This reporter's farewell to a Waterloo icon
Evan "Curly" Hultman, WWII veteran, Army general, Iowa attorney general and U.S district attorney, is laid to rest.
U.S. Army Reserve Maj. Gen. Evan “Curly” Hultman, former Iowa attorney general and U.S. attorney for the northern district of Iowa, passed away Feb. 16 at age 99, five months shy of his 100th birthday. I was asked to speak at his funeral. This is what I said.
II Timothy 4: 6-7
“…the time for my departure is near. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. “
That passage from St. Paul’s second letter to Timothy in the New Testament is entirely appropriate for Evan “Curly” Hultman – as a soldier, as an old track athlete and as a man of boundless faith and optimism in any of his fields of endeavor, including politics, the law and the military.
Some might wonder why Curly and his family would have a journalist speaking at his funeral. I wondered that a bit too. But it's obvious. I met the height requirement. We saw eye to eye – literally. Curly was five bucks and change in physical stature – but he had a million-dollar personality, and character and integrity as deep and vast as the oceans and continents he traversed in his life’s work. But he was always totally centered on home and family. You were as comfortable with him as with a friendly next door neighbor. Because that’s what he was. He was a neighbor and a friend and a leading ambassador of “Iowa nice” to all the world.
In fact I found out years after I’d first met Curly that he and his wife Betty were neighbors to my Uncle John and Aunt Betty Ann Gardner on Martin Road. And Curly's daughter Heidi worked for Aunt Betty Ann at Random Gift House in Waterloo. They were all great friends.
But Curly told me he once sent my Uncle John, a masonry contractor, to do some work at the house in Iowa City that Curly’s daughter Susan lived in. What Curly didn’t tell Uncle John was that Susan owned a boa constrictor.
Uncle John, scared out of his wits, had what’s charitably known in diplomatic circles as a “frank expression of views” with Curly, and told him, “don’t ever send me down there again.”
My mother told me Uncle John was still upset about it years later. When Curly came to Aunt Betty Ann’s funeral visitation, Curly asked me, “Did I ever tell you about Johnny and the snake?” I shushed him and said, “Don’t’ bring it up here!”
Curly spoke at my Uncle John's funeral last year. Uncle John was the last of my folks’ World War II generation in our family. So I'm just returning the favor today.
I’ve known Curly for a third of his life and more than half of mine. He was always great to work with as a news source – and really saved my keyster on one occasion.
I was covering the 2012 Black Hawk County Republican caucuses at Central Middle School, which included appearances by candidates like Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul. But I was cornered by an individual who said he was running for president -- but, clearly, not in this solar system. He might have won a caucus on Mars but not in Black Hawk County, in either major party. And he was long winded.
I had this sinking feeling of missing the overall story and my deadline. But Curly, who had warned me of this gentleman’s approach, got between us, engaged him in conversation and allowed me to escape. Curly may have been a tailback on the East High football team but he definitely knew how to block and I was grateful to him that night.
Anyone who spent any amount of time with Curly will recall that he always ended his telephone conversations with “God bless.” That stuck in my head, and I recalled from my youth that comedian Red Skelton always ended his variety show with those very words – “Good night, and may God bless.” Mr. Skelton was described by one TV critic as “a warrior who fights gloom.”
And doesn’t that apply to our friend Curly!
Curly was a warrior who fought gloom and he was a warrior for peace and justice.
As a soldier, he worked with former adversaries — from the Japanese admiral who helped him uncover stockpiles of kamikaze suicide planes and other weaponry for disposal at the end of World War II, to officers of former Warsaw Pact nations and Soviet republics in NATO. His work with the International Confederation of Reserve Officers may have been his crowning achievement.
As a Republican attorney general of Iowa, he worked with Democratic U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy as the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 was being formulated; RFK had sought Curly’s input.
And as a federal prosecutor in the 1970s Curly sought justice for the families of two FBI agents murdered in South Dakota.
In these and other causes, some unpopular then and now, he encountered criticism, even ire, and sometimes was the target of opportunists seeking to impugn his integrity. He was undeterred and motivated by a deep sense of loyalty and conviction.
I saw that firsthand just last year when he caucused for former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson, a fellow former U.S. district attorney under President Reagan, who was running for president.
Clearly, Curly was swimming against the tide. But Gov. Hutchinson had called Curly personally, sought his support, and Curly felt honor bound and determined to do just that, even at age 98 and on a beastly cold winter night.
But Curly needed a ride. How could I not oblige? I also saw it as a really good story opportunity for my freelance column. In addition to his considerable political resume, Curly had to have been one of the oldest, if not the oldest, caucus goer in the state that night. And as we know now, it was his last caucus.
As Curly rose and spoke for Gov. Hutchinson before caucus goers at the Columbus High gym, I saw this image: Curly, eloquently speaking to a bleacher section full of attentive and respectful caucus goers – and a large American flag on the wall between them. God couldn’t have given me a better photo opportunity, and you darn well betcha I took the photo.
Curly didn’t win anyone over that night, but you could feel the respect the folks had for him. It was so typical of his life and career. He was Theodore Roosevelt’s archetypal “man in the arena,” who, as our former president said, “spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”
Curly suffered a crushing defeat, as he expected, in the 1964 gubernatorial election to Gov. Harold Hughes — who also became his friend — in the Lyndon Johnson landslide following President Kennedy’s assassination. He was advised not to run but honored his commitments to his supporters. And Curly underwent a very difficult confirmation process for his reappointment as U.S. district attorney in the early 1980s. But for every setback and every critic, well intentioned or not, he had many more people of all stripes who bore him up – none more important than his family.
When Curly had an opportunity for advancement in continued service in the regular career Army at the end of World War II, the love of his life, Betty, sent him a two-word telegram: “Come home.” She said the same thing following his gubernatorial defeat. And with all his travels in the halls of government in Washington with the Reserve Officers Association under several presidents, and his travels in Europe with the International Confederation of Reserve Officers and NATO, the road always ended back home in Waterloo.
I’d like to think Betty has called him home again, one final time.
And now, the old prosecutor rests. At ease, soldier. You fought the good fight. You finished the race. You kept the faith. Until we meet again, old friend, good night and may God bless.
Evan “Curly” Hultman’s full obituary, and a video of his funeral service, may be viewed at the link here.
Pat Kinney is a freelance writer and former longtime news staffer with the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier and, prior to that, several years at the Ames Tribune. He is currently an oral historian with the Grout Museum District in Waterloo. His “View from the Cedar Valley” column is part of “Iowa Writers Collaborative,” a collection of news and opinion writers from around the state who previously and currently work with a host of Iowa newspapers, news organizations and other publications. They are listed below. Clink on the links to check them out, subscribe for free - and, if you believe in the value of quality journalism, support this column and/or any of theirs with a paid subscription.
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Pat—Beautiful send off to a remarkable Iowan. I first met Curley in 1964 when he was running for governor. I was the young editor of the Harlan Newspapers and spent a delightful afternoon as he blitzed Harlan asking residents for their votes. He may have been the underdog against incumbent Harold Hughes but you wouldn’t have known it as he raced door to door while I tried to keep up with my camera. Thanks, Pat.
A beautiful testimony!