Desk built in 1954 Charles City classroom remains a family heirloom

By Kelly Terpstra, kterpstra@charlescitypress.com

Dick Cole built a desk.

Passed down from one generation to the next, the solid walnut, hand-crafted woodworking project that Cole constructed as a 17-year old junior in Mr. Elness’ industrial arts class at Charles City High School has stood the test of time — as has Cole.

“I’m still alive and the desk is still alive,” said Cole, now 82.

That desk has become a family heirloom for the former Charles City resident who now lives near the banks of the Mississippi River in Eldridge.

“It will be passed down,” said Cole, a former educator who still finds time to teach vocational trades like welding, automotive know-how and woodworking.

There’s a slide out drawer and several cabinets that show the craftsmanship that Cole’s hard-working hands undertook in January of 1954.

“It’s very solid and it’s got my heart in it, especially when it came to the finish. That was a tough job,” he said.

Cole painstakingly sanded the now 65-year old desk, stained it, applied varnish and almost a full semester later was left with a finished piece of furniture that reminds him of why he became a lifelong teacher in the first place.

“The purpose of the class in Charles City was to train people. I probably went beyond that and became a trainer of the people to be trained. I followed his footsteps and became a teacher,” said Cole of his mentor, industrial arts teacher Leland B. Elness.

A story about Elness’s high school industrial carpenter shop was featured in the Press during Cole’s junior year. It showed a picture of Cole and his desk at that time, and talked about how the class had done work for the music department, home economics room and school kitchen.

The  old desk now sits in the home of Cole’s daughter in Davenport. Keepsakes, photographs, check books, files and important documents have filled its spacious interior over the years.

The desk is not perfect, nor is anything really in life. And if Cole had a chance to do it all over again and make changes to what has now become an antique, he would.

“If I were to rebuild that desk, that opening for the chair would be slightly larger — if there was a design flaw,” he said.

The path the walnut desk has taken is a story in and of itself.

Cole’s parents left Charles City during the middle of his junior year when his father accepted a job in Hampshire, Illinois. Cole stuck around in Iowa with his girlfriend to finish out the school year in Charles City, where he also worked at a cabinet shop on E Street. He decided to stay around for his senior year, but his time in Charles City without his parents was short-lived.

“I saw the handwriting on the wall. It was going to be a tough winter,” said Cole.

So he moved to his family’s home in Illinois, where he studied his way into the graduating class of 1955 at Hampshire High School. Cole would attend Mason City Junior College — now NIACC — two years later. Mason City is where Shirley, his wife of 62 years, is from.

At that time the desk remained in the Quad Cities. After Cole’s father retired in the 1970s, he moved back to Charles City and along with him came the desk.

“He longed to be back in Charles City,” said Cole.

Not long before Cole’s father died in 2000, an auction was held to sell off some of the family’s property. But around that time a substantial flood swept through Charles City, and the attendance for the auction was sparse.

Cole wasn’t sure if the desk was put out for sale or not, but either way, the desk would remain in the Cole family. So back went the desk down south, where Cole worked for seven different schools, the longest at United Township High School in East Moline, Illinois, and later at Scott Community College in Bettendorf.

Cole tried to pinpoint the path of the desk, but not all his memories are clear on its travels back-and-forth across Iowa and Illinois.

“I never thought about that, but it does have a few miles on it, doesn’t it?” Cole laughed.

Cole is scheduled to speak at the University of Northern Iowa this fall and talk to future teachers. He said he’ll try to encourage them to get into education and stay in it.

“My job in October will be to try to convince them that there’s more to it than just the paycheck and there’s also more opportunities than just the starting salary,” he said.

Cole also understands the reason many young adults forgo college and enter the workforce immediately.

“One thing the taxpayer probably doesn’t realize is how much industrial tech-type students – the non-college-bound students – add to the economy and community,” said Cole. “They’re the ones that get into the trades to fix your furnace, fix your toilet and make your cabinets. Oftentimes the beginning salary is so much higher for those two trades versus going into teaching.”

Cole also wanted to emphasize a valuable trait that he reminds his students – that your worth shouldn’t be dictated by dollar signs.

“I have a saying and I apply this to my teaching. It’s not what you make money-wise, it’s what you do with what you make,” he said.

Cole said he has plans to turn the desk into a time capsule, where he’ll store items from year’s past that help tell a story about his family and where the desk has been.

He’ll seal it and remember to sign the desk, now 65 years after it was made.

“I need to make sure I sign it. That’s something I told kids when I taught them. I didn’t do it in the beginning,” Cole said. “But when you make a piece of furniture or picture frame or whatever it may be, sign your name and the date and where it was made. I think that is so important.”