Remembering the flood of '75

A friend sent me this picture of the Hilton Coliseum in Ames. It reminded me of a previous flood. In 1975 I was Worthy Patron of Laura Chapter, Order of the Eastern Star. I was also working with the Grand Assembly, Order of the Rainbow for Girls. The girls held their meeting in 1/2 of the Coliseum. They would decorate it and hold the meeting. On Saturday they did Initiation and the girls wore their white formals. It was a beautiful sight to stand on the floor of the Coliseum and see it filled with the girls in their white formals. This year they used a giant rainbow made of chicken wire and tissue paper as part of the backdrop.

We were going to have the Grand Officers of the Order of the Eastern Star put on the degrees that year and the Rainbow and the Pine tree were the symbols that had been chosen that year. I got the idea that we could use the Rainbow as our backdrop so I talked them out of it and I talked the guys at the Hilton to let me store it there until the end of the month - everything was copacetic.

Then the rains came.

The Hilton was (is) built on the flood plain. The water got closer and closer to the Hilton and then the water came in through the drains, etc and flooded the floor of the Hilton. - I heard that that happened again this year. Anyway when I went to pick up the rainbow the floor was covered with water. I had to walk in on the concrete (2nd floor) walkways to get to the Hilton and there was the rainbow...sitting in water and the thing was - it was reflected in the water and I can still see the rainbow circle in the floor of the Hilton. in my memory. I had to lean down from the balcony to get ahold of the rainbow and pull it up and cart it over to Beach Ave where I had parked the truck. I pulled the wet tissue out of the bottom and took it to the Memorial Union where it and a little pine tree which we later planted at the Eastern Star Home in Boone served as the backdrop for the Grand Exemplification. It was worth remembering. Thanks for stopping by. Hugs, j

By the way someone sent me some more pictures of the flood - You can view them here.