"Well, Ralph, we haven't had a chance to talk in a while. How's your Senior Project going?"
"Pretty well, Grandpa, but I've run into something a little odd. You know I'm writing a history of our town - trying to put together a lot of the little bits of information that haven't been covered in earlier attempts. Being able to look at old newspapers and obscure manuscripts on the Internet has made researching a whole different thing than it was before the Computer Age."
"I suspect that's true. I was already so old when computers came along that I haven't reaped much benefit, personally. Still I understand what you mean.
"So, what's the odd thing you've run across?"
"Let me ask you a question, Grandpa. You've lived here all your life, and I guess your parents were here most of their lives, too. I was under the impression that what we call this town today is the same thing it was called since it was founded - named after the first family to settle here."
"Is that your question? If so, then I can tell you that, yes, it's always had the same name."
"That's where the odd thing comes into the picture. I found an obscure publication, written back in the 1920s, that showed this town on a map, with the name, Finagurl. I've made a pretty exhaustive study, and I've never seen a reference to that name, or any other name, for this place.
"I know a lot of our town names were supposedly Native American words for those place - although most of the meanings were lost when the European settlers guessed wrong about how the Indians spelled things, or just made up phonetic equivalents. Of course, we have a lot of places named after the founders, or other well-known people. Big bunches of early European settlers were from Germany and Ireland, but 'Finagurl' certainly doesn't sound German. It does sound at least a little bit Gaelic, but..."
Grandpa had begun smiling as Ralph talked, and his smile finally turned into a chuckle. "I think I can help you with that problem, Ralph, but first maybe a little general history to put in perspective where the name came from."
"So, there really was a Finagurl?"
"Well, no... well, yes and no, I guess is a better answer. Let me say what I was going to say.
"Little towns like ours were established merely to meet the needs of the local folks. There weren't a lot of people coming in, or going out. Well, there wasn't a lot of travel between places, period. The railroad was the main form of movement. If your town wasn't close to a railroad, then the next town nearest to you might hardly know you existed."
"Were things really that isolated and cut off from one another, Grandpa?"
"It may be hard to picture in your mind, but it was true. That is, is was true until Henry Ford came along with his automobiles about 1910. That changed everything in a relatively few years. But wait, I don't want to get ahead of myself.
"So Ralph, I assume the Younger Generations - like yours - are still familiar with the process of boys meeting girls - going on dates - eventually getting married - raising a family, and so on?
"Yes, Grandpa, we still know about that process - although the details have probably changed a bit since 'your time'."
"No doubt, you young whipper-snapper. Well, anyway, back in 'the dark ages,' in our town and towns like ours, the only way for a boy to meet a girl - or a girl to meet a boy - was to actually meet them - in school, at church, at the Fourth of July picnic, or because you'd lived next door to her or him all your lives."
"No on-line dating apps? No, I suppose not, considering there was no 'on-line'."
"Very clever of you to think of that, but you're right - what you saw in your town is pretty much what you got. That wasn't all bad. Since everybody had known everybody their whole lives, they knew what they were getting. There were few surprises after the wedding knots were tied.
"Of course, the bad side was that there were few surprises. The population stayed pretty much the same size, generation after generation. Because of different ratios of boys to girls, difference in ages, and just different interests, supply and demand were not always in sync. There was always a steady demand, but there wasn't always the local supply to satisfy that demand."
"Grandpa, I hate to speed you up, but we must be getting close to the 1920s - when the mystery map was made, and you still haven't mentioned Finagurl."
"Patience, Raphie, patience. I'm just getting to that.
"Now, up to this point, I've been talking about small towns in Iowa, in general. Well, I guess these next two points are pretty much State-wide, too. First, all boy-girl relationships were pretty minor between 1914 and 1918, because most young men were in Europe, fighting World War One. When those who survived to come home started to trickle back, the town was pretty much as they left it, but they had changed considerably. They hadn't been fighting every minute they were away, and in the minutes they weren't, they discovered that there was a whole world of the female of the species that they hadn't known about. There were girls of every shape, size, age, looks, nationality, interests - well, any combination one could imagine. Those who had left for the war with strong local liaisons were mostly just fine, but those who had left the area more or less unattached, found themselves restless and dissatisfied with the local selection.
"I said that the town they came back to was generally the same as when they left it, but there was one difference - the result of Henry Ford's autos. Prior to the growing popularity of the family car, there had been few visitors from out-of-town. Government workers - maybe like your map makers - would show up on occasion, and there were traveling salesmen in their horse-drawn buggies. If any of them needed a meal, or needed to stay overnight, they were just taken into one of the local homes."
"I've heard about traveling salesmen, and farmer's daughters," Ralph noted.
"I know what you're alluding to, but they were all - or almost all - just salesmen's fantasies. Iowa communities were very moral, and no salesman got very close to the bed of any local girl. They got a couch, a cot, or the floor, and meals of whatever the family was eating.
"As I started to say, that was how it was prior to 1920. As the popularity of cars grew, and as more and more families bought them, there was a great increase in traffic on the Iowa back-roads. It was all fairly local - just people enjoying a new form of 'freedom.' I don't think most people had any particular destination in mind - they were just 'joy riding,' and it was coincidence, or serendipity, if they ended up in our town.
"Two things resulted from this increase in traffic. One, it became obvious that visitors needed some place to eat. Several industrious families got together, and opened our first diner. It was pretty modest at first - just a room with some tables and chairs, but the food was definitely 'home cookin' - in fact, it was whatever the families themselves were eating that day.
"The second thing was that most of these joyriders were families, with boys and enough to really get to know one another - but I have an idea that these visits led to young people suggesting to their parents that our town might be a good destination for a future trip.
"Well, these first changes were pretty small, but they started something much bigger."
"Finagurl, Grandpa. Finagurl. Are we going to ever get there?"
"My word, you are the impatient one! Hang on, we're almost there.
"To that point, most of the visitors were only around for the day, but the same families that had started the diner began to feel that overnight accommodations might become desirable. As I understand it - this was obviously still before my time - there was a vacant house in town, owned by a recently deceased elderly couple who had no local relatives. The town bought the house, and declared it a hotel. At first, it was just rooms with beds in them, but for a dime or a quarter, it was a place to spend a night, and the diner was right down the street.
"Okay, Ralph, the stage is now set for the big changes that were to come. They started when a young woman with a baby walked into town. Both mother and baby seemed to be okay, just very tired from wherever she had walked from. The problem was that she had no idea where she had come from. She had amnesia, and couldn't remember any of the circumstances of her arriving in our town.
"Obviously, nobody in town knew her, so our local constable notified the county sheriff, and he sent out inquiries to newspapers, hospitals, police departments, and such. Nobody who knew her responded. But I'm told she was young and quite pretty, and having the baby with her added to the public interest. People started coming to town, just to say they had been there, and had been part of the action. Few of them actually saw her or the baby, but that didn't seem to matter to them. It was just the strange story that was the attraction.
"People kept coming, including a lot of young adults - as I already said, just the right group to possibly bring some new blood into the local dating scene, and perhaps kindle some real romances. When that potential was identified, the locals began arranging ways to attract those kinds of persons."
"Wow. So, kind of a rustic dating service, bringing youths together - object romance!"
"Of course, there had been matchmakers around for centuries. You might say that they were doing what today's dating services do, without benefit of computers - analyzing couples, trying to assess compatibilities and incompatibilities.
"Our local folks weren't doing anything as sophisticated as the matchmakers. They were just trying various things to bring people here. It was summer, so street dances were a natural. By fall, there had been enough work done to put together a local craft fair, with wares to show and wares to sell. The restaurant had to expand to meet demand, and work began on fixing up the 'hotel.' Families who came out of curiosity liked the town and liked the surroundings, and newcomers began to buy land and build homes. It must have been really something, compared to the town just a few months before.
"Trying to attract more and more young people, some of our boys began to call the town and the individual events 'Find-a-Girl.' There was a Find-a-Girl street dance, a Find-a-Girl barbecue... Well, you get the idea. Pretty soon, even some of the old-timers were jokingly referring to the town as Find-a-Girl, Iowa!"
"Whoa!" exclaimed Ralph. "I think I'm getting the picture. The map makers heard the people talking about Find-a-Girl, and misunderstood what was being said."
"I'm sure that's what happened. The name was seldom written down - well, there is one banner preserved over in the library that declares 'you might meet your real sweetie at the Find-a-Girl street dance,' but I don't think I've ever seen any other examples of the name in print. So, anyway, I think the map was probably a rush job, the cartographers heard the name, probably would never have imagined it was anything like Find-a-Girl, and just wrote down something that sounded approximately right, phonetically. Voila, a new name for our town!
"The Find-a-Girl excitement died down after a couple of years, and the town reverted to a pretty quiet existence. It's stayed pretty much the same all the years since. Well, we have several more restaurants, and we have a motel, but no Big Boxes, chain stores, or fast food joints. If anybody wants those, they're not far away, but our town itself is kind of a lazy throwback to an earlier day. Most of us like it this way.
"Oh, there's one other story you might be interested in. I'm pretty sure it's true, although the town histories don't cover it. Anyway, a group of somewhat shady gentlemen from Des Moines thought they might capitalize on the 'find-a-girl' story in a different way. They fixed up a couple of old houses out beyond the town limits, and brought some women in, who were seeking a different clientele than was frequenting downtown. The sheriff got wind of their plans early on, and ran them out of the county before their 'business' got established."
Ralph laughed. "Yep, that would have been a little different take on the subject."
Grandpa chuckled with him. "You know, Ralph, you sort of owe your existence to the find-a-girl craze. Your grandmother's parents were among the first outsiders to fall in love with our town, and eventually settle here. It was quite a few years before your Gram and I were born, but when we finally got here, we were pretty much inseparable our whole lives. I was too young for World War Two, and too old for Vietnam, so we didn't have any long periods apart. We became one of those couples who knew one another for our whole lives."
"I didn't know that story, Grandpa. That's nice." He was quiet for a minute. "You know, Grandpa, you left one important part out of your story."
Grandpa looked a little confused. "Well, I'm old, and I have known memories to slip away. Most of them slip back eventually. What did I forget?"
"The woman and the baby. What happened to them? Did the woman get her memory back? Did her husband or family find her?"
"You're right, Ralph, I did forget to wrap up that part of the story. Actually, although she and her baby were the catalyst for all that followed, they actually had little to do with it. They were only in town a couple of weeks, and there was so much going on then, that most of the locals probably didn't realize for some time that they were gone.
"Here's how the woman arrived in our town, and what happened afterward. She, with her husband and baby, had just moved to Iowa. They didn't have any relatives or friends in the state, and they hadn't had time to make many local acquaintances. One of their first acts in Iowa was to buy a car, and they were actually out on their very first ride when an accident happened. Later, the husband couldn't remember what he did wrong, but the car went off the road and rolled down into a deep ravine. I understand that the car wasn't too damaged - those early Fords were very simply made, but very strong. However, both the man and the woman had been tossed around a great deal.
"When the car came to rest, the woman and her baby exited. Maybe she had started out to get help for her unconscious husband, and the trauma caught up with along the way, and she lost her memory of who she was and what she was doing. Maybe a better explanation is that she was already traumatized when she left the car, and never even thought about her husband. Whichever it was, she wandered away until she finally turned up here.
"She probably hadn't been gone from the wreck for very long when people discovered it, and found the husband unconscious. Like the wife, he didn't have any obvious injuries, but he was clearly in some kind of a coma. They got him into their car, and took him to the nearest hospital?"
"What about the wife and baby, Grandpa? Did they look for her?"
"Well, the thing was, they didn't know that anybody else had been in the car. It was brand-new, so there weren't items that would have suggested a wife or a baby. They just assumed he had been traveling alone. He was still unconscious when they got him to the hospital, so he couldn't tell them anything, and he didn't seem to have any information on him that gave the hospital staff anyone to contact.
"The man was in a coma for two weeks. The doctors weren't worried. They were pretty sure that his brain would eventually right itself, and he would be good as new. However, in the meantime, nobody was worried about a missing wife and baby. When he eventually woke, his first question was about his family. Of course, nobody knew he had one. That must have been a really hard awakening for him, finding his wife and baby had been missing for two weeks, and nobody was even looking for them!
"Luckily, there were still a lot of 'have you seen this woman' posters around, and it wasn't long before the man was gazing at a picture of his wife - apparently safe and sound with their baby in a local town. The hospital sent someone to gather them up, and it wasn't long before the family was reunited. As I think I said, there was so much going on here in town that most people didn't know she was gone.
"So, that's the rest of that story."
"Does anybody in town know what happened to them?"
'That was almost 100 years ago, Ralph. Probably some of the people here in town at the time knew something, but the lore apparently didn't get passed down. The man and woman were young, and not badly hurt. I assume that they pulled themselves back together, and got on with their lives. Hopefully, they lived happily ever after."
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