Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/99748
PICKLER MEMORIAL LIBRARY, TRUMAN STATE UNIVERSITY (ALL) A natural athlete, Fred Schwengel excelled in football and track at the Teachers College in Kirksville, Missouri (now Truman State University). church and played an important role in interfaith activities in the community. He became more deeply involved at the Masonic Temple than ever before and also joined the Moose lodge. He joined the Junior Chamber of Commerce, became president of the Davenport chapter, and then went on to win election statewide as president of the Iowa Jaycees. And somehow he found the time to lend a hand when needed to the local Red Cross, the Community Chest, and the Boy Scouts as well. Schwengel was also devoting more time than ever to politics. As president of the Scott County Young Republicans, he helped breathe new life into the local GOP after the New Deal had dealt Old Guard Republicans a losing hand in Davenport. He ran unsuccessfully for alderman in 1940, but four years later was persuaded to run for state representative and won, going on to serve five terms in the Iowa General Assembly before an opportunity to run for an open seat in Congress presented itself in 1954. By then eyeing a run for state governor, Schwengel needed to be persuaded to shift direction and make the 4 THE CAPITOL DOME run for Congress, but in the end he entered the race for Iowa's First District and won. Alongside all these different activities and interests, however, there was one more that had been becoming an ever larger part of his life through the years: a love of history, and, in particular, a passionate interest in Abraham Lincoln. Indeed, it is fair to say that by the time he took the oath of office as a Member of Congress, in addition to everything else, Fred Schwengel was not only an ardent "Lincoln nut" and history buff, he was well on his way to becoming an amateur historian himself. DISCOVERING HISTORY THE BEGINNINGs of Schwengel's interest in history go back at least as far as his college days, when he found himself on a road trip with the football team one morning in Kansas City with some time to kill before the team had to get back on the bus. He happened upon a used bookstore with a box of books out front and a sign that read "Help yourself for a dime." A biography of Abraham Lincoln caught his eye, and, having just heard an interesting lecture about Lincoln in his political science class, he decided to buy the book. Once he started reading it he found that he could not put it down. Soon after, Carl Sandburg, who had published Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years just two years before in 1926, came to town to speak at a teachers meeting. Encouraged by a professor to attend the talk, Schwengel went and was able to meet Sandburg. He mentioned that he had just bought a Lincoln book himself, written by a fellow named J. G. Holland. Sandburg told him that the Holland book was a good book, one of the best ever written about Lincoln. "Hang onto that book," Schwengel recalled him saying. "It will be worth more than a dime someday." And then Sandburg suggested that if he had an interest in history, he would find Lincoln to be an interesting subject and he might want to get some more books on Lincoln and keep reading about him. Another chance meeting four years later, this time with a future president of the United States, would further stimulate WINTER 2013