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October 1939. "George and Hugh Clarke with hybrid seed corn. Grundy County, Iowa." Medium format negative by Arthur Rothstein for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.
Building on Katella’s sleuthing, I can add that George and Hugh were the first of John Ruth Hauser Clarke’s four children. Father John died in 1944 at the age of 52 of bladder cancer, but mother Ruth lived to the age of 90.
It’s curious that “What Church Are You Affiliated With” is a question in the 1925 Iowa State Census.
And here is an item about Lt. George Clarke.
George was born Oct. 20, 1916, entered the U.S. armed forces, attaining the rank of Lieutenant, and was lost over Greenland along with six other men when their Army Air Forces transport, on which he was serving as navigator, crashed on Nov. 28, 1943.
Hugh was born Aug. 11, 1918, and died in September 1981, with both brothers buried in Grundy County.
Several times I’ve had the pleasure of driving across Iowa. It didn’t seem possible that there could be so much corn in the whole world. I was indeed thankful for the occasional field of soybeans to break up the monotony.
Looks like George, the guy on the left, is wearing a "Stormy Kromer" wool cap. Wool, nice visor and ear flaps, the best cap in the upper Midwest then and now.
" --- all of which I'm going to tell you about right now"
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