Back to top

Pages 13 and 14

Left: 1967. Twins in Maquoketa, including, being held by the boys on the right, Jerry and Joanne Frantzen (many of the children seem quite unhappy).
Beneath this picture, one of Jerry and Joanne on their first birthday. ". . . and their maternal great-grandmother is Mrs. A. A. McCarville, Elma. Their paternal great-grandmother is Mrs. Rose Frantzen, Alta Vista."

Right-hand page. Wedding picture of Irene and Tom Frantzen, October 1976. There is no text or description attached. Next is an article about Tom being named one of the Outstanding Young Men of America by the Jaycees US Board of Advisors, with a nice biography of Tom included, mentioning several awards he had received.

Page 15-16 Layed content, unattached pictures

Group photo outside St. William School, Alta Vista. No names; in fact, the caption asks the reader to identify the teacher and students. Good luck! Bottom notice, right, announces a town Jaycee meeting, as per Tom Frantzen, president.
Below group picture just above, announcement about Tom.

Upper left, Tom joins Olwein Chemical dealership. Right side, lower picture, third from left is my father's sister Olivia Ralph, my godmother.

Picture of Tom, top row, middle, with other Jaycee officers at the annual picnic in Alta Vista, no date.

No Frantzens mentioned in this picture of a birthday party in New Hampton for kids born between January and June 1980. Back to top

Pages 17-18

Tom is in teacher training for religious instruction; he's at the right, arms folded.
Right side: Christmas season, 1977, with a summary of temperatures from Dec. 6 to 12, minus 20s and teens. This was 1977. That's dad standing on the snowbank, upper right, half a mile "north of the Tom Frantzen farm grove." I am sure our mother took the picture.

Pages 19-20 layered content

Steven Frantzen (left, with nobody behind him) goes to Des Moines with the Maquoketa jazz band, 1979. Below the picture, a note about the death of Stella Fair, mother of our uncle Wally Fair, and, next to that note, a summary of visitors at mom and dad's house for a pre-Christmas dinner. The Dave Franten family also dropped by.
Right page: Joyce Alt becomes director of nursing at a hospital in Houston. Her father owned a shoe store in Alta Vista where we always bought our shoes.

Beneath the above on these pages, left, family gathers after a wedding in Georgia on June 11. This is Billy Carter's filling station in Plains, Ga. Dad, his sister Marie, her husband Leo, Olivia Ralph, behind her our mother, next to her June Sommers, and then Leon Johnson, friend of Billy Carter.
At right, death notice of a nun from New Hampton and notice of the 50th Jubilee of Sister Martin, mother's sister. There was a June celebration in Lourdes. Back to top

Pages 21-22 layered content

Left: mother reports on the visit she and dad made to Califoria. Seems to be 1979. Next to it, death notice of mother's brother Martin Birmingham, at 67.
Right page: unattached. May 1978 class reunion of 1928 graduating class of Immaculate Conception Academy. Standing next to the priest at the center is our mother (Msgr. John Chihak). Mom's brother Pat was there, and so was dad.
Pasted in, beneath reunion picture, is a big picture of a teen weekend. No names for all these people. The small article to the lower right says that John Frantzen won a snowmobile in a Jaycee drawing.

Pages 23-24

Mom and dad's neighbor, Carl Jungbluth, won a district conservation award. We were good friends with his parents.
Let side, awards for women in a Catholic group, seen with Archbishop Byrne. No date. Folded article below is another copy of the picture from Billy's station (already seen above).

Pages 25-28
Pages 25-26 layered content. Left, Diane Frantzen is mentioned in an article about graduation plans for 1972 seniors at New Hampton High School. Is she pictured here?
Right side: Wedding picture for Marion Roths, daughter of our good friends and one-time neighbors, LaVern and Mable.
Upper right, son of the Deutsch, Billy, neighbors to Marie and Leo Hilsman.
Bottom: 4 unidentified women at a wedding; readers were to guess their names. From 1977.

All remaining pictures were unattached and have been placed on pages by Allen Frantzen, December 2022, and paginated with the rest of the Scrapbook.
Pages 27-28: one picture, Tom Frantzen as finalist in the Iowa State Jaycee Speak Up contest, having won first place in the regional competition.
Right: A Catholic Women’s meeting, with a role for Dorothy Frantzen, 3rd paragraph.

Pages 27-28:

Carl White, former mayor of Alta Vista, a veteran of World War I, seen here but not in his WW I uniform. A very fine article about one of the area’s few WW I veterans. He was mayor of the town for 42 years.

Pages 28-31 layered content

Pages 29-30. Left, a new series of articles about New Hampton schools.

right, The Irish settlement in Chickasaw County, beginning with a church built in 1856.

continued next page

Pages 31-32
A poem, opposite yet another picture from the Georgia filling station

Pages 32-35

A tree in the wind (not an Iowa scene).

Pages 35-36

The Shullsburg family. (The article contains an unusual comment on birth control, a sensitive topic given the size of this family; is this why mother kept it?)

Back to the family! Mother and Dad pick up Mary Ann and Helen, having met Ray and Jean Tuchner in Rochester.

Two Nuns, is one of them Sr. Martin?

Transcribed note on back:
This was taken last August down in Eastern Missouri. Sr. M. Veronica is the sensible looking soul on the left. You had better tear this up after you've seen it. It is not for the public eye! Jaycee park picnic

Undated Valentine to mom and dad from me

There are misc. clippings tucked into the back of the book, but not all are relevant to the family.
Hockspeier Century Family Farm. A picture from about 1877

A long-time Alta Vista grocery store, ending with a list of those who worked there over the decades

Mother's letter about her trip west with dad (2 pages)

Three last pieces: A letter to the editor from Tom, about taxes
Judy Frantzen visits her brother Joe, who is in the Army in Georgia
An anonymous donor funds a scholarship to honor mother's sister, Sister M. Martin, in Clinton

End of this document

12-15-22