Le Mars, Iowa and Sioux Falls, South Dakot!

29 July 2013

On our way to Le Mars, we tried to visit a wind farm.  The Iowa tourism website gave a highway number as the address and when we got to that highway and didn’t see an obvious visitor center, I called their 800 number to get the scoop.  Well….there isn’t a visitor’s center, just a brochure that we would have to backtrack six miles to get.  Didn’t think that was worth it, so that was it for the wind farm tour. Saw lots more Iowa county roads and fields of corn though.

Le Mars is the ice cream capital of the world as declared by the Iowa state legislature. Of course, we had to have an ice cream sundae at the Blue Bunny ice cream parlor. Most excellent! The town is a smallish medium sized town, well taken care of and totally focused on celebrating 100 years of Blue Bunny ice cream. There are numerous large fiberglass ice cream cones around the downtown area, each uniquely decorated by a volunteer organization. We have seen this kind of thing in other cities (moose in Talkeetna, Alaska, buffalos in Great Falls, Montana) and it is always fun to see how imaginative people can be.

Up to now, we have managed to avoid any major thunderstorms. Not so on Thursday night.  There was a HUGE storm with lots of rain and wind which lasted, at least in my mind, entirely too long. I have never heard thunder roll continuously for such a long time. One good side effect was that the van and trailer got a good scrubbing, so they looked very nice the next day. And the temperatures have really cooled down; in fact, we had to turn the heat on overnight.

We drove up to Orange City, the county seat for Sioux county, to look for records on my mom’s mother’s family. We didn’t find much, which was surprising since there were 8 or 10 kids in her mom’s family and I thought I would find lots of birth records. But, it wasn’t a total loss.  Orange City is a Dutch founded town with some very nice buildings and windmills. And it was a beautiful day for a drive. We picked up some fresh sweet corn for dinner from a roadside stand – delicious!

We traveled up to Sioux Falls for a couple of days to see some more of Russ’ family. Had a lovely dinner with two of his aunts (Thelma is 97 years young!), a couple of cousins and family members. We saw them last year when we were in Sioux Falls and it was terrific to see them again!

We went out to dinner in downtown Sioux Falls on Friday night for our 28^th wedding anniversary. The downtown area has a sculpture walk which we did last year. It was fun to see the new ones on display for this year. Stopped by an Irish Fair in the Falls park area for a short while and watched some young girls doing Irish dancing. The pipes and drums were nice to listen to also.

We are diving back into the backroads of Iowa tomorrow.  We will explore the northern part of the state while continuing to connect with more of Russ’ family. Going to be looking for more of that delicious sweet corn!

 

This is the closest we got to a wind turbine. This is part of the Buena Vista wind farm, one of the largest in the world.

 

This ice cream cone is about five feet tall and is located in front of a bank.

This cone is in front of the town's movie theater.

A beautiful mural celebrating 100 years of Blue Bunny ice cream production in Le Mars.

Even the local wildlife likes the ice cream!

Yummy!!

 

He thinks he is hiding in plain sight so he can catch the bird.

Hubby gets spoiled with French toast for breakfast on mornings where we are staying more than one night.

Another beautiful courthouse, this one is in Sioux County.



There were beautifully restored benches and tables in the main foyer to sit at while looking for records. Nice!

 

Another beautiful mural. This one commemorates Tulips Days in Orange City, Iowa.

There were a number of small windmill models in the city park, along with a canal and bridge.

This windmill is 76 feet tall and houses the Orange City Chamber of Commerce.

 

It was a beautiful day to drive along Iowa's country roads.

Long coneflowers in a garden dedicated to native prairie plants.

One of the many sculptures in downtown Sioux Falls area.

Part of the Sioux Falls.  More water, I think, than what we saw last year.

 

Carroll, Iowa

24 July 2013

Drove about 80 miles northwest to the town of Carroll where we are spending four nights.  We are staying at Swan Lake State Park and spending most of our time tracing family roots. Even though there have been lots of dark clouds, they aren’t over us, for which I am grateful. We received several severe thunderstorm warnings on our weather radio telling people to head to storm shelters because there was damaging wind and hail, but the online weather map showed the affected areas to be generally south of us.

The park is beautiful and quiet, about 3 miles outside Carroll which is a medium sized town. For two nights, we were able to have a campfire because the temperatures have really cooled down. I enjoyed watching the fireflies – we don’t get those in California that I know of. The first night, we watched the fireflies against a background of distant sheet lightning.

Found the cemetery where some of my ancestors are buried and found their gravesites. We spent a day plus at the Greene county courthouse looking up land records and probate files. In the recorder’s office, they led us into the vault, showed us the index and books and told us to have fun. I was looking at records that are over a hundred and fifty years old! We were quite successful, finding land records for my great great grandfather, who was one of the early settlers (in 1857) and great grandfather and several of their children. Also got copies of the probate records for all three of my direct ancestors. They gave me some insight into their lives and how difficult it was for some. I also got some new data on death dates and wives’ maiden names.

Also spent some time at the public library where I looked up obituaries on microfilm. Met with some success, but not a lot of new data. Saw two teenage Amish girls watching soaps on the library computers – bet their parents don’t know they are doing that!

We took one day and drove an hour and a half north to Fort Dodge to meet up with Russ’ Aunt Irene (who will be 95 in September) and one of her daughters. Had a very nice lunch – Irene said that we really “flapped the air”. I enjoy listening to Irene – she shares some mannerisms with her brother and I grew nostalgic remembering my wonderful father-in-law.

Tomorrow, we continue northwest to Sioux County for more family research, then to Sioux Falls to visit more of Russ’ family. Really enjoying Iowa!

Swan Lake is a man made lake just south of Carroll, Iowa.

 

This is a picture of two bison who are relaxing in a field just across the road from our campsite.

This doggie was so excited to chase balls into the lake!

   

Relaxing by a campfire, our first of this trip.

 

Can you guess this church's denomination?  Leitha guessed correctly from about 3 blocks away.

 

On the road out to my ancestor's graves.

Greenbrier Cemetery, in the south part of Greene County.

My great-great-grandfather's tombstone. He came to this country from County Down, Ireland in the 1840s.

 

A REALLY large hawk perched alongside the country road we took to the cemetery.

 

The cupola inside the Greene County courthouse.

 

This is the Greene County courthouse where we spent a day looking up family records.

Russ with his Aunt Irene and cousin DeeAnn.

 

Des Moines, Iowa Continued

20 July 2013

Well, visiting Guthrie didn’t work out too well. Found out that the Guthrie County Historical Society has stored all their documents at the public library in Jamaica. This library is open only in the afternoon. And apparently that is at the whim of the librarian. Went over to the City Hall to see if we had the hours right and the City Hall was closed.  Went to the Post Office (at least it was open), but the person didn’t know why the library wasn’t open. Jamaica is not a big town so there wasn’t much else to explore. We had a nice drive through the countryside, but no progress on family history research.

Decided to redeem a bit of the day and went over to Ames to tour Iowa State.  This is a land grant university with a very nice campus. We wandered around the union and bookstore before heading back to our campground.

We spent the next three days in downtown Des Moines; two days at the Iowa State Genealogical Society and one day at the State Library.  Found several useful records of births, marriages and deaths. We are becoming real experts at using the microfilm machines. While I was trying to decipher the murky pages, I thought of a story I had read about today’s children not being taught to write in cursive and how they were losing the ability to read cursive writing as a result.  Sure hope these records get digitized before that happens.

I will say that Iowans know how to build beautiful courthouses and capitol buildings. We saw a gorgeous one in Adel, not far from our campground, which was patterned after a French chateau. And the state capitol building is absolutely stunning, complete with a gilded dome. The whole area around the capitol building looks like a mini-Washington D.C. mall with some impressive government buildings and lots of sculptures and monuments.

Today we took care of some household chores and then went to the movies.  Enjoyed Despicable Me 2 and the minions. Tomorrow we head into the deeps of Iowa cornfield country to continue our search for family history.

 

Jack Trice Stadium at Iowa State University. Named after Iowa State's first African-American football player, Jack Trice, who died in 1923 of a football injury. It seats 55,000.

 

Iowa State Capitol building.  Built in the late 1800s.

 

 

One of the monuments spread around the Capitol grounds.

 

Adel county courthouse, built in the early 1900s.

 

Des Moines, Iowa

15 July 2013

 

Spent a night at Doniphan, Nebraska which is just east of Gran Island. On our drive there from North Platte, we took a detour to Hastings where the museum has a very nice exhibit on Kool-Aid. The exhibit pays homage to the inventor, Edwin Perkins, and his genius at marketing products. He was inspired by Jell-O and thought he could create an instant fruit drink that could be as successful.  It took a bunch of experiments – he was kind of an amateur chemist – but he came up with a winning formula in the late 1920s. The exhibit shows the evolution of Kool-Aid and its marketing through the decades. As we entered the last room of the exhibit, we could smell Kool-Aid in the air (you know what that smells like, right?) Isn’t it amazing how a certain smell will just bring up all sorts of childhood memories?  Kool-Aid does that for me.

Hastings is a very nice town and pretty prosperous looking.  Not sure why they are doing so well compared to the other towns we have seen so far. There used to be an armory there that manufactured over 40% of the military’s munitions, but that has been closed for many years now.

We decided to take a long driving day and head to Des Moines, so we arrived on Saturday, rather late. We are spending several days at this campground since there are several things we want to visit and we will be starting our family history research in the state archives.

On Sunday, we went to the Living History Farms where you walk through time from 1700 to 1900, visiting farms that represent the Ioway Native American farm in 1700, early settlers in 1850 and a typical 1900 farm. You also can visit an 1875 town laid out with several businesses, homes and a church. Each site has interpreters who add a lot by explaining the site, the culture and the historical context. Since we have ancestors who settled in Iowa between 1850 and 1880, the farms helped me to appreciate what kind of lifestyle they probably had. We finished the day at the Machine Shed restaurant which serves home style dinners.  Very tasty!

I found out that the archives aren’t open on Monday, so we did more sightseeing.  Toured the covered bridges of Madison County.  There are six of them and we drove down lots of gravel roads to get to them. The tour starts in the town of Winterset, which is also the site of the Fons and Porter quilt shop. I watch the Fons and Porter quilt show whenever I can on Saturdays and I was looking forward to visiting their shop. The town square is quintessentially mid-west with a beautiful courthouse in the center. The shop was very nice, but not extraordinary.

Tomorrow, we will visit the Guthrie county courthouse and public library.  Perhaps a cemetery too, if there aren’t any thunderstorms going on.  Weather has been warm and muggy, but not stormy for the past few days.  Then on Wednesday, the State Archives.

 

Perkins was forced to change the name to Kool-Aid because only products with real fruit contents could use "Ade".

 

I remember the mascot on the left.  The one on the right is a more recent mascot. Now they use a computer generated mascot in their commercials.

 

A beautiful sculpture of a pair of sandhill cranes in front of the Hastings Museum.

This commemorates the escape of two brothers from an Indian raid in the middle 1800s. They were hit by arrows, including one that pinned the two together.  They survived and lived into adulthood.

 

We apparently took the back road to our campground in Doniphan.  The trailer got VERY dusty - inside and out.

This is the trail through time - a very nice nature walk between the farms in the Living History Farm.

An Ioway dwelling around 1700.  The natives were farming corn and other crops and hunting bison.

 

The interpreter at the 1850 farm explaining how the land was tilled and what crops were grown.

Inside the 1850 cabin. I recognize the dutch ovens!

 

 

The 1900 farm reflected the vast improvements in technology since the 1850s. By this time, the railroad had come to Iowa and the horse was the primary instrument for farming.

 

The buildings were built from milled wood rather than hand hewn as in the 1850 farm.

Big difference in the size of refrigerators from 1950 to the current day.  I have to say, though, I recognized everything in the 1950 kitchen - flashback to my childhood.

View of the 1875 town, minus the horses and buggies.

 

Iowa early on gave the vote to women, then took it away. 

The rich family's mansion in town.

The courthouse in Winterset.

Wintersett's downtown square.

 

The very nice city park in Winterset had this tower at the end of a dirt road.

View of the Iowa countryside from the top of the tower.

 

One of the covered bridges of Madison County.

 

 

 

Birthplace of John Wayne in Winterset.  Teeny home from the 1800s.