I tell of a time, a place, and a way of life long gone. For many years I have had the urge to describe that treasure trove, lest it vanish forever. So, partly in response to the basic human instinct to share feelings and experiences, and partly for the sheer joy and excitement of it all, I report on my early life. It was quite a romp.
So begins Mildred Kalish’s story of growing up on her grandparents’ Iowa farm during the depths...

"When a severe allergic illness dictated that she grow all her own food, Mary Swander found herself living in a former one-room Iowa schoolhouse in the midst of the largest Amish community west of the Mississippi. Out of This World is a simple but profound memoir ... in which Swander [celebrates] her time among the Amish people, explores what it means to be a lone woman homesteader at the end of the twentieth century, and ponders the quiet spirituality...

Silent Night in Algona is based on a true story set in Algona, Iowa, in 1944. The film captures the resilience of a small town during WWII when a young farmer with a debilitating back injury devises an unconventional plan to save the corn harvest using German POWs. However, fear and resentment spark tensions among the people and could stand in the way. Can the true spirit of Christmas and shared humanity emerge and remind us of the relevance and enduring...

In 1949, Iowa farm wife Evelyn Birkby began to write a weekly column entitled "Up a Country Lane" for the Shenandoah Evening Sentinel. Sixty-three years, one Royal typewriter, and five computers later, she is still creating a weekly record of the lives and interests of her family, friends, and neighbors. Each of the more than eighty columns in this warmhearted collection celebrates not a bygone era tinged with sentimentality but a continuing tradition...