GULLIXSON: Taking my son to rediscover family roots - and the surprise that awaited us

Turning off Highway 169 onto 130th Street in our metallic blue PT Cruiser, we rattled over a railroad crossing with no gates or lights and spotted a grain elevator in the distance. The sight came with a borrowed sense of homecoming.

This town ahead, a place called Bode, an L-shaped patch on that tapestry of farmlands known as Iowa, was not mine. But it was family.

It’s part of our narrative — a true narrative, as my father didn’t write down any of the stories about growing up with six brothers here in a sea of cornfields. He told them to us, my brothers and sisters and me. Over and over again.

And we loved them.

Stories of swimming in Lott’s Creek; of Laddie the collie riding on the running board of the family Packard on Sunday outings; of candling eggs at Monson’s general store; of crowding around the radio to listen to second cousin Ozzie Orwell play for the Philadelphia Athletics; of my grandfather trying to outrun a twister before pulling over and making the boys dive in a ditch. And stories of playing ball, any kind of ball, with anything they could find or invent.

The tragic stories were told, too, such as the one about Oswald Gullixson, the second oldest brother, who drowned while visiting cousins near Fort Dodge or Dakota City. I can’t remember where.

He was 10, the same age as my son, Christopher, who sat beside me as we slowly started through the center of town, rock crushing under our tires.

“Well, here we are,” I said leaning toward the windshield. “This is Bode.”

Bode isn’t on the way anywhere, and, frankly, there isn’t much to see when you get there. A cinder block library, bank and a tavern called “Big John’s” on the left. On the right was a post office and a few storefronts with dusty windows. Beyond the second stop sign was the grain elevator, a farm equipment dealer and a corner store offering two gas pumps, a smattering of groceries, hot food and greeting cards. That was it.

But it was everything I expected. My main purpose in coming was to take advantage of a rare trip to the Midwest — for my son’s academic competition — to show Christopher part of his prologue. In California, where re-invention is almost a daily pastime, we can lose track of our back stories and the people who wrote them.

Our story is not particularly unique. My great-grandfather Andrew Gullixson and a handful of other Norwegian Lutherans homesteaded this prairie land after the Civil War. They came seeking a new life, a better future for their children.

Then, in 1939, in the middle of the Depression, my father, Conrad, loaded my grandparents in the Packard and pulled out of town, heading for California, looking for the same thing, a new start.

As children, we could not appreciate the sacrifice contained in those tales of building schools, churches and lives from scratch — and then leaving. The only sense of loss we really understood concerned Laddie, who, my father told us, died shortly after they arrived at their new home in California. He was hit by a car. “He was a country dog,” my dad tried to explain to us. “He wasn’t suited for city life.”

All of the Gullixson brothers — Paul, Oswald, Hal, Earl, David, Roland and Conrad — are gone now. Ironically, Roland, who was wounded and received a Bronze Star for heroism in World War II before being confined to a wheelchair with polio, outlived them all. But he finally passed away in 2007.

So here we were, Christopher and I, direct beneficiaries of those pioneering efforts, coming back amid a new time of economic turmoil for our nation.

Where will people go now to get a new start?

I thought about this during our brief visit. We didn’t do much. We pulled out our mitts and played catch on the school field where my father played long ago. We went through the archives at the local Lutheran church and found photos of all the boys in their confirmation classes. And we scoured the grave stones outside of town where we discovered a tall memorial in honor of “The Gullixsons — Pioneers of the community.” We also spent a moment at young Oswald’s grave.

But the highlight came as, armed with only old photos, we found my father’s home. The sapling in the black and white picture was now a monstrous shade tree, but the residence was much the same.

“Let’s go knock on the door,” said Christopher.

“I don’t want to bother them,” I said.

“C’mon, you’ll regret it if we don’t,” he said taking off across the lawn.

By the time I stepped on the porch he had already rung the doorbell. A congenial woman named Halsrud answered, and, after a quick introduction and explanation of our visit, she ushered us inside. “Let me see those pictures,” she said.

What ensued was a hectic exchange of histories, names, pictures, dates and upgrades to the home. Then she said, “Before you leave, I have to show you something. I think you will find this interesting.”

We followed her down into the basement, where she took us to a far corner room. “I didn’t know who these people were, but I never had the heart to paint over the names,” she said, opening the wood door.

Inside, scattered over the brick foundation walls were numerous hand-painted names and notes. They included “David Gullixson was here” “Judge Hal 1937” and, for whatever reason, “Conrad is sad.” On the far wall, in red paint was “Roly, age 14. Bode, Ia." likely written in 1934.

One of our favorites was the one scrawled low in white paint that read simply “Laddie is the best dog ever.”

Christopher’s eyes were wide as he read each one. “It’s as if they were leaving us a message,” he told me later.

I suppose so.