The Century and I : Memories of Cedar Falls and Beyond

by Claud R Wynegar

Summary

With his extraordinary memory for detail, this 99-year-old first-time author and Cedar Falls native has painted a vivid word-picture of his childhood and youth in the small town of Cedar Falls, Iowa, population 5,012, during the earliest part of the 20th Century. This chronicle bears witness to the unfolding of modern history, from childhood memories of Civil War veterans, the arrival of the first automobiles, aircraft, and radios in the midwest, the Buffalo Bill Wild West show, and working as a sound effects boy at screenings of the D.W. Griffith film, "Birth of a Nation", to the author's days as a Chicago cabbie in the Roaring Twenties, working his way to Europe on a cattle boat, Detroit during the Great Depression, running a store at Disneyland, and, finally, "retiring" and travelling the world.