81 years, not 3 floods, made house a home

[okarol]

Updated September 29. 2008 7:43AM
81 years, not 3 floods, made house a home
By Dave Rasdal
The Gazette
dave.rasdal@gazettecommunications.com

CEDAR RAPIDS - Amazingly, as Harvey Nelson, 88, walks through the flooded shell of his house at 1725 Ellis Blvd. NW, he can smile.

It certainly isn't because Harvey remembers the house being flooded three times — in 1929, 1961 and this year.

It's not because his wife of nearly 68 years, Clairbel, died the day before this year's flooding began.

And it's not because he has decided to walk away, to wait for a buyout and settle into his efficiency apartment at Kingston Hill, 202 12th St. NW.

It's because Harvey remembers the good times.

Every day he drives his white 1997 Buick Park Avenue the 1.8-mile round trip to his house to reminisce. To make sure it is still OK. To pay tribute to a wonderful life.

"That was my home for 81 years," Harvey says. "There are a lot of memories here."

Harvey was 7 when his parents, Axel and Anna Nelson, rented the storefront building. At the front, in an area 25 feet wide and 13 feet deep, they established Nelson's Grocery. Axel had left Churchill Drug Co., operated a confectionary business for a few years in Moline, Ill., then returned to Cedar Rapids.

The store, Harvey says, was built before 1900 with lumber from old ice houses. It had rear living quarters with five bedrooms upstairs. Harvey's brother, Allan (who died seven years ago), was a year older. Walter, who lives in Chicago, is 17 years younger.

In January 1929, Dad had the year's first bad news.

"You don't have to go to school today," he said. "Your school has burned."

"We didn't believe him," Harvey recalls. "He was quite a kidder."

This was no joke. On Jan. 28, 1929, fire destroyed Harrison Elementary School. And less than two months later, floodwaters swirled near the store and deposited 5 feet of water into its basement.

"I can remember someone coming up to the store in a canoe," he says. "I remember a Big 4 Soap Chips box laying on the floor in the basement. The water was so clear you couldn't tell it was there."

With cleanup relatively easy, the store went on to weather the Depression. His parents bought the building in 1941 and even had other grocery stores for a time — on Mount Vernon Road SE and 17th Street NE.

After Axel died in 1946, Anna ran the store until a year before her death in 1959. Because Harvey's brothers didn't want it, he bought them out and leased it for a while.

When the flood of 1961 hit, Harvey was planning to move back into the house. That was delayed, however, when the Army Corps of Engineers built a dike along the Ellis Boulevard sidewalk, effectively channeling muddy water into the store's basement.

Cleaned up once again and remodeled in 1962 into three bedrooms upstairs, the house became home to Harvey and Clairbel. They had met Aug. 19, 1938, on a blind date picnic at Ellis Park — "That's the girl I'm going to marry," Harvey told his friend — married Aug. 28, 1940, and had four children.

After several jobs, including working for his parents, Harvey spent 1946 to 1977 with Metal Crafters and did his own decorative iron work. Clairbel retired as office manager after 32 years at Kenwood House furniture.

With Clairbel's diabetes, impending blindness and regular kidney dialysis, they planned to sell the house in July.

"I'd become a male nurse," Harvey says, "and I didn't mind it at all. She didn't want to go to a nursing home and I didn't want her to go. I took care of her and I'm glad I did."

But, when Clairbel's vital signs were too weak for dialysis on June 6, she was hospitalized at Mercy Medical Center. She died June 10.

Clairbel's funeral June 13 came just two days after a full basement and eight feet of water on the main floor chased Harvey from their home.

"It was a blessing that she went before the flood," Harvey says. "I don't think she could have taken it.

"I took care of her 24 hours a day," he adds, "and now I suddenly don't have anything to do. I've seen the river come up high for 81 years and this is the one I wish I'd never seen."

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