Dave and Paula Owens honor customers on a memory board in their café.

By Beverly Clinkingbeard

It is 7:00 a.m. and Dave and Paula have the coffee on at the Owens Café in the Amity Community Hall at College Springs, Iowa. As the bacon fries and the eggs are scrambled a lunch special is started.

Dotted across our mid-America landscape are our little towns, each with their own characters and characteristics. Little businesses and the folks that operate as well as patronize them are what make up a town’s personality.

This little café is uniquely located in Amity Hall. Several years ago the residents collected newspapers, cans, applied for grants, cleaned up their main street and built a new community hall. While at it, they created what just may be the smallest museum in the state of Iowa. It covers one wall and is sectioned off to represent the former Amity College that is a part of their history, the town, and then the current College Springs/South Page School. Now, Dave and Paula have added a memory board as a means of honoring customers.

Paula’s childhood was in a restaurant setting as she grew up clearing tables, washing dishes and pouring coffee. At the café, they share the cooking and other duties.

Dave is a veteran of the US Navy. He served aboard the USS Tidewater AD31, a destroyer tender stationed out of Norfolk, Virginia. He says he served exactly three years and five months. Ports of call were France, Italy, Spain and Cuba. The USS Tidewater was a mother ship, which meant an admiral was aboard. Dave was in charge of the boat division, making scheduled trips from where the Tidewater was anchored to certain piers. The admiral had a yacht for his transport and Dave was in charge of that. This meant a wait and no return trip to the ship until the admiral was aboard and gave the word.

For a hometown visit, a good burger or a lunch time special, visit the Owens Café. It’s unique and all of what makes us who we are in “fly-over” country. ’Til next time.