History Halloween Hoot

     A year ago August, I thought it would be a hoot to dress up in a hoop skirt on Halloween, go up to the East Side School and tell the kids the story of John Yates Beall, Cascade's "spy." (Always spooked us!) In the early 1950s East Side of Cascade kids attended kindergarten in the old Chew mansion, where the school sits now. All of us knew about the "spy" blood upstairs.
     Beyond "spy" blood, (almost assuredly NOT ) we knew nothing--even Beall's name. So, I beat a path to the Museum. Father Loras Otting, who had done extensive research, then developed health problems had donated his work to Tri-County, and I spent several afternoons surveying it. (Thanks Fr. Otting, Bob Takes, and Paul Neiers!)
     The previous principal who initially appeared very excited by my Halloween plan to entertain with history in costume, rejected the story as too sad for grade schoolers. (She then scheduled Ronald McDonald to talk about fairness, responsibility, etc. Yeah! Ronnie knows about that stuff--McDo pays workers minimum wage they can't live on!)
     By then, however, I had become fascinated by Beall's story. Too, documents  had come online including Beall's "memoir," an assemblage of his jail diary and transcript of his military trial ("Guilty"), put together by his best childhood friend,  Daniel Lucas, then a successful Virginia lawyer. I spent the winter immersed in them and this summer finished an 16-page monologue of Margaret Chew telling Beall's story.
    This is not only our history, but Iowa history, and I believe producing the monologue with pix and music in the Ellen Kennedy Center next summer, which is the 150th Anniversary of both the end of the Civil War and the death of John Yates Beall will be the gift of history to the whole state.

Plus, this will allow us to view it with a critical eye sharped by time.