Returning to my ancestral homeland

My mother gave me many great, thoughtful gifts over the years, especially on my birthday. So it seemed fitting to spend my 41st surveying her largest gift, by far.

Thanks to generosity that outlived her, I'm now part-owner of farmland in Worth and Mitchell counties, along with my brother, cousins and uncle. The Worth County land surrounds a farmstead where my mom grew up.

That land has been in my family since 1892, when Gottfried Walk bought it. He came to America in 1879 from far eastern Germany with his extended family in tow, and became a proud U.S. citizen on Feb. 9, 1886.

I know this because the guy toted around a leather bag jammed with notes, papers and documents, everything from land deeds to receipts for lightning rods. And his naturalization certificate, of course.

Now, my Uncle Tom and Aunt Violet, who live in nearby Grafton, have that satchel-full of family history. One old scrap in the bag suggests that at least part of the land was once granted by the federal government to the widow of a New York soldier who fought in the war of 1812. Way to be a pack rat, Gottfried. Prost!

One of his sons, Vernon, was my grandfather. He was 20 and my grandmother, Pearl, was 18 when they took over the farm on Valentine's Day, 1934. Not exactly the best time to break into farming, but somehow, they held on. My grandmother joked that they were simply too "young and dumb" to know how bad they had it.

It was Pearl's father, Gottlieb, who bought the Mitchell County land. He trained as a young blacksmith's apprentice in Mannheim along the Rhine in the 1850s, but ended up as an Iowa farmer along Highway 9.

Wading into thick, waist-high soybeans, I can see why Gottfried had his eye on this Worth County place. It's good, productive Iowa land. And I was relieved to find that my inheritance didn't make me a watershed management hypocrite.

Somehow, over the years, my family has resisted pressure to install drainage tile and to clear away old-school rows of mature trees that divide the Worth County land like a big green cross. Also, a very wide expanse of tall, thick grassland still flanks a creek that runs through the land and into the Shell Rock River, which feeds the Cedar River. My uncle says that grassy swath (shown below) has never been farmed.

Looking at, and thinking about, our portion of rural Iowa's patchwork, I can't help but wonder if those hardworking, no-nonsense Germans are somewhere exclaiming a forehead-smacking “ach du lieber!” at the notion of their hard-won land being partly owned by such a flabby, lazy desk jockey as myself.

Perhaps. But I'm very proud and grateful to be a small part of the rich history of this black earth. And who knows, if this newspaper thing doesn't work out, I can always return to work my ancestral land. And that's the sound of Germans laughing. Hard.