The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now. — Chinese Proverb

The urban forest of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, is truly a living, breathing postcard that gets more breathtaking every year. If Our Trees Could Talk captures its beauty and shares its history in hopes that all who live here or visit our community can more fully appreciate the towering scenery that makes this place so special.

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“We dedicate these trees to beauty, usefulness, and comfort. May our lives grow in beauty, usefulness, and comfort to others even as these trees expand their leafy boughs. Let us strive to protect and care for them, that they may so be enjoyed by all people that they, in turn, will leave, as a memorial of their appreciation, trees to be enjoyed by posterity.” –– D.J. Sterling Morton, Founder of Arbor Day

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A little history. Today the city of Sioux Falls encompasses about eighty-five square miles of land area. Much of the city is set on a deep base of quartzite rock formed millions of years ago that is covered with deposits of sand, gravel, clay, and silt forming a layer of topsoil. The physical landscape is defined by the Big Sioux River and the falls which resulted in an area of exposed bedrock left by melting glacial ice. The landforms created by the winding river and its tributaries, including Skunk Creek, range from sloping bluffs and hillsides to nearly level floodplains, creating a natural valley.

The area was part of a vast prairie region that included much of the Great Plains and was primarily a mixture of native grasses and trees found along the river, wooded islands, and other wetlands that were protected from prairie fires. Native trees found in this area were primarily box elder, ash, silver maple, elm, cottonwood, and willow that flourished near the waterways, while the hillsides were covered with oak and cedar that extended to the grasslands.

The Big Sioux River and the falls made this location an attractive place, from the first known inhabitants who established village sites, to later Native American tribes who migrated here. The Sioux Indians were said to have given the Big Sioux River a name that translated as “thick-wooded river.”

Throughout the early decades of growth in Sioux Falls, trees became an important landscape feature for both shade and aesthetic appearance. — Mike Cooper

Reflection. If you’re looking for a good conversation starter, consider asking people about trees. What memories of trees do you have as a kid? Have you ever helped plant a tree, and how did it make you feel? Have you ever had to cut trees down? Have you given someone a tree before? Is there a favorite tree that serves as your backdrop to family pictures or wedding pictures? People will have all sorts of stories to share … guaranteed. They might cry, laugh, and give you a longer answer than you originally thought. But it will be worth your time and theirs, and both of you will walk away smiling. — Paul De Jong

If these trees could talk, I imagine them smiling and telling us they are the luckiest trees alive. “We see kids play and let them climb on us. We shade wedding couples on their special day and serve as the background for family, senior, and engagement pictures. We hear laughter from people of every age while they relax, visit, and enjoy the outdoors. What more could we ask for?” — Paul De Jong

Paul De Jong

Paul De Jong, who grew up near Sheldon, Iowa, had a 40-year career, first as groundkeeper, then nursery manager and general manager, and eventually co-owner of Landscape Garden Centers in Sioux Falls, S.D. He served thousands of customers and played a role in countless trees being planted in the region. His favorite tree is the red oak.

This column is an excerpt from a reprint of a section of De Jong’s book published in the AgArts online journal The Blazing Star. Read the whole piece here:

The Blazing Star Journal

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Coop Video

Coop Video

Passcode for Paid Subscribers: COOPFF26

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Coop, a play about an Amish conscientious objector, is a year old. We’ve had at least 25 performances in the Midwest and in Ireland. We are now preparing for shows at the Groundswell Cafe in Cedar Rapids, IA, and at the Great Puppet Train in West Liberty, Iowa. See Mary Swander’s website for details about our schedule. Find reviews and testimonials about the play.

Mary Swander's Coop Production

I wrote and first produced this play in 2025. We weren’t in a major war, and we hadn’t watched ICE shoot protesters in Minneapolis on video. For several years, we hadn’t had to evaluate our own stand on war and peace, at such “point-blank range.” But throughout 2026, violent events played out on the world stage. And Rip Russell and I drove through snow and hail to bring a small theatrical production that asked big questions to grassroots audiences.

We performed in school auditoriums, backyards, and bookshops and pubs in Ireland. In the U.S, we had shows in public libraries, museums, community colleges, restored opera houses, churches, and large convention centers. Audience members came decked out for a night on the town. Audience members came in seed-caps and bib overalls.

Coop is based on the oral history of an Amish man joined by Mennonite, Quaker, Brethren and other conscientious objectors in World War II. A group of C.O.s, told they were bound to fight forest fires in Colorado, were interned instead in a chicken coop. There, they remained under guard for the rest of the war. The play is an example of object theatre, staged on a table with everyday items representing the characters. Traffic cones, dusters, balloons, and clothespins come to life, creating this gripping drama of the challenges German-speaking conscientious objectors endured.

After the shows, we opened the floor to questions from the audience. Many audience members tried to project their own narratives on the situation in the play. Would they have had the courage to stand up for their faith or ethics? Where would they find the strength to embrace the courage of their convictions?

We are about to embark on a second year of touring Coop. Generous donors have given us a small amount of seed money to help subsidize the show. We are looking for venues to fill in our season. We come self-contained. We just need a couple of banquet tables, and we will provide you with an imaginative and thought-provoking performance of object theatre.

One of our audience members said, “I never thought I would feel such emotion and have such empathy for a duster.”

If you are interested in scheduling a performance of Coop in your town, contact Janine Calsbeek at touringswp@gmail.com.

You may view a video of Coop here:

Coop Video

The video is behind a paywall. Paid subscribers to Mary Swander’s Emerging Voices and Mary Swander’s Buggy Land will receive a code to view the video for free.

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I am pleased to be part of the Iowa Writers Collaborative. We provide an alternative digital paper on Sundays and Wednesdays. Check us out! Lots of great writing coming your way.

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Mouth of the World by Byamugisha Maxwell

The world has mouths it doesn’t feed
Wide open, aching with dust
It sings in tongues of bitter needs
Yet bites the hand it dares to trust

It waits where morning does not rise
In homes where pots hang cold and dry
It stares through until hollow eyes
Watch the bread go walking by

No fire warms a starving soul
Harvest that fills a broken land
The belly is a begging bowl
Held out of time with trembling hands

But hunger is not fate alone

It’s a choice, a wound we sow
The earth is rich, the seed is grown
And still we turn and let it grow.

Mr. Byamugisha is a Poetry X Hunger Club member at Eden High School in Uganda.

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Feed the Children | Poetry X Hunger “If words were enough”

Enough by Josephine LoRe

The poem featured in this video was chosen by Feed the Children for their Public Service Announcement: Feed the Children & Poetry X Hunger: “If words were enough.” This PSA has been viewed almost a million times.

These two poems, The Mouth of the World and If words were enough are both included in Poetry X Hunger’s first book: Turning Poetry into Food: A Collection of Poetry X Hunger Poems, to be published in the fall of 2026 by NatureCulture. The editors, Hiram Larew and Tina Daub, are hoping the poems will be used by everyone – students, faith leaders, elected officials, volunteers, community members, families – to raise public awareness about hunger.

You can read more poems from Turning Poetry into Food in the AgArts online Blazing Star Journal.

The Blazing Star Journal

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By Julie Gammack

Hunger is on the rise everywhere. To help fight it, more than 400 Poetry X Hunger poets from all over the world are using their talents to fight hunger.

In the fall of 2026, NatureCulture ™ will be publishing Poetry X Hunger’s first book: Turning Poetry into Food: A Collection of Poetry X Hunger Poems. The editors, Hiram Larew and Tina Daub, are hoping the poems will be used by everyone – students, faith leaders, elected officials, volunteers, community members, families – to raise public awareness about hunger. One of the poems in the anthology follows.

The Fruits of Famine by Henry Crawford

On those nights we traced
the shapes of fruit until the dark
became our eyes.
On those nights we left our fields
unhearing the crack of broken roots,
the silence of dying ground.
On those nights, twilight filled the deserts
of our crossing with the vermillion breath
of watermelon.
On those nights, the stars seeded the skies
above the camp. Jackfruit guards
stood still as celery stalks.
On those nights we dreamed like you
of strawberry days on porcelain plates.
On those nights I made an apple out of sand
and watched it blow away.

This poem won the 2019 World Food Day Poetry Prize presented by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.

Henry Crawford makes his home in the Washington, D.C area. He is known for exploring the intersection of human culture and technology. Crawford has published two collections of poetry, the latest entitled Binary Planet.

Diane Wilbon Parks is an accomplished poet, author, literary advocate, and visual artist. She has published two poetry collections and has been recognized as a Prince George’s County Poet of Excellence.

Christina Daub and Hiram Larew, Editors of Turning Poetry into Food

Christina “Tina” Daub co-founded The Plum Review, an international award-winning poetry journal, and started The Plum Writers’ Retreats and The Plum Reading Series. An MFA graduate in poetry from the University of Maryland, she has taught poetry and creative writing at George Washington University and in the Maryland and Virginia Poets-in-the-Schools programs. www.christinadaub.com

During his career, Hiram Larew guided U.S. Government food security programs. His seventh collection of poems, This Much Very, was published by Alien Buddha Press in 2025. He has received support from Arts Councils and Food Banks as well as the United Nations and Feed the Children for his Poetry X Hunger, an initiative that is bringing a world of poets to the anti-hunger cause. Larew is a Courtesy Faculty at five U.S. universities and lives in Churchton, Maryland. www.HiramLarewPoetry.com.

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Please consider entering the AgArts Bio-Sanctuary contest. $10, 2-3 photos, and 500 words about your bio-sanctuary could get you $1,000. Complete details here:

Bio-Sanctuary Contest

I am pleased to be a member of the Iowa Writers Collaborative. Check out the good writing in our Sunday and Wednesday Round-Ups.

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Laundry day. Video: Mary Swander

Geese swimming in farm pond on a very hot day. Video: Mary Swander

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By Julie Gammack

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It’s 7 a.m. in the morning,
I’m driving my ATV to my favorite spot to revisit the scene.
over six decades ago when I rode my one speed bike there as a young teen.
It was a river with a high arched, riveted truss bridge,
too high for me to brave walking on the rusted, steel ridge.

I never asked myself why I was drawn to this place.
Maybe it was the boyhood freedom of speeding in the open air.
Maybe it was the warming sun or the wind tossing my hair.
The bridge now stands alone behind concrete barricades and “Do Not Enter” signs
on an abandoned road overrun by weedy brush and morning glory vines.

It was a stream with clear waters and gentle disposition.
Dandelion tufts floated in circles, while tadpoles and fish played hide and seek,
dancing in the swaying shadows of willows and cottonwoods along the creek.
Bordered by protective woodlands of elms, ash, oaks and hickories,
deer, fox, squirrels, and hawks moved silently in the peripheries.

The creek was my streaming service, no internet connection, no satellite intervention.
Flowing waters brought coffeehouse music, with soothing, calming notes.
Muskrats, mink, and otters danced and glided in their oil-slicked coats.
Fish tapped the water surface, beavers slapped drums behind ponded dams
where mallards and wood ducks chattered and dived for hidden river clams.

The bike ride home was a personal contest
to count and hear the residents and visitors along roadsides and fencerows:
meadowlarks, orioles, and cardinals swayed and sang on the limbs of wild rose,
pheasants and quail nervously bobbing and weaving on their hunt for insects and seeds,
rabbits, moles, and bobcats hopping and high-stepping in the shadows of road ditch weeds.

I returned to my family home and turned off my ATV.
In the distance across the valley, a barred owl greeted me,
its deep melodic song piercing the forest from some stately tree.
I’ll go back to that rusted bridge, in search of mink and muskrats.
I’ll go back to that rusted bridge, as long as the floor will last.

___________________________________

Photographs courtesy of Russ Mullen and Jill Mortensen.
Copyright © 2026 by Russ Mullen.
___________________________________

The Rusted Bridge was first published in The Blazing Star Journal. Russ Mullen, an emeritus agronomy professor at Iowa State University, originated the word bio-sanctuaries. He supported the contest below to encourage others to establish natural refuges to nurture wildlife.

AgArts Announces:
The 2026 Bio-Sanctuary Contest

First prize: $1000
Runner-up: $500
Deadline: October 1, 2026
Entry fee: $10

AgArts announces our 2026 Bio-Sanctuary Contest featuring $1,000 (first prize) and $500 (runner-up prize). We are seeking writing—poetry or non-fiction, 500-word maximum. Along with your writing, submit 1-3 excellent photos that document the specific bio-sanctuary that you’ve enhanced or created. Winners will be published in The Blazing Star Journal and Emerging Voices Substack page.

What’s a bio-sanctuary? A refuge that allows flora or fauna to flourish. A bio-sanctuary can be as small as a balcony bird-feeder, or as large as a wetland. It can be a pocket prairie or a windbreak. It can be a mason bee house, or logs and branches stacked up to create a dead hedge, inviting insects, frogs and toads, and fungi to take up residence.

Why are bio-sanctuaries important? To build robust and resilient ecosystems, providing food and shelter to vanishing wildlife.

AgArts is a nonprofit designed to imagine and promote a healthy food system through the arts. We are based in collectives throughout both rural and urban areas in the U.S. where we help fund and support artistic projects that envision better ways to grow and consume our food.

Deadline is October 1, 2026. Submit here.

AgArts Bio-Sanctuary Contest

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This column was reprinted from Hannah Breckbill’s Humble Hands Harvest Substack page.

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A couple weeks ago I saw an interview of some of the members of People’s Plumbing, a worker-owned cooperative in Cleveland, who are operating in the gift economy. They’re practical workers who do plumbing projects, and they’re also acting on anti-capitalist values, offering their plumbing work in the spirit of the gift. They let their clients know what it costs to do the work, but they don’t have an expectation that they’ll pay that amount, or anything at all. Because, according to this worker-owned cooperative, everyone should have decent plumbing regardless of their ability to pay.

I listened to this with the mental equivalent of my jaw on the ground. I’ve been a student of the gift economy as well as commoning for a number of years, and it was astonishing to hear such practical language about a gift economy project that is working (as in, the workers are both receiving a decent income and accomplishing meaningful work). So often alternative economic ideas are treated as woo-woo, which makes it hard to take them seriously or believe that they can work under capitalism. But what really grabbed my attention was the insistence of these plumbers that everyone should have access to basic sanitation even if they don’t have money—because, in my mind, the same goes for food.

It’s complicated being a vegetable farmer. Lots of us got into this work wanting to feed people, and yet attaching a price to food is the equivalent of erecting a barrier around it. Of course, selling the food I grow allows me to make a living in a way that has a lot of beauty and integrity to it. But it has not felt right when people leave empty handed from my farmers market stand because the price I attached to my food is too high for them to justify.

Farmers—specifically direct-market food farmers—have a really hard time making a living. There’s so much investment required, of money and labor and guts, to start a farm business, and then we sell our produce a couple dollars at a time. We do the math on each crop and find that we barely break even, or we are actually losing money. As my co-farmer Emily says, if we’re not above break-even, “we are paying actual dollars for people to eat our food.”

My particular farm has made it work—we’ve tried to price our products so that there’s some profit, we’ve dropped crops from our plan when they don’t break even, and we’ve built up growing techniques and efficiencies over time. We also have sought out sources of income other than selling food, such as NRCS grants for our conservation practices, or stipends for hosting the Queer Farmer Convergence or doing on-farm research trials or participating in mentorship programs. These are essential in keeping us in the black every year—otherwise we would have to raise the prices on our food in order to stay afloat.

Market farmers have a lot of opinions about pricing. Mostly, undercutting is a big no-no. I used to be mad when I saw peppers at the market priced for a quarter each, compared to mine at $2. Lately, I’ve been more curious (and, I’ll admit, a little judgmental) when I see a farmer undercutting really significantly. I wonder if they’re losing as much money as I think they are, and why they’re willing to undervalue their work like that.

The other thing that can get a lot of farmers’ hackles up are nonprofit farms. They’re selling produce and sometimes even competing in the same markets as us, but their workers have salaries and benefits and so much less risk because their income isn’t reliant on their sales. It’s easy for a farm business owner to feel the unfairness of so much risk being on our shoulders. I’ll admit that as a young farmer focused on making my business work, I sometimes even had hard feelings about gardeners giving food away to their neighbors, thereby “undercutting” local farmers who are trying to make a living. I’m glad to be able to see the bigger picture these days.

I’ve been in conversations at farming conferences when the issue of affordability comes up. Someone asks a speaker, “OK, so you raise the most expensive chicken in North Carolina. How do you sleep at night knowing so few people can afford it?” Almost invariably, the speaker (sometimes I’m the speaker!) responds along the lines of, “I need to price my products so that I can pay myself. It’s not my responsibility as a farmer to fix the entire food system. My role is to grow good food and stay in business so that I can keep growing good food.”

For the past few years at Humble Hands Harvest we’ve been working to bridge the gap between our prices and what’s affordable by leaning on our community. I might be adamant that it’s not a farmer’s responsibility to solve the problems of the food system, but as a CSA farm we do have the capacity to organize. We’ve offered “solidarity shares” to our CSA members, giving them an opportunity to add $25 or more to the price of their share so that we can donate that amount of food to people who need it, both directly and through the food pantry. We’ve had CSA members whose shares were subsidized by other members.

There was a period of time, 2022-2024, when there was federal funding (called the LFPA) to pay farmers a fair price to give food to food pantries. Since that funding was terminated by the Trump administration in early 2025 I’ve oriented our farm’s fundraising toward continuing some of the distributions that we had been making under the LFPA. And in 2025, I finally made a move toward giving large donations to our local food pantry without compensation other than a tax receipt.

As great as the food pantry is, though, it doesn’t cover all of the need. Plenty of people want to eat local vegetables, looking fresh and abundant on a farmers market stand, but can’t stomach the price for any number of reasons. I’ve started to realize over the past few years that I would rather have people eating and appreciating the food I grow than to get paid for it. Ideally, both would be possible, but if only one can, I would rather have my work feed people than a compost pile.

It took me a couple days to conceptualize and bring it up with Emily, but after learning about People’s Plumbing, we have decided to try out the gift economy at our farmers market stand. We’ll start attending Decorah Market on Wednesdays in June, and, while we’ll have our prices posted, we won’t turn anyone away if they can’t (or don’t want to) pay. We anticipate a lot of interesting conversations about it at our farmers market stand, but hopefully nobody gets too confused and everybody ends up with the food they want!

We grow food because we want to work with the land, to enjoy the beauty of plants, and to share food with our community. I feel the value of my work when people eat and appreciate the food that I grow—whether or not the farm gets paid for it. We need to receive money for our work in order to keep doing it, but just as it’s not every individual farmer’s responsibility to ensure food access for their community, it’s not every individual eater’s responsibility to ensure a farm’s viability. With the choice to try on the gift economy, we’re stepping into trust, acknowledging the many gifts we’ve been given, and delighting in the food that gives of itself with such generosity.

Humble Hands Harvest is a publication offered in the spirit of the gift. To receive new posts, become a free subscriber. To pass the gift back to Humble Hands Harvest, you are welcome to pay for your subscription!

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This column by Denise O’Brien was reprinted from her Substack called Firmly Rooted.

Do You Know Who Grows Your Food?

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has declared 2026 as the International Year of Woman Farmers. March was Women’s History Month. More than ever it is time to recognize and celebrate women for their part in keeping humans alive and well.

Women play a crucial role in agriculture, particularly in developing countries. They are responsible for producing up to 80 percent of the food in these regions. They constitute about 43 percent of the global agricultural labor force.

Growing healthy nutritious food. Photo credits, Denise O’Brien and Unsplash

Fifty years ago, when I became a farmer, I was surprised to find out that most women on farms identified as farmer’s wives. I was raised in a small rural town in the rolling, Loess hills of southwest Iowa. A few friends lived on farms, but I never considered that farming was an occupation for women. I was a town girl who left at age 17 to explore the wider world. Eventually I returned to my roots, met a handsome farmer guy and did a full body plunge into the world of Iowa agriculture.

I successfully completed a two-year self-imposed apprenticeship to learn every aspect of farming from delivering baby pigs to raking hay in order to become a full fledged organic farmer, not just a farmer’s wife.

Economic and political decisions that included a grain embargo, high interest rates and low commodity prices of the 1970s converged to turn the world of family farming upside down: the Farm Crisis of the 1980s. As my husband and I began farming using organic practices in the late 1970s, we were aware that Secretary of Agriculture, Earl Butz was implementing a disastrous policy of “get bigger or get out”. Policy and technology were changing the face of farming, and Butz exacerbated this change by his callous, calculated alignment with agribusiness corporations to destroy the family farm.

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The crisis was too widespread to ignore. Our neighbors and community were in real trouble. That’s when I went on the road to work with nonprofits, labor, and churches to assist families in distress. I went to people’s homes, public meetings and protests to do what was necessary to call attention to the destruction of rural Iowa.

As I traveled the dusty gravel roads, it became clear to me that women on the farm were intimately involved with farm operations. They managed the chicken flock that provided eggs and meat for the table that contributed to the farm income. Many were the accountant for the farm, keeping track of money in and money out.

When the debt of the farm became greater than the income, women sounded the alarm. Many farmers did not like what they heard, tried hard to deny it, but the numbers did not lie. When local banks started refusing to roll the the debt over to the next year, men became angry and depressed. The high rate of domestic abuse and suicides document this tragic time in farming history. The long-term effects of this crisis are still felt in many communities today.

Family life patterns on farms changed drastically from the post war decades of the 50s and 60s when families worked as an economic unit, sometimes with cousins, aunts and uncles who lived close by.

The economic insecurity of the Crisis found many women taking jobs in town as teachers, secretaries, sales clerks, and waitresses, usually low paying but their jobs put food on the table. Women were still unrecognized for their economic contribution to stabilize the family farm.

I sat at many kitchen tables and in church basements listening to stories about the tensions created in their once peaceful homes. Stories of having to accept “welfare” in the form of food stamps and how embarrassing that was in small towns when the clerks at the stores were your friends, relatives or neighbors. I also heard about activism, of participating in protests, testifying in Congress and answering crisis hotlines.

It wasn’t until 1993 that I discovered an Economic Research Service (ERS) study that revealed women in the United States owned nearly 50% of the rentable farmland. This study, Women As Agricultural Landowners, What Do We Know About Them? was the most substantial collection of data in my months-long search.

This data was used by Women, Food and Agriculture Network (WFAN) to begin their work in the late 1990s. WFAN sought to identify Iowa women who owned land, where they got their information and how they made decisions about their land.

It wasn’t until 2002 that the Ag Census started to count multiple partners, including women, but still designated one person as the principal producer. In 2017, changes in the Census enabled families to list multiple members, including women, as active participants in farm management. The purpose in listing multiple members was to capture the roles of women and younger generations more effectively, reflecting their contributions to farming that had previously gone uncounted.

In 2022 the U.S. Census Bureau reported there were 1,139,675 farms operated by female producers. Reportedly 366,741 of the farms ranged in size from 10 to 49 acres (U.S. Census Bureau, Table 57). Many integrated livestock on their farms.

Based on these figures, over 1.2 million women are actively farming across the nation. Despite their growing presence, they remain underrepresented in leadership roles within agriculture. As reported, these women operate small, diversified farms, which are often less profitable compared to larger productions. It’s important to recognize that women are not absent from larger-scale operations because of a lack of capability, but rather due to systemic barriers such as limited access to land and ongoing gender-based discrimination.

Photos by Denise O’Brien

We need to build a better system that supports small food-producing farmers, including buying from a local farmer at farmer’s markets or joining a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm that has boxes of fresh vegetables weekly from spring to winter. We need programs that allow schools and food banks to buy from local farms. In rural areas, growing vegetables is gardening, not farming. Growing food for people to eat is a high priority, and farming is a career that should have a high status. Women grow healthy, nutritious food for the health of their families and their communities.

The nonprofit, FairTrade International supports gender equity, helps the consumer identify fair trade products and has a list where fair trade products are sold.

Firmly Rooted is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

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Denise O'Brien is a prominent organic farmer, community organizer, and agricultural activist based in Atlantic, Iowa. She is the founder of the Women, Food and Agriculture Network and has spent decades advocating for sustainable farming, local food systems, and women's leadership in agriculture.

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By Julie Gammack

The Amish love to farm. “I think I wouldn’t want to be living if I weren’t on a farm,” an Amish teenager once told me. “It’s exciting—there’s always something happening.”

Farming is also a way to keep the family together. When the father and mother work at home, they can take an active role in raising the children, training them in the Amish way of life.

The Amish believe that farmers live closest to God. “On a farm, you can see that God is in all things that are alive and growing,” explains Leah Peachy, an Amish woman I met in North Carolina.

They also are known to be excellent farmers. Centuries ago, while still in Europe, the Amish were banned from land ownership and forced to farm land so poor that no one else wanted it. In order to survive, they experimented with new methods, such as crop rotation. The Old Order Amish today still practice a four-year crop rotation system in Iowa and other states, planting corn for two years, oats for one year, and a hay crop a fourth year.

The Amish feel that they are not the owners of their land. Rather, they are caretakers entrusted with the use of the soil. They carefully nourish their fields—preferring organic fertilizers such as manure—so that when they retire the land is as healthy as when they began. If an Amish man damages the soil, he is considered to be as sinful as a thief. As a result, Amish farms are fertile and productive.

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Golden sunlight stretches wide over the Iowa hayfields in early September. At the Yoder farm near Bloomfield, a girl waves a hearty hello.

This is Regina, age 15. Besides household chores, she and her older sister Annie milk their family’s cows and drive a team of horses in the fields.

The girls laugh merrily when they talk. “Some people think we are twins, especially when we dress the same,” says Annie with a laugh. Today they wear identical raspberry-colored dresses, white aprons, and royal blue scarves tied under their chins.

Both say they’d rather spend their day in the fields than inside the house. “I think it’s great fun to work out,” says Regina.

“I feel more free outside,” agrees Annie in her mild way. “Farmwork doesn’t have to be done so fine and neat as needlework.”

Their day starts at 6:00 a.m. when their father wakes up the eight children who still live at home. Before breakfast, the girls feed the cows while their father and 22-year-old brother, Dan, feed the horses. All four help with the milking, and then Dan goes off to work as a carpenter.

The 12 black-and-white spotted Holsteins in the pasture look identical to me, but the girls befriended Jody, Joline, Vera, Abby, Shirley, Tina, Sheila, Fannie, and Pam when they were calves and call each one by name. Honey Lou and Sunny Sue, two fawn-colored Jerseys munching hay in the corner, complete their herd.

“Some people’s cows do kick, but ours don’t,” says Regina. “If they start to kick, we give them a little slap and they learn they can’t do that.” Hobbles—clamps that gently draw the cow’s hind legs together just above the knee—keep the cows quiet during milking.

Sometimes the girls get stepped on, which is not too serious. “It hurts for about five minutes, and that’s all there is to it,” says Regina.

Inside the barn I meet two colts, Dawn and Beauty. Regina pats Beauty on the lips, who bares her teeth in a jack-o-lantern smile. “I like to tease her,” says Regina. “She bit me the other day, just to be playful. Boy, did that hurt.”

An immense black stallion stands in the stalls across from the colts. “He’s gentle,” Regina reassures me as she strokes his forehead between soft black eyes. “He helps us clean the barn in the winter by pulling the manure spreader while we pile it up.”

Suddenly three wide-eyed children appear. Robert, David, and Grace, aged 7, 10 and 12, drove home from their one-room school in an open pony cart. They show me how to hitch it up. Like a well-trained team, Robert and David pull the cart out of the shed while Grace slips the bridle on Midnight, their pony, and backs her in between the cart’s shafts. In one minute, thanks to teamwork, it’s ready to go.

Annie takes me for a ride. The wind blows in our faces. Annie likes riding in a cart better than a buggy, she says, “because it’s more open, more free.” We pass the grassy pasture where the Yoders’ cows and horses graze peacefully. With just a slight tug, Midnight turns around.

Back at the farm, I notice the family’s three black covered buggies stored in an open shed. Annie and Regina have driven their family’s covered buggies to town or to visit friends, “since we were big enough to reach up and put the bridle on the horse,” says Annie.

The family owns two Standard Bred geldings to pull the buggies and nine big-boned Percheron mares to plow the fields. Both girls love to mow the hay with a team of two mares. “If you like horses, you like to do things with them,” says Annie.

“Driving a workhorse is even more fun than driving a gelding because they’re more powerful,” says Regina. “When you drive the team, you just feel content. Except you have to watch to make sure you’re at the row you should be and the mower doesn’t get jammed up.”

Soon it’s 5:00 p.m. and time for Regina to round up the horses and cows from the pasture. Barefoot, she rides Midnight without a saddle, because “Dad says it’s more fun to ride bareback.”

The sun slips low on the horizon by the time the cows amble into the stalls. In a graceful motion, Annie swings the hobble chain under a cow named Sheila and fastens it just above the knees, drawing them together.

“Usually, you milk cows on the right side,” Annie says. But since Sheila is a two-bucket cow, the girls place their stools on opposite sides of Sheila, clutch shiny metal pails between their legs, and pull the cow’s teats with both hands in brisk rhythm. Frothy milk splashes into the buckets.

“Want to try?” Annie asks. I do, but when I squeeze the smooth round teat there’s barely a trickle. Annie laughs and makes milk squirt like a faucet.

They like to sing while milking. A plaintive hymn floats in the air, voices clear and sweet, perfectly on key.

There are no shadows
Without the sunshine.
There are no showers
When all is fair.
And roses blooming
In thorny places
With sweetest fragrance
Perfume the air.

Grace joins in, Robert listens. David stretches full-length on top of Midnight, stroking his mane and gazing dreamily out the barn window. It’s a moment of contentment, a moment I want to go on forever, suspended in time. But with milking over, Queenie the collie herds the spotted cows out of the barnyard. Regina shuts the gate, and the family is ready for dinner and bed.

After my visit, Annie and Regina wrote these letters to me in perfect cursive script.

Dear Linda,
Greetings of Love!
Thank you so much for the candy! We received it in today’s mail. We are very pleased with your story. Everything is worded so nice.
We have a couple of words we want to change, but not much. On page 2 where the hobbles draw the cow’s hind legs together—just below the knee. It’s above, not below. Page 3 put the bridle on the horses, not halter.
That’s all we found that’s wrong.
Today we did the laundry and picked a 5-gallon bucket full of green beans, so we have to can those tomorrow. THANKS again for the candy!
Bye
Annie

And on the other side of the paper:

Dear Linda,
Greetings of Love!
First of all, I want to thank you for the candy. It was very good. And we are very pleased with the way you wrote the story. It was worded just perfectly. There were a few words wrong but nothing much, and I see Annie has corrected them. But she forgot something on the 2^nd page in the 3^rd paragraph. About the cows, you must have forgotten the 2 Jersey’s names, Honey Lou and Sunny Sue.
Thanks again for the candy.
Bye
Regina

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Reprinted with permission of the University of Iowa Press from Visits with the Amish: Impressions of the Plain Life by Linda Egenes. Copyright © 2009 University of Iowa Press.
Woodcuts by Mary Azarian. Used by permission.
Photo courtesy of Juliet Jarmosco.

Reprinted from The Blazing Star Journal, May, 2026.
Copyright © 2026 by Linda Egenes

Curious about her Amish neighbors, Linda Egenes made friends in three Iowa Amish communities and wrote essays about her experiences in Visits with the Amish: Impressions of the Plain Life (University of Iowa Press, 2009). She is the author of five other nonfiction books and has recently completed a historical novel set in the Amish community of Kalona, Iowa, during WWII. She teaches fiction and creative nonfiction in the online MFA in Creative Writing at Maharishi International University in Fairfield, Iowa, where she lives with her husband, Dr. Thomas Egenes.

You can reach her at www.lindaegenes.com

On December 14, 2012, my daughter, Kim, emailed me a message stating that I should not listen or read the latest news. Of course, I was inclined to ignore her message. My birthday of December 14 is now the anniversary of several mass shootings. On December 14, 2012, twenty children and six adults were murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School. And the details about two students shot at Brown University and sixteen people killed at Bondi Beach, Australia, started dribbling through the media cycle on December 14, 2025.

It’s been more than forty years since my sister was murdered in 1982 in a mass shooting, yet reports of each new shooting chill me. I imagine the pain and anguish of all the surviving families, friends, and communities.

In 1982, we had only three national television news stations, with scheduled programming in the evening. CNN was in its infancy, broadcasting for the first time on June 1, 1980. Newspapers were the mainstay of local and national media. Due to the printing process, there was sometimes a twenty-four-hour delay. Printed news was often stagnant by the time it reached readers.

Today, social media and technology have dramatically expanded access to immediate photos, videos, blogs, and witness observations surrounding mass shootings. Eyewitnesses often share their cellphone videos of actual events within seconds of their occurrence. There is little time for thoughtful analysis as competing social media and networks seek to be the first to report a tragedy.

When my sister was shot and killed in the Mother Lode bar, one of 12 victims, we weren’t aware of support organizations to help us navigate the survivor’s grief journey. My mom found some solace with Mothers of Murdered Children, where she met another mom, whose daughter had been murdered in Sioux Falls. However, organizations focused on helping grieving families hadn’t yet entered the national stage. There was no domestic forum for addressing gun violence. The idea of organizations promoting gun control hadn’t yet surfaced.

Today, we have many non-profits focused on support and gun violence control. Organizations emerged after the shootings of Gabby Giffords, a congresswoman, and James Brady, a public figure, who both survived near-fatal attacks. After the Sandy Hook mass shooting, a national movement emerged that trained kids on how to respond when shooters enter their schools: primarily by mass-casualty programming drills. These drills occur sometimes twice a year. The purpose is to have kids practice hiding from a potential stalker.

My granddaughter told me the high school shooting drills make her feel unsafe. She said it’s not just the drills, but it’s the intention of the drills: that someone may be stalking to kill you. I struggle with the idea that we need to train our children how to hide from a potential shooter. Some school districts have discussed hiring armed security guards to protect students while in class. A mass marketing effort has emerged that sells bulletproof backpacks and visual gun detection systems that alert law enforcement within five seconds. After the announcement of a mass shooting, the news often reports cancellations of large events as a cautionary safety decision, which is accepted and understood to be a security concern.

In comparison to 1982’s news coverage, today’s reporting is often extensive, extending into weeks of information about victims, sometimes mentioning similarities compared to other shootings. Various experts now weigh in with their analysis of shooter motives and repeatable patterns, of how our culture perpetuates the violence in a way that glamorizes the horror of gun violence.

Recently, I was a guest at my friend’s dinner, where I met people for the first time. During the casual conversation about my book, one of my friend’s guests said, “Oh, that shooter must have been mentally ill,” which surprisingly disturbed me. I found myself internally unsettled by his assumption that appeared to justify or simply explain why the shooter killed three and wounded nine people. I’ve thought about that conversation many times, trying to understand how declaring mental illness was disruptive to my thinking. It seemed too simple to dismiss mass shootings as caused by mental illness.

Then I read What We’ve Become by Jonathan M. Metzl, professor of sociology and psychiatry at Vanderbilt University, who presents a mass shooting case study about the Waffle House shooting in April 2018. Metzl describes the influence of “social, ideological, historical, racial and political forces and asks the question of what happens to the soul of a nation when we normalize violence as an acceptable trade-off for freedom.”

At the close of December 2025, a US gun violence statistics report listed 14,000 shooting deaths, and more than 390 mass shootings during 2025, although numbers may vary depending on the source and date (Gun Violence Archive; the media defines an event as a mass shooting when three or more people die). With the dramatic increase in the frequency of mass shootings during the past twenty years, accompanied by all the numbing details, a lot of people have become desensitized.

A survivor, I know firsthand that the grieving process after my sister was killed is long, and quite frankly, never over. Similarly, we haven’t yet totally digested the impact of gun violence on families, friends, communities, and on our national and global landscape.

I am still ambushed by grief every time I hear of another mass shooting, and think about those who automatically join the survivors’ grief club.

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Rockie Lyons’ column is an excerpt from her forthcoming book, Behind the Counter: An American Dream Turned American Nightmare.

Lyons taught writing at several institutions of higher learning and worked in high-tech for more than twenty-five years. You may learn more about her published interviews and articles at rockielyons.com. Lyons is also looking for a publisher for her book.

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By Julie Gammack

“Holy mother of God!” I yelled into Quentin’s face. Adrenaline surged through me. I was sure we would be thrown over the side into the white-capped crests. Quentin laughed, but his face flushed red, his eyes widened. We were both completely soaking wet from sea spray. His shirt clung to his body. Tadd, who sat grinning on the other side of Quentin, was only partially wet.

The raft hit the waves head-on at what seemed like a hundred miles per hour, again and again and again…the massive outboard motor launched us up and straight into the next giant swell. The over-sized inflated craft hit the crest and dropped, hit and dropped, over and over. Cold ocean water sprayed my face on each impact and drenched my hair. Salty water dripped from my eyelashes, burned my eyes and blurred my vision.

My cotton coverup clung to my body, drenching my shorts and swim top beneath it. A deep shiver vibrated through my entire body. My teeth chattered. There were no life jackets in sight. We sat on plank seats that lined the inside edge of the raft.

The first mate had instructed us to slip our feet under a single nylon rope that circled the floor. “If you don’t secure yourself, I’m not responsible when you fly overboard,” he grinned. I clenched a metal bar on the side of the steering stand. He watched me and chuckled. I remembered signing a long, extensive waiver the day before and wondered what risks I had agreed to. I had barely read the fine print when I bought the tickets online.

Ashore during the pre-boarding instructions, the captain had intently questioned us about neck and back injuries. Everyone aboard had denied fragile bones and frames and had agreed to some bouncing and bumping. I still had a terrible head cold and probably should not have been around other people, but doubted I would ever come back to Kauai or be able to take this trip to the Nā Pali Coast again. This might be my only chance to tour this stunning shoreline with my sons.

The captain shouted, “Yee Ha!” and cut the throttle, throwing us forward. The raft bobbed calmly now since we were beyond the high surf. Thank God, I thought, a break. We can relax.

O Captain, my Captain introduced himself and mentioned this was his second year of commanding this wild rig, and that he was twenty-three years old. “No one on the planet has a better job than I do,” he beamed with exhilaration. His mate introduced himself and told us he was eighteen. Yikes, I thought. I hope the hell they know what they are doing. If I hadn’t been with my thirty-something sons, I would have been selected to ride with one of the groups of older tourists and directed onto another boat.

“We’re just gonna drift a bit and watch. Scan the water’s surface and look for sea turtles,” the captain directed.

“Look!” the first mate yelled and pointed. “A hundred yards to the right!” The ocean surface swelled and bubbled for a minute. I saw a giant turtle shell four feet long flecked with light; the water rippled in front of its flippers that were muscular rigid wings patterned in plates of green and brown. The massive, ancient creature rotated, swerved in a half circle with slow powerful strokes, and then it was gone.

“Whoa,” all of us gasped in unison. Maybe this won’t be so bad after all, I thought. I felt elated, delighted to be on the open water with my sons. My fear and distrust of the captain’s experience was dissipating. He and the first mate were showing off their skill, and enjoyed entertaining us. I understood that they were trying to give the others on board, all eight of the young men, a thrill or two. I was the only woman in the group and fifteen years older than all of them.

This majestic sea turtle, like me, was an elder who had survived and now thrived despite great obstacles. Again, it was a sign of a steady patient journey through life in sometimes turbulent waters. The newly hatched turtle that I had envisioned myself to be so many years before had caused me to reflect. Its scramble toward the safety of the ocean represented moving at a steady pace and an enduring persistence through major challenges. This older reptile now offered common sense: slow down, go with the flow, be secure in your shell, come up for air when you need to and don’t be afraid to dive back down and explore.

The craft and crew sat quietly, our eyes scanning the surface of the water. A few minutes later, the captain started the motor and cruised slowly out to sea. He cut the engine again. “This is the spot for whales, but you never know if you will see them.” The boat rocked with the waves. Everyone was alert, watching for movement in the water.

“There!” the captain yelled. All eyes followed the direction of his pointed finger. A humpback breached, shot out of the water like a sleek missile despite its thirty-five-ton weight. It used its massive fins and core to roll sideways and spin like an athletic ballet dancer in a pirouette. Its ridged white belly rounded up with its entire body above the ocean and rotated over. When its weight hit the surface white plumes of sea spray exploded, bubbled and furled. The enormous creature disappeared then a tail shot up out of the water and its two notched flukes waved like giant black wings, smacking the surface and splashing water twenty feet into the air. I recalled that these massive creatures have hearts as big as a car.

“It looks like there are two males and a female. This is what they do to get her attention,” the captain explained excitedly. “They are competing for her.” I did not understand how he knew there were three whales, but I trusted him now. Our captain was a child of these waters, a born-and-raised bonafide water rat of the highest caliber. His entire life was shaped by these Nā Pali Coast waters. I loved the fact that he was choosing to make a living from what he knew. I decided to trust O Captain, my Captain and relax into this liquid place of waves, wind and wild creatures.

The myriad of creatures below the surface is a hidden, complex world impossible to comprehend. But rather than fear the unknown, I began to get curious and appreciate the diverse life of a foreign realm that I was now privileged to glimpse. Later I learned that female whales are pursued by multiple males. A group of males charge the female and show off to vie for the lady’s attention. The guys engage in high-speed maneuvers — pivoting, diving and tail slapping to show their dominance. Her suitors decrease in number until one male becomes her primary escort. My Captain knew about these mating rituals. Now, present and paying close attention to what the captain shared, I let the day, literally and figuratively, wash over me, cleanse and heal me.

Even though I was now an elder, the oldest on the boat, and felt fragile at the beginning of the day, I was able to dive into peace and feel the youthful exuberance of the young men onboard and the playful power of the whales’ mating dance. I forgot that I was sick. I let go of my fear, fear of the inexperienced captain and fear of the unfamiliar ocean, of the vastness of the water.

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This is an excerpt from a longer column by Robin Montgomery Kennedy that appears in The Blazing Star Journal. To read more, click here:

The Blazing Star Journal

Robin Montgomery Kennedy, who holds a master’s in creative nonfiction writing from Iowa State University, writes and teaches writing, public speaking and literature. An outdoor enthusiast, traveler, and explorer with a deep connection to wildlife, she currently works near her home as an Airbnb host and tour guide, leading visitors on hikes into northern New Mexico’s mountains and river valleys.
This chapter is part of her memoir, Wild Animal Wisdom: Lessons En Route to Transformation and Healing.

In light of the recent allegations about Cesar Chavez’ sexual misconduct, I thought we might revisit this piece by Rockie Lyons. In the past couple of weeks, Dolores Huerta has stepped forward with a revelation that she, too, was abused by Chavez. Dedicated activists, the two of them co-founded the United Farm Workers Union.

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I recently heard an interview with Dolores Huerta, the 94-year-old activist who championed women’s and farm workers’ rights most of her life on Wiser Than Me podcast with Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

In 1962, Huerta and Cesar Chavez co-founded the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee, later the United Farm Workers Union. This Union fought for justice and fair treatment of migrant farm workers in California. They fought for migrant access to healthcare, voting rights, and fair compensation for work.

Many workers had no rights, slept on floors with wooden boxes as furniture, and drank unclean water. Some workplaces lacked access to bathrooms. Most worked from sunrise to sundown without any break, often under a hot sun. Chavez was passionate about farmers not using pesticides because of the high incidence of congenital disabilities and deaths within the farm workers’ community. Sometimes, landowners sexually assaulted women who were afraid to speak up for fear of losing their jobs. Huerta was also a strong advocate for women’s rights.

In 1966-1970, Chavez and Huerta led the Delano, California, grape protests, a strike that took the plight of farm workers to grocery store consumers. The international grape strike led to a workers’ contract with grape growers, the first collective bargaining for farm workers, resulting in higher wages and improved working conditions.

In 1975, Jerry Brown, California’s governor, signed the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act (CALRA) to bring physical fighting between grape growers and field workers to the courtroom. Huerta’s interview brought back vivid memories of my court-reporting career when I captured what was happening in the San Joaquin Valley.

It was 1976. I was 24 years old, a working mother with a six-month-old, and a husband in college. I paid the bills by working as a court reporter. My job was to capture verbatim real-time testimony, then transcribe my court reporter’s shorthand notes into transcripts that I sold to the court law judge and all litigating parties. I remember being impressed with the passion of young volunteer college students who often represented the United Farm Workers for free. Because they were not trained lawyers, the administrative law judges frequently stopped the proceedings to educate the young volunteers on the rules of law and decorum during the hearings. The administrative law judge would remind the volunteers that passion alone is not a reasonable objection.

I made a living by documenting the courtroom’s interactions and then charging the parties for buying transcripts I created using my white IBM correcting Selectra typewriter. I charged participants for the words they used in the courtroom. I thought I had the most remarkable technology using my electric typewriter. A typical transcript order was one original for the court and four or five carbon copies for the parties involved. I made a living giving back to the courtroom’s participants precisely what they said in the courtroom via a transcript. Computers were not yet in the marketplace, so I used carbon to create copies. My right pinkie finger was often black due to the erasures I made on each carbon copy page when I corrected a typo.

I remember driving to Delano, California, from Orange County for one of the first hearings under the new California Agricultural Labor Relations Act. At the time, I was unaware of Cesar Chavez’s United Farm Workers’ movement or his passion for reconciling the unfair treatment of farm workers in the San Joaquin Valley. I learned later of the historic moment in 1968, when Robert Kennedy and Cesar Chavez shared a Catholic mass communion in Delano, California. The meeting between Kennedy and Chavez was one of the most powerful moments in history because it brought together race, politics, and labor.

I was very young and naive about the history we were making at the time because I focused on the immediate situation of capturing every word and then presenting the narrative verbatim in a transcript. I sometimes struggled to understand the thick Spanish or Arab accents I needed to translate into my court reporter’s shorthand. When the testimony or questioning became hostile, I would stop the proceedings and ask for decorum, asking only one person to speak at a time.

Forty years later, I think about how much that court reporting experience became a part of history in ways I never imagined. What I thought was stressful, sometimes legally dull, and mundane became one of the most significant catalysts for social change for farm workers. I was young in my career and focused on the task at hand. I could not see or imagine the impact of our work.

Today, I look around and sometimes wonder how many times in my lifetime I have been a part of something larger than I imagined yet missed the moment because I was focused on details, in the weeds, and not thinking about the possibilities or the significance of change.

Dolores Huerta left an impressive legacy because she had the vision and foresight to seek justice. Throughout her career, Huerta was arrested twenty-two times for participating in nonviolent civil disobedience activities. Despite the challenges and physical danger, she imagined a place where justice prospered. She had a vision while managing all the chaos and distractions surrounding her.

Yet the farm field worker battles are not over. Many forces against farm labor continue today. The deportation threat of migrant farm workers is more significant than ever before. More than three million migrant workers support our agricultural economy. Farm Workers Fact Sheet

Last night, while making dinner and thinking about this article, I wondered how many hands touched my food before it reached my plate. I bought my food from a grocery store where I talked with the checkout clerk. However, I never met or chatted with the delivery person, the warehouse team, or the farm worker working under harsh conditions who picked or prepared the food on my table. I realize how much I take for granted. I don’t often think about all that is involved in how food comes to my family. Dolores Huerta fought against forces that seemed impossible, yet she persisted. We need more Dolores Huerta voices.

Bio:

Rockie Lyons taught writing at several universities and colleges and worked in high-tech for more than twenty-five years. You may listen to several NPR interviews and read several opinion editorials by Lyons at rockielyons.com

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By Julie Gammack

This essay excerpt is part of Jane Yoder-Short’s memoir, Mennonite Farm Girl Stirs the Pot, A collection of untidy attempts. The entire essay is called Seeing Beyond Fences first published in The Blazing Star Journal:

The Blazing Star Journal

I headed to South Bend and began studying architecture, a way to combine art and math.

South Bend was a ferhoodled (Pennsylvania Dutch for messy) time. Life became a mix of Catholic and Mennonite. Like combining soda and vinegar, it caused some interesting effects.

I attended a Catholic University during the week while living near my Sunday hangout of Community Mennonite Church. Community Mennonite was a mission church in a section of the city haunted by poverty.

Take away the German/Russian heritage and Amish ancestors, what flavor Mennonites do you have? There, among the boarded-up houses and unsafe neighborhood, I found Minnie. Two of her sons were in jail. Her teenage daughter was pregnant. A favorite saying of hers was, “I just tell Dr. Jesus my troubles.” This sounded way too sentimental and pious for me. Still, her love was welcoming and her heart was warm. She lived just two blocks away from me and we shared the same date for our birthdays.

After church, she’d say, “Jane, stop by sometime.”

“Ok.”

I’d get too busy, but she kept inviting me. Our deep cultural differences didn’t seem to bother her.

One Saturday I headed to her house and carefully climbed the broken steps. Her young adult son came to the door and stared at me. The hate was visible. It didn’t matter who I was, I was white and at his door. It was a time when racial suspicion filled the air. I heard Minnie’s voice yell at him.

“You go on now.”

“Jane, come on in. Sit on the couch with me and tell me about your family.”

“Only one sister.”

“I bet your mom misses you.”

Mennonites don’t need to talk Dutch or have certain ethnic roots. Did Minnie and I see Mennonites as the same? Mennonites had become her neighbors and she accepted their love. She wasn’t concerned about their theology.

Later someone mistakenly told me, “You can tell a Christian by their well-kept yard and their nice porch” – I knew they were full of crap. It’s hard to spot the faithful when we’re looking at the wrong things. Minnie’s porch and house were in danger of becoming condemned by the city, but her heart was filled with love.

A young Black Mennonite preacher came to replace the white missionary. Good intentions took on disconcerting overtones. He was critical of the couple who had invested time, energy, and love into the church.

“But they had good intentions,” I told him.

“Good intentions are not enough. Meet me for coffee, and I’ll explain.”

It sounded more like a dare than an actual conversation invitation. We did meet. His anger spilled into the exchange.

“What do you do when good intentions are paternalistic and condescending? Why are so many songs European Mennonite?”

“But I thought the singing was a mix.” I tried to insert a little optimism into the conversation.

“Why are the neighborhood people only given token jobs at church?”

“Aren’t there ways we can work together?”

Here was someone excited about Anabaptist theology but impatient with Mennonites. He was correct in many of his observations. Like my childhood church, the issue seemed to be about power, about who makes decisions, who chooses the fences that hold us together.

Community Mennonite failed in many ways, but it wasn’t without merit. People crossed lines and began to understand each other in new and hopeful ways.

There was the neighborhood women’s group. We mostly did crafts and baked cookies while chatting. The group included neighbors from the Pentecostal church along with women from the Mennonite church. It was a clashing of The Quiet in the Land, as Mennonites think of themselves, with the loud praisers of the Lord.

“Jane, we got special meetings. Come along to church.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“No thinking. It’ll be fine. We’ll stop by for you. We’ll walk together. You need a little more soul.”

How did I let them talk me into going along? I was the only person of my race. I was the only person who didn’t know movement was part of worship. We laughed together at my awkwardness.

I saw things I wasn’t looking for and began to understand culture in ways that made me uncomfortable and hopeful.

While I was experiencing the disadvantaged neighborhood, I was also experiencing the advantages of wealthy Catholic students. I didn’t know much about Catholics except my childhood biases. They elevated Mary too high, played bingo for money in their church basements and wrongly held to a just-war theory. My learning curve was high.

I probably impolitely stared. Everyone had dirt on their foreheads.

I reached class and sat next to a friend.

“OK. Excuse my ignorance but why does everyone have dirt on their foreheads?”

“Mennonites don’t do Ash Wednesday?”

“Ash Wednesday?”

“It’s the beginning of Lent. The priest puts ashes on you to remind you that you are ashes. And we also fast or at least don’t eat meat and we confess our sins. There you have it.”

“Can I get ashes?”

“Only if the priest thinks you’re Catholic.”

I decided to forgo pretending I was Catholic, but throughout the day, I did try to be aware of my shortcomings.

There was an ROTC group on campus. They wore their uniforms and stuck out worse than I did in my habitual Amish denim jacket with its hooks and eyes.

One of the ROTC fellows was in a class with me. One day I went from discussing homework to asking why he joined ROTC.

“I’m curious. Can you explain how your faith fits with joining ROTC?”

“Ah, nothing to do with faith. It’s money. I’m not as rich as some of these privileged pimps.”

Having once met Jay, a real pimp, I didn’t think his fellow students were worthy of the label. I let the comment pass, while the image of towering Jay with his jewels and gun floated in my mind.

“Do you ever worry about killing someone?”

“Nope, I try not to think of it. I’ll be an officer and just tell others to kill. Then I’ll get out as soon as I can.”

“And it won’t change you, make you someone you don’t want to be?”

“I guess time will tell.”

“When is a war just?”

“What are you? Some kind of spy sent to interrogate my loyalty?” He laughs and leaves.

We kept discussing Mennonite pacifism and Catholic just war. It had nothing to do with our structural engineering homework.

“Hey, Jane. I got an invitation for you to be on a panel, and you can’t say no. ROTC is discussing just war theory and they want a pacifist on the panel. I suggested you.”

“But I’m not a theologian.”

“You do pretty good arguing with me.”

“That’s different. You aren’t a panel.”

“You can do it.”

There I was on a panel with four other people with varied ideas on when war is justified. We sat at a table in the front of the room. I looked out over the rather small audience. It was filled with too many ROTC uniforms.

I tried to make a case for how the just war theory should rule out wars, not justify them. Will war do less harm than the evil it is trying to prevent? Would Jesus ever justify war?

It was a trip into foreign territory.

Living in South Bend taught me much beyond my architectural classes. I thought I grew up poor, but I grew up rich and privileged, even though my hometown was confused about my family’s status. I had thought Catholics had it all wrong, but I saw passionate ones, even a couple of Irish Catholics whose call for justice echoed what I was looking for.

Living in South Bend taught me Mennonites can disagree and still find ways to show love.

Leaving South Bend behind, I headed into married life. My partner was a friend from college who had always kept in contact. After a few more years in Indiana, we headed to Michigan where he took a job at a university in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where Mennonites didn’t exist. There were some interesting Finnish Lutherans and a host of non-denominational evangelicals.

Finnish Lutherans looked similar to conservative Mennonites, but they had different fences. They smoked in public and ate rubbery Lutefisk and Yooper pasties. Pasties were a good find. They were vegetables, including potatoes and rutabaga, plus meat, wrapped in a small package of pie crust. A friend showed me how to make them.

Even though I made Finnish Lutheran friends, we were ethnically different enough we didn’t fit in with their church herd.

A neighbor invited us to the Christian Church. The sermons made me slightly uncomfortable, but no one is perfect. I decided to get more involved.

“I heard you need a Sunday school teacher. I’m willing to help.”

“Now your background is Mennonite?”

“Yes.”

“I’m not very familiar with them. Do they immerse when baptizing?”

“No, they are more of the pouring variety.”

“I’m sorry, if you want to teach, we require immersion.”

“Oh. I’ll give it some thought.”

This baptism fence sounded odd to me. Does the amount of water really matter?

Phil had baptized me, and although I had mixed feelings about my home congregation, I did respect Phil. He had been made fun of during WW1 because he refused to wear a uniform and carry a gun. Phil’s sprinkling baptism seemed good enough. I decided not to teach Sunday school. I soon became a dropout.

Just when total cynicism was about to set in, we found a small Quaker group. At first, their silent meeting was unsettling, but it became a refreshing change from sermons echoing a nationalistic, pious, patriarchal faith.

Quakers taught me to relax about fences and worry more about centering. Quakers pulled up the fences. They didn’t worry about who was a member or who was on the edge doing unholy actions. When John, an opinionated skeptic, started attending, no one seemed concerned even though at times he was rude. He seemed to enjoy pointing out the stupidity of people’s faith.

Curious, I brought it up to the clerk, the person appointed to close the meeting and oversee the monthly business meeting.

“Can anyone attend meetings? Do you ever ask someone to tone down their sharing?”

“It’s not our job to limit who can join Meeting.”

“What if they cause trouble or divisions or try to confuse people?’

“Is John making you nervous? We trust something bigger than ourselves to work in people’s lives and hearts. Sounds like you’re trying to keep John out.”

“Maybe I’m being too Mennonite and wanting clearer boundaries.”

She chuckled. “Mennonites may need fences, but Quakers don’t worry about it.”

“Do you ever worry about not knowing who you are?”

“I’m not sure fences help people understand their center.”

John soon tired of harassing attendees and dropped out. I kept pondering centering versus fences.

Some at the Quaker meeting were involved in the local active peace group. Among this milieu, I spotted people whom I considered part of my herd.

One more area to fly over. We headed back to Iowa. I had missed Mennonites, but I wasn’t ready for the rural Iowa variety. Maybe I had been with Quakers long enough not to worry about maintaining fences. Maybe I had been away from traditional Mennonite churches long enough to forget how ethnicity and politicking can flavor congregational life.

I found many Mennonites still liked fences. Their fences differ from the Amish, their related religious cousins. The Amish know exactly what women should wear, the style of your buggy, and who is in and who isn’t. Mennonite fences are looser when it comes to dress, vehicle choices, and the wild use of electricity and telephones. Still, some Mennonite fences are charged with emotional electricity. LGBTQ inclusion is a passionately disputed fence.

It was after a soccer game. I had recently written an article for a Mennonite publication on how loving neighbors comes without limiting fences, fences that label people as undeserving of love. After the game, the mother of one of the players on my son’s team came up to me. She had read more between the lines than I had clearly stated. She had made assumptions, as we all do.

“Jane, why take a chance? Why walk so close to the fence? It’s safer to stay away from what might be wrong. Fences keep us secure.”

“What if worrying about fences causes us to lose our way?”

“Some fences are clear.”

“Clear to who?”

“Clear from the Bible.”

It was an awkward conversation. It ended with her saying, “I will pray for you.”

Great. Prayer can’t hurt. I could tell she cared about me. I walked away feeling like I’d be happy to talk to her more. This isn’t always the case when people disagree.

Fence-moving projects must be carefully implemented. Sometimes change just seems to be pokich, which is Pennsylvania Dutch for slow.

Fences can offer safety, but they limit movement. Cattle need fences or they can wander onto a road and get hit by cars. They can end up lost and there is no one to care for and feed them. When are fences helpful? And when do fences become detrimental and limit our vision?

Spotting Mennonites takes you inside and outside different fences. Sometimes you find a herd that welcomes you. Sometimes you welcome the safety fences bring. Other times fences seem to get in the way of reckless love.

Jane Yoder-Short grew up on a small Ohio farm surrounded by a Mennonite community. She was lucky enough to have Amish relatives. She keeps a little dirt on her shoes.

Yoder-Short holds a bachelor’s degree in art and math from Goshen College (Indiana). She holds a professional bachelor’s in architecture from the University of Notre Dame, South Bend, and a master’s in theology and ethics from Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary, Elkhart.

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What follows is an excerpt from a longer piece by Jane Yoder-Short. You can read the full essay in The Blazing Star Journal on the AgArts website: https://www.agarts.org/seeing-beyond-fences-by-jane-yoder-short/

This essay is part of her memoir, Mennonite Farm Girl Stirs the Pot, A collection of untidy attempts.

It was late summer, just before I was entering fifth grade. The corn was high, lush, and green. A big cattle truck from the sale barn delivered some newly-bought young Texas Black Angus calves. They were wild and full of energy. They danced in the pasture, excitedly kicking their feet. The green grass and fresh Ohio air stirred their spirits. Their big problem was the confining fence of our small pasture. Two days after their arrival, a frisky calf attempted to jump the pasture fence. The straight wire fence was bent low, leaving an escape route. Luckily, Dad saw the bent fence. He temporarily fixed it, planning a better repair job the next day.

Who knows what happened later that afternoon? Was it a simple accidental push against the fence? Was it another attempted escape that succeeded in knocking over the fence? Something happened that enabled freedom for all the calves.

Most times, with the help of a few neighbors, escaped cattle are easily rounded up. These calves were off and running. Lucky for them, the corn hid their location. Dad’s friend Ron and his son came with their horses. They started making their way through the nearby cornfield. Soon, some calves were rounded up. By the next day, most of them were safely back in the pasture behind a secured fence.

Two weeks later, four calves were still missing. The whole county seemed to be talking about the missing calves. Word reached Glen, a local hobby pilot with a small plane. He contacted Dad and offered to fly over the area. He was sure they could spot the runaways with an aerial view.

Lucky for me, there was room on the plane for an extra passenger. Dad said I could go along. I had never been inside a plane.

There were two seats in front where Dad and Glen sat. I was in the back right next to a small window. The plane’s engine was noisy. The whole passenger compartment smelled of fuel. None of that stopped my excitement.

Everything looked different from the air.

“The cars look like tiny toys! The barns are so small!”

“It’s a pretty amazing view,” Glen responded.

“There’s deer.”

“Keep your eyes open for calves,” Dad added.

We hadn’t been flying long before Dad shouted, “There, in that cornfield.”

They were hard to see. You had to carefully watch. The corn provided the perfect cover. The young calves blended in with the dark spaces between the rows. Glen flew lower. We could just make out the well-hidden Black Angus calves. The four of them had stayed together. We were 15 miles from home.

Dad contacted Ron. He and his horse along with a crew of neighbors arrived that afternoon. They managed to surround the cattle and move them out of the cornfield. They carefully herded them onto a truck. Once loaded, they were brought safely home. The cattle returned well-fed, thanks to a stranger’s cornfield.

I loved flying in Glen’s small loud plane. The fresh view was exciting. I felt powerful as we soared high above the world. There was excitement in searching and finding.

I discovered how different things look when viewed from an unfamiliar place. With a different perspective, I saw things I wasn’t looking for and missed what I had set out to find.

I look back on my adventures and travels, I realize how I’ve looked for freedom from unnecessary fences. I see how I’ve searched for Mennonites that I can call my herd. Did I know what I was looking for – or did I find unexpected things I wasn’t searching for?

In today’s world, certain flavors of Mennonites can be hard to spot since the women don’t wear coverings or even the updated head doily. Their clothes and cars look normal. You can fly over the world and never spot a Mennonite – unless you run into one by some chance conversation.

Flying over my past experiences, I see the many interesting Mennonites I’ve spotted, Mennonites of different flavors, Mennonites who provided a fresh view, an unexpected image, and sometimes an unsettling perspective. They inspired me to see the world differently.

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How did I end up in Pennsylvania? A Mennonite high school was asking for an art teacher. One of my art professors encouraged me to apply. They had never offered art. Art was a little suspect, a little too frivolous.

I headed to C. Norman Kraus’s office, my trusted bible prof, to ask about the school.

“What should I do? I won’t fit in.”

“Here’s what I think. Go for the interview. Be honest. Tell them what you think. If they hire you, try it for a year. It might just be good for you. It could be good for them.”

It seemed like reasonable advice.

The interview was all men, in plain cut coats, sitting around a long table in a small room. Certain flavors of Mennonites require men in leadership to wear coats with no lapels and buttoned to the throat. They weren’t about to be conformed to the world. The room smelled of formalities and stiffness.

“Are you sanctified?”

It wasn’t a question I had planned on. “Sorry, I don’t know what sanctified means.”

“Sanctified means you are set apart from the world. You are Holy,” answered the stern man leading the interview.

“Oh, yeah, I’m set apart from the world. The world believes in military might instead of peacemaking. The world believes in accumulating wealth, and I hope to share resources. The world believes style is important and I ignore the latest fashion.”

“You’re not wearing a covering. Would you wear a covering if we require it?”

By now I realized I wasn’t getting the job, so I didn’t care what I said. I had long ago given up my small white net head covering.

“I think coverings are a way to keep women in their place. If you’d require it, I would see it as a school uniform and take it off the minute the school buzzer sounded at the end of the day.”

They kindly thanked me and I returned to the safe Mennonites in Indiana. I was sure they wouldn’t offer me the job. I was sure I didn’t fit inside their fences. I had twisted their ideas of sanctification and insulted the covering. Then – they offered me the job.

I asked C. Norman, “What should I do?”

“It’s your chance to be an ambassador.”

“Right. I don’t think it will work. I’m not sure I want to be an ambassador.”

“I have confidence in your honesty, and more importantly in your compassion.”

Thus, it happened. I was off to teach in a foreign culture. I did love the students. It seemed like the troublemakers and marginalized students found their way to my room. After lunch, they just started wandering in.

“What can I do? Mr. G. hates me.”

“Can you get me out of detention? I could come and clean your chalkboards.”

“Do you think I’m going to hell?”

There were always questions. I tried to use C. Norman’s method and ask them questions back.

“What makes you think Mr. G. hates you?”

“Can you use detention as a time to study?”

“What’s got you thinking about hell?”

It was a hard year. Maybe I’m sorry about some things.

Yes, maybe I’m sorry I didn’t turn in the student who gave me his marijuana. He was under pressure to behave. His family had just become Mennonite, and it was a cultural shock for him. He didn’t need more trouble.

Yes, maybe I’m sorry my sweater was too tight, but you could have discussed tight sweaters in private. You didn’t have to bring them up in a faculty meeting.

Yes, maybe I’m sorry I wore jeans to see a church movie, but the fellow who asked me to go along didn’t tell me the movie was playing at a church and not a theater. How was I supposed to know? And on top of it all, I didn’t appreciate the movie’s use of fear to save people.

Yes, maybe I’m sorry I hugged C. Norman in public after his chapel talk, but I was just so glad to see him.

Ironically, hidden among the Pennsylvania Mennonite terrain, I found Myron Dietz. Dietz taught social studies and church history. He was Old Order River Brethren. This particular flavor of Anabaptists had unsalaried preachers and met in homes. Not only did he wear a plain cut coat, but his branch of Anabaptist required a beard.

We found common ground. We didn’t want to see Mennonites drift into worldly evangelicalism and nationalism. He lived with an aura of simplicity and generosity. I liked to get him talking about how the world was influencing Mennonites.

“Are Mennonites becoming too flavored by evangelicals?”

“What are you worried about, Jane? Mennonites joining the military? Mennonites using fear to save people? Mennonites becoming too proud of being Americans?”

“Maybe all of those.”

“Just keep asking questions. Questions keep us thinking.”

“And like you always tell the students, ‘Don’t ever let your education interfere with your learning.’”

Dietz saw beyond our differences. He didn’t have to agree with me to discuss faith and life. He wasn’t about to let differences limit conversations.

One year in Pennsylvania was enough. I headed back to Indiana.

Jane Yoder-Short grew up on a small Ohio farm surrounded by a Mennonite community.

Yoder-Short holds a bachelor’s degree in art and math from Goshen College (Indiana). She holds a professional bachelor’s in architecture from the University of Notre Dame, South Bend, and a master’s in theology and ethics from Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary, Elkhart.

Yoder-Short joined the Iowa City Press Citizen Writers Group in 2000 and continues to write occasional columns for them. She was a columnist for Mennonite World Review, an Anabaptist publication, from 2010-2020.

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By Julie Gammack

Last June, I signed up for an early morning gym class because a friend told me Medicare would pay the gym fees. I had never been to a gym before, so my expectations were low. Most of my life I sat at a computer and mainly exercised my fingers. I tried to take daily walks but never imagined a rigorous exercise program as part of my lifestyle.

My vision of exercise was that a lot of sweat and tears would be part of the regiment. I went online and enrolled for a Monday morning class. I arrived at 6:50 a.m., just in time for the 7:00-7:30 circuit class, followed by 7:30-8:00 stretch (yoga) class. There were about ten people lined up in a u-shaped room with ten weight-bearing circuit machines situated next to the wall, bright yellow and shiny. Aligned in front of the machines were 12 floor exercise bars you could use for floor balance training.

The trainer stood in the middle with a stopwatch and demonstrated floor exercises while explaining which muscles were going to be stretched.

“Rockie, lower your bottom into a plank so your bottom is at an angle with your legs,” the trainer said to me.

I strained to hear the trainer’s commands while trying to imagine what my body must look like in that pose.

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After attending for a couple of months, I gradually learned the names of about a dozen folks, mostly women, who arrived shortly before 7:00 a.m. A lot of us were retired so we had more flexibility with our time, but not always flexible with our bodies in responding to the trainer directives.

One day I was standing next to my gym partner who turned her head towards me.

“I just moved my mother-in-law into assisted living.”

A few in the class nodded, their heads indicating they knew how challenging it was to attend to our aging parents and in-laws.

One person asked, “Where is your mother-in-law going?”

“Break,” the trainer shouted as we moved on to the next circuit training machine. The large green/red light centered high on a wall started flashing when we transitioned to new stations.

“Oh, how old is she?” I asked.

“Go!” the trainer shouted to begin the next 60-second exercise.

You could hear moans and groans when our bodies contorted and stretched muscles.

“She will be 103 years old next week when we move her into assisted living,” my partner picked up the conversation as if there was no 60-second interruption.

“Break,” the trainer yelled, and we moved on to the next exercise.

After hearing my partner share her mother-in-law story, I moved to the next weight-bearing machine. I had flashbacks of putting my 97-year-old father into hospice. Later, I realized he had no idea what hospice meant because he kept calling the ambulance whenever he had a urinary infection. I lived 1,800 miles away from him in Portland, Oregon, and struggled in supporting his medical challenges. I was not alone in managing aging parents and in-law concerns.

During my first month I listened and watched as my new gym partners shared their life stories in five and ten second intervals between the gym exercises. I was intrigued how rich the community dynamics were among my gym mates. We were meeting daily intending to exercise, yet the friendships grew deeper as micro bits of life started to spill out during our gym regimen. There were jokes about our inability to do the exercises. Lots of levity emerged while we all struggled to master exercises that highlighted muscles I never knew existed. We joked about aspiring to be New York Rockette dancers.

“Wow, your mother-in-law is impressive,” I told my gym partner.

“Go,” the trainer shouted, and we all moved into position.

I looked across from my station at a woman whose knee bore a six-inch scar right over her left kneecap. During one of the knee-driven exercises, I heard her tell the trainer about her knee replacement. And yet here she was in gym class, bending and stretching that knee.

A gym mate announced a brunch birthday party for August birthdays. Wow, I was so impressed with how much community this group was expressing through invitations to meet outside of class. In December five of us together attended the Nutcracker Ballet. During a Friday morning gym class, we were invited to an iconic restaurant the next Saturday night where a gym mate’s husband was playing with his band. I loved all these engagements outside of class.

“Go!” the trainer yelled when the flashing light centered high on the wall turned from red to green.

I moved to a weight-bearing machine where the 40-pound weight was much more than I could lift. I looked to see who had set the weights level prior to my arrival on the machine and commented.

“Boy, Sandy, you are so strong. I’m impressed.”

She laughed and kind of shrugged and said, “I’ve been doing this for a while.”

It made me realize how much progress we were all making. When I started, I could barely lift five pounds, yet slowly my weight-bearing competence grew. It was incremental but noticeable.

I have been attending this gym class for six months and learned a lot about my gym partners who have now joined me in this stage of life where the stress of finding a career or raising a family has shifted. Many of us have transitioned to a lifestyle that fights off the aches and pains of aging.

A month or so ago, we learned that a new company was buying the training exercise program, with a hint that our trainer and daily instruction could change or be eliminated. We were overwhelmingly disappointed at the possibility. For weeks, we discussed how we could submit feedback to management about the value of the existing program.

In the end, new management stayed the program, and we returned to class with a grateful heart that our community would continue to strive for connection and wellness.

“Go,” the trainer shouted, the light turning from red to green.

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Throughout her various careers, Rockie Lyons worked in high tech and taught writing at various institutions of higher learning. You may learn more about her upcoming book, Behind the Counter, at rockielyons.com.

The National World War II Museum

New Orleans, Louisiana, 2007

“Are there any questions?”

The director of the National World War II Museum in New Orleans had concluded our exhausting tour of battles and generals, horrors and heroism, fearsome tolls on humanity.

My question seemed anticlimactic.

“What about the Home Front knitters?” I asked, mindful of wartime knitters who had turned out staggering numbers of stockings, sweaters, and such that kept troops warm and closer to home. “Do you have wartime knitting in your collection?”

“Yes, we do,” he said. “And I think the knitting is still out on the tables back in collections. We got it out for a knitting guild that met here. Would you like to see it?”

This is too good to be true, I thought.

“There’s an unfinished sweater,” he said. “A woman was knitting a sweater, one of those Red Cross sweaters, and the minute she heard the war in Europe was over, she stopped knitting.” I hurried to keep up with him as we walked through a maze of hallways toward collections storage.

“She was a saver,” he added. “After she died, her children found her unfinished sweater and Red Cross uniform stashed in a chest. They donated them to our museum.”

In the storage area, knitted helmets, a vest, muffler, and the unfinished sweater lay on worktables covered with padded muslin. Rows of tall metal shelves held hundreds of archival gray boxes, each with artifacts protected by acid-free tissue paper. Military uniforms covered with muslin sleeves on padded hangers hung on racks. Metal cabinets, tightly closed, secured larger, three-dimensional objects, and flat file drawers held smaller pieces like medals and ribbons.

I felt at home in this quiet place behind the scenes, a place of caring and reflection where few others had reason to venture. I liked time alone with curators and librarians in archives, special collections, and museum storage rooms. The curator was folding a knitted muffler with archival tissue.

“Susan’s here with the textile conference,” the director told her. “She teaches history of dress at a university.” I appreciated his lending my presence a bit of weight.

“Do you still have the wedding dress out, the one made from a silk parachute?” He glanced toward me and smiled. That was quite a prize for their collection. The curator held up the gown, delicate and beautifully sewn. The slim waist, generous train, gathered and puffy sleeves shouted 1940s. She shared the gown’s history, which I have forgotten. My mind was on the unfinished sweater.

“Susan studies American knitting,” said the director. “Could you show her the unfinished sweater?”

“That would be Mrs. Wardi Keter Kalil,” said the curator. “Her sweater’s over here with her knitting pattern books.”

Ah, the thread of a story.

I was not in New Orleans for research. I was attending a textile conference and volunteering at another museum, one of the victims of catastrophic flooding from Hurricane Katrina one year earlier. In a pinch, I penciled my research notes on the back of my hotel receipt and borrowed a camera from a colleague.

The curator handed me gloves. Curatorial rules were clear: “Wear gloves to handle cloth. Remove the gloves but wash your hands before you touch paper. Take notes in pencil. Ask me before you touch anything else.”

The unfinished sweater lay on a table among other wartime knits. A woven label supplied by the Red Cross was sewn onto a knitted helmet (head and neck covering with face opening). The American Red Cross had standardized vast quantities of olive-drab and navy-blue wool yarn and had printed knitting patterns for helmets, sweaters, vests, socks, mufflers, fingerless mitts, and other comfort items distributed to the troops. The greatest need was for socks, quickly worn out, seldom saved. Knitters could work with red, white, and blue knitting needles supplied by the Red Cross and other relief organizations.

The Red Cross and Navy League coordinated distribution of the prodigious output of knitting donated by civilian volunteers. The November 24, 1941, issue of Life magazine advised, “To the great American question ‘What can I do to help the war effort?’ the commonest answer yet found is ‘knit.’” First Lady and “First Knitter” Eleanor Roosevelt, a prolific knitter, was photographed carrying her knitting bag on patriotic travel across the nation. When a speaker complained that people had been knitting during her lecture, a New York Times columnist suggested the correct concern should have been “whether any speaking should be permitted while women are knitting.”

I lifted, gently, the unfinished sweater. It felt seriously warm, sturdy, wooly. Mrs. Kalil was in that sweater.

“Hello, Mrs. Kalil,” I said, admiring her even stitches and gauge. “You were a very good knitter.” I may have said that out loud. If so, the curator understood. The silence of objects can frustrate those who hold the past in their hands. If only you could talk, I thought.

Mrs. Kalil had completed the front and back of the sweater in one piece. She had knit both sleeves nearly to armhole length before slipping the stitches off her needles and onto a metal stitch holder. Many hours of knitting were in that unfinished sweater.

I searched page by page through Mrs. Kalil’s copy of Practical, Warm Hand Knits for Service Men, a Montgomery Ward pattern book. Lines of pencil marks counted rows she had completed for the sleeveless sweater pattern, though she was adding sleeves. Marginalia—notes and sketches in the margins of knitting patterns—brings me close to the knitter.

The curator handed me a folder with Mrs. Kalil’s awards for wartime service. The American National Red Cross recognized her “meritorious personal service,” and the State Defense Council of Florida awarded her a Certificate of Recognition for “faithful, patriotic” volunteer service on behalf of Civilian Defense. She received both a Citation and Certificate of Recognition from the United States Treasury Department and Florida War Finance Committee. The United Service Organizations (USO) and National Catholic Community Service recognized her for “Distinguished Service to the Nation.” On her United States Citizens Service Corps award of membership “by reason of service to her country,” the printed word “his” had been crossed out, and “her” typed above.

“Would you like me to let Mrs. Kalil’s daughter know how to contact you?” asked the director. “She was the donor. I think she’d be interested in talking with you about her mother.”

“Oh, yes!” I assured him, digging out my university card from the conference tote bag. Mrs. Kalil’s daughter called shortly after I returned home.

“My mother, Wardi Keter, was the oldest of nine siblings,” her daughter told me. “She was born in 1909 to Syrian immigrant parents living in Lowell, Massachusetts. When she was seventeen, her own mother died, and she became more mother than sister to her three surviving brothers and four sisters.”

She remembered her grandfather for his hard work and devotion to his country. He was proud that “he never took a dime from Uncle Sam.” He supported his family selling produce “morning to night” from a truck, then invested in rental property and in 1925 moved his family to West Palm Beach, Florida.

In 1928, Wardi Keter married Laba Kalil, a Lebanese immigrant. They had six children, three girls and three boys. Two of Mrs. Kalil’s brothers, Thomas and John, were killed in action in Europe. She wrote President Roosevelt to request compassionate transfer from Europe to the United States for her last brother, Guy. She was uncertain that Guy would agree to the request, but he did return and lived until 1978.

“She was a prolific knitter before the war,” said Mrs. Kalil’s daughter. She recalled her mother knitting mother-and-daughter sweaters and a two-piece suit. In 1941, after she began knitting for servicemen and women, she also knit a patriotic red, white, and blue sweater for her.

“My mother brought soldiers home from the USO for family dinners. I have many original letters from the USO thanking her for cakes, pies, and serving as receptionist for evenings entertaining the troops.” The boys in the family collected newspapers, and her brother won the competition for the paper drive. Mrs. Kalil taught her daughters to knit simple garter stitch mufflers.

On Friday, May 8, 1945, Mrs. Kalil learned that Germany and Italy had surrendered, marking the end of the war in Europe. She would never finish the sweater on her needles for reasons both personal and political. After her death in 1999, at the age of ninety, her children discovered their mother had saved her unfinished sweater, Red Cross uniform, and wartime certificates.

Sadly, my own grandmother was not a saver. A Danish immigrant and superb knitter who had first placed knitting needles into my small hands, she knit for the Red Cross during World War II. She never talked about that. Only by happenstance, I learned of her wartime knitting from a notice in her hometown newspaper:

Receives Red Cross Yarn

Mrs. Thea P. Moseman, local Red Cross knitting chairman, has received a shipment
of 50 pounds of yarn. She urges all women who are interested in knitting for the
Red Cross to call for yarn at her home.

Grandmother left no other threads of her knitting story for me to follow. What has been lost to history and to me?

Fortunately, Mrs. Kalil was a saver.

Her daughter saved and donated the threads of her story to The National World War II Museum.

“An Unfinished Sweater: The Wartime Knitting of Wardi Keter Kalil” appeared in the January/February 2009 issue of PieceWork magazine, pages 30-32.

“It brought tears to my eyes as I read about my mom and all the things she did to help in the war effort,” wrote her daughter.

“I’ll save it for our grandchildren.”

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My play Coop will be performed this week on Thursday, Jan 22 at 7:00 P.M. at the Eulenspiegel Puppet Theatre in West Liberty, Iowa. 7:00 P.M.

And on Saturday, Jan. 24 at 2:00 P.M. the New Song Church in Coralville, Iowa.

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Thank you so much for your support this past year. Especially you paid subscribers who have donated so generously. Funds go directly to AgArts, a 501 c (3), to pay the writers of this column, and to pay our Farm-to-Artist Residencies. Many of the writers we’ve published in Emerging Voices have experienced these residencies, and have returned with a whole new understanding of our eco-system. Again and again, I’ve heard them say, “This residency changed my whole life.”

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We’re calling now for short columns from those of you who have created bio-sanctuaries, or shelters for animals or plants. These sanctuaries could be as small as a birdhouse to as large as a wetland. What did you create? What gave you the impetus to make your bio-sanctuary? What have you observed? What changes have you recorded? Tell us in 800 words or less. We will pay you. Imagine that.

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Winter has come to Iowa, with her bipolar intensity, one minute a dramatic teenager eager for attention, the next a shy toddler unsure of herself, hiding in her uninviting horizons and still nights.

Yet the cold speaks to me in a way no heat ever has, with an aliveness, a tingle. It’s an experience, winter. A nagging, energetic experience, unlike the half-awake of a humid summer day. Winter is not a shopping event or a made-for-TV special; it is life and death at the same time, swirling around us, making us wonder which will be our fate.

And the animals?

The cats have become couch ornaments, competing against each other in the Longest Nap Possible category, their shapes contorted and exposed.

Bare tree stumps and fallen logs call out to the wiley dogs, the elusive rabbits taunting them like Sirens. “You can’t get me,” the cold breeze whispers, and the hunt is on again.

The ever-stoic cattle have donned their most unenthusiastic look, nonplussed by Mother Nature’s tantrums, their thick hides an armor against cold and ice. Their coats shimmer with ice, a dash of unrepentant bling in the drab of another gray day, apathetic party animals without a party to be found.

The goats, on the other hand, prepared for winter a month ago by growing three coats, each heaped on top of the other, their size growing exponentially in breadth and depth.

And speaking of coats, don’t forget the ducks, their down jackets an unrecognized treasure when faring the cold nights.

It is just another day on the farm, another day in rural America, and I am grateful for winter. It feels good to be alert to life, to the grays and pinks so subtle you might miss them if you forget to look. To get off my phone and computer, and to experience, instead of to have.

And, perhaps most importantly, winter gives us our time back, time that feels as long and precious as a sleeping baby submerged in a darkness of night. It is time we get to write, to visit, to cook. Time to simply be.

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I am happy to be part of the Iowa Writers Collaborative. Follow us in the Sunday Round-Up and the Wednesday Flipside.

Iowa Writers Collaborative Roundup

Linking readers and professional writers who care about Iowa.

By Julie Gammack

The National World War II Museum

New Orleans, Louisiana, 2007

“Are there any questions?”

The director of the National World War II Museum in New Orleans had concluded our exhausting tour of battles and generals, horrors and heroism, fearsome tolls on humanity.

My question seemed anticlimactic.

“What about the Home Front knitters?” I asked, mindful of wartime knitters who had turned out staggering numbers of stockings, sweaters, and such that kept troops warm and closer to home. “Do you have wartime knitting in your collection?”

“Yes, we do,” he said. “And I think the knitting is still out on the tables back in collections. We got it out for a knitting guild that met here. Would you like to see it?”

This is too good to be true, I thought.

“There’s an unfinished sweater,” he said. “A woman was knitting a sweater, one of those Red Cross sweaters, and the minute she heard the war in Europe was over, she stopped knitting.” I hurried to keep up with him as we walked through a maze of hallways toward collections storage.

“She was a saver,” he added. “After she died, her children found her unfinished sweater and Red Cross uniform stashed in a chest. They donated them to our museum.”

In the storage area, knitted helmets, a vest, muffler, and the unfinished sweater lay on worktables covered with padded muslin. Rows of tall metal shelves held hundreds of archival gray boxes, each with artifacts protected by acid-free tissue paper. Military uniforms covered with muslin sleeves on padded hangers hung on racks. Metal cabinets, tightly closed, secured larger, three-dimensional objects, and flat file drawers held smaller pieces like medals and ribbons.

I felt at home in this quiet place behind the scenes, a place of caring and reflection where few others had reason to venture. I liked time alone with curators and librarians in archives, special collections, and museum storage rooms. The curator was folding a knitted muffler with archival tissue.

“Susan’s here with the textile conference,” the director told her. “She teaches history of dress at a university.” I appreciated his lending my presence a bit of weight.

“Do you still have the wedding dress out, the one made from a silk parachute?” He glanced toward me and smiled. That was quite a prize for their collection. The curator held up the gown, delicate and beautifully sewn. The slim waist, generous train, gathered and puffy sleeves shouted 1940s. She shared the gown’s history, which I have forgotten. My mind was on the unfinished sweater.

“Susan studies American knitting,” said the director. “Could you show her the unfinished sweater?”

“That would be Mrs. Wardi Keter Kalil,” said the curator. “Her sweater’s over here with her knitting pattern books.”

Ah, the thread of a story.

I was not in New Orleans for research. I was attending a textile conference and volunteering at another museum, one of the victims of catastrophic flooding from Hurricane Katrina one year earlier. In a pinch, I penciled my research notes on the back of my hotel receipt and borrowed a camera from a colleague.

The curator handed me gloves. Curatorial rules were clear: “Wear gloves to handle cloth. Remove the gloves but wash your hands before you touch paper. Take notes in pencil. Ask me before you touch anything else.”

The unfinished sweater lay on a table among other wartime knits. A woven label supplied by the Red Cross was sewn onto a knitted helmet (head and neck covering with face opening). The American Red Cross had standardized vast quantities of olive-drab and navy-blue wool yarn and had printed knitting patterns for helmets, sweaters, vests, socks, mufflers, fingerless mitts, and other comfort items distributed to the troops. The greatest need was for socks, quickly worn out, seldom saved. Knitters could work with red, white, and blue knitting needles supplied by the Red Cross and other relief organizations.

The Red Cross and Navy League coordinated distribution of the prodigious output of knitting donated by civilian volunteers. The November 24, 1941, issue of Life magazine advised, “To the great American question ‘What can I do to help the war effort?’ the commonest answer yet found is ‘knit.’” First Lady and “First Knitter” Eleanor Roosevelt, a prolific knitter, was photographed carrying her knitting bag on patriotic travel across the nation. When a speaker complained that people had been knitting during her lecture, a New York Times columnist suggested the correct concern should have been “whether any speaking should be permitted while women are knitting.”

I lifted, gently, the unfinished sweater. It felt seriously warm, sturdy, wooly. Mrs. Kalil was in that sweater.

“Hello, Mrs. Kalil,” I said, admiring her even stitches and gauge. “You were a very good knitter.” I may have said that out loud. If so, the curator understood. The silence of objects can frustrate those who hold the past in their hands. If only you could talk, I thought.

Mrs. Kalil had completed the front and back of the sweater in one piece. She had knit both sleeves nearly to armhole length before slipping the stitches off her needles and onto a metal stitch holder. Many hours of knitting were in that unfinished sweater.

I searched page by page through Mrs. Kalil’s copy of Practical, Warm Hand Knits for Service Men, a Montgomery Ward pattern book. Lines of pencil marks counted rows she had completed for the sleeveless sweater pattern, though she was adding sleeves. Marginalia—notes and sketches in the margins of knitting patterns—brings me close to the knitter.

The curator handed me a folder with Mrs. Kalil’s awards for wartime service. The American National Red Cross recognized her “meritorious personal service,” and the State Defense Council of Florida awarded her a Certificate of Recognition for “faithful, patriotic” volunteer service on behalf of Civilian Defense. She received both a Citation and Certificate of Recognition from the United States Treasury Department and Florida War Finance Committee. The United Service Organizations (USO) and National Catholic Community Service recognized her for “Distinguished Service to the Nation.” On her United States Citizens Service Corps award of membership “by reason of service to her country,” the printed word “his” had been crossed out, and “her” typed above.

“Would you like me to let Mrs. Kalil’s daughter know how to contact you?” asked the director. “She was the donor. I think she’d be interested in talking with you about her mother.”

“Oh, yes!” I assured him, digging out my university card from the conference tote bag. Mrs. Kalil’s daughter called shortly after I returned home.

“My mother, Wardi Keter, was the oldest of nine siblings,” her daughter told me. “She was born in 1909 to Syrian immigrant parents living in Lowell, Massachusetts. When she was seventeen, her own mother died, and she became more mother than sister to her three surviving brothers and four sisters.”

She remembered her grandfather for his hard work and devotion to his country. He was proud that “he never took a dime from Uncle Sam.” He supported his family selling produce “morning to night” from a truck, then invested in rental property and in 1925 moved his family to West Palm Beach, Florida.

In 1928, Wardi Keter married Laba Kalil, a Lebanese immigrant. They had six children, three girls and three boys. Two of Mrs. Kalil’s brothers, Thomas and John, were killed in action in Europe. She wrote President Roosevelt to request compassionate transfer from Europe to the United States for her last brother, Guy. She was uncertain that Guy would agree to the request, but he did return and lived until 1978.

“She was a prolific knitter before the war,” said Mrs. Kalil’s daughter. She recalled her mother knitting mother-and-daughter sweaters and a two-piece suit. In 1941, after she began knitting for servicemen and women, she also knit a patriotic red, white, and blue sweater for her.

“My mother brought soldiers home from the USO for family dinners. I have many original letters from the USO thanking her for cakes, pies, and serving as receptionist for evenings entertaining the troops.” The boys in the family collected newspapers, and her brother won the competition for the paper drive. Mrs. Kalil taught her daughters to knit simple garter stitch mufflers.

On Friday, May 8, 1945, Mrs. Kalil learned that Germany and Italy had surrendered, marking the end of the war in Europe. She would never finish the sweater on her needles for reasons both personal and political. After her death in 1999, at the age of ninety, her children discovered their mother had saved her unfinished sweater, Red Cross uniform, and wartime certificates.

Sadly, my own grandmother was not a saver. A Danish immigrant and superb knitter who had first placed knitting needles into my small hands, she knit for the Red Cross during World War II. She never talked about that. Only by happenstance, I learned of her wartime knitting from a notice in her hometown newspaper:

Receives Red Cross Yarn

Mrs. Thea P. Moseman, local Red Cross knitting chairman, has received a shipment
of 50 pounds of yarn. She urges all women who are interested in knitting for the
Red Cross to call for yarn at her home.

Grandmother left no other threads of her knitting story for me to follow. What has been lost to history and to me?

Fortunately, Mrs. Kalil was a saver.

Her daughter saved and donated the threads of her story to The National World War II Museum.

“An Unfinished Sweater: The Wartime Knitting of Wardi Keter Kalil” appeared in the January/February 2009 issue of PieceWork magazine, pages 30-32.

“It brought tears to my eyes as I read about my mom and all the things she did to help in the war effort,” wrote her daughter.

“I’ll save it for our grandchildren.”

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Susan Strawn researches and writes stories she finds held in cloth and clothing.

She is the author of Knitting America: A Glorious History from Warm Socks to High Art (Voyageur Press, 2007), a cultural history of hand knitting, and of more than 50 published articles, many on the history of American knitting. She is a frequent contributor to PieceWork, a magazine of history and needlework.

Her current project is a memoir, Loopy: How Knitting Saved My Mind and Opened Doors to the World. Read other work by Strawn on Substack. Her website is susanstrawn.com. She lives on Bainbridge Island, Washington.

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This piece was reprinted from The Blazing Star Journal, an AgArts publication.

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The Iowa Writers’ Collaborative is hosting its annual holiday party Wednesday, Dec. 17, from 7-10 p.m. at The Harkin Institute, 2800 University Ave., Des Moines, on the campus of Drake University.

Paid subscribers to the newsletters of Collaborative members are invited to attend for free. The cost for non-members is $35 per person.

This is a good opportunity to meet writers from the Collaborative and enjoy some holiday cheer.

You can RSVP here.