I know Webster City is still on the radar of so many people whose lives intersected in this small, marvelous Iowa town.

I know because I hear from them.

Heck, we hear from them.

Just last week, we heard from Debbie Long Hatz, whose father once managed the Elks Club before the membership became insolvent. She had returned for her 55th class reunion, a graduate who moved on and created a beautiful life, but whose memories are firmly rooted in a town that has hovered in the 8,000 population category for most of my lifetime. Her letter to the editor appeared on this page last Friday.

I hear from my friends whose parents were some of the pillars of downtown Webster City.

My best friend’s parents owned and ran Olson Pharmacy, which, when we were young teens, served some of the best ice cream concoctions you could find downtown at its soda fountain. Disclosure: I have the recipe for Peanut Dope Sundaes.

Do I need a bodyguard?

Olson’s also had an impressive cosmetic counter in those days. Fun fact: I spilled a bottle of Shalimar on Cheryl Olson in Dick Tighe’s history class in high school.

He kicked her out.

A dear friend’s mother ran Iowa Miss long before it became Iowa Miss & Mrs. and moved down to the site of the old armory, which is now the site of the county-owned Department of Public Health office off Superior Street.

The family that owned and ran Iowa Miss, the Ostlunds, also once owned the store where I worked at my first job: Jack & Jill. It sold infant and children’s clothing and toys. When I worked there, however, it was owned by Jack and Jan Marvel.

Jack Marvel was a fixture at the Elks Club. Back in its early days, and I mean long before I can remember — which may not really be saying much — Jack Marvel, as I was told, black balled my father for membership in the Elks Club. I don’t know the real history; I just heard that it happened. Perhaps it wasn’t true. Dad, afterall, was an Elks Club member.

Another fact, which isn’t necessarily fun: I broke the story that the Elks Club was penniless. Early in my journalism career, I was living with my parents and happened to glance down at a letter from Debbie Long Hatz’s dad announcing these words: “Brothers, we are broke.”

I took a lot of grief for the story I wrote, though it was accurate.

Now here we are.

All that is past is, well, past.

But the Elks Club stood through all of it.

The Olsons attended dances there.

So did the Ostlunds.

Certainly Jack and Jan Marvel were active there.

I still own the emerald green velveteen gown my mother wore to a Christmas dance in that building. Maybe I’m imagining it, but I think there is a photo of her standing on that first grand staircase landing with some of her best friends. If that picture still exists, Lil Ross would be front and center. She was Mom’s best friend and mother to Larry and Terry Ross.

Her husband, Bob, owned Ross’s Tavern.

The fabric woven through that Elks Club building is a massive corner of the quilt that is this town.

Friends, take a look at today’s front page. Remember those times, from big band music to The Shades? Try to remember.

Remember that the building was a part of our lives.

Remember that it was a part of this marvelous community that lingers in your fond memories, when Rocky’s brought pizza to town and you could still buy shoes in multiple locations from people who were your neighbors.

Most of you have moved away.

And that is as it should be.

But now a group of spunky folks are well on the way to saving one of the hearts of this community.

See that contact information at the end of the piece that starts on page 1?

Friends, you know what to do.

Jane Curtis is interim editor of the Daily Freeman-Journal.