Madonna Desmond Spinner

SPINNER, DESMOND, BYRNES, KELLAR, STORLA

Posted By: Cindy Maust Smith (email)
Date: 4/28/2021 at 19:05:20

Madonna Desmond Spinner, a life-long area resident of Allamakee county, is the author of "Treasured Thoughts," a volume of poetry just released by the Waukon Democrat press. It is a delightful collection of varied subject matter. It is cleverly arranged and beautifully designed.

Mrs. Spinner, the wife of Theodore Spinner, a prominent Waterville farmer, is a graduate of Waterville Consolidated School and attended Iowa State Teachers College at Cedar Falls. She was engaged in rural school teaching in one of the schools of the county.

Her poetry has won statewide recognition, having appeared in the following periodicals: the Waukon Republican and Standard, the Waukon Democrat, the Allamakee Journal, the Telegraph-Herald and Times Journal, the Crier, the Witness, the Monona Leader and the Writer's Placement Bureau Annual. Copies are available at the Herald office and may also be ordered from the author for the sum of 65¢.
~Postville Herald, Thursday, June 17, 1937, Postville, Iowa, Page 1

____________

A sample of Madonna's poetry as published in the Telegraph-Herald:

Love's Picture
Cupid, the painter, with brush in hand,
Has begun his task anew;
He is painting a picture of Love
With his most beautiful hue.

He is careful to paint adeptly,
Adding touches here and there;
And to make Love's picture most charming
He paints it with greatest care.

The picture, at last, he has finished
And he lays his brash aside;
He views his work with a proud conceit,
Daring a man to deride.

The picture is painted, my darling,
And I'm at your side today;
All the trials and tumult of Life,
Can never drive me away.

MADONNA DESMOND SPINNER, Waterville, Iowa
~Dubuque Telegraph-Herald, April 5, 1936, pg 9 (Letterbox column)

~*~

Spring
Spring comes -
Bringing in its wake
Sweetest memories,
Which will make
Fondest reveries.

Spring comes -
Bringing every day
Some sweet remembrance,
That is in some way
A gentle hindrance.

MADONNA DESMOND SPINNER, Waterville, Iowa
~Dubuque Telegraph-Herald, March 29, 1937, pg 6 (Letterbox column)

~*~

Solitude
Aone. I watch the low descending sun;
Alone I see the shadows, one by one,
Gathering together to form the night.

Alone, I bid "Farewell" to the last ray
Of the light of the fast-departing day -
And I see the twilight slowly descend.

MADONNA DESMOND SPINNER, Waterville, Iowa
~Dubuque Telegraph-Herald, April 20, 1937, pg 6 (Letterbox column)

~*~

Whispers
Whispers, like phantoms of the past,
Come stealing slowly out to me;
The secret that was kept so well
Becomes revealed by this old tree.

Whispers of days of years ago,
Like some small gossip not let die;
Comes stealing out to me today
As this faint breeze passes me by.

MADONNA DESMOND SPINNER, Waterville, Iowa
~Dubuque Telegraph-Herald, August 2, 1937, pg 6 (Letterbox column)

_______________________

~Notes added by S. Ferrall compiled from newspaper articles, find-a-grave and SS Claims Index, Ancestry database:

Madonna Lucille Desmond, daughter of Matthew J. Desmond & Rose Byrnes, was born Sept. 25, 1914 and died Sept. 27, 1997. Madonna & Theodore married Feb. 3, 1934 and were divorced ca1940. At that time, she removed to S. Dakota from Waterville. She remarried in 1944 to Lloyd Kellar. Mr. Kellar died in 1971 and she remarried to Clarence Storla in Oct. 1977. Madonna (Desmond) Spinner Kellar Storla is buried in the Postville cemetery.

_____________________

The photo of Madonna Spinner is from the Telegraph-Herald, Dubuque, IA, June 15, 1937 (the photo headed a nearly identical article as was published in the 1937 Postville Herald article)

Obituary
 

Allamakee Biographies maintained by Sharyl Ferrall.
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