According to Sharon (Wickre) Rickard, this photo was taken of the feed mill in Rolfe, Iowa, "After my dad opened for business." At the beginning of the Wickre ownership of this business in 1944, it was named Climax Mill and Feed. Later it was Climax Feed and Grain. (Click on photo to enlarge.)
.
Click here to listen to the second of five segments of a conversation I had this spring with Sharon (Wickre) Rickard (Rolfe High School, 1960). This segment is approximately seven minutes long.
The first two segments refer mainly to Sharon’s parents’ Rolfe business shown in the photograph above. All of the five segments have to do with Sharon being raised in Rolfe, Iowa, from 1944 to 1960.
If anything Sharon said conjures up any of your memories, I hope you will email them to me (mariongundersonart@gmail.com) and/or include them below in the comment area.
Sharon’s parents, Barbara and Henry Wickre, purchased Climax Mill and Feed in 1944, the same year they moved to Rolfe with Sharon and her sister Beryl. (Sharon was two years old at the time.) Because the functionality of the business changed at a later date, they changed the name to Climax Feed and Grain. That functionality change is explained in the first segment included in a previous post. That previous post shows two photos…including the “elevator” scale.
In the comment section of that previous post, my sister, Clara, asked me to tell my story about that scale. It IS a fun little story…..now! But, not then! You may navigate to that story by clicking on the following links.
Grain Elevators and Teenage Dating — Part I
Grain Elevators and Teenage Dating — Part II
Subsequent segments of my conversation with Sharon refer to several former and/or present landmarks in Rolfe, Iowa. I’ll most likely have the third segment posted by mid- to late- next week.
* * * * * * * *
(Click here to go to Louise Shimon’s blog’s home page.
Tags: Barbara Wickre, Climax Feed and Grain, Climax Mill and Feed, Henry Wickre, Sharon Rickard, Sharon Wickre
Marion Gunderson Art (and the Farmer's Daughter) 
July 16, 2010 at 7:04 pm |
I do love looking at the old photos. Surprising how little has actually changed.
October 15, 2020 at 1:42 pm |
Hi Louise. I just happened to stumble across this site and I’m so glad I did. You have done such important work. I’m in the process of writing about my childhood and teen years in Rolfe from 1952 to 1963. I was a year ahead of Martha’s class with Kathy Ives and Janet Jordan. We moved to Creston in January of 1963 due to my dads promotion with Iowa Electric ( now Alliant) I enjoyed Sharon Wickres entries and lived down Grant Street to the north. That was an awesome street and I’m so enthused to write and tell more about it. Anyway, here’s my email so if you have anymore exciting Rolfe stuff please let me know. BTW Our family used to go to Webb’s Cabin (your Gunderlak) on Okoboji for a week every summer. I loved that place. Stu tried to sell it to my dad for $25,000 and my parents couldn’t afford it at that time. Whoa! What a change in value now. You guys have made it beautiful. Anyway enough of my rambling .Talk to you more later. Susan Lawton Stock