Voices from the Prairie1

A publication of Humanities Iowa • Volume XI, No.2

voices from the

Voices from the Prairie2

HI Board of Directors President Valentina Fominykh, Des MoinesVice President Moudy S. Nabulsi, Fort MadisonSecretary Fiona Valentine, Sioux CityTreasurer Tim Johnson, WashingtonPast President Rosemarie Ward, Des MoinesDirectors Harry Brod, Cedar FallsMichael Carey, FarragutFaye Clow, BettendorfJudy Combs, BloomfieldThomas Dean, Iowa CityKate Gronstal, Council BluffsJanell Hansen, Elk HornTom Morain, LamoniNeil Nakadate, AmesBarb O’Hea, PeostaDick Ramsay, Spirit LakeMary Ann Reiter, OttumwaDorothy Simpson-Taylor, Iowa CityRalph Swain, Sioux City

HI Staff Christopher Rossi, Executive DirectorCheryl Walsh, Grants DirectorSusan Foster, Fiscal OfficerDana McGillin, Public Affairs/ Administrative OfficerMichael Knock, Program Officer/Editor

Mission StatementThe mission of Humanities Iowa is to promote understanding and appreciation of the people, communities, cultures and stories of importance to Iowa and the nation.

Humanities Iowa is a non-profit organization funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

About the Cover Iowa native A.M. “Pete” Wettach photographed the people of his home state from the Great Depression through mid-century. The cover photo was taken in 1950 near Preston in Jackson County at the Clifford Grant farm. Photo courtesy of the State Historical Society of Iowa-Iowa City.

Voices from the Prairie is published three times a year and distributed to the friends of Humanities Iowa and interested Iowans. To subscribe please contact us:

Humanities Iowa 100 Oakdale CampusN310 OH Iowa City, IA 52242-5000 phone: (319) 335-4153 fax: (319) 335-4154 info@humanitiesiowa.org

Iowa State University professor and Kalona resident Mary Swander was named Iowa’s third poet laureate Feb. 18 by Governor Chet Culver. She succeeds Robert Dana who has held the title since 2006.

Swander was nominated for the honor by a special committee made up of six poetry experts from around the state. The committee was appointed by Humanities Iowa and the Department of Cultural Affairs.

“Mary Swander has had a long and distinguished career as an author and a teacher of poetry and other forms of literature,” Governor Culver said. “In her new role as Iowa’s poet laureate, she will be a strong and passionate advocate for Iowa’s unique culture and the inspiration that poetry can offer.”

Swander grew up in Manning before moving with her family to Davenport. She received her undergraduate degree in English from Georgetown University and is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

She is the author of three books of poetry and two critially-acclaimed memoirs, The Desert Pilgrim (Viking, 2003) and the award-winning Out of this World: A Journey of Healing (Viking/Penguin 1995; UI Press 2008).

The nominating committee was chaired by Nadine Brewer, professor emerita of English at Buena Vista University, with Steve Semken, founder of Ice Cube Press in North Liberty as vice chair. Other members included poet M.L. Hopson of Des Moines, Tom Lynner, the co-founder of the Des Moines National Poetry Festival, Grinnell College poetry professor George Barlow, and Mount Mercy College English professor Jim McKean.

Join other Iowans and become a member of Humanities Iowa. We offer a variety of membership levels starting at just $45. Benefits include the option of a subscription to Humanities magazine, a publication of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Members also receive a subscription to Voices from the Prairie. Membership is tax-deductible, minus the cost of Humanities magazine, should you opt to receive it. The magazine has an annual renewal cost of $24. Humanities Iowa also accepts gifts of stock or securities. To become a member, make a donation or receive more information, please contact our office by phone or via our website: www.humanitiesiowa.org.

Contents

Iowa History Prizewinner Bill Friedrickspage 4

Rural Memoirspage 6

Mary Swander named new Iowa poet laureate

Volume XI Number 2 3

A-BNancy Adams-CoganAfrican-American Museum of Iowa *Dennis Andersen*La Vonne Andrew*Nancy BakerViolet M. BakerEd & Ethel Barker*Lois BartelmeLarry & Catherine BasileFerenc Beiwel*Jane BellGalin Berrier*Thomas BoydTom & Liz BoydWillard & Susan Boyd*Lowell & Paula BrandtRobert & Mary BreitfelderMargaret Brennan*Steve BrowerJean BrownMrs. Robert Brown*Ann BurtonWilliam & Barbara Buss*

C-DCarolyn CannonCaplan Family FoundationRichard and Ellen CaplanHarry & Jeannette Carter*Jane CassidyFaye Clow*Judy Combs*Marcia ConnellBetty CooperLois CraigKathryne Cutler*Duffy De France*Frances De Jong*Thomas DeanLupe & Guadalupe DiandaJudy DietrichJudith DoorenbosBurton Drexler*

E-FBarb & Ron Eckhoff*Effigy Mounds National Monument*Glenn EhrstineGeorge & Lois Eichacker*Susan Enzle*

James Erb*City of EsthervilleKim FindlayBrian Foecke*Susan FosterWilliam FriedricksGary Frost*

G-HRuth & Ralph GaedeNancy GarretsonHelen GoldsteinMyra GoodhueJanell GrahamMary A. GrefeLinda GroenendykKate Gronstal*Ted & Dianne Haas*Doris HamiltonWilliam Hamm*Mary Lou HanleyVoanne Hansen*Barbara HaringOrtha HarstadJames Hayes*Pam HazellJeff & Cindy Heland*Richard & Helen HernstadtJan & John Hess*Mary Beth HillMarsha Hucke*Russell Husted & Ruth HurlburtSidney & Elizabeth Huttner*

J-K-LLee & Nancy Jarvis*Doug & Sheila JohnsonClaire & Marilyn KellerMartin Kelly*Lyle KeslMargaret KiekhaeferJames & Patricia KingHarvey KlevarWayne KobberdahlWilliam KochRichard & Judy KreiterEdgar KurtMaurice LeeThea Leslie*John M. LewisLois LindamanSherry Lippert*Helen Lockwood

Mary LoebigMarcia & Cedric LofdahlAlma LongMary LundbyAmy LuttingerRichard & Nancy LynchTom Lynner*

M-NEsther Mackintosh*Mary Grace MayerBonnie & Robert McCoy*Don & L. Edalene McCarthy*Dana McGillin*John Menninger*Rex MontgomeryTom MorainJane Morrison*Clara MortiboyHelen & Wayne Moyer*Helen & Henry MoyerKatherine & John MoyersRuth MuirNeil NakadateRoger Natte*Harland Nelson*Mary Noble*Joe & Joanne NolteDee & Carrie Norton*

O-P-Q-RArdith OstremArmond & Polly Pagliai*Helen ParsonsDale Patrick*Dorothy PaulSally PaustianShirley Pfeifer*Alta PriceWalter Pyper*Ed & Ericka RaberRichard RamsayMary Ann ReiterDell RichardJerald RigdonThomas RockafellowMarci RohrbergChristopher Rossi*Neil & Helen RossiNicholas Rossi*Roswell & Elizabeth Garst Foundation*Gerard Rushton*

S-TRobert & Hutha Sayre*Alice ScharRonald SchechtmanAnn Schnucker*John ShawWilliam ShermanW. Lee & Lee ShopeDonald ShurrDale Simon*Vladimir SkardaBarbara A. Baker SloaneArthur Small*Marty & Julianne SmithJanet SpeicherD.C. Spreistersbach*Mildred & Otto SteeleTheresa & James StelkLyn StinsonJames & Jeanne StopulosJ.S. StraussJohn & Susan Strauss*Mildred SyedelMelia TatmanRichard Thomas*David TiffanyTrees ForeverMs. Darwin TurnerArlen & Asta Twedt

U-ZSarah Uthoff*Fiona Valentine*Beth Van ZeeRhoda Vernon*Violet M. Baker TrustBruce & Marlys WalkerPyper WalterRosemarie Ward*Joan WeisFred WeldsteinRaymond WilkesJanet Winslow*Margaret WolfDon WootenRobert & Charlotte WorleyElaine WormhoudtDonald Young*

* Signifies a multi-year giver

Humanities Iowa thanks its 2007-08 Donors & Members

Voices from the Prairie4

A Conversation About

streetcars. The great irony is that I ended up doing my dissertation on a topic very close to that – Henry Huntington.

HI: What about public history? BF: In graduate school we were all trained to do research and write for other scholars. We were trained to work at other big universities and mentor graduate students on their very narrow dissertation topics. I thought that was what I would do.

But I had done this dissertation on Henry Huntington. I didn’t see it as local history. I saw it as business history because that is the way I was trained. You’re told to think big and to downplay local history. Local history is for amateurs...for buffs.

But then I got my dissertation revised and published and I was looking for another project. I ended up looking locally. I did a business history of the Des Moines Register.

HI: And that led you to more of an interest in local history?

BF: Well, it sort of dawned on me. I had been at Simpson for seven or eight years by this time and I realized, my future is not what I thought it would be. Local history is much more important.

The public is interested in history if you pitch the story for them. That doesn’t mean it has to be any less serious. But it has to be jargon free and it has to develop the topics differently because the public doesn’t have the background.

So it wasn’t a planned thing. I followed this path and realized that my interest was not in pursuing narrow research and going on to a university but staying at Simpson and doing projects that would hopefully interest other

Iowa History Bill Friedricks

with Iowa History Prizewinner

Bill Friedricks,

HI’s inaugural Iowa History

Prizewinner - Photo courtesy

of Simpson College.

William (Bill) Friedricks never expected to stay in Iowa. The Glendale, Calif. native, who received his doctorate from the University of Southern California in 1986, got his first teaching job at Simpson College in Indianola in 1988. Just more than 20 years later, he is the recipient of Humanities Iowa’s inaugural Iowa History Prize.

The Iowa History Prize, a $90,000 biennial award, was established by HI to promote the study of Iowa history. A

nine-member Blue Ribbon Panel including Tim Walch of the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library, former State Historical Society senior historian Loren Horton and UI history professor Leslie Schwalm, selected Friedricks from a group of entries from around the state.

HI sat down with Friedricks over coffee back in December to get his thoughts on the state of the historical profession, the importance of local history and techniques for getting students excited about learning about the Hawkeye state.

Humanities Iowa: What led you to pursue history as a career?

Bill Friedricks: I think I was drawn to the stories. I grew up in Los Angeles, which is not really an historical city like many east coast cities. In Los Angeles history is created and recreated by Hollywood. You don’t have that connection to history that you have in a place like Boston.

Still, I can’t tell you why, but I was always fascinated by streetcars in Los Angeles. I was very young when they were starting to pull up the tracks, but I still remember the last of the

“The public is

interested in

history if you

pitch the story

for them. That

doesn’t mean

it has to be any

less serious.”

Volume XI Number 2 5

scholars but also have some appeal with the broader public.

HI: It sounds like there is a gap between what professional historians do and the kind of history the public enjoys. Can public history help to bridge that gap?

BF: Unfortunately, I don’t think there is an easy answer to that. We live in an ahistorical time and America tends to be ahistorical anyway. But there was a time when historians did write for the public and were read. Historians like Charles Beard were dinnertime conversation. Arthur Schlesinger certainly engaged the public. To a lesser extent I think Doris Kearns Goodwin does that today.

We need to be writing more narrative. One of the huge problems is that history graduate students aren’t told to do that. Narratives don’t get dissertation prizes. Narratives don’t get published. People who write biographies are not even considered to be historians. They should be.

The truth is the public likes history but the history they are getting is History Channel history. Whenever I see The History Channel, it’s always military history. The public is clamoring for history, but historians are not interested. They don’t understand that there is a big audience there.

HI: It sounds like it was your study of the Register that led you to become interested in doing public history. Did it also lead you to develop an interest in Iowa history?

BF: It was required of the topic. The Register’s history is a history of Iowa. It was founded in 1849 just a few years after Iowa became a state. It grew and developed in many of the same ways Iowa did. To understand the Register...to understand the people who were working there and running it...to understand the issues the Register was writing about...I had to learn the history of Iowa. So I had a lot of background reading to do. And then while I was reading volumes and volumes of Registers, the context of the newspaper’s story really came through.

That’s when I became much more involved in Iowa’s story. I began to see all of these issues. Iowa State University Press was struggling. They were purchased by Blackwell shortly after

I published the Register book with them. Then, around 2000 or so, the State Historical Society started to struggle. They kept losing positions...and people were not being replaced.

So, there’s this big pullback in Iowa history, and I was startled. I was moving in this direction, picking up Iowa history reading all of these fascinating stories, meeting really interesting historians and the big state institution that should be supporting work like this was losing funding and pulling back.

So, yes, I did become more interested in Iowa history, but it also was an issue of convenience. Historians often do look in their own backyard for topics. It’s an easy way to get access to a lot of resources and get a number of people to interview for oral histories.

HI: Did the same thing happen with the Iowa History Center, which you founded at Simpson in 2006? Did you look around you, see a vacuum and think, “I’m going to fill this”?

BF: Yes. I started thinking about this when I was working on the Ruan project. Blackwell published it, but it was a real struggle because they were dropping their Iowa history line. I did get it published, but then Blackwell completely dropped the Iowa history line.

This was all happening when I was trying to generate more interest in Iowa history. So I started talking to the administration at Simpson. I told them that there was a real need here. I said that I thought we could find a little niche and try and do some publishing. Then, I started thinking about bringing in some speakers and providing grant money.

The administration at the time wasn’t really supportive, but I kept talking about it. No one was listening until our current president (John Byrd) came on board. In about 2005 he said he would give me some seed money to see what might happen.

HI: In your proposal for the Iowa History Prize one thing you mentioned was something called Iowa Town History Snapshots.Could you explain how the snapshot project works?

BF: I open the class with a map of Iowa and everybody comes up and puts a little pushpin where their town is located. They describe their town and tell everything they know about it–which is usually very little. Then I tell them there is one big project. They are going to be doing a group PowerPoint presentation that involves writing a town history over a particular decade.

Last year we did World War I. For example, some students looked at World War I from the perspective of Reinbeck, Iowa. Some discovered that their German ancestors were put in jail or that a German Lutheran church was burned down. Some of the students learned that in Algona during World War II there were German prisoners of war and there were African-American soldiers guarding these prisoners.

For research they could interview people if they could find anyone still alive from that era, but mostly they had to rely on these little weekly newspapers. So, they are reading these small town weekly newspapers, and they are enjoying it. Some of them saw names they recognized...ancestors, great great grandparents of their friends. h

Voices from the Prairie6

It’s all Robert’s fault.

Robert Birkby that is. Robert is the husband of newspaper columnist, author and KMA radio homemaker Evelyn Birkby. Back in the fall of 1949, Robert heard that Willard Archie, the publisher of the Shenandoah Sentinel, was looking for a columnist to do a weekly piece about farm life in Fremont County. Robert told Evelyn that she should apply.

“We lived on this little farm,” Evelyn said. “We had one baby and another one about two weeks away from arriving. Robert told me to go and apply to write that column. He said ‘You need something creative to do besides raising children and little chickens and pigs and cooking and all of the things that farm women do.’”

Evelyn protested, but Robert had an answer for every one of her excuses.

“‘I can’t write,’” she told him. “‘I can talk, but I can’t write.’ But then he told me that all writing is is writing down your words. ‘Ahhhhh,’ I said, ‘but I can’t spell.’ He said ‘I’ll get you a dictionary.’”

As she tells that story over a sandwich at the Penn Drug Co. in downtown Sidney, Iowa, Robert smiles a little as though he’s heard it all before.

He probably has. After 60 years of work in newspapers, radio and publishing, Evelyn’s reputation as a chronicler of rural life in and around Fremont County is well known far beyond southwest Iowa. Her books (she just finished her tenth) have been reviewed in the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, the Washington Post and Smithsonian magazine, to name a few. Food writers Jane and Michael Stern featured her in a chapter in their 2006 book Two for the Road and wrote the foreword to her 1993 rural memoir Up a

Country Lane. She was also a part of the 1996 Smithsonian Folklife Festival held on the Mall in Washington D.C.

Why all the attention? Riki Saltzman, the folk life coordinator for the Iowa Arts Council, said it has to do with Evelyn’s personality.

“Evelyn’s work is just really accessible,” Saltzman said. “Her style is very matter-of-fact, and she evokes a place and a time without sugar-coating it.”

Indeed. In Up a Country Lane, Evelyn’s memoir of life as a young farm wife in the 1950s, she describes the joys and hardships of rural life with equal detail. For every story about doing the laundry on a frigid January day, there is another about Sunday picnics in Waubonsie State Park.

Evelyn Birkby & Mildred Armstrong Kalish tell the story of Iowa farm life, chickens and all

“My husband

and I walked [our

granddaughter] to

school every day.

So, along the way

I started telling her

farm stories about

my life. Later, she

would take me by

the hand and say

‘Tell me a

farm story.’”-Mildred

Armstrong Kalish

“Tell me a farm story...” The art of the rural memoir

Photo by Stephanie Strine Price

Evelyn Birkby canning on her stove in Shenandoah, Iowa in

the 1950s.Reproduced, with permission, from the collections of

the Iowa Women’s Archive, University of Iowa Libraries.

Volume XI Number 2 7

Take her description of dressing a chicken, for example. The process is hard and dirty, but in Evelyn’s eye, not without its fascination.

“The children carried the plucked chickens up to the house where Grandma Corrie and I took over. We held the defeathered carcasses over the gas flame of the kitchen stove to singe off any hairs, then washed each chicken, scraped the skin with a knife, pulled out any remaining pin feathers, and gutted and cut up most of the birds. We left a few large ones whole to use for roasting or stewing.

“The children were fascinated with the entire procedure. When they weren’t running back and forth bringing more chickens from the hog lot gate to the kitchen, they were up on chairs watching Grandma Corrie and me dressing the fowls. It was an impromptu lesson in basic anatomy.”

Compare that to a recent encounter Evelyn had with a young woman at the meat counter in a local grocery store. The woman wanted to make fried chicken for her husband that night, but she didn’t know how to do it.

“I said to her I don’t imagine you’ve ever dressed a chicken or cut up a chicken,” Evelyn said. “And she said, ‘I don’t even want to be in the kitchen with a dead chicken.’ So the butcher brought the chicken out and wished her ‘good luck.’”

And then with a smile, Evelyn added, “I would love to know how that turned out.”

Tell Me a Farm Story

Almost 250 miles away in Benton County, a story very similar to Evelyn’s was developing on a farm near Garrison, Iowa. Like Evelyn, Mildred Armstrong Kalish’s life included dressing chickens, milking cows and cleaning the cream separator. She chronicled that life in her 2007 book Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression.

Mildred, who now lives in Cupertino, Calif., said she started writing the book after her granddaughter kept asking to hear stories about what life was like growing up on a farm during the Great Depression.

“My husband and I walked her to school every day,” Mildred said. “So, along the way I started

telling her farm stories about my life. Later, she would take me by the hand and say ‘Tell me a farm story.’”

Tell Me a Farm Story was the working title of the manuscript that ultimately became Little Heathens, a book the New York Times named one of the Top 10 Books of 2007. In fact, it made numerous top ten lists and won the 2008 Midwestern Booksellers Choice Award for non-fiction. In her review of Little Heathens, for the Times, Elizabeth Gilbert, author of, Eat, Pray, Love, described Kalish as “a natural-born memoirist” who “has kept her memories tidily ordered for decades.” She concludes that review by describing Little Heathens as “a very good book, indeed.”

Actually, it’s a very good book that almost didn’t get published. Mildred said that while there was some initial interest in Little Heathens, many in the publishing world dismissed it as another “grandma memoir.”

“I am told the publisher received so many ‘grandma memoirs’ you could stack them head high in a haymow,” Mildred said. “My editor put it aside half a dozen times, but then she took it to her editor. Her boss loved the book, but she wasn’t sure she could publish it. She took it to Random House and one of the partners just loved it.”

Mildred describes the process as a “fairy tale.” Now that the book is a hit, she is getting to meet many of her fans. Many of them are older people who remember growing up like she did.

“One man here at a forum, the tears were running down his face, told me that I was the only person in the world who gave a true picture of haying,” Mildred said. “The older people feel as though we have all been through something special together. And we survived very healthy with a sense of humor, a sense of values and what is important in life.”

But Mildred’s fans come from all age groups. One is a sociology teacher who is using Little Heathens alongside John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath in a class about the Great Depression. Other fans are those readers who are looking to simplify their lives. In chapter after chapter, Mildred describes a family with little money that still managed to make do and live happily. Take, for example, her description of a simple thing like socks.

“We were taught that if you bought something it should last forever – or as close to forever as we could contrive. I think one of the cleverest tricks was how we extended the lives of socks. When the socks of the biggest child developed holes in the toes, Grandma, using her dressmaker’s shears, would cut off the end, sew it closed on the sewing machine, and pass the socks down to the child next in size. When the socks developed

Mildred Armstrong Kalish, author of Little Hea-

thens, grew up on a farm near Garrison, Iowa in

Benton County. Photo courtesy of Doug Kalish.

Voices from the Prairie8

holes again, she would repeat this until the sock had been passed down to the child with the smallest foot. You think that was the end of those socks? ‘Not on your tintype!’ as she would have put it. She cut the ribbed tops off of those socks and they did duty sewn into the ends of sleeves of fall and winter jackets and coats to keep out the bitter cold.”

One woman, inspired by the thrifty-use-it-until-it-breaks mentality described in the book, even wrote Mildred to say that she and her family are re-examining the wasteful way they live after reading the book.

“She said that she finally had to look at how they were living their lives,” Mildred said. “She told me, ‘We have to change our way of life.’”

A Sense of Community

The appeal of the rural memoir goes beyond thrift and nostalgia, however. Many fans of Evelyn’s and Mildred’s respective books are attracted to the strong sense of community that pervades their writing. The world they both describe is one of school box socials, country social clubs and neighbor helping neighbor. It’s something they sense has been lost in the years since they left their farms.

Part of that loss is due to a demographic change that has significantly reshaped the rural Midwest since World War II. Evelyn said the area around Sidney, while still rural, has changed significantly due to school and farm consolidation.

“These small, tightly-knit communities, a lot of them built around the country school or a little country church, are gone,” Evelyn said. “The farms now are so much larger. Every place we ever lived is all torn down and made into cropland. The houses, the barns...everything is gone, and that cohesiveness of the neighborhoods is gone too.”

Mildred said another important change has been attitude. She laments a sense of disconnect that she feels in society today. Back in the 1930s, everyone from little children to senior citizens made a common effort to help the family survive. Everyone worked, and it bound families and people together. Interestingly, Little Heathens and Evelyn’s many

books seem to be recreating a sense of community through book clubs, forums and the Internet. Evelyn said she continues to receive cards and letters from readers and listeners who remember the KMA radio homemakers fondly. Mildred, too, said she receives at least three to four emails a day from people telling her how much they enjoyed her book to those

who request instructions on some of the recipes she includes in Little Heathens.

“I don’t know what prompts it,” Mildred said. “I just answered one from a gal who was just bubbling over about the book. She wants to have lunch and bring me some fresh eggs.”

Others want to share more than fresh eggs, however. Some want to share their own stories about their lives and their families. Some readers discover a piece of their own history in the stories of farm life described by Evelyn and Mildred.

“Some say that for the first time in their life say they understand their parents” Mildred said. “They understand why their parents found it so hard to spend money. I love it when they say they understand their mother and their father.”

Saltzman said that one of the keys to what makes writers like Evelyn and Mildred so popular is that accessibility; the belief that you can sit down and chat with them at any time.

“What Evelyn does with her column and with her radio show is to facilitate and maintain communities,” Saltzman said. “She talks about that in her relationships with farm women, and her joy in doing what she did and does in just talking to people.”

Authenticity is another key. Evelyn and Mildred are not just telling stories; they lived them. They know what it feels like to gut a chicken because they’ve done it. They know what it’s like to clean the cream separator twice a day, every day. Saltzman said many people are drawn to that authenticity.

“People like the idea of ‘the real,’” Saltzman said. “That’s why Jane and Michael Stern are so popular. That’s why local foods are so popular and why culinary tourism and adventure travel are so popular. People are looking for real things and not just for the Disney version of what is real.”

Jane and Michael Stern said as much in their foreword to Evelyn’s Up a Country Lane: “There is plenty of happiness in Evelyn’s story of life on the farm, but it is happiness, like the recipes, that flows out of the reality of everyday existence and means so much more because of the hard work from which it comes.”

Not bad for a “grandma memoir.” h

Evelyn Birkby driving a tractor near Shenandoah, Iowa in the

1950s. Reproduced, with permission, from the collections of the

Iowa Women’s Archive, University of Iowa Libraries.

Volume XI Number 2 9

I remember when two men came with horse and wagon to grandma’s farm. They were selling a Home Comfort cook stove. It had lots of ornate scrolls and was a beautiful gray-blue color. Some chickens were traded for it plus some cash. The men also stayed for evening supper and a night’s lodging. Such was the life of traveling salesmen at that time.

I remember my own mother’s cook stove. It was an older model Home Comfort cook stove and had been purchased at an auction.

I remember the smell of hot bread baking in the oven when we came home from school.

I remember the steaming, hot water in a pan sitting on the open oven door which we would breathe when we had colds. That was our decongestant. Then mother would slather a mixture of good grease and turpentine on our chest and place a hot flannel cloth that had been warming in the oven on top of the mixture on our chest.

I remember the taste of hot onion broth that had cooked all day on the back of the stove. And I didn’t like onions.

I remember heating a brick in the oven on cold winter nights. It would be wrapped in a towel and we would take it to bed with us to warm up the bed. The bedrooms had little or no heat then.

The open oven door provided a warm place to dress on cold mornings because the house had no other heat. The old cook stove was kept going 24 hours a day in the winter.

I remember the wash tub sitting on the floor in front of the oven door. It was filled with hot water from the built-in reservoir of the stove. We had no running water or electricity. The reservoir was always a source of hot or warm water. We could carry in water to keep it filled when we brought in the drinking water bucket.

I remember the little pigs and calves or lambs

that had been born in the winter and needed to be warmed by that old cook stove until they were warm and strong enough to go back to their mothers in the barn. If they were orphaned or rejected by their mothers, we would end up with a pet pig, calf, or lamb which we would feed on the bottle.

I remember the clabbered milk sitting in a pan on the back of the stove. That part of the stove wasn’t so hot and was just the right temperature for separating the milk solids from the liquid without scalding the milk. This clabbered milk would be poured into a cheesecloth tube and hung behind the stove to drain and dry. That was how we made our own cottage cheese.

I remember the wheat warming to feed the chickens. A little water was added to the wheat so it wouldn’t burn and the steam would help soften the wheat. This warm food would keep the hens laying eggs in the wintertime.

Wheat was also placed in a kettle and covered with water to be cooked slowly overnight on the back of the stove. The wheat would swell up, pop open and be warm. This would be served in a bowl with milk and sugar for our breakfast cereal.

I remember the importance of that old cook stove when we butchered. The animal fat would be placed in large pans in the oven until it melted down. This would then be squeezed in a lard press to separate the lard from the “cracklings.”

Side meat would also be cooked in the oven until it was done. The meat would be cut up to fit into large stone crocks and covered with lard to be stored in the basement. That was how we kept meat through the summer months.

Continued on page 11

Our old cook stoveBy Irene M. Slater, 91, formerly of What Cheer, Iowa and now of Mission, Texas

The cookstove Irene M. Slater describes is similar to the one

shown above in this photo by photographer A.M. “Pete”

Wettach. The photo, which shows Mrs. Harry Toms of Louisa

County canning beans, was taken in February 1946. Photo

courtesy of the State Historical Society of Iowa - Iowa City.

The open oven door provided a

warm place to dress on cold mornings

because the house had no other heat. The old cook stove was kept going 24 hours a day in the

winter.

Voices from the Prairie10

HI annual report for 2008“The calling of the humanities is

to make us truly human in the best

sense of the word.” - J. Irwin Miller

Left: A $15,000 HI Major Grant helped Drake University’s

Anderson Gallery launch the exhibit, “Building a Modern

Campus: Eliel & Eero Saarinen at Drake University.” The

Saarinens designed nine buildings for Drake including Harvey

Ingham Hall. Photo courtesy of the Anderson Gallery.

In September, HI

and Trees Forever

welcomed authors

John Price

and Debra Marquart

to Hoyt Sherman

Place for the annual

Iowa Writers’

Celebration: Voices

from the Prairie. The

event tries to connect

Iowa writers with

readers.

Image courtesy of

Da Capo Press

RevenuesNEH & Private GrantsProgram IncomeGifts & MembershipDividends & InterestRealized & Unrealized Gain on InvestmentsMisc. IncomeTotal Revenues

Functional ExpensesGrantsCouncil Conducted ProjectsProgram ServicesManagement & GeneralFundraising, NewsletterTotal Functional ExpensesIncrease in Net Assets

Fund BalancesNet Assets:Beginning of YearNet Assets: End of Year

General Fund$683,831

64,8009,457

160

01,177

759,425

372,164

61,041232,733

72,1939,368

747,49911,926

39,56251,488

Trust Fund$0

01,278

10,717

(151,737)0

(139,742)

0

00000

(139,742)

471,835332,094

Total$683,831

64,80010,73510,877

(151,737)1,177

619,683

372,164

61,041232,733

72,1939,368

747,499(127,816)

511,397383,581

Statement of Activityfor the year ended Oct. 31, 2008

Volume XI Number 2 11

Choice pieces of beef would be cut up into small chunks and placed in fruit jars with a little salt added. The sealed jars would then be placed in the oven in a pan of water and allowed to cook until it was done. This would also seal the jars so the meat could be stored for future use.

I remember the sap from our own maple trees simmering on the back of the old cook stove until it was thick enough for maple syrup. Boy was that good on pancakes griddled on top of the stove. Above the stove top was an overhead oven that was used to keep the pancakes warm since only a few could be made at one time. That way they could all be served to everyone at the table at the same time.

I remember carrying in wood to keep the stove burning. This also meant the ashes needed to be hauled out. We kids had to polish that old stove every Saturday, and did I hate that job.

I remember the large blue graniteware coffee pot sitting on the back of the stove after the coffee had been brewed. There was always a warm cup of coffee available. The grounds were often reused.

I remember the sad irons being heated on top of the stove so we could do our ironing. These irons had handles that were removed while the iron was heating, then reapplied to do the ironing. Some didn’t have that feature and we had to use a hot pad to remove them from the stove and to iron with them so we wouldn’t burn our hands.

I remember the overhead oven being used to keep evening supper or breakfast warm if the chores weren’t done when the meals were ready. I remember the pot roast cooking in the old black kettle with three legs. Nothing could beat vegetable soup made with our homegrown vegetables on a cold day. That soup would simmer all day on top of the stove sending delicious smells all over the house.

For special occasions we would roast the peanuts we had grown in our garden. These would have to be stirred occasionally to keep them from burning. Green, unroasted peanuts are chewy, but when they get roasted they become crunchy like we know them for eating.

Then there was the homegrown popcorn that needed to be shelled or removed from the cob while we sat around the stove. What a treat it was to pop popcorn at night. I remember if anyone was at the farm at mealtime they were always made welcome to sit down at the table and eat with us.

What do people do now without a cook stove? h

MarchSunday, March 22 at 2 p.m.

AViD (Authors Visiting in Des Moines)

Talk by author Steven Biel (American Gothic: A Life of America’s

Most Famous Painting) and filmmaker Sasha Waters Freyer (This

American Gothic)

Hoyt Sherman Place Theater

1501 Woodland Ave.

Des Moines, Iowa

AprilThursday, April 2 at 7:30 p.m.

Central College’s Writers Readings Series

Talk by author Dr. Jann Freed (Daring to Be)

Geisler Library Reading Room

Pella, Iowa

Thursday, April 2 at 7 p.m.

Mary Swander’s reader’s theater: Farmscape

Clinton Community College Technology Center

1951 Manufacturing Drive

Clinton, Iowa

Thursday, April 23 (7 p.m.) & Friday, April 24 (noon)

Lecture: Khrushchev in Iowa

April 23: WITCC Large Lecture Hall

April 24: WITCC Wells Fargo Room

Western Iowa Tech Community College

Sioux City, Iowa

Friday, April 24 - Sunday, April 26

Re-enactment of the Battles of Pea Ridge and Wilson’s Creek

Rand Park

Keokuk, Iowa

The Old Cook StoveContinued from page 9

I remember the sap from our own maple trees simmering on the back of the old cook

stove until it was thick enough for maple syrup. Boy was that good on pancakes griddled on

top of the stove.

Right: Grant Wood’s iconic

painting “American Gothic”

returned to Iowa as part of

the Des Moines Art Center’s

show, “After Many Springs:

Regionalism, Modernism &

the Midwest.” The exhibit

was made possible in part

due to a $10,000 major

grant from Humanities

Iowa. For a full list of exhibit

events, go to http://www.

desmoinesartcenter.org/

Photo Credit: All rights

reserved by the estate of Nan

Wood Graham/licensed by

VAGA, New York.

HI Calendar of Events

Voices from the Prairie12

Champaign, Ill.Recipient: Board of Trustees,

University of IllinoisAmount: $11,650 (Major)Project: Can’t Go Native

ClintonRecipient: YWCA ClintonAmount: $5,000 (Major)Project: 21st Annual Martin

Luther King, Jr. Celebration

CorningRecipient: French Icarian

Colony FoundationAmount: $9,416 (Major)Project: Stories of Icaria,

Phase II

DavenportRecipient: CommUniversityAmount: $4,000 (Major)Project: CommUniversity

2009: A 30th Anniversary and Homecoming

Recipient: Putnam Museum of History and Natural Science

Amount: $14,238 (Major)Project: Davenport’s Civil

Rights Movement Traveling Exhibit and Public Programming

Des MoinesRecipient: Edmundson Art

Foundation, Inc. Amount: $10.000 (Major)Project: After Many Springs:

Regionalism, Modernism and the Midwest

Recipient: GLBT Youth in Iowa Schools Task Force

Amount: $6,960 (Major)Project: Acceptance Through

Literature

Recipient: Des Moines Public Library Foundation

Amount: $12,200 (Major)Project: AViD 2009

Harper’s FerryRecipient: Effigy Mounds

National MonumentAmount: $7,883 (Major)Project: Insuring Our Future by

Understanding Our Past

Iowa CityRecipient: Office of the State

Archaeologist (U of I)Amount: $10,000 (Major)Project: Iowa Archaeology

Month 2009: On the Road Again

KeokukRecipient: Keokuk Area

Convention & Tourism BureauAmount: $7,500 (Major)Project: Civil War Re-

Enactment: The Battles of Wilson Creek and Pea Ridge

PellaRecipient: Geisler Library

(Central College)Amount: $7,160 (Major)Project: Geisler Library Writers

Reading Series

Rock Island, Ill.Recipient: Quad City ArtsAmount: $10,000 (Major)Project: Controversy,

Censorship and Critical Thought

AmesRecipient: Beyond WelfareAmount: $3,000 (Mini)Project: Beyond the Barriers

AnkenyRecipient: Kirkendall Public

LibraryAmount: $358 (Mini)Project: Meskwaki Code

Talkers

BentonRecipient: Benton County

Library AssociationAmount: $597 (Mini)

Project: Conversations with Mr. Kruger

BurlingtonRecipient: Leopold Heritage

GroupAmount: $1,400 (Mini)Project: Leopold Roots Project

Cedar FallsRecipient: University of Northern Iowa MuseumsAmount: $1,500 (Mini)Project: Visions of Africa

Des MoinesRecipient: Senior College of

Des MoinesAmount: $1,500 (Mini)Project: Senior College of Des

Moines Fall Classes

DubuqueRecipient: Dubuque Audubon

SocietyAmount: $1,800 (Mini)Project: Brian “Fox” Ellis

Brings History Alive through its Greatest Characters

ElkaderRecipient: City of ElkaderAmount: $1,000 (Mini)Project: Elkader Remembers

Emir Abdelkader

LamoniRecipient: Graceland

UniversityAmount: $2,450 (Mini)Project: A World of Music

Recipient: Graceland UniversityAmount: $1,720 (Mini)Project: Movie Classics and

Conversation

LeClaireRecipient: LeClaire

Community LibraryAmount: $750 (Mini)Project: Historic Tour of

Glendale Cemetery

PellaRecipient: Central CollegeAmount: $1,000 (Mini)Project: Penumbra Theater: A

Dialogue on Race

Sioux CityRecipient: Western Iowa Tech

Community CollegeAmount: $500 (Mini)Project: Khrushchev in Iowa

Major & Mini Grants through February

Humanities Iowa 100 Oakdale CampusN310 OH Iowa City, IA 52242-5000