ONWARD TO . . . IOWA

After a week in Chicago it was time to wander westwards to visit my ersatz godmother, Helen Dewey. Helen is a native Iowan who grew up mostly in Perry - the town where I visited her. But in between time, she has taught math all over the world: England, Kenya, Guatemala, NYC, Utah, Mexico, Japan, Guam, Nigeria, Ghana . . . I've probably left out a few. She is a fund of great stories & memories, and at 84 still growing her own veggies and getting around. I slept underneath a quilt [that is] over a hundred years old, made by Helen's maternal grandmother . . . a treasured memory for me. She also gave me a quilt top pieced by her mother & grandmother but never quilted . . . that'll be my job. Helen's quilt Downtown Perry, Iowa . . . note the temperature - that was 8.30 am! Downtown Perry at 8.30 am I didn't know it before, but during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Carnegie Foundation helped communities all over the world, but particularly in the USA, establish local public libraries. The one in Perry has been beautifully restored with the help of a local philanthropist and Helen asked the Perry town librarian, Emily, to show us around. Helen Dewey (yes, that's a real union-made engineer's hat that Helen is wearing; I tried to find one for my grandson Isaac who's besotted with trains, but no luck) & Perry Librarian, Emily Weaver There's a main, modern library and at the moment funds aren't there to keep the old library open all the time, but its books are always available for loan and a volunteer force keeps it open a few mornings a week. Carnegie Library, Perry, Iowa One evening Helen & I went on a cemetery tour organised by the local historical society - a fascinating presentation. They organise these tours several times each summer; various members of the society pick a particular grave and tell the story of that person (as though s/he was that person) . . . GOA grave - note the dates; he must have been one of the boy soldiers of the Civil War . . . or they pick an area of the cemetery - for example, the Grand Old Army section - and prepare a talk on that. It was a great evening, made all the more enjoyable because Violet Hill is a beautiful spot. I have to confess here that I find cemeteries absolutely fascinating. I love speculating about the people, their lives, their families. In this case, though, I took the picture because it's such a stunning piece of stone. Violet Hill After our tour of Violet Hill Cemetery, we got out of the car at Helen's house and I noticed all these little flashes of light. I was suddenly transported back 55 years and I was three years old again in Ohio, watching fireflies! My mother used to help me catch them and we'd put them in a jar by my bed at night . . . . OK; this may look like a dull shot of an ordinary street, but this is a bit of total magic for me. Notice the little white blob on the sidewalk in the middle of the pic? That's a firefly.

STILL IN . . . IOWA HERE