One of my favorite activities, at almost any time of year, is to walk through Our Neighborhood.

The trees have been especially eye-popping this year. I’ve heard the trees are particularly colorful when there has been a lack of rain. This year is certainly one of those.

About two weeks ago, I met another guy out walking in the early morning, when the rising sun made the colors exceptional. We greeted each other and he immediately began telling me about a couple who reside next to where we were standing.

And I thought I had a degree of anonymity …

He had grown up in Kamrar and introduced me to the Brills.

Elton Brill, born in Kamrar in 1916, was the son of Harry and Flora (Cormaney) Brill. He received his education in the Kamrar Public School and graduated in 1934. His father owned Brill’s Grill, a restaurant, and Elton worked there until he started his own mercantile business in 1938. In October of 1942, he and Ethel Hauge were married. Elton served in the U.S. Army’s Medical Corps during World War II and was stationed in the medical lab at an Army hospital in Springfield, Missouri.

On returning to Kamrar following his discharge from the Army, Elton started Brill’s Feed and Seed Company. He also began a 30-year service as postmaster of Kamrar.

In addition, he had interests in farming at Kamrar, Belmond and Williams. Having been a smaller town postmaster myself, I can understand having an outside interest; Elton obviously carried this idea to a much higher level.

Elton retired from the Postal Service in 1978 and threw his energy into his community. He was the charter president of the Kamrar Lions Club, brought a successful weekly Bingo to Kamrar, and even planted blue grass along many of Iowa’s state highways.

Elton was the oldest person living in Kamrar when he passed in February of 2007. He’s remembered as a man who put his love for community closely behind his love for Ethel.

Ethel was also a source of limitless energy. She was born in September of 1921 on a farm in Hamilton County. First attending school in Ellsworth, Ethel graduated from Story City High School and Drake Teachers School before marrying Elton. She worked as a teacher, a law firm secretary and, later, sold Stanley Home Products.

Of course, she also ran a household, raised two children and assisted in the post office and Feed and Seed operation.

The story is told that Ethel, at 18, applied to be a school teacher. When the school administrator, milking cows on his farm, told her she had no experience, Ethel asked him how she could gain experience without first having the job.

She later served on the school board and city council in Kamrar. When Elton passed in 2007, Ethel continued with her usual energy, learning new skills like oil painting, and she started learning to play the piano at the age of 86. Ethel passed in 2018 and joined Elton in Our Neighborhood.

It’s been a real pleasure to get to know them now.

Our Neighborhood is a column by Michael Eckers focusing on the men and women whose presence populates Graceland Cemetery in Webster City.