More families from outside of Manning are coming forward with military history.
In the last few days I heard from the family of Dave Summerville.
They have military pictures and information to share and over the next several weeks we'll be working together so I can get more history about their service.
Here is an amazing historical item of Dave Summerville that his son, Scott, captured with his camera.
According to Russ Spies, this jacket hung in the closet of his home for decades - where Dave had left it.
On April 27th it will be the 75th anniversary of Dave's first mission with the 457th bomber group - one day before his 23 birthday.
Now I have a head start with Dave's service. Ken Spies has some of the old family pictures and in this collection were quite a few Summerville pictures, including Dave...
Here is the Spies connection to Summerville: Alfred & Margaret (Summerville) Spies - Russell, Donna, Stanley, and Kenneth
Margaret & David Summerville were siblings.

David K. Summerville's flight jacket

Dates and missions he flew

Another great thing about Dave's son contacting me is that he was able to ID and confirm pictures of his dad that I scanned from the Spies colletion.

David Summerville

Back: Margaret Spies, David Summerville, Evelyn Bales
Front: William & Isabelle Summerville

More coming as I work with Scott in the coming days/weeks.

More information and letters written home that were shared with the Manning Monitor can be found under Dave's link in the Veterans' WWII section that is linked on the left side frame under "Long term projects."

While I'm too young to remember this business "Bales Cash Market," I have several pictures that came from the Joyce (Jensen) Schroeder collection...plus several from the Spies collection of the Bales family.
This further shows that when people let me scan their old collections, I will be able to preserve those items, and also share with everyone interested in Manning's history.
So why don't you share your history with me so it will be preserved long after we are all gone and your collection gets thrown away someday...
It's just a simple e-mail!!! and we can work out the process for me to get them to scan.

Evelyn Summerville & Darrell Bales

Darrell & Jack Bales on the old Summerville (now Russ Spies farm).
Note the Gray, Iowa, water tower back left.
Darrell Bales - wonderful historical image of an old fashioned butcher!
405 Main Street

Harold Calvert September 1950

Joyce (Jensen) Schroeder & Bernice (Mundt) Spiese September 1950

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