04/13/2024
HARKER HISTORY: DO YOU KNOW THE STORY OF THE ANGEL?
For 137 years, "The Angel" has been looking out for Storm Lake.
She stands on a gentle crest at the east end of Storm Lake cemetery – you probably knew that. But there is more to the story.
Like the man she was meant to honor, she is an immigrant. The angel was carved in Italy, of a type of Italian marble renowned for its purity, striking white color and incredible longevity – works of art centuries several centuries old endure. The angel is no different. She wears the patina of her years, but otherwise is exactly as she was when she arrived here in 1886.
She’s no lightweight, either, weighing in at half a ton, life size, atop a 10-foot pedestal.
Her given name is Statue of Memory, the languidly grieving figure that is often depicted on tombstones and memorials. But shortly after arriving here, she became known as Harker Monument.
She marks the grave of Storm Lake pioneer businessman and banker James Harker, and much later, the grave of his wife Mary. The family’s most enduring legacy is the landmark Harker House, now a museum and honored on the National Register of Historic Places.
To get an idea of the angel’s value, she cost $1,125 to carve, equal to about $34,000 in today’s money – and well over twice the $500 Harker paid to build his extravagant home. And that doesn’t include the pedestal, erected a year earlier as the original grave marker, of fine, polished dark Quincy granite. Harker’s survivors were going to make darn sure he was never forgotten.
The arrival of the angel was announced in glowing terms by the Buena Vista Vidette in 1886.
But what of those who lay below? You know their house… now meet them.
James Harker and Mary Allinson were both natives of England. According to an article in the Des Moines Register in 1922, she was a woman with a history. “Queen Victoria herself chose her godfathers and godmothers, for her people belonged to the Queen’s Church of England.” Her family came to America when she was 4. Her little sister became ill and died on the grueling 14-week voyage aboard the sailing vessel.
James’ early history is a little more murky. He was born in Yorkshire and also came to the U.S. at age 4. The packet ship the family traveled on later made headlines when it sank in a heavy gale on another journey to America. At 24, James married Mary in Wisconsin. A classic self-made man, he would be elected to that state’s legislature at age 28, and engaged in many business endeavors from mining to milling to mercantile. The couple reportedly took in several children left without parents in the Civil War.
James also had a lust for the frontier. He gave up a successful and comfortable life to head west, throwing in with pioneers near the newly-established town of Jefferson, Iowa. There, Mary’s obituary says, she had “several interesting experiences with the Indians” – without elaborating. James was doing well as a business leader, but was fascinated with as-yet unsettled Buena Vista County, where he had purchased some cheap prairie land from the government.
He moved his family here, arriving shortly after the town of Storm Lake was platted in 1873. The pioneering couple did their part to further the population growth, with nine children (one source says 11). Sadly, four would die in childhood, and another, military academy-educated Truman, in his mid-20s drowned in Storm Lake.
James organized the first bank in Storm Lake on the site where Security Bank now stands, later establishing another. He set his considerable energies toward buying, selling and improving land in the area, as well as extending rail lines. He made a considerable impact in the young town, but a brief one. Less than a decade after arriving, he fell ill and died before reaching his 50th birthday.
The following tribute was paid to his memory by one who was closely associated with him: “In all our relations, extending over a period of nine years, we never heard him speak an indecent word or utter a profane oath. He never indulged in idle gossip. His mind was clear and free from the foul weeds that seem to fill the minds of many in our day. He was a total abstainer from strong drink. He had no bad habits. What an example his was to young men! Such men in a new country like ours are so rare! Seldom do we see his like. He leaves behind him a good name for his wife and loving children. He was a good husband, a loving father, and honest citizen.”
He was known for ignoring political battles and being tolerant, especially in a time when religion was a contentious matter. During his final sickness, he had directed, “When I am dead, invite all the preachers to my funeral.” Harker was still sending messages.
Mary was left to complete raising of her family in the booming young town that her husband had seen coming. She was cultured, educated and sociable. Her early tutor was William Rowley, a member of General U.S. Grant’s senior staff during the Civil War. She too did her part for her community. “Her aid and cooperation can be counted upon to further any movement instituted for the benefit of humanity at large, while her influence for good has been widely felt and has proved no unimportant element in shaping the lives of many with whom she has come in contact,” it was said.
Mary was a fine singer, and her home was always filled with music, art and literature. She was described as a champion for education. Once asked if she believed in women’s rights, she said: “I’ve paid taxes all my life and not been allowed to vote…”
In late life, her home was empty and aging, but she heard her husband’s voice and the laughter of the children echoing through the rooms in her memory. She occasionally visited relatives far removed , but always returned to the Harker House. “Storm Lake folks go to California to die. But I stay here,” she said. “This is where I belong.”
She passed on at the ripe old age of 87, and went to visit The Angel beside her husband and the children who had preceded her in death.
Her daughter Mae never married, and occupied the Harker House for the first half of the 20th century.
Mary's granddaughter and Mae's niece, Nora Marie Harker Marshall,, was the final Harker occupant, as the home was occupied by this single family from the day it was completed until it was donated to a foundation set up for preservation in 1983. When Marie returned to the family homestead, she was told repeatedly that it should be torn down, but she stood firm and began the restoration and before her death in 1983 made provisions for a foundation to preserve the landmark. Marie’s 1915 grand piano stands in the living room beneath a painting of her as a young woman at the mantlepiece.
A treasury of furnishings, clothing, letters, photographs, books and artwork speak to the personality and lifestyle of the family and the early days of the community, and charm those coming by for tours.
Every pioneer village had to have a James Harker if It was going to become a town, and then a city. A believer.
In 1874, it was an audacious gamble — building a substantial brick home in a barely established place with one dirt street. What houses existed were humble wooden affairs, maybe even some of sod, temporary digs in a fragile, tentative tiny settlement isolated in the long-grass prairie. In fact, there was initially nothing between the Harker House and the lake three blocks away, which gave up stones from its shoreline to form the home’s foundation and clay from its bed for locally-fired bricks.
It must have been a strange sight: a stately Second Empire style Victorian home rising in a pioneer cowtown — featuring a fancy mansard roof, widow’s walk up top, and fine features like a maid’s quarters, formal parlor, music room, kerosene lamps fixed to chandeliers, a dumbwaiter, and originally a stable and orchard adjacent. Make no mistake, the house was a message. James Harker was signaling confidence to those arriving by wagon or recently established railroad, that this was going to be a place that mattered. He, and the town, were here to stay.
First known as “Harker Mansion” around town, the house was built by J.M. Russell, the esteemed local builder who created the county courthouse, Buena Vista College’s Old Main and other Storm Lake landmarks.
Later in life, Russell loved to revisit the house and his achievement. He would boast that if a storm ever managed to blow the Harker House down, there wouldn’t be a building left standing in town.
No one has ever found plans for Storm Lake’s most famous home. Family tradition says that James sketched it out himself for the architect.
“Tiger lilies bloom about the old brick house on the corner,” The Register article describes in 1922. “Shutters drawn at the full length French windows and even at the six outside doors it stands amid its twentieth century neighbors with an air of aloofness that repels the children trooping by each day on their way to school. Across the street is the big church topped by the clock chiming away the hours and half hours in defiance of the old house that remains unchanged in spite of the passing years.”
So too, the angel stands through time, a rose in her right hand as if to drop it on the graves below, ever guarding one of the Storm Lake founding families.
The Harker House is open for tours seasonally. Be sure to plan a visit.
