This is the final article in a four-part series about the properties on Jackson Avenue sold to USD 257 to build a new science and technology building at the Iola High School campus.
Like many a young man, John Foust dragged his feet when it came to settling down and marrying his sweetheart, Ruth.
In a series of letters discovered recently by their children, Ruth pressed him about whether they would get married and when.
The Fousts werent an overly sentimental family, their daughter Donna (Foust) Elliott recalled. They didnt easily express emotions or say I love you.
Not surprisingly, Ruths letters kept her emotions under cover, focusing either on the mundane or world events, especially during the World War II years.
My mother had a pretty good sense of what was going on in the world, Donna, who now lives in Scottsdale, Ariz., said.
And Ruth was persistent about the topic of marriage.
I guess my father was being wishy-washy, Donna said.
She and her brother, Kenny Foust, read only a few of the letters, which with other documents were stored in four wooden footlockers John had brought back after serving in the U.S. Navy during the war. John, who died in 1994, was an attorney like his father, grandfather and great-grandfather before him. The footlockers have been taken to Arizona with other items from the family home in Iola.
The letters were Kenny and Donnas favorite discoveries when the family gathered on Memorial Day weekend to clear the house at 426 E. Jackson Ave. The property, along with three others in the block, was sold to USD 257 to be demolished and replaced by a new science and technology building on the Iola High School campus.
THE ATTIC had collected 118 years of Foust family memories: furniture, china, war memorabilia, the footlockers and love letters, along with letters from other family members and other documents, including the original deed for the property from 1901.
It had been decades if ever since anyone had cleaned the attic. Donna thought the family had gone through the attic when Ruth died 12 years ago. But she found things there she thought had already been removed, like a delicately cut glass bowl.
Kenny believes no one had ever gone through the attic. Certainly not in his lifetime, anyway.
The attic isnt large, probably the size of a bedroom. It didnt even run the full length of the house; part of the upper floor had been converted to bedrooms where Donna and Kenny grew up. But the small attic still was crammed with items long forgotten.
Many of the items they discovered, like outdated furniture, werent worth anything but memories, Donna said. And they found more china dishes than they could find people willing to take them. The china was mostly for display or special meals on Thanksgiving and Christmas.
