Martha Dunlevy Peters returns to the former Allamakee Journal office as Lansing readers turn out for Lansing Locals
By Deliverance Hope
Word ’Round Town
Readers wait during the Fish Days signing of Lansing Locals, held inside the former Allamakee Journal building in Lansing. Photo: Deliverance Hope / Word ’Round Town.
A short time later, the scene had changed.
Readers were waiting. Books were being carried through the line, sometimes more than one at a time, and what might have looked like an ordinary book signing carried a much deeper connection to the building where it was taking place.
Lansing Hardware Hank occupies the former home of the Allamakee Journal, the newspaper through which generations of Peters’ family once recorded the happenings, people and history of the Lansing community. The Dunlevy family’s connection to the Journal spanned 107 years, with Peters following in the storytelling footsteps of her father, grandfather and great-grandfather.
And for this particular signing during Lansing Fish Days, Peters had quite literally returned to where many of those stories had once been written.
The event was held at the original copy desk table where three generations of Dunlevy editors had composed newspaper stories years before.
A Family Tradition Finds Its Way Back Home
Peters, a native of Northeast Iowa, eventually followed a professional path into the dental field. But writing remained part of her story.
According to her author biography, she later returned to writing to carry forward her family’s storytelling legacy. Her first book, Extracting Wisdom, reflects her professional background in oral and maxillofacial surgery, while Lansing Locals brought her attention squarely back to the community where her family roots run deep.
The project itself also carried a deeply personal connection.
Peters originally shared the idea of preserving Lansing’s voices and experiences with her father, John Dunlevy. Following his death, she continued the project as part of a promise to him. The resulting book combines stories of past and present residents, pieces of Lansing history and Peters’ own childhood memories.
Even the book’s presentation reaches backward into Lansing newspaper history. The title Lansing Locals recalls a familiar section of the old Allamakee Journal, and its title lettering was designed using the same typeface once seen on the newspaper’s nameplate.
When Familiar Names Become Personal
Perhaps part of the appeal of a book such as Lansing Locals can be seen simply by watching the people who came to purchase it.
These are not distant historical figures or unfamiliar places.
They are families.
Neighbors.
Businesses.
People somebody remembers.
Names that may cause a reader to stop mid-page and say, “I know who that is.”
During the Fish Days signing, Word ’Round Town watched readers arrive and leave with copies in hand, including some purchasing multiple books.
And therein may lie one of the special things about documenting a small community: history does not always feel very far away when the names on the page still belong to somebody’s parent, grandparent, neighbor, classmate or friend.
A Piece of the Old Journal Still Overhead
There is another reminder of that newspaper history still visible inside the building.
Suspended overhead is an old wooden drive wheel once associated with the Allamakee Journal printing operation.
According to the display attached to the piece, the wood drive wheel was used to drive an Allamakee Journal press and was installed in 1922 by J.J. Dunlevy.
Nearly a century later, it remains inside the building, above a place where another generation of the Dunlevy family returned carrying stories of Lansing in an entirely different form.
A piece of Lansing newspaper history remains overhead inside the former Allamakee Journal building. According to the accompanying display, this wood drive wheel was used with a Journal printing press and was installed in 1922 by J.J. Dunlevy. Photo: Deliverance Hope / Word ’Round Town.
The Stories That Connect Us
A newspaper once recorded the week’s happenings from this building.
Decades later, a descendant of the family associated with those pages returned to the same place carrying a book built around many of the people, memories and connections of the town itself.
And Lansing responded.
Not simply to an author signing her name in a book, perhaps, but to something much more familiar:
pieces of home preserved on a page.
~Deliverance Hope
word-round-town.com
Keep Goin’ ‘Round Town
There’s always another story waiting just around the corner.