Why Iowa...spring

 I'm hoping for a traditional blooming midwest spring when I visit there next week. Today's Why Iowa comes from an email I received from Kara Backlund who described her Iowa day to me. Stunning. And she sent photos.

dogwoodThe dogwood leaves are much bigger than a mouse's ear, and the lilac buds are growing but still very small.  Tulips and hyacinths are blooming, yarrow sprouting, mint resurrecting, dandelions staking their claim. You will be landing, to use a midwestern phrase, smack dab in the middle of a prairie spring!

grape hyacinthI met Kara when she moved to Cedar Rapids from St. Pierre, Manitoba where she taught college English. She is not only a great reader and writer (check out Kara's blog A Peculiar Influence, about her challenge to read a classic a week), she is also an extraordinary baker.

I loved this story Kara told me about her baking life so will share it with you, too. To see photos and find out where to buy her baked goods, join Pumpernickel Place on Facebook.  

I grew up watching my mom and grandmas bake. I remember sitting at my paternal grandma's formica kitchen table in her log cabin in Alaska while she shaped 20 loaves of bread; her weekly baking! My other grandma made a pie every day and always packed a piece in my grandpa's lunch box, which made the other guys on his crew of the Illinois Highway Department a little jealous.  She approached the daily pies and all her other baking and canning in a matter of fact way. I never felt that there was anything mysterious or complicated about baking; it was just something that people did, like cutting their own hair and changing the oil in their own cars.

After a few years of making cookies, I baked my first loaf of bread at age 20; as a poor grad student I found it was cheaper to make it than buy it and I made about 4 loaves of bread a week that year, and gave away many tins of cookies as Christmas gifts. My mom and I baked and decorated my 4 tier wedding cake.

Over time I taught myself, with my mother and grandmothers' help, to make yeast breads, cakes, pies, cookies, graham crackers and other things. In Manitoba, I never even thought of selling my creations because nearly everyone baked their own things. Suddenly when I moved to Cedar Rapids, there was demand!

Last year my stand at the farmers market was successful, and I hope for a similar response this year. I teach myself new recipes and techniques through books and youtube videos. Friends and family get to eat the mistakes, and the successes too.  My newest (and oldest) fun ingredient that I haven't had a chance to use yet: a sourdough starter that journeyed the Oregon Trail in the 1800s!

Why Iowa...family

Last week I wrote about my decision to set The Luck of the Buttons in Iowa. It got me thinking about the notion of place and what qualities people value in their home states. Several Iowans have shared their thoughts, with a few more to come, including today's guest writer, Katie Mills Giorgio. Look for other states to be represented soon, including the reflections of school children in Hawaii. 

Katie Mills Giorgio is a freelance writer living, working and raising a family in her hometown of Cedar Rapids. She writes for dozens of newspapers, magazines and websites (and even sometimes just for fun!) and hopes to someday make the leap into the world of children’s literature. You can read more about her writing life at katiemillsgiorgio.wordpress.com

I am proud to say I was born in the great state of Iowa (my birthday is actually the same date Iowa officially became a state way back in 1846!) But growing up, we moved around a lot so I'm not a lifelong resident of the state.

It's interesting though when I look back on all of our moves that Iowa remains a constant. We moved to Illinois but Iowa pulled us back. Then we went all the way down south to Georgia...again Iowa pulled us back. I tried Illinois again after college, only to be pulled back to Iowa.

Admittedly, the last move back to Iowa (now more than seven years ago) was my own choice. I was about to start my own family and have always known I wanted to raise my kids in my hometown of Cedar Rapids.

I've loved something about all the places I've lived. But Iowa—Cedar Rapids, in fact—means the most. It means family and fun because we are lucky enough to be surrounded by relatives. It means having a big backyard to run and play in. It means living in a city with a downtown we love to frequent. But it also means we are close to wide open spaces. We pick strawberries in the summer, apples in the fall and go chop down our own Christmas tree. And my son wouldn’t let me forget that Iowa means some pretty delicious sweet corn.

So maybe all of those years I wasn't just being pulled back. Iowa was simply calling me home.

Why Iowa...small towns

Thank you to Monica Leo for sharing her Why Iowa thoughts today from her cultural jewel in West Liberty, Iowa.

Monica is a first generation American, born to German refugees in the waning days of World War Two.  After the war, her parents ordered a set of Kasperle hand puppets from a German craftswoman, and Monica was hooked.  Since 1975, she has been creating and performing as founder and principal puppeteer of  Eulenspiegel Puppet Theatre.  Eulenspiegel’s home is Owl Glass Puppetry Center, a tiny center in the small town of West Liberty, Iowa. Monica lives in a log cabin in the woods with her carpenter husband, John Jenks.

When I started touring with the puppets, one of my surprising discoveries was the diversity in this seemingly white bread state.  Living in Iowa City, as I did at that time, I had learned to believe that rural areas (and people) were essentially all cut out of the same cloth.  Was I ever wrong!  Places like Amana and Manning celebrated their German heritage, as reflected in the pace of the school residencies my puppet partner and I did (work hard; take a nice break; too much rushing around has a negative effect on quality).  Columbus Junction was one hundred per cent blonde and blue-eyed the first time we worked there; imagine my surprise when we came back to a school that was fifty per cent Latino!  And Postville!  We watched Postville go from German/Scandinavian to Latino/Central European/Hassidic Jewish! 

In western Iowa, we made friends with Floyd Pearce and reveled in his amazing print shop, located in one-street Cumberland, in which he published exquisite books using antique letterpress technology.  He took us to tiny Mt. Aetna to meet his friend Merrill, an accomplished pianist who’d played in venues all over the United States.  Merrill lived in an ordinary looking ranch style house that revealed itself as a veritable art gallery when we entered.  He’d shared the house for some years with Isadora Duncan’s former private secretary.

We even worked at the Maharishi Elementary School of the Age of Enlightenment in Fairfield.  Having no idea where it was located,  we asked a college student, who hopped into our van and said he’d show us the way.  “What are you doing here?” he asked.  “Puppets.”   A little later he repeated his question.  “Puppets,” I said.  “We’re making puppets with the kids...and doing puppet shows!”  “Oh,” he said, “I thought you were speaking metaphorically.”

I’ve come to believe that Iowa’s soul is most visible in its smallest towns.

Why Iowa...serendipity

WHY IOWA continues as I hear from more artists and writers who share what it means to live, work, and play in Iowa. If you have thoughts or images on this subject, email me here. Not an Iowan? What is it about your state that sets it apart? Why (insert your state here)? Look for a photo gallery coming soon, and knitters, don't forget to read this and submit your entry to win Michelle Edwards's A Knitter's Home Companion. 

I was introduced to author and artist Claudia McGehee over a bowl of soup at Devotay in Iowa City on the coldest, snowiest of Iowa days. The author and illustrator of  A Tallgrass Prairie Alphabet and Where Do Birds Live? among other wonderful books and works of art celebrating the natural world, Claudia turned our conversation to dreams of spring and the transformation that would occur in Iowa. A picnic was planned for May, in a cemetery that is home to a tall grass prairie; the picnic where I would meet Tugs Button. Serendipity! Enjoy Claudia's thoughts on Iowa and serendipity. 

Prairie Sunset, scratchboard and watercolor by Claudia McGehee

I made several moves as a young adult before my husband and I finally planted in Iowa nearly 20 years ago. Introducing myself to every new home, I followed the old adage “To know the land is to know the people”.  Maybe this stems from my former occupation of archaeologist, where geography literally does inform on past populations and individuals. But there’s also a spiritual, romantic component to looking at the land and wondering about those who’ve been here before me.

Just before we moved out to Iowa from Washington state, my dad reminded me that a few of my ancestors had lived in Iowa in the 1800’s.  A few continued on to Oregon and Washington (my great-grandparents met on a westward bound wagon train on the Oregon Trail!), but some stayed on in Little Sioux, Iowa (close to the Nebraska border).  A couple summers ago, we found these pioneering family members in a little cemetery nestled at the bottom on the Loess Hills. It was strange to think that I wasn’t the first in my clan to stand in the tallgrass prairies that I had grown to love so. I realized that for me, to know this land, Iowa, is to also know my family. And to also know myself.

Why Iowa...prairies

I had a chance meeting with Iowa author Jacqueline Briggs Martin just before I moved to Iowa from Minnesota. Call me when you arrive, Jackie said, and I'll show you around. She was as good as her word and our friendship grew over picnics and walks by creeks and through prairies.

Jackie is the award winning author of nineteen books for children including her latest, The Chiru of High Tibet, which was chosen as a Junior Literary Guild selection for January 2011 and has been named an Outstanding Science Trade Book for Students K-12. Read about Jackie's journey to Tibet here.

Why Iowa, Jackie?

Prairie is one reason why. Most of our prairie has been lost to the plow, but there are remnants, wonderful remnants, including the Rochester Cemetery, where Mother Button is inspired by a gravestone to give her unborn child the name “Tugs Button.”

This little patch, where the soil has never been turned,  really does almost buzz with wildflowers in the spring of each year—shooting stars,  columbine, Solomon’s Seal, trillium, even yellow ladies’ slippers on a hidden hillside.

Looking at these flowers you’d think they were the “action” on a prairie. But the real action is underground where the roots and rhizomes go down almost as far as the plants go up,  making a dense mat of plant support. That’s why the plants could survive those roaring prairie fires that took down oak trees and sent bison running for their lives. Those roots just lay low and waited, and the next spring sent up another round of green.

We can make a prairie in a few years. Plant the forbs (flowering plants) and grasses, pull the weeds, do an occasional burn.  Soon we’ll see flowers. But it takes a hundred years to restore the roots and rhizomes.

Many in Iowa still love these flowers, gifts of time and climate, and are working to restore prairie plants to our roadsides and small pockets of vacant land. 

Writers need a place to go to wander, to take in, to add to “the well” from which they draw. A walk in one of Iowa’s  prairies does that for me.

Why Iowa...inspiration

Five years ago, as I was considering a move to Iowa, I searched the internet for author/illustrator Michelle Edwards. We had met once, just before she left St. Paul for Iowa City. What is it like? I wrote. Her immediate response: I love Iowa. She later welcomed me when I moved to Iowa and we became great friends.

Michelle is the author and illustrator of  A Knitter’s Home Companion, an enticing collection of essays, knitting patterns and recipes, as well as numerous books for children, and is a regular columnist in the Lion Brand Yarn Co. newsletter.

Here are Michelle's Why Iowa thoughts:

from A Knitter's Home Companion by Michelle EdwardsIt took me a long time to fall in love with Iowa. At first, the rolling vistas of vast greenness, the calmness of Iowans, and the quiet of day to day living, spooked me. Now, it inspires me.

Many other places hold a piece of my heart, too. The Hudson River Valley where I grew up. Vermont where I spent my summers at Camp Hochelaga. And Israel where I studied and worked and do so deeply hope to return someday.  After years of being unsettled, Iowa is where I have landed. It is where I have hung up my curtains, grown deep roots, and found a good life.

Win a copy of A Knitter’s Home Companion! Enjoy Michelle’s charming illustrations, delicious recipes (Mitten Lady Soup is a favorite at our house), patterns, and insightful essays.

Enter by submitting an email with your name and the name of a place that inspires you.

One entry only, please! Submit by by 5 pm. PST Tuesday, May 3, 2011. The lucky winner will be announced the next day.

See more Why Iowa thoughts here.

Why Iowa

When I moved away from the Midwest, I was surprised at how many people confuse Iowa with Ohio and Idaho. It’s true that the vowel-laden names sound similar to ears that don’t hear them frequently, and all three are land-locked states, so what sets Iowa apart?

Today I’ll share why I set The Luck of the Buttons in Iowa. Learn more about Iowa by checking back in the following days as several authors, artists, and others answer the question, Why Iowa?

Young Corn - Grant WoodI was living in Cedar Rapids, Iowa when I got the inspiration for The Luck of the Buttons. (Read about Tugs Button here.) But the reason for setting the fictional town of Goodhue in Iowa goes deeper than that.

Iowa has at once a wideness of space and a closeness of community that is enticing.

New Road - Grant Wood
Waiting for the Parade - Marvin ConeThe paintings of Cedar Rapids natives Grant Wood and Marvin Cone illustrate the sense of wideness and closeness of landscape and people that captivated me. I visited their work at the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art as I settled my imagination into the atmosphere of Iowa, 1929. I could see Tugs, Ned, and the rest here.

Stone City - Grant Wood

Do you have a Why Iowa thought you’d like to share? Add a comment below. If you’d like to write a guest post or share an image on this topic, email me here.