Recipes for Living Peggy Mateer

Of the various descriptions that could be applied to Peggy, none would be more fitting than "the little peoples’ advocate." From the winter day when she appeared without socks and her co-workers correctly guessed that she had given her woolen ones to someone who needed them, to the time when Robby attempted to find his new sweatshirt and gloves and rightly assumed she had given them to a transient, her family and friends have known and accepted this. Robby pointed out to her when he saw her "loaning" someone $20 that she wouldn't have to worry about money so much if she didn't give it all away.

This characteristic was one of her motivations for serving on the school board. When Robby learned that she had been elected he asked if she was going to carry a gun. Her answer was no, but that she would probably shoot off her mouth, and she did. When she learned that teachers' aides were being cut from the school budget, she asked, "And what sport shall we cut?" She pointed out a ridiculous situation when there were four coaches for one activity in which only 15 students participated. Peggy and Debbi Raub were the two women on the board for the first five years, and then Peggy served one more. They put up a fight when teachers’ aides’ salaries were cut to $5.25 an hour. But it was all done in such good humor that she developed close friendships among board members and others whose lives were affected by their decisions.

At the present time she is serving on the City Council. She says she is sure that she will never have Alzheimer's disease, because only smart people are its victims. But Peggy wants to know and believes everyone should know where their tax money is being used. The largest percent goes to the school. The city comes next. The elected officers of Decatur and Clarke counties are on the lowest pay scales.

Peggy had several agendas when she ran for office. She knew there would be lots of boat money coming in and she had ideas for its use. One project was sewers. People had been annexed into the city but did not have the city's services. Those who are involved in the airport appreciate that she, too, considers it a significant facility for the city. She is promoting its expansion. She is pleased that the city is assisting residents with the sidewalk program. She sees a direct association between taxation and services. If one is cut, both are cut.

Peggy's employment as director of General Relief for the County puts her in a position to hear needs of many people. However, her compassion has made her work difficult because she is required to abide by strict guidelines in the use of taxpayers’ money. This was noted by Dennis Jacobs, author of an article entitled "The General of General Relief," in the Osceola SentinelTribune, March 15, 2001. It was part of a series of articles dealing with the function of county offices.

He wrote about her nature of caring and empathy with those who are hurting. She is quoted in the article as saying that Clarke County officers are very cooperative, and if someone is "down on their luck" but "falls through the cracks", she calls upon the Department of Human Services, the Community Center, Food Pantry, Lutheran Social Services, or one of the local churches. Through the Foundation of the Osceola United Methodist Church, the Missions Committee has made funds available to her because they know they can trust her judgment.

The article went on to tell that Peggy is one of a comparative few who see the several cultures that live side by side even in rural Iowa. The reference is not to racial cultures but to the haves and have-nots whose mindsets and life styles are totally different. One does not understand the other, and Peggy stands in the gap, serving the have-nots. There were formerly statistics that showed the rate of employed and unemployed but a new category has been added- the working poor, those who are working for minimum or barely above minimum wage. In cases of large families, the wager-earner often must maintain two jobs in order to provide for even basic needs. The effects that spill over into home life are many and varied. Anger and frustration, drug and/or alcohol addiction, abuse, violence, insufficient income has a bearing on all of these. Those affected come to Peggy along with clients who are veterans and those who are paying for an infraction by doing community service.

Many who came to her for help in the winter of 2001 faced gigantic heating bills. Their plight is magnified because their homes are more often than not poorly insulated and they were barely able to meet the normal bills of the past. What can she offer a person who has no home at all? There are individuals or families who attempt to leave this part of the country for a warmer climate but their planning has been inadequate or their cars break down. These people tell their stories to Peggy, whose job is often 24 hours a day. She gets calls from restaurants, the hospital, ministers, law enforcement, and many other sources when people need help.

Peggy admits that there are times when her patience wears thin. On days when it has taken every bit of her determination to report for work and then has clients younger than she, unemployed, on disability, she goes home when the day's work is done, reads her Bible and seeks to restore her faith in humanity.

Peggy is able to identify with those who have had to do with less. She says of her own background, “We didn't have anything, but no one did." In Davis City, where she attended school until third grade, and Leon, where she graduated in 1961, there were no big businesses. "Everyone, you might say, was a blue collar worker. Life was pretty simple. Our main entertainment was sock-hops. Our family had no car but we piled in with neighbors who had one. People in those days learned to share."

All of this gave her some fundamental rules on which to build her life, and she considers it almost miraculous that with five full brothers, two half-brothers, six grandchildren, and 15 nieces and nephews, all are handicap free. She noted this especially when she was recently in the infant intensive care unit and saw some extreme cases. This has happened to no one in her family.

Her greatest influence was her grandmother, Ruby Sly. She had a youthful outlookwore her first pair of slacks at age 79, and loved to go for motorcycle rides. They lived in the same town while Peggy was growing up; and Peggy was impressed as she saw Grandma Sly living her faith. She was totally non-judgmental. Even when the Charles Manson stories became known and everyone was horrified at what he had done, Peggy's grandmother said, "But his mother loved him." She saw to it that Peggy went to Sunday School every Sunday.

Peggy's parents were Ralph and "Billie" Rew. Billie's parents named their family of girls after whatever book their mother was reading at the time. Thus the girls were Vilma Frenece, Odessa Leona, Deloris Sonora, and Vera Adelaid. However, the two younger girls were called by what the parents would have called a boy. Deloris was "Billie" and Vera was "Tommy." When Grandma Sly was widowed in 1965, she moved in with Peggy for part of each year and spent the other part with Aunt Tommy.

"My father was an alcoholic - a mean drunk. He had come from a German background and where women didn’t count for much and the boys were coddled." Billie divorced him in 1960 while Peggy was in high school, and "Paul Adair became a wonderful step-dad."

After graduation, Peggy worked in Des Moines for Metropolitan Life. She and a friend, Diane, lived in an apartment and on weekends rode back and forth with Diane's boy-friend, Bob Mateer. Peggy didn’t particularly like Bob. He and Diane fought a lot and it made her uncomfortable, but when they broke up, he asked Peggy to go out with him. It wasn't long before she found another side of him. "He was a marshmallow." There was no one he didn't like. Someone could knife him in the back, and he'd go right on being their friend. In the years when he was doing custom farming, there would be people who didn’t pay him but he would go 'back and work for them again. Eventually some of them did pay.

When Peggy and Bob were married in 1962, she discovered that Bob wouldn't argue. When Peggy blew off steam, he would go to the barn, chore, and consider the quarrel was over. If he noticed that it wasn't, they would sit down and talk about it. His method worked very well.

They lived on an acreage south of Osceola and he custom-farmed. Peggy raised large gardens and canned. She says that between her and Flossie Page, nothing ever went to waste, and members of the extended family were welcome to help themselves from her larder. There was no division of "your family" and "my family." Bob's parents lived one-eighth of a mile from them. Bob did Dad Mateer's farming, and Peggy worked in his John Deere business until Robby was born and Dad sold the shop. She had continued at Metropolitan Life until she was pregnant with Joni, then came home to become a parts lady in the implement store. Even though her mother-in-law said ladies didn’t do that, Peggy could look up and sell machinery parts as
well as the men.

Bob and Peggy raised three children: Joni who is three years older than Julie, and Robert (Robby) who is ten years younger. Bob lived for his children, which made his death particularly hard for them. It occurred when Joni was 15 ½ and had a great impact on her. She was "Daddy's girl." Adding to her loss when he died, a number of her classmates died, also. Robby at that time was five, so Peggy had a challenge of raising three children as a single mom.

But Peggy insists that she didn't raise the children alone. Her mother, brothers, and Bob’s parents helped, although Peggy made very clear that she was the mother. What she said was the rule and it was not to be changed by someone giving in to the children’s pleading.

Bob and Peggy had another baby, Shawn, who died of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death) when he was 3 ½ months old. They had been to the doctor that very day and there was no sign of a problem. "In those days we were to lay babies on their stomachs. That supposedly was the cause of those deaths. Now they are to be laid on their backs and it is still happening. God and I weren't on very good terms about then. There were older people ready to go, asking to go, and God took this new little life. We are just not supposed to outlive our kids!" Grandma Sly helped her through it, pointing out that we can't believe in God only when he agrees with us.

"It is a wonder Julie wasn’t a victim of shaken baby syndrome because there were times when I would go to check on her and couldn’t see her breathing. I just had to pick her up and shake her, until Dr. Bristow taught me to put a mirror up to her mouth and her breath would show on it."

As the children were growing up, grades were important. Some of their classmates got rewarded for an "A," and they thought that was a great idea. Peggy let them know there was no way that was going to happen for them. It would have been conceivable that each report card could have cost her $160. That would have been a house payment. She let them know they weren't getting A's for her but for themselves, and it worked. Each of them was very intelligent and outstanding students.

They reminded her of this teaching years later. It happened when the time came to enroll the kids in college. They had scholarships but she needed additional help. When she went in to see about it, at the same time checked to see if she could get help for herself. As strange as it might seem, it was available for them but not for her so she went to the bank and borrowed the money so that she could attend two years as SWICC (Southwest Iowa Community College). She instructed the college to send her grades in a plain brown envelope, but the kids knew about the time they were due to arrive. Robby was to report to the girls what grades Peggy had earned. She did okay and did not have to defend them.

At this stage in her life, Peggy says, ''Now I have my chance at being a grandma. Joni lives in Osceola, is married to Kenny Baker, who had two children- Darrell who is six, and Russell, who is seven. Together they have three. Caitlin is 12, plays softball, swims, does crafts, plays clarinet in the fifth grade band, rides her bike, looks up people and gets information on the internet. She is a busy girl. Caitlin and I attend Sunday school and church together.

"The two younger ones are, twins, Cole and Clay, now age 2 ½ and they are something else! I watch them every Saturday night. My claim to fame is that I am surely the only grandmother whose 2 1/2 year old grandson could have been arrested. We had gone to the boat for lunch. Joni and Kenny each thought the other had Cole, when all of a sudden here came one of the security guards carrying him into the buffet, with him fighting her all the way. He had made it out of the buffet area, down the ramp, and into the casino before anyone could stop him.

"I am surprised it wasn’t Clay. He is the little dare-devil, not afraid of anything. Both boys are up by 6:00 a.m. and in bed by 8:00p.m., going full speed every minute between. They both had mono this winter which only slightly slowed them down. It was detected because they ran a low-grade fever and had ear infection."

Julie married Rodney Martinez and they live in Ankeny. Julie is a Development Technologist in the West Des Moines School District and Rodney is an elementary assistant principal in Des Moines. They have a new baby, Taylor, who came into the world the hard way. "The entire pregnancy was stressful. Julie had morning, afternoon, and night sickness. She puts her heart and soul into everything she does and didn't let that slow her down. Everything had to be done. When the due date drew near, Julie was in labor for a month. She would go to the hospital and back home time and again. She lost all her amniotic fluid. I'm telling you, along about then Grandma just about lost it.

"But Taylor arrived and all is well, except that things are not going according to the parents’ plans. They had their ideas about schedule, but Taylor has established her own. At the time of this writing she is nine weeks old and still has her days and nights turned around. She rules the roost."

Obviously Peggy's family is very important to her. Her mother lives at South View in Osceola. Her brothers are near and all have a close relationship except for her older brother who is a "loner." When Peggy became impatient with him for not returning calls or otherwise staying in touch, she went to his house and said, "We buried mother the other day." He was in shock and she didn't tell him differently for about a half-hour. "He returns my calls now!"

Peggy's family has "caught" her priorities. Julie recently put together a book of old and recent family pictures and made copies for everyone. Even though Robby was not interested in having pictures of those he didn't personally know, he has carried his book with him in the trunk of his car and proudly shares it with relatives when the subject comes up.

Peggy's faith in God has carried her through many difficult times. She sums it up by saying, "I don’t see how people can be farmers and not believe in God.