January 22, 2026joynealkidney

Grandpa Clabe Wilson’s pipe

I’ve become the keeper of a pipe of Grandpa Clabe’s. He also smoked cigarettes but maybe he used a pipe at home.

Clabe’s pipe was in a padded paper sleeve when it came to me. “Emperor World’s Choicest Briar.” It has a tiny “Emperor” stamp on the stem. Is this the same pipe he’s holding in the 1946 photo below? He died of a stroke and a broken heart that October. I bought the P.A. tin because it was the brand Grandpa smoked.

My first story of Clabe and his pipe is from when little Danny Wilson had an earache, which seemed to be soothed when he blew warm smoke into his little ear. (It turned out to be caused by a mastoid and needed surgery! 1927, south of Dexter, Iowa.

Clabe is holding a pipe in this April 14, 1935 photo, taken to send Delbert and Donald, the oldest Wilson sons who were serving in the Navy. Standing: Dale, Leora, Darlene. Seated: Clabe, Doris (center), Junior and Danny in front. Dexter, Iowa

During the Great Depression

After his two oldest sons joined the Navy in 1934 to have enough to eat and jobs to keep busy. When they’d save up enough to send home $5 to buy food or warm clothing for the five siblings still at home, they’d write their dad to spend some of it on his P.A., Price Albert tobacco. 

Cora and John Parrish, who ran a Guthrie Center cafe, drove to Dexter in late 1937 to ask if Doris, who had to drop out of AIB, would like to work for them. She rode back with them, earned $1 per day plus meals, a uniform, and free rent in the apartment above the cafe. 

      As soon as she had the $10 she owed the landlady in Des Moines, she mailed it to her. The woman wrote back, saying she was the first person who’d ever sent money she owed, and that if Doris ever needed a place to live in Des Moines, to come to her first. 

By Christmas she’d saved enough tip money to buy a few Christmas gifts, including a pipe rack for her dad, Clabe. She packed a few things and hiked to the train station. She hadn’t ridden the Liza Jane since she was a toddler, but she rode as far as Menlo, where she waited a couple of hours for the bus to Dexter. 

World War II

The Wilsons were tenant farmers near Minburn, Iowa, from 1939 until all five sons were serving in the war. Leora didn’t drive. She quipped in one of her letters that Clabe was so busy that she probably wouldn’t get to town until he needed his P.A.

Clabe Wilson (holding a pipe) and one of his younger sisters, 1946, Perry, Iowa. Clabe died later that year. Do you suppose that’s the pipe in my care today?

Clabe’s pipe in her dreams

One reviewer mentioned Clabe’s pipe in her winsome review of Leora books:

“Oh Joy – what a journey I have just taken with Leora, Clabe, the twins, the girls, the boys, the farm, the old John Deere….I can see Leora’s chickens and smell Clabe’s pipe in my dreams.

“I wept throughout the stories. And then, I wept when I had finished all the books. I felt like I had closed a chapter on my own life. It was bittersweet. Our stories are our greatest gift. A legacy is an inheritance of the most holy. Thank you for the painstaking research, the documentation and finally for the closure the boys deserved and the family (and I) needed.

“Thank you for sharing the strength of the American spirit, especially demonstrated by the Wilsons and their mammoth heartbreaking sacrifice in the name of our country. I was especially impressed by the utter generosity of all the children to their parents. Whether it be financial or just working to keep the family afloat in good and bad times, the children were obviously raised with generous hearts.

“Carry on, friend. Keep writing. I would love to read more and more about the mid-west and the backbone of the US. Thank you again and again.

“When I retire, soon, I want to visit the graves. I want to see Dexter, Perry, all of Guthrie County[,] the land Leora and Clabe finally owned. I feel like I know all of them and it has been my honor to learn about them and share in your story. What a gift! Thank you.”

What an encouraging review, Heidi D!

This blog post began as a result of a post by Sally Cronin, who has been sharing her father-in-law’s engaging stories from the past: Smoke Signals by Geoff Cronin.

38 comments

  3. Prince Albert. I remember smoking it when I smoked the pipe. My Grandpa used to roll his own from it. Of course, there is the oldest joke in the world concerning it.

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  4. I remember two people from my childhood who smoked pipes. One was Mr. Coomer, a quiet-spoken dairy farmer who lived across the road from my grandfather’s dairy farm. His pipe gave off a sweet aroma. Kyle, my dad’s first cousin, worked with my dad for a while after he retired from the air force and smoked what he called his own special blend of an assortment of tobaccos. It stank! Several carpenters working for one of the contractors Dad did work for also smoked pipes, but the only memory I have of them was the plethora of Prince Albert cans they left strewn around the job site. I collected them for a while until Dad made me get rid of them. He was against smoking in any form, and I guess he didn’t want me to get lured into doing it by the “romance” of those colorful cans!

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    • But you could have collected all sorts of stuff in those cans, Dennis. I remember keeping things in cigar boxes. I didn’t know anyone who smoked cigars, so where would we have gotten the boxes?

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  6. My dad smoked a pipe from time to time too. I recall the pipe tobacco smelled nice. How special that you still have your grandpa’s pipe. I’m sure it’s the same one as in the photo.

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    • Thank you, Darlene. I hope granddaughter Kate will enjoy owning it someday! (And also a collection of your Amanda books–I’ve started collecting them for her!)

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  7. I’ve never been a smoker, but it’s interesting to me that I haven’t seen anyone smoking a pipe in decades. I understand some people still do. My grandpa was the only one in our family who smoked a pipe. I was too young to understand the dangers of tobacco; I just thought my grandparents’ house smelled nice.

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  8. Congratulations on the heartfelt review! The tobacco can reminds of prank phone calls we made when we were kids.

    “Do you have Prince Albert in a can? Better let him out!” Gales of giggles immediately following.

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  9. To me, it looks like the pipes in the photographs. It has a distinctive globular bowl, with a short, straight stem.

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  11. This heartfelt review referring to the Wilson family as “the strength of the American spirit” was touching and wonderfully expressive. Congratulations again, Joy! 🙂

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    • Thank you, Nancy. I still think of them as normal, and just family, but I’m thankful for someone who can see more than I could. I sure think Grandma would especially appreciate her winsome comment.

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  13. It’s nice to see your grandpa in those pictures, Joy. It could be the same pipe as the picture of it and the tobacco, but I can’t tell for sure. You certainly deserve that great review.

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  15. Joy, congratulations on Heidi’s beautiful and thoughtful review! It was fun to hear about your grandfather’s pipe and I’d never heard of PA tobacco before. My mother occasionally used to smoke a very swish looking pipe along with her sister and they did look glamourous. I never smoked but remember playing with the pipe cleaners.

    Reply

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