The Waverly Cruise honored two men on May 22, a 17-year-old Waverly-Shell Rock High School student who has been soaking up knowledge of auto mechanics as a hopeful vocation, and a 98-year-old owner of a historical filling station and a veteran of World War II from Cedar Falls.
Anthony Feldhake
Anthony Feldhake is the mechanic in his family, he said. He’s also the auto detailer, according to his business card.
The 17-year-old son of Patrick and Julie Feldhake purchased his 1998 Ford Mustang at age 14 and has completed several projects on it and other family cars.
Feldhake handed out a contact card for Wash & Go Detailing, listing prices for a detail and full wax and polish.
Right away after getting the ’98 Mustang, he dove into repainting the disintegrating Atlantic blue chassis in matte black.
“The next big major project besides the basic maintenance – brakes and oil – was a timing chain on my dad’s (Ford) pickup truck that I did for him,†Feldhake said.
When Feldhake says he has a buddy who works at the Ford dealership in town, he means someone who was “generous enough to help (…) work me through the hard parts of doing the timing on the truck.â€
His gracious mechanic mentor is Will Steuer.
Feldhake and his dad were driving around late last summer when they saw Steuer’s Ford Mustang. They knew he worked for a local Ford dealership, flagged him down, and Anthony asked for future help.
Feldhake worked on his dad’s pickup in the family garage, calling Steuer for info and asking for him to come check his work.
Steuer did.
“He would come over and would be generous enough to help me out, and it was nice I had a mentor to work at something that in-depth.â€
In addition to his dad’s timing chain, Feldhake has fully redone the front suspension on his personal Mustang — shocks, springs, struts, control arms, bushings.
The suspension was “rocky,†he said. A budget of $500 – to his surprise – almost covered it.
“Shockingly, I got almost everything except for the rear springs for 500 bucks, which is really nice,†Feldhake said. “They all fit nice and smooth.â€
One of his dad Patrick’s friends has a personal shop with a lift a couple miles north of Cedar Falls. Anthony bartered to ceramic coat the man’s 1968 Chevelle. In turn, the man let Anthony use the shop lift to work on his own car’s suspension.
Feldhake had not done a ceramic coating before, so he got permission and tested the process on his dad’s car.
“I actually practiced (and) learned on my dad’s trunk,†he said. Then he coated the rest of his dad’s car. “It was nearly flawless.â€
As to the prep work, Feldhake used a clay bar method, which together with a lubricant removes the roughness and impurities from the paint, according to YouTube. He didn’t have to sand it.
He used the 1998 Mustang as part of his portfolio when he applied to McPherson College, which bills itself as the only school to provide a bachelor’s degree in automobile restoration technology.
Feldhake and his dad are both in a Mustang club, termed Iowa Mustangs Unstabled, that attends various cruises organized through Facebook.
Feldhake believes himself to be the youngest member of the club who owns their own Mustang, “which is pretty cool.â€
When he was younger, he took on his dad’s Hot Wheels, setting up tracks and racing them with his siblings.
“But I never really truly caught on to the classic cars until maybe like seven or eight,†he said.
That’s when, on a family vacation while waiting for other family to shop, a random guy was naming off “brands and names of cars,†which impressed him.
“I’m like, ‘how does he do it?’â€
Vehicles have been plentiful in his family.
“My family has a bunch of them,†he said.
Why not know how they work.
John Rapp
When John Rapp’s dad lost his job during the Depression, the family moved to Victor, Iowa, to live on his maternal grandmother’s farm.
“It was 300 miles to go out to Nebraska to see my dad’s parents, and (the trip) took two days. (…) We didn’t have pavements there yet. Highway 6 wasn’t paved and none of those interstates were there.â€
Rapp moved to Cedar Falls in 1942 and took a job at a station that the Behrens brothers, John F. and William C., had opened in 1925 on East 14th Street and Waterloo Road.
“Nobody made any money (…) because of the Depression,†he said. “I started working at the station at 15 cents an hour.â€
Rapp graduated from Cedar Falls High School in 1944 and went into the Army. He served from late 1944 to 1946, “all over the United States and Germany right after the war was over.â€
Rapp worked trucking materials around and caring for Army vehicles. Most of Europe was Germany, he noted, “as it wasn’t zoned in then yet.â€
His posting took him from Frankfort, to Munich, to Belgrade, the now-former Yugoslavia, controlled for part of that time by the German Wehrmacht. He also saw Berlin.
Part of the reason John decided to work, rather than attend college, when he got out of the Army was Beverly.
“She waited for me the whole time I was in the service,†he said.
She became John’s wife and eventually his secretary at the service station. “She sent out statements before we had credit cards. Everybody charged gas,†Rapp said.
After parting with the Army, Rapp purchased his first car, a Model A Ford. “I almost spent my whole discharge (payment), $300 for it. (…) It was a pretty nice car.
“The speed limit was 35 back in those days. In town it was 15 or 20. There were stop signs everywhere (and was) very little pavement.â€
When Rapp first started at the gas station, it was just a filling station.
Early on, the station had a pit where Rapp and staff would change oil on weekends.
The car had to be driven over the pit.
“I’d drive over it – go down some stairs and get underneath it and drain plugs and stuff.†He didn’t start working on automobiles until in the late ‘40s, early ‘50s.
“I had hundreds of kids work for me through the years,†Rapp said.
As the country transitioned from Depression to post-war boom, jobs became more available, and cars became more affordable.
“All of a sudden kids got interested in automobiles,†he said.
Rapp had many kids hanging around the station who loved cars, often as soon as they could start learning on them, at age 14. They were “always underfoot,†he said.
“Finally, I just kind of took them under my wing,†Rapp said. He started the Pacer Car group, which at one time had 31 members who hung around the station.
Of the regular station kids, “Some of them ended up doctors, lawyers, pilots, professors, did all kids of things,†Rapp said.
One of them started the Waverly Cruise — Waverly Shell Station co-owner Jim Hundley.
“Hundley was one of them,†Rapp said.
Visiting with customers, too, was part of the job for Rapp.
He would greet and introduce them to each other.
“I always said good things about people. Anything bad – I kept that to myself,†Rapp said.
In the 1960s, Rapp purchased the business from Norris Smith and continued operations, eventually adding a large service bay with two hoists. It was cheaper to build a freestanding building next to the station, so Rapp did.
The station stayed in operation until 1990 when factors beyond his control entered the picture.
Demand grows
Rapp sold Mobil and Sinclair fuel over the years.Â
He trucked in his own gas from the railroad in Waterloo where it came in, to the station, in progressively larger tankers. The first one was 400 gallons, the second two were 600, and the last one was 1250.
“They got bigger because I had to haul more gas,†Rapp said.
It makes sense as the population of Cedar Falls has also exploded in Rapp’s time there, he observed.
In 1940, the city had a U.S. Census count of 9,000 residents. The population surpassed 40,000 in 2020; 9,000 more attend UNI.
A highway runs through it
The area’s continued development led to the eventual relocation of the station to make way for a new highway. Rapp said the state told him be out by the end of May 1990 owing to the construction of Highway 58.
“The state of Iowa bought (properties in the project path). They were just ready to bulldoze them,†Rapp said.
The Cedar Falls Historical Society in 1993 partnered to move the Behrens-Rapp Filling Station to its current location along with the Cedar Falls Visitor’s Bureau, and Trolley Trackers Questers Chapter 1113.
“The mayor of Cedar Falls said, we just gave a dollar for this (on behalf of the) Historical Society,†Rapp said.
The Behrens-Rapp Filling Station was reinstalled north of where West First Street Ts with Clay Street on July 21, 1993, and was restored as a Visitor Center. It sits just west of the Little Red Schoolhouse on the edge of Sturgis Park.
Its old location is now Veterans Memorial Park.
Rapp missed some years of the Waverly Cruise, understandably, while caring for Beverly.
When he could no longer lift her, she went into the nursing home and a year later in 2020, she died.
They were married almost 73 years.
Two children were born to them, Stephen (Donna Maier) Rapp and Julie (Brian) Lewis. They have many grand- and great-grandchildren.
John Rapp still meets with the Pacer Car group.
“To this day, the few that are left alive have a big party for me at Toad’s in Cedar Falls on my birthday on July 14,†Rapp said.
