Write about Iowa

Post date: Dec 6, 2016 2:56:35 PM

barn

Left -- An old barn on my grandparent's farm, rural Tama County.

Right -- Grandma Nellie in 1946 with two of her grandchildren, Charlene and Jimmy.

nellie and lee wedding picture 1913

Left -- Nellie and Lee's wedding picture, 1913.

Right -- Aunt Jeanne, in the yard of the old farmhouse, just a few years ago.

Aunt Jeanne by the old farm house

“Write about Iowa,” he said. Corn fields, country roads, old barns, small towns, county fairs, good schools and friendly people. Church every Sunday & visiting my Grandma Nellie’s farm. Growing up, we ate jello, fried chicken, potato salad, biscuits, casseroles and brownies at church suppers. Our house had a playhouse in the back yard and a storm shelter where we huddled, listening to the wind howl. We decorated the graves of relatives in country cemeteries each May. Grandpa Art rang sleigh bells outside one snowy Christmas Eve and we thought Santa flew above the house, past snow drifts, train tracks, the county Courthouse, and farm fields outside of Marshalltown. We took road trips over rivers, bluffs, rolling hills: seeing eagles and deer. My parents remodeled the country school house where mom once taught: they planted a garden, rescued cats & enjoyed views of the rolling hills & Nellie’s farm house.

Last updated Dec. 6, 2016