December 1, 2023
Small Town America Part 2
Continued from our November edition, Part 2 of “Small Town America” completes the tale of our travels to central Iowa with our Wisconsin friends Barb and Jerry Heumann.
By Mary Schricker Gemberling
The Delicious Apple – Just over 150 years ago Jesse Hiatt and his wife Rebecca arrived in Madison County with a wagon full of fruit trees. Around 1872, Jesse noticed a small sprout of a tree growing between the rows of apple trees. This apple, which Hiatt called the Hawkeye, became the famous Delicious apple after winning the 1894 International New Fruit Fair hosted by the Stark Brothers’ Nursery. While Jesse’s original tree died in 1940, a descendant of the tree still stands nearby.
Limestone – Thanks to an ancient sea that once covered the region, Madison County is Limestone country. As settlers skilled in stonemasonry arrived from Germany in the mid 1800s, they relied on local materials to build homes, schools, churches and more. The courthouse on the square in Winterset, originally built in 1849 as a log structure, was replaced with limestone after a massive fire in 1875. The courthouse still graces the town square and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The abolitionist, Susan B. Anthony delivered a speech titled, “Women and Temperance’ on the steps of the courthouse in 1875. Many other limestone structures can be seen throughout the county.
John Wayne – For a relatively small rural county, Madison County has produced a number of well-known individuals throughout the years, but perhaps the most famous is Marion Robert Morrison, better known as John Wayne, who was born in Winterset in 1907. Since the John Wayne Birthplace Society was established in 1982, more than one million visitors have come to the county to tour the birthplace museum and other sites connected to John Wayne’s history.
After a full day of sightseeing we returned to the campground to enjoy a delicious dinner, this time prepared by Barb. As we sat around the campfire we all agreed that the small rather obscure town of Winterset, Iowa had certainly made its mark on the history of our country.
Early on Wednesday morning we packed up our RV’s and headed south to the town of Osceola, Iowa to visit some lifelong friends. I first met Carolyn and Dave Day nearly 50 years ago when we became neighbors in a small country subdivision just west of Davenport. About a year or so ago they moved to Osceola to be near their daughter and her family; we just couldn’t be this close and not stop to see them. It was a beautiful drive through the rolling hills to their lake home. Barb and Jerry enjoyed meeting them and had much in common since all four had spent their life as educators. After a tour of their beautiful home and property followed by a delicious brunch we headed east to the next campground, Roberts Creek, located on Lake Red Rock, the largest lake in the state of Iowa. A pot of homemade chili was on tonight’s menu. After dinner we played a competitive game of Euchre followed by a campfire before turning in for the night.
The following morning we had a short drive to Knoxville, Iowa to visit the Sprint Car Hall of Fame & Museum. Sprint cars are high-powered open-wheel race cars, designed primarily for the purpose of running on short oval or circular dirt tracks. The museum has hundreds of supermodifieds and sprint cars on display. The 8,000 square foot exhibit space also contains displays and memorabilia about the sport of sprint car racing and also contains a Hall of Fame. The visit to the museum was one of the highlights of the trip for Gary as he has spent many years involved with the hobby of racing, including participating in the sport and attending many races throughout his life. The rest of the day we drove around the lake and rested at the campground enjoying our perfect 75 degree day.
On Friday we headed to Pella, Iowa. Many of you may know the city of Pella for its annual spring-time Tulip Time Festival. Since it was fall we knew we would not be seeing tulips, but had no idea that in their place we would see other seasonal flowers blooming everywhere. Founded by immigrants from the Netherlands, Pella is forty miles southeast of Des Moines, Iowa and home to Central College, Pella Windows and Vermeer Manufacturing companies. Our first stop was the Vermeer Windmill and historical village. What started as one building has grown to a 22-building complex covering Pella’s history beginning in the 1840’s. Pella’s historical museum also includes one of the largest working windmills in the United States, the home of Pella’s founding family, and the boyhood home of Wyatt Earp. We walked in and out of shops up and down several streets, and had a delicious lunch at the Bread Board ( we were too full for their famous bread pudding so we ordered it to go)! Again we were pleasantly surprised by what this small midwestern town had to offer.
Back at the campground we enjoyed a great meal together and over one more roaring campfire concluded another successful fall RV trip. Since our final Euchre game ended in a tie, we will most definitely have to do another RV trip together next year so we can at the very least see who the real Euchre champions are? Where will we go? The destination remains unknown, but what we do know is that no matter where it is we will eat well, laugh a lot and learn much!
“Live life with no excuses,
travel with no regrets.”….. Oscar Wilde
Mary, a former educator and Senior Real Estate Specialist, is the author of four books: The West End Kid, Labor of Love; My Personal Journey through the World of Caregiving, Hotel Blackhawk; A Century of Elegance, and Ebenezer United Methodist Church; 150 Years of Resiliency.
