Reflecting on my Project: Ruth Suckow, Iowa Writer, and My Mother, Charlotte & Cats

Post date: Mar 27, 2016 12:28:08 AM

Reflecting on my current writing project: Ruth Suckow, Iowa Writer, and My Mother, Charlotte & Cats

Blog Post for Easter Weekend, March 26, 2016

I am immersing myself in all things Suckow right now, because I am working on a chapter/essay about Ruth Suckow for a book that examines Midwestern writers and Regionalism during the 1900s. I wrote the proposal for the chapter last summer and have been doing research ever since: at this point, it feels like I’m assembling a large jigsaw puzzle, with an abundance of information from my research. To say that I have learned a great deal is too cliché; however, I am coming away with a greater sense of appreciation for American Literature overall, Midwestern literature, and a better grasp of Regionalism.

As an English teacher for 25 years, I saw regionalism as a way to classify authors by the regions they represented, with Eudora Welty, Flannery O’Connor and Alice Walker as southern writers, and Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost and Nathaniel Hawthorne representing New England. For many years, I had thought of Willa Cather, Jane Smiley, Sherwood Anderson and Sinclair Lewis as Midwestern writers. Then, my boyfriend Mike took to me to an Annual Meeting of the Ruth Suckow Memorial Association in Earlville, Iowa during the late 1990s, and I discovered a remarkable writer born and raised in Iowa who had written numerous short stories and nine books, and been praised by some of the notable people of her day including John Frederick, editor of the Midland, and H. L. Mencken, editor of The Mercury .

How had I done a Master’s Degree in English at Iowa State University, including multiple literature courses, and never heard of Ruth Suckow? How had I grown up in Iowa, attended a Community College, then transferred to Buena Vista College and become an English major, and never read any of her short stories or novels? So, I felt rather cheated. I read her short stories, a few of her novels, and started doing research on her life. In the meantime, I married my boyfriend, and we got more involved with the RSMA: he created the first website and wrote a Wikipedia article about her, and I continued to do research and wrote the Wikipedia article about Ruth’s husband, Ferner Nuhn.

I used one of her short stories, “A Rural Community,” written in 1922, with my Community college Literature class, and discovered that my students could still relate to Ralph, the main character, who takes the train back to his old home town to see his foster parents and finds out that things have changed and yet things have stayed the same. His foster parents try to match him up with his high school sweetheart as they worry about his single status; his mother feeds him a wonderful lunch of fried chicken and mashed potatoes, and my students get hungry reading the description of the food. Almost a hundred years have passed since Suckow crafted the story of a successful man getting off the train to visit the old folks, but my students “get it.”

On the 100th anniversary of Ruth Suckow’s birth, in 1992, the Des Moines Register featured an article about her: Tom Longden wrote, “Ruth Suckow's stories and novels about ordinary farmers, small-town Iowans and independent women were highly regarded in the 1920s and 1930s.” He added, “Editor H. L. Mencken said she was "unquestionably the most remarkable woman . . . writing stories in the republic."

However, I’ve discovered a remarkable truth: as I read and write about Ruth Suckow, I feel that I am exploring the Iowa that my mother, Aunts and grandparents experienced growing up here. Her faithful recording of the details of life in the early 1900s help me to better understand my family history.

Almost every picture of Ruth Suckow includes a cat: she loved them, and so did her husband, Ferner Nuhn. Early on in their relationship, Ruth confided in a friend that “Ferner likes cats, too!” Ferner was 11 years younger—23 to her 34 when they met—and wrote a note to her that teasingly compared her to a cat, complete with claws, and said that he wasn’t afraid of her.

I’ve been doing some family research on Ancestry.com and digging through old photos and came across a number of pictures of my mother, Charlotte, with a cat on her lap or in her arms. So, now I am wondering if part of my fondness for Ruth has to do with identifying her with my mother’s generation. Many of Ruth’s themes have to do with families who are experiencing transitions—farm families in the process of turning over the family farm to a son while the parents either move into town or move into a smaller house on the property. She also describes the daily lives of ordinary families, either living on the farm or in town, complete with the types of foods they ate, their routines at school and work, and descriptions of their farm fields and flower gardens.

My mother, Charlotte, was born on a farm in Tama County and moved to town with her mother Nellie and sisters Jeanne and Reva after the untimely death of her beloved father, Lee. The farm was rented out but they returned later. My mother attended school in Garwin, a small Iowa town but then taught in a one-room schoolhouse as a young woman. Her mother remarried and moved back to the farm, where Charlotte also lived. Her schoolhouse was just up the hill, overlooking the family farm and rolling hills.

Charlotte had the support of several strong women, including her mother and her paternal grandmother Eva who had lived in Chicago and loved to travel, but had come back to Iowa to help her daughter-in-law with the three girls. In doing my family research, I realized that Grandma Eva had even lived in Hawarden—Suckow’s birthplace--where she and a younger husband had a hotel. So, when I read Suckow’s stories and novels, I feel like I am stepping back into the world that my grandmother Nellie, great grandmother Eva and mother Charlotte inhabited.

It is a simpler world, in many ways: no T. V., internet, social media, modern grocery stores or big malls. People worked hard and farm families worked tirelessly, doing chores, baking bread, growing their own food, doing laundry by hand, and there was little time for leisure, much less worrying about many of the things that consume us, in modern day. They went to school to get a basic education, went to church to worship God and enjoy fellowship, and entertainment was simpler and often homemade, with people in the community who could play an instrument, sing, recite a poem, or put on a skit. Many of the socials were sponsored by churches while others were associated with the schools. Food was a large part of their community gatherings, as it remains today.

I would not choose to return to that period of time, however. Without the medical marvels we have, infections and diseases could be deadly: my grandfather Lee cut his hand on a rusty tin can and died of tetanus. Giving birth had its hazards, since there was little to be done in the case of complications. Many of the common health conditions we now treat with medication were much more dangerous in those days. Homes did not come with Central Air Conditioning, efficient Furnaces, or often indoor plumbing. Early automobiles were not as reliable, had terrible tires, and we did not have the wonderful highway system that we enjoy today: many people struggled to get around on rural roads during rainy or snowy seasons. Poverty, foreclosures, and the Great Depression saw many families losing their homes and farms, and many chose to leave for brighter futures elsewhere.

As I have read through Ruth Suckow’s stories and books, I have thought about my mother’s family stories recorded in several big notebooks, complete with pictures. The experiences of immigrants coming to Iowa for a better life, experiencing hardship, facing the cruelty of the harsh Iowa winters, working to overcome obstacles, and enjoying the harvest are common themes. Both have taught me about love, loss, failure, redemption, childbirth, death, war, harvest, childhood, family, legacy, history, and old age. Through Ruth and Charlotte, I have come to understand the Iowa of the previous century, and it makes me appreciate my Iowa heritage all the more.

Last Updated March 26, 2016