The Search for Grandma Sparkle

by Darlene Miller

  “Hi, Sarah. This is Bob Van Gilst.” Bob solemnly shook her hand.

  “Miss, your boyfriend wants to come for the ride too. First you climb onto the stepping stool and your boyfriend will help you climb into the basket. Then I’ll climb in and we will be underway.”

  There was a loud WHOOSH as the gas burner further inflated the balloon. Then someone on the ground untethered it. There was a little bump and then the giant balloon rose into the blue sky.

  “We are going to float southeast. I understand that we are looking for a white haired adult wearing a green shirt and a blond child wearing a gray shirt and blue shorts. If they are walking on a country road or in a soybean field or pasture, we should be able to see them.”

  “Thank you, sir, for helping us,” Sarah said.

  “That’s okay. Here are two pair of binoculars for you to use. I’m just sorry about your grandma and niece.”

  Tiny cars and trucks followed gravel roads as well as Hwy. 5. Farm houses and barns, schools and churches, passed beneath them as they flew near Pleasantville and over Knoxville. They floated low over open areas but Van Gilst added gas as they neared trees and power lines and they swooped up again.

  Sarah pointed to the one pickup that seemed to follow them.

  “Do you see anything miss?”

  “I think that pickup is following us.”

  “Yes, it’s our chase vehicle. It will pick us up when we land. The balloons go in the direction of the wind with only a minimum of steering and inflating or deflating to guide them.”

  Tom said, “I never knew there were so many trees in southern Iowa.”

  “Yes, and your grandma and niece may be under the trees or even in a corn field and we won’t be able to see them.”

  After about an hour of flying, they landed in a pasture not far from Lovilla.

  A man jumped from the pickup and ran to the balloon.

  “Did you see anything?” He asked.

  “No. It’s like finding a needle in a hay stack,” Tom answered.

  The man and Van Gilst started folding the balloon and putting it into the truck bed. Tom helped them.

  “Miss, sorry that we didn’t find anything that helped,” Van Gilst said.

  “Thanks again,” Sarah replied.

  Tom climbed into the back seat of the king cab pickup and held out a hand to Sarah to help her up. Van Gilst sat in the front passenger seat as the driver circled the pasture before driving the gravel road to Highway 5 on the trip back to Indianola. The men in the front seat chatted about the weather and the new balloonists they met.

  Sarah slumped in the back seat. One look at Sarah’s dejected face told Tom that the Sarah who had felt so buoyant as they floated in the air; had now crash landed. He wanted to hold her in his arms but they needed their seat belts secured. Especially with the two men in the front seat, this was not a time for private conversation. Instead, just quietly held her hand.

  Sarah thought, I’ve criticized Susan for her depression and now I’m the one with little hope. God, how long can an old woman and small child survive on just her social security money? Motels and food cost a lot. Besides, even with a reward, there had been no reported motel sightings of grandma and Jessica.

  When they got to the balloon site in Indianola, Tom helped Sarah out of the pickup. She gently thanked Van Gilst again for the balloon ride. Tom turned to Sarah, “Do you want to go get something to eat or walk around here?”

  “I don’t feel hungry but I could use something to drink. How about you?”

  “I’m hungry. I served lunch but didn’t eat myself. I was afraid that I might get nauseous on the flight?. . . Why don’t we drive around until we find a quiet place?”

  They found a Dairy Queen. Tom ordered a hamburger, fries and a shake while Sarah only wanted a shake and water.

  After a couple of hours of chatting, with Tom doing most of the talking, Sarah decided to drive home while Tom returned to Ankeny.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The next morning Sarah woke up in the bed that Susan usually slept in at Grandma Sparkle’s house.

  She wondered what to do today when her cell phone rang.

  Her father’s voice boomed, “Where on earth are you? Why haven’t you been home?”

  Sarah’s irritated voice answered, “I’ve been at Grandma Sparkle’s house. Don’t you remember the discussion that it was better for someone to stay in the house since the whole country knows that Grandma is missing and the house was empty?”

  “Yeah, well there has been some news. The sheriff called here and said that they found a purse they believe belongs to your grandmother in the Des Moines River.”

  “Oh no. Did they find her cell phone too?”

  “They did but it’s broken. It’s water logged and the battery was out. That’s why no one could trace it’s location. They are trying to fix it so they know where she went before someone dumped the phone. There wasn’t any identification in it. The credit cards and money were missing.”

  “Did anyone use the credit cards?”

  “Yeah, someone went to HyVee on Sunday and bought candy, bread and cigarettes. Since the total wasn’t enough for a signature, the sheriff said that they don’t know who bought it. The store was busy with people from the races since they ran in the afternoon and the clerk didn’t remember anyone looking like Grandma.”

  “On Sunday?”

  “Well, you do remember that the races were rained out on Saturday night.”

  “Grandma would never buy cigarettes even when Susan wanted her to buy them for her. . . Where on the Des Moines River did they find the purse?”

  “Near Swan.”

  “Swan?”

  “It’s past Pleasantville, about three miles off the highway on the road to Runnells.”

  “I’m going there.”

  “But what can you do? Someone should help your mother. I hate to leave her alone.”

  “Dad, I’m going to Swan.”

  “Be careful. It doesn’t look good. I think that someone kidnapped them,” he sadly replied.

  Sarah quickly dressed and drove to Highway 5 along much of the route she had driven the day before. Instead of going west on Highway 92 to Indianola, she turned and went past the Pleasantville exit slowing down to 55 miles per hour on the four lane highway.

  After exiting on the road to Runnells, she turned south to Swan. Grandma had brought her to this little mining town and explained that it was once an important place on the railroad to Des Moines. In the 1950’s or 60’s, one half of Swan was sold to the government. After the dam was built, that half of town was covered by the Red Rock Lake.

  Sarah drove past the two story brick schoolhouse with boarded up windows to Hill street but she couldn’t see any activity anywhere. She returned to the road leading toward Runnells and drove toward the Des Moines River.

  A red headed Highway Patrolman was directing traffic around the area. Drivers were rubbernecking as they slowly passed the patrol car. She pulled onto the shoulder of the road just short of the yellow crime tape and walked to the patrolman. The tall slender law officer said, “May I help you?”

  “I’m Sarah Spoolstra. Opal Spoolstra is my grandmother and Jessica is my niece.”

  The young patrolman nodded to where the two deputies were walking the riverside as they searched the area.

  “Please stay behind the tape. I can’t let you get any closer because you might disturb any clues we may find.”

  “My father said that you found her purse. Where is it? May I see it?”

  “The purse isn’t here. The sheriff took it to the Knoxville police station. Actually, the purse hasn’t been positively identified as belonging to your grandmother since there wasn’t any identification in it. If you want to help, you could go to the police station in Knoxville and identify it.”

  “Okay.”

  “Just a minute. Let me call and verify that it’s still there and not sent to a crime lab in Des Moines.”

  The patrol
man turned away from her and made a phone call. When he was finished, he said, “Yes, it’s there. They want you to go right away to the police station. Ask for Bob Watson.”

  Sarah drove carefully back through Knoxville to the police station by the 3M company. A part of her wanted the purse to be her grandmothers and a part of her wanted it to belong to someone else.

  When she asked for Bob Watson, she saw a young blond policeman rise from his desk and put his hat on to cover his receding hair that showed premature hints of silver. Sarah introduced herself and explained her mission. He asked to see her driver’s license before bringing the tray into the room. Someone had put paper towels down to line the plastic tray and to absorb the water from the wet contents.

  “Please don’t touch anything on the tray because we will attempt to get fingerprints when these items are dry,” he said.

  The bag looked like Grandma’s white purse but the dirty water had colored the outside a greenish gray. When she saw the sodden tissues, pens, comb, lipstick and lip gloss she was pretty sure that it belonged to her grandmother.

  Then she spied a folded paper which read “Please pray for each other: Our known sick/recovering are Nancy Carter, Gary Henderson, Bert McCombs, Mary Lou Shepherd.” It was the back of the church bulletin. The purse had to belong to Grandma Sparkle.

  A tear slid down her cheek as she nodded her head. She turned to the police officer and spoke softly, “Yes, that’s Grandma’s purse.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Sarah’s cell phone rang after five o clock in the evening. She saw that it was the daily telephone call from Tom Hager.

  “Hi. How is it going?”

  “Not good. They found grandma’s cell phone at the edge of the Des Moines River by Swan.”

  “That’s good. Isn’t it?”

  “There wasn’t any money or credit cards in it. It looks like whoever took it just threw it there to get rid of it. The police or sheriff officers are trying to dry out the phone to tell where it’s been. I heard someone say they were going to use rice.”

  “Maybe they can get some clues from it.”

  “The purse is just a water logged mess. I saw it. I even identified the purse as Grandma’s purse since there wasn’t any identification in it. Now the question is, was it thrown in the water before or after Grandma and Jessica were dumped wherever they are?”

  “That must have been hard for you.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Sorry that I can’t be there with you until Tuesday. That’s my day off from the cafe. I can be there after morning classes.”

  “Okay.”

  “How are you coming on your paper? It’s for Iowa History, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. I’m doing research on the coal that was mined in Southern Iowa.”

  Sarah really didn’t feel like talking about mining now but at least Tom talked about ordinary things and didn’t make all sorts of judgments about Grandma Sparkle.

  “What about Northern Iowa?” she replied.

  “No. The reason is that the Pennsylvanian Sea at one time covered Iowa. The air was colder when the plates under the continents pushed up the earth. Glaciers were formed. As they melted, they became a moving body of icy silt. The trees, other plant life and sea animals, dropped into this silt. These carbon deposits, especially tree bark, became coal. Northern Iowa was still covered with glaciers after they had receded from the southern Iowa area. If there is coal in Northern Iowa, it is so deep that it isn’t profitable to mine.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. Then Southern Iowa was exposed to snow, rain and wind. The run off in the summer caused gullies which formed creeks and hills. That’s where you find coal. Northern Iowa became more of an alluvial plain which you see as flat farm ground today. Because of pressures in the earth, the underlying rocks break into faults where the earth is broken and raised or lowered like in earthquakes. The broken rock can contain coal or other deposits. Because this debris is broken in pieces, coal isn’t usually found in one long continuous layer. When the miners reach a layer of clay or rock deposits, they move on to another coal deposit.”

  “Interesting.”

  “The evolutionists say that it took millions and millions of years for the coal to develop. Those who believe the Bible think that coal beds formed from plant debris, especially tree bark, buried by Noah’s Flood about 4,500 years ago. This peat became coal.”

  “Is this like peat or muck found in Michigan?”

  “What do you know about muck?”

  “My great-grandfather grew celery and onions in a sticky, moist black soil near Hudsonville, and Byron Center, Michigan. Grandma Sparkle and my parents took me there one summer when I was little. I think the muck was formed from swampy bogs.”

  Tom replied. “Coal was formed much the same way with the added factor of heat from inside the earth and the pressure of the dirt on top of it. There is methane gas in peat so when it is dried, it can be used for fuel. It usually occurs in flat seams, often with many thin bands of stone and clay running through the seams. The contacts between the stone and coal are flat. This does not suggest a swamp environment, but that the vegetation and sediment were laid down rapidly by flowing water in a sideways direction, like in the aftermath of Noah’s flood. This sideways motion was again shown in the aftermath of the eruption of Mt. St. Helens. The sideways or vertical coal beds, which later were shaft mines, suggest a much shorter time period for the formation of coal than the evolutionists say.”

  “I didn’t know all this,” Sarah said. “So God created coal after the flood?”

  “Yeah. I think so.” Tom said. “When people found that coal was a longer lasting fuel with burning time longer than wood, and higher energy when it was combusted, they used it for heating. Also they found the coal on their property so it was free for the labor. Remember that Iowa was part of the Great Plains so many areas weren’t covered with trees for heating.” . . . Tom paused to catch his breath. Then he continued talking on the phone to Sarah.

  “In the 1870’s, after the Civil War, train tracks were built across our nation. They needed coal to run. When coal was found near the middle of the country, it became valuable for more than heating homes and businesses. It ran trains. Train tracks were built to the mines both to supply the train with fuel and to transport coal to other cities. Coal was also used as the fuel that made electricity in Iowa about 1900.

  When diesel fuel became popular, coal became obsolete for trains. Most mining towns disappeared when coal “gave out.” The miners moved to another mine or to the larger cities to find work. It seemed that when the towns were a meeting place for all folks like farmers and miners, in churches and schools; more of them survived, even though they lost population. The governments seats such as county courthouses, survived too.”

  Sarah replied, “Yes, the places of government would make a difference. I remember that our teacher, Miss Hall, asked us to write a paper about what we thought would happen if the state capitol had been near Tracy instead of Des Moines. I got an A on it.”

  Tom asked, “Tracy? Why would the capitol be near Tracy?”

  “It’s a true fact that the fifth general assembly passed an act to relocate the state capital to a new location in 1854. Bellefountaine came within one vote of being their choice. That was a town about one mile or so near Tracy. Kids wrote that we would live closer to a big city with malls, restaurants, museums and theaters. I wrote about living near a town that would have more stores, more jobs, new roads, new schools and new churches. Then I added that my cousin would live closer to us because his dad was a state senator. . . . Terry, who always got better grades than me, wrote about the significance of one or two votes instead of how his life would be changed. He got a B+ because although he wrote an excellent paper, he didn’t stick to the topic.

  Tom said, “Yes, life would be different today if some of those towns had survived.”

  Sarah moved to the living room and sat in Grandma’s recliner chair before she cont
inued the conversation. “I don’t know of anyone using coal today to heat their homes. Didn’t I read something about it being environmentally unfriendly?”

  Tom answered. “Yeah, some people say that coal burning is bad due to the production of harmful by-products like nitrogen, carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide.”

  “Oh, so you aren’t doing the ABC’s of mines and mining towns in southern Iowa anymore?”

  “I’m writing the paper. It’s an important part of Iowa history. Because of it’s cheap energy cost and the fact that there is still a lot of coal there. You can see seams of coal if you look in the sides of road beds.

  It may be important in our future. My ABC’s include Coalport now. Not much of Coalport remains. Most of it is under the Red Rock Lake since they completed the dam in 1969. The exceptions are a park, campground and church where part of the town stood. Coalport was one of the earliest of the Marion County mines. It supplied coal for the steamships that rode the Des Moines River.”

  “I didn’t know that there were steamships in Iowa.” Sarah said.

  “Coalport was platted in 1857. Steamships were running until about 1869. Farmers dug into the river bluffs and sold coal to the steamships which was additional to the wood they used for locomotion. During this time, Coalport was the best place for the steamships to get coal along the Des Moines River from Eddyville to Des Moines.”

  “Why did they stop steamships?” Sarah asked.

  “Remember that I said that train tracks were built across the western territories of our country after the Civil War? Trains were a more efficient way to transport goods across the nation. The Des Moines River wasn’t that deep and the steamships often ran aground.”

  “I remember when we took a boat on the Red Rock Lake, which was formed when the Des Moines River was dammed. The motor on the boat stopped. We were in the middle of the lake. My dad jumped out of the boat and the water was only ankle deep. The motor was stuck in a sand bar.”