Grandpa's Farm
#10DaysofChronicles
Identify the changes in a family home or property over time
My grandparents had a farm when I was growing up. Unlike a lot of families, the farm hadn’t been in the family for generations. In fact, Grandpa rented it starting sometime after WWII, but gave it up by about 1970.
I have a lot of fond memories of being there with them in the summers and so on a trip back to my hometown I decided to drive to and take a look at how it might have changed. The first trip back I couldn’t even find it. While I knew exactly how to get there long after they left, it had been decades and without a real landmark to know where to turn, every gravel road looked like all the others.
Just a few years ago, I went back to Iowa again for a reunion and since I was going to be close, got exact directions from my uncle who had grown up there. Seeing it, I realized that I had likely driven right by in my earlier attempts because it is so changed. In the picture above, the center portion is what was the original house. Over the years it has been added to both in front and behind.
When I spent my time there, the original house had a beautiful front door on a front facing front porch. There was a fence around the house which included the front yard and extended almost all the way to the road in front. The corners were where the two trees next to the road are still standing. Centered between them would have been the never used gate.
The driveway is the same place where a lane entered the farm. It extended all the way around to the back of the house, following the fence line of the front yard. To the north of the house (left in the picture) were a pig pen and a lot more trees. While it isn’t quite a forest in my memory, there were enough trees to make me feel nervous about going into them as a small child. Behind that was a big barn where the tractor lived. To the south (right) was a hen house and more outbuildings, where there is only field now.
The biggest “hole” in this picture is my grandma’s garden. She had a huge garden to the south of the house. It was between the hen house and the road and filled with everything that could possibly grow in an Iowa summer. Favorites of mine from her garden were the wonderfully sweet strawberries and watermelon. A visit to my grandparents’ house in the summer was never complete without a slice of that watermelon sprinkled with salt.