A Community Recovers

By Jan Holten - Standing in the three feet high of weeds that has grown in my ex-tidy yard, hit me really hard, for now I realize the death of my home.

The main frame of the old house was erected in 1905. In the district known as the Hall edition. It was a great home for that era and the owner was a well known Street Car Conductor.

As time went on the house accepted with great character a beautiful , new kitchen area, a front porch, then a back porch enclosed.

The Deed and Abstract shows evidence that several people occupied and owned this nice dwelling. It tells many interesting events during the 103 year reign. The basement, had great flood walls, that had been expertly built after the Flood of 1923. So this magnificent home had endured great trials, during it’s life long standing on this spot on earth.

Our occupancy began in 1966. We first rented it and then after a year, we bought it. It needed someone who would clean its old face and make it shine again. Other beautiful buildings were added and trees. One tree that grows elegantly in the backyard is a Burr Oak tree. It is the State Tree that represents the State of Iowa. It was started from an acorn. Now standing 8 feet tall. The productive Cherry tree has given us so much fruit and jelly’s. But it now stands wounded with major sap lose.

The Pine that came from Canada, stands drooped over and has major sap lose. The neatly kept small buildings are destroyed. Sheet rock falling off and mold all over. The house as I stand in the weeds and look at it, has died.

Cedar Rapids police told us there was a mandatory evacuation order. Thinking that the water would not get high, we left all our wonderful personal belongings behind in the old house. We figured that the house would stand strong and endure whatever.

Little did we realize that the elegant old house would try to endure eleven feet of surface water, swirling with heavy current water from the Cedar River. That does not include the eight feet of water held in the basement.

On June 11 we left through the backdoor. The water in the front was coming up quickly from the sewer on O Avenue. By the time we decided to leave the water was already up to our front steps. I should have recognized that sign, as not being good, but I still continued to think it would not be so bad.

We went to the Marion Motel, with much regret. June 12, was showing heavier water being spilled over the levee, rushing water and pushing everything to the South. The current was heavy and the water was deep.

On June 13, it was major and this is the day our house died in the Flood of 2008. For eight days, we were not allowed to enter into the drowned house. We could not help it in any way and it was at the mercy of the Flood waters.

Finally we were allowed to go back to the house that we had loved since 1966. Walking through the muddy doorways and seeing the guts of the house was a total shock. The smell was horrible. It had not started to rot yet. But the house was dead.

The inside and out, was total despair. Our family all gathered to try to save the dead house, pulling out all it’s guts and trying to stop the decay of mold. The house was gutted, but the dead house was starting to show more mold in the beams that had been erected 103 years ago. The foundation was showing strain on the north wall.

Standing here on August 4, tears flow easily, because the full realization that the house is gone. The memories are here, but the house is gone. It did not die from old age, or neglect, but it died from the ravaging waters of the Cedar River, that was only one block away.

So what do us that own this ex-worthy old dwelling do now? We need the expertise of the City of Cedar Rapids to properly bury this old house. We don’t want to just let it stand here, looking dead, but we need to act responsibly and bury this dead house.

The City can use this land to develop something beautiful. Time Check, goes way back. We can bury the dead, smelling houses and erect a monument, giving tribute to the Time Check Area.

I and others are asking the City of Cedar Rapids to buy the house and continue to plan Great things for that area.

On August 5, I came back to my dead house and all the neighboring houses are dead. It is a graveyard of dead houses. No one was home. The doors are wide open and no one is going in. The emptiness consumes the entire Time Check area. Time to move on and forget. But it is not easy.

- By Jan Holten