I am in Iowa, the place of my birth, on the way back to college in Washington, D.C.  It is 1976.  Driving through the central Iowa countryside, I am alone on the road with my memories, rediscovering my roots, stopping in Newton for a Made Rite sandwich, then on to Des Moines and my southside neighborhood of Watrous, Southwest Ninth, and Park Avenues and Lincoln High School, then on to Winterset, ordering a pork tenderloin sandwich for dinner, even though I am not hungry, at a small cafe on the central square, where they filmed scenes from “Bridges of Madison County.” There is a triangle around Des Moines, from Winterset in the south, to Pella in the east, to Colfax near Des Moines, connecting my paternal and maternal families, fifty miles each way.

I feel close to Winterset, home of the Hindmans on my mother’s side.  My grandmother Pearl was born here.  Her dad, my great-grandfather, Sam Hindman, fought in the Civil War in Tennessee and marched in the veterans parades.  I have a 1915 photograph of the elegantly attired Hindmans in my study.   I feel a strong affinity for Iowa, even though most of the family has moved away to the Southwest, and most have passed away.  My aunt and uncle and cousin on my Dad’s side are buried in a cemetery near the Des Moines airport; my grandparents on my Dad’s side are buried near Drake University, in the veterans section near the flagpole; my mom’s cousin is buried in Newton; and my grandparents and aunt on my Mom’s side are buried near Colfax. The older you get, the more people there are waiting for you on the other side.  My son, Charles, knows little of these people, just as I know little of my great-grandparents.  The LeCocq farm is gone in Pella; the Dodd farms are gone from Colfax, Collins, and Osceola.  The Dodds are, it seems, the typical American story, Midwest farmers who migrated to Arizona after World War II, as new jobs and warm climates lured families away.  Interestingly, the home my mother grew up in still exists in Colfax, a small white frame house sitting next to the county road, with the barn offset.

Iowa means so much to me.  I feel elated just crossing the state line.  Iowa is a trip through my Mom’s past, of the Twenties and Thirties, the family taking shelter from tornadoes in caves, and gypsy campfires in the fields, and lighted windows of passenger trains flashing through dark nights.   There is the family lore, of a local banker absconding with my grandfather’s, Joe Dodd’s, life savings, of Joe’s prize horses, including one named Bill, which he sold to William Jennings Bryan; of my aunt’s burst appendix in Osceola, which led the family to Christian Science; of Joe courting Pearl in Loring.

Thinking of these family stories reminds me of an earlier trip through Iowa that I made with my Uncle, Bob Dodd, in the 1960s.  On that trip together, Bob retraced the family history, pulling at one point up to the farmhouse in Colfax where he, my Mom, and my aunts were kids.  Across the road and up a rise, was a larger white farmhouse, where Loren, Joe Dodd’s older son from an earlier marriage, lived with his family.  Bob said he had only been back to this place twice since he left home in the 1940s.  He was describing the early 1930s, where homeless people were everywhere in the Depression, and a lot of bootleggers suddenly appeared, even in small Colfax.  Everyone helped everyone else.  Tramps appeared at the back door of the farmhouse looking for handouts.  Sometimes men came from town, just to work for almost nothing, often getting paid in food. There wasn’t much criticism of those folks either, since it was survival time.

It was a beautiful evening, with Bob and me sitting in the car, and the sun setting on the golden fields all around.  You could hear the “caw, caw, caw” of crows, and the soft distant drone of a tractor out in the fields.  Bob was telling family stories to me, stories I had heard before.  He was a romantic by nature, had always been the family storyteller, and had done everything in his life: prospector, bull-fighter, signal corps in the Pacific in World War II and POW camp guard, salesman, and technical writer.  Bob had a genius IQ, a member of MENSA, but he couldn’t hold a job.  I was his closest nephew.

Looking up at Loren’s house on the hill, I remember asking, “Can  you recall what happened with Joey, Bob?”  Bob paused, then spoke.  In 1924,when he was just four years old, Bob explained, he was teeter tottering in the front yard with Joey, Loren’s three-year-old son.  Bob pulled the usual childhood stunt, getting the younger, lighter boy up in the air, then jumping off the teeter totter, causing the elevated end to come crashing down.  But, Little Joey, on that end, hit his head on a rock when he landed.  Two days later, when the family was sitting around a huge table in the kitchen, Joey suddenly appeared in his pajamas. As he came into the room, Joey kept trying to open his mouth, but it was apparent that his jaws were locked tight.  Joey’s mother, Gertrude, screamed and picked him up in her arms, and someone muttered “lockjaw.”  Within forty-eight hours, Joey was dead.

Bob paused and looked out the car window on his side.  His voice was suddenly tighter, saying Joey’s death not only destroyed Joey, but it  destroyed Loren, Joey’s father, as well.  Bob described how little Joey laid in his Dad’s arms, having awful rictus spasms, and how he arched his back until it almost broke.  Loren walked the floor with his dying son, in tearful agony, as Joey pulled at his Dad’s hair.  And, when the boy finally died, Loren laid him down on the bed, and ran out into the cornfield, and it was two days before they could find him.  Loren started drinking heavily on that day, and died an alcoholic after losing the farm.  Bob was still looking out the opposite window.  There was silence in the car.   The family always said Bob blamed himself for Joey’s death, even though Bob was only four at the time.   Clearing my throat, I tried to reduce the tension by saying I heard that the farm was riddled with tetanus, several horses had died of it, that it was a miracle that more family members didn’t get it.  Bob said that was true.  He started the car, and we drove in silence the short distance back to Des Moines.  That night, like every night, Bob said a silent prayer for Joey and tried to erase those two terrible days from his mind.  The next day, he flew home to El Paso.

Years later, I told Mom about the trip and Bob’s story about Joey.  She said, “three people were destroyed by the teeter totter that day– Joey, Loren, and Bob–but don’t repeat that.”

Driving through Iowa alone this time, I put the earlier trip with Bob out of my mind, and focus on the current sights, sounds, and smells, much as Hemingway would:  the smell of tall damp grass and thick vegetation near the hilly streets, and of moist air under balmy skies, and of tomato paste, homemade sausage, and  flour dust drifting about in the Italian family pizzeria.

I pass out of Des Moines, and turn onto Interstate 80 East, with a bouquet of flowers in the back seat, pulling off twenty minutes later at the Colfax exit.  After getting lost in Colfax and not remembering where the family cemetery is located, I pull into a Texaco station in the town center, which consists of a couple of warehouses along the railroad tracks, some screened in porch bungalow neighborhoods, and a number of small cafes and stores lining the two major intersecting business streets.  The Texaco station sits near the old, three-story, reddish brick Colfax High School, where my Mom graduated in 1945.  The school is still used.  I place the station attendant as a local, a bit haggard, in his early 60s perhaps, about ten years older than my Mom, and wearing dirty coveralls and a farm implement hat.  He has tired eyes and looks like he might have farmed at one time.

After paying for my gas next to the car, I ask if he knows the Rohrbach cemetery.  I have some flowers to place there, but forgot the way.  He surprises me by asking whose grave I am seeking.  I answer somewhat tentatively, “Pearl Dodd,” stopping before adding “my grandmother.”   Mom had told me that Pearl was loved by everyone in Colfax.  It is possible that his parents knew my grandmother.

The station attendant examined me for a few seconds, like he was looking for a resemblance, then gave me detailed directions. He hesitated a second, like he was about to ask something, but wasn’t sure about it, then ambled back towards his office.   As I opened the car door to get in, he turned back around, and said with a collegial tone and warm smile: “hey, you look like a Dodd.”  With that, he waved friendly goodbye and walked back to his office, and I drove off regretting I had not asked him more.  At that moment, however, I realized I was still connected to Iowa, still connected to a family, and history, and honored that my grandmother, whom I was closest to, had obviously been remembered.