Geometry.Net - Basic I Books: Iowa Genealogy

Weary from the journalistic treadmill of "going from one assignment to the next, like an itinerant fieldworker moving to his harvests" and healing from a divorce, Douglas Bauer decided it was time to return to his hometown. Back in Prairie City, he helped on his father's farm, scooped grains at the Co-op, and tended bar at the Cardinal. The resultant memoir is a classic picture of an adult experiencing one's childhood roots as a grown-up and testing whether one can ever truly go home again.
Bauer grew up "awkward with soil and with machines" in a small town east of Des Moines, As a teenager, he left the farm for college life twenty miles away and, after graduation, took a job with Better Homes and Gardens in Des Moines, writing in the junk-mail fictional persona of "Barbara Joyce,"asking millions of people to subscribe. After a few years he moved to Chicago to work as an editor and writer for Playboy and eventually as a freelance journalist. In the summer of 1975, he returned home to attend his grandmother's funeral and by autumn he moved back to Prairie City, where he stayed for the next three seasons.
Bauer's book is neither a wistful nostalgia about returning to a simpler time and place nor a patronizing look at those who never leave the town in which they were born. What emerges is an unsentimental yet loving account of life in the Midwest. Not just a portrait of Prairie City, Iowa, but of everyone's small town, everywhere.

Warmth without sentimentality
This is a most accurate account of daily living in a small Iowa town. The subtlety of the author's descriptions can only be fully appreciated by one who has grown up in that environment. Bauer makes no apologies for the foibles of the townspeople, but neither does he seem to satirize them. His insight into the people of Prairie City adds a natural warmth without lathering up with any undue sentimentality.

I would recommend this to anyone who has an interest in small towns in the Midwest - and what makes them tick.

interesting portraits of the kind ofmen who seldom say much
Enjoyed his slice-of-life descriptions of people he spent time with.At first I was puzzle at the choices of characters, all men (incuding his father)and mainly those who did manual labor.Where was the rest of the town?Then I realized that he examining the people that he (and me) had least understood growing up. ... Read more

21. Prairie Grass Roots: An Iowa Small Town in the Early Twentieth Century (Henry a Wallace Series on Agricultural History and Rural Studies) by Thomas J. Morain
	Hardcover: 287 Pages (1988-09-30) list price: US$30.99 -- used & new: US$15.94 (price subject to change: see help) Asin: 0813800684 Canada \| United Kingdom \| Germany \| France \| Japan

22. Iowa connections: The people who came and the towns they built by Betty Larsen Berentson
	Paperback: 235 Pages (1994) Asin: B0006P9NUW Canada \| United Kingdom \| Germany \| France \| Japan

23. The tokens of Keokuk, Iowa by Thomas P Gardner
	Unknown Binding: 74 Pages (1991) Asin: B0006QYUOK Canada \| United Kingdom \| Germany \| France \| Japan

24. Iowa connections by Betty Larsen Berentson
	Unknown Binding: 283 Pages (2001) Asin: B0006RPLAQ Canada \| United Kingdom \| Germany \| France \| Japan

25. Marriages, Lee County, Iowa by Karen S Kester
	Unknown Binding: Pages (1987) Asin: B000715V0Q Canada \| United Kingdom \| Germany \| France \| Japan

27. Century farms of Iowa: The History of Farming in Iowa by Thomas J. Morain, David Miles
	Hardcover: 325 Pages (1986) Asin: B00070Y8CE Canada \| United Kingdom \| Germany \| France \| Japan

28. Chickasaw County, Iowa marriages by Georgena Stephan
	Unknown Binding: 77 Pages (1979) Asin: B0006YQIB0 Canada \| United Kingdom \| Germany \| France \| Japan

29. The Wohlenhaus genealogy, 1825-1983: Descendants, male & female, of Dietrich Wohlenhaus and Marie Eleanor Siehling by Gary Wayne Marquette
	Unknown Binding: Pages (1983) Asin: B0006YLJIC Canada \| United Kingdom \| Germany \| France \| Japan

30. Bakewell history-genealogy by Stanley Bakewell
	Unknown Binding: 150 Pages (1983) Asin: B0007221XK Canada \| United Kingdom \| Germany \| France \| Japan

31. Family history and genealogy of the Dryden Barbour family, Traer, Iowa by Charles R Green
	Unknown Binding: 19 Pages (2001) Asin: B0006RPW0U Canada \| United Kingdom \| Germany \| France \| Japan

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32. From Norway fjords to Iowa prairies: The Sande genealogy : ancestors of Vestlandet, primarily of Balestrand, Vik i Sogn, and Leikanger by Daysha Gregory
	Unknown Binding: Pages (1995) Asin: B0006QUDMI Canada \| United Kingdom \| Germany \| France \| Japan

33. The descendants of William S. Luce and Huldah Rogers of Clarke County, Iowa 1812 - 1996: A biographical genealogy with appendices the American ancestors of William S. Luce & Huldah Rogers by James D Miller
	Unknown Binding: 167 Pages (1996) Asin: B0006R0B1A Canada \| United Kingdom \| Germany \| France \| Japan

34. The John Kiler, Jr. family with related Severance, Smith and Greenlee families in Benton and Buena Vista counties, Iowa: Genealogy, history, pictures by Phyllis M Bunnelle
	Unknown Binding: Pages (2001) Asin: B0006RRHE4 Canada \| United Kingdom \| Germany \| France \| Japan

35. List of ex-soldiers, sailors and marines, living in Iowa by William L Alexander
	Unknown Binding: 772 Pages (1997) Asin: B0006QU666 Canada \| United Kingdom \| Germany \| France \| Japan

36. Probate records #2000-#2500 (1893-1899), Black Hawk County, Iowa by Fay Medhaug
	Unknown Binding: Pages (1986) Asin: B0007140BM Canada \| United Kingdom \| Germany \| France \| Japan

37. Adams County, Iowa birth records, 1894-1895 by Nancy Freshour
	Unknown Binding: 47 Pages (1992) Asin: B0006OYRT0 Canada \| United Kingdom \| Germany \| France \| Japan

38. Decatur County, Iowa census, 1925 state index by Edward R Hayes
	Unknown Binding: 104 Pages (2002) Asin: B0006S2W6Q Canada \| United Kingdom \| Germany \| France \| Japan

39. Iowa book XII: Genealogical records from chapters by Daise Schipfer
	Unknown Binding: 201 Pages (1929) Asin: B0008CY7E0 Canada \| United Kingdom \| Germany \| France \| Japan

40. Jefferson County, Iowa census, 1925 Iowa index by Edward R Hayes
	Unknown Binding: Pages (1999) Asin: B0006R7KHS Canada \| United Kingdom \| Germany \| France \| Japan