Iowa Life Episode 306

Nebbe: Coming up on this episode of "Iowa Life," we'll meet a family of refugees living in DeWitt... These lives that we have here, it's much better than we had in Ukraine.

Nebbe: We'll step inside the Better Homes & Gardens Test Garden... Ford: It's kind of like a hidden secret, I think.

I'm not sure everybody knows what an amazing little spot of serenity we have right here in the middle of Des Moines.

Nebbe: ...and we'll join the crowd in Lansing as they bid farewell to the Black Hawk Bridge.

Burke: And it's pretty impressive that this bridge, built in 1931, has lasted to this point.

It's all coming up next on "Iowa Life."

Announcer: Funding for "Iowa Life" is provided by... ...and by... ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Hi.

I'm Charity Nebbe, and this is "Iowa Life."

Today I am standing inside DeWitt's historic Hausbarn Museum, a place that reflects the roots of this town where German immigrants settled in the mid-1800s.

Ever since its earliest days, DeWitt has been shaped by people searching for opportunity, community, and a fresh start.

Angela, What attracted German immigrants to DeWitt?

I've been told that a lot of German immigrants migrated to Iowa in general because of the similarities of the land, just the beautiful landscape and the farming.

In particular, in DeWitt, a lot of immigrants came because they already had family and friends that were here.

How does the Hausbarn tell their story?

It's really important for us to remember our history.

And what better way to do that than a physical representation of what some of our ancestors lived in and with, with their animals, in the Hausbarn, so having a piece of that history from Germany here in our Lincoln Park is a really great visible testament to where we've all come from.

Why is it so important to tell this story today?

I think it's really important for us to share the story of those that came before us so we remember where we came from but also maybe have a little clearer vision on where we're going.

DeWitt continues to be shaped by newcomers.

Now we're going to meet the Matiitsiv family, Ukrainian refugees who are working hard to build a new life right here in Eastern Iowa in spite of an uncertain future.

♪♪ Boelens: I'm going around town and delivering -- we'll call it Santa Cash -- to all of our Ukrainian friends.

Back in 2022, I decided to sponsor one family from Ukraine.

I was like every other American, and I felt bad, and I knew there was something I could do.

After about two or three families that I had relocated into DeWitt, Iowa, the community just fell in love with the families.

-Hey!

-Hello!

Boelens: And they actually came to me, and they raised about $500,000, and they said, "Please help more people."

I'll talk to you later.

See you honey.

With that amount of generosity, it just really needed a 501(c)(3).

♪♪ I'm a professor at Augustana College and the founder of Iowa NICE, which stands for Iowa Newcomer Integration Community & Exchange.

Nebbe: The Matiitsivs are one of the Ukrainian families Iowa NICE helped to relocate to DeWitt.

Natalia and Lub [lube] and their three children: daughter Yeva and two sons Makar and Tadei.

Boelens: We do the paperwork through U.S.

Immigration Services, fill out forms for their Social Security card, fill out forms to get them insurance, get their kids enrolled in school, get them set up with a primary doctor.

There are some required tests that the government asked them to do within 90 days.

[ Chatter ] Help them find a faith organization if they desire.

We want to make sure the families that we invite here are a good fit for our community.

[ Chatter ] Nebbe: While the Matiitsiv family has lived in DeWitt for almost a year now, the memories of what they experienced before leaving Ukraine remain fresh in their minds.

[ Speaking Ukrainian ] Natalia, you lived in Ukraine for two years after the war had already started.

What was that like?

I would say it was really horrible.

Every day, um, we would pray and hope that it stopped.

It seems like it will stop in three weeks, it will stop in month, then in half a year, then a year, and then we realized that it won't stop.

There were times that we didn't have electricity, we didn't have gas, power.

That was a disaster.

And the kids were sick.

And you didn't have even water.

Tell me about the family you left behind.

My sister's husband is military, so she said, "I won't leave him.

I have to be there."

My mom has to take care of my granny, and they can't leave.

We pray every time for them and just hope for... hope that everything will be okay for them.

For a family to find a new school, new job, new place to live, everything from the beginning, it's very difficult.

From the other side, you feel that you are supported, you are not alone.

[ Chatter ] When I lived for a year here and feel this calm, relaxing atmosphere that you can work, earn money, think about your future... [ Speaking Ukrainian ] Natalia: DeWitt is such a small city.

It's only 6,000 people.

But it's their generosity, their help, their will that we all are here.

[ Speaking Ukrainian ] Population in the state of Iowa has been falling off every single year.

If it were not for immigration, it would be a steep decline.

They think they're gonna get their actual parole pretty quickly, but the amount of paperwork that it takes to get one family here is incredible.

In particular, small communities, we just don't have the infrastructure that typically is needed for new people to come here.

The U.S.

Department of Agriculture actually paid for us to go and train seven different counties in Iowa on the work that we do.

[ Saw buzzing ] We want to know what kind of job skills they have and will be able to find work in this area.

Nebbe: Skilled labor can be hard to find in and around DeWitt.

Lub is an experienced woodworker and quickly found employment making cabinets for a local production company.

For someone to come into our shop and having experience doing woodworking, we just can't find anybody.

Lub came from a wood shop in Ukraine, and he understands how things get installed.

He just understands all the steps.

Everything matters.

We have to be on our toes on everything.

To have a guy come in with a skill set of his?

Skill set is very valuable to us, so we really want to retain him in the worst kind.

With 100% success to this point, those families have jobs.

[ Indistinct shouting ] Their kids are doing well in school.

They're enrolled in English language classes.

Woman: Grand.

Students: Grand.

Almost exactly how those are written.

Nice job.

Beautiful handwriting.

[ Chatter ] Boelens: And we now have a bunch of students in our school system who can talk to other students about what it's like to live in a place that is now at war.

[ Chatter ] We then work on transitioning them into complete financial independence.

[ Keyboard clacking ] January 2025 hit.

The government paused the processing of those applications.

Many of the families now have lost their ability to work in the United States through no fault of their own.

It's just, again, pausing of processes.

We've now had to find ways to keep them safe.

None of our people use government benefits, so they don't use SNAP dollars.

They don't use Refugee Cash Assistance.

Companies are more reluctant today than they have previously been to hire people who are not here on a permanent residency card.

And he has everything... We've shifted our work more towards educating the public, educating our families, and raising funds for temporary support until, hopefully, they're able to work again.

Your status right now gives you one more year to be here.

What do you think about the future?

Uh, first of all, we will apply for re-parole or a TPS, whatever we can.

Um, but my husband's employer, uh, he said that he wants to apply for a working visa for our family.

But I know it's a long time.

We just hope for the better.

And, as my husband says, just enjoy your time now.

We don't know what to expect.

What do you want Iowans to know about what is still happening in Ukraine?

Uh, I would say it's a disaster.

Every time, it's getting worse and worse.

[Voice breaking] So many dead.

My neighbors.

My friends.

My just... Um, the guys I studied with.

And every time, I just see that, oh, he's died.

And they all were young.

Now there are so many families without a father, son.

♪♪ Nebbe: While Natalia and Lub hope to find a way to extend their visas, they live with uncertainty.

They don't know what the future holds for their family and their lives in DeWitt.

For now, they try to live their lives in the present with hope that they can make this small Iowa town their forever home.

Boelens: Either the community rallies around their new neighbors and helps support them... or they have to return to Ukraine.

It's economic benefit.

It's the joy of giving that we receive in our small community.

And on a personal level, it's knowing that we've done the right thing to keep families and children, in particular, safe.

These lives that we have here, it's much better than we had in Ukraine.

[ Speaking Ukrainian ] ♪♪ For me, like, a holy person, we are looking for saints somewhere, uh, in the sky, but they're around us.

You don't know who -- who are these people, but I'm really thankful to everyone.

[ Chatter ] -I'm gonna go over there.

-Okay!

[ Chatter ] -Hi, Taddy.

-Hi!

Natalia: I always tell Angela that she is an angel for all of us.

And that's truth.

She helped us.

She saved our lives.

She saved our families.

Go, go, go, go, go!

We won't forget it.

From DeWitt, now we travel to Auburn, where welding is a family tradition for Tanner King, passed down from his grandfather and rooted in practical tasks like fixing farm equipment.

But today, it's his artistic creations, sculptures and large commissions, that are keeping his work in the spotlight.

♪♪ Tanner: When I was 12 years old, we built that first motorcycle.

That was our first welding project together with both of us.

♪♪ Nebbe: Tanner King is a welder in Auburn, working out of the same shop his grandfather once ran.

It's where he first learned the trade, turning time spent with his grandpa into a lifelong skill.

1955 is when he bought Martin's Welding for $9,000, started working on farm equipment.

2012, I believe, is when we built the first palm tree, and then it kind of started after that with all the art stuff.

Nebbe: Every piece presents a new challenge.

There's no instruction manual for shaping metal into lifelike forms.

Just experience, experimentation, and a willingness to learn as you go.

You can't just google how to make a copper frog.

Nobody does that, you know?

So you gotta -- you gotta figure it out yourself.

This is a 100% copper bullfrog that we are making for the Sac City Public Library.

What I'm doing right now is, uh, like, oxyacetylene welding, or brazing.

I've never worked with copper before, so... a little bit of a learning curve there.

This thing started out as a full sheet of 14-gauge pure copper.

It'll be pretty cool when it's all done.

Then when it tarnishes, the copper, it'll all turn green, so it'll be a pretty cool frog.

♪♪ So it's for the city of Sac City, and they basically sent us a flat picture like this.

And it's going to be a 15-foot tall, 15-foot wide tree out of about half-inch-thick sheet metal.

Tanner hired me to do a lot of the designing.

I have a background designing T-shirts and other stuff, but also in metal fabrication.

My dad was a metal fabricator his whole life, so I grew up watching him and kind of did it on my own on the side.

Nebbe: What starts as a flat sheet of metal often becomes something much bigger.

This work is designed to last.

The sculptures turn into landmarks, gathering places, and quiet points of pride for the communities they become a part of.

♪♪ Pawletzki: I love to be creative, and I like to see just an idea turn into a finished product and know that I helped make that.

Stuff that'll stay there for a long time, like these trees on top of the hill.

I live north of town, so I get to drive by those every day on the way to work and the way from work.

♪♪ Many of the ideas that end up in gardens all over the country begin in the Better Homes & Gardens Test Garden.

Let's take a behind-the-scenes peek at the people and planning it takes to keep it growing.

Tucked away on the western edge of downtown Des Moines is one of the most influential gardens in America.

Ford: It's kind of like a hidden secret, I think.

I'm not sure everybody knows what an amazing little spot of serenity we have right here in the middle of Des Moines.

Nebbe: This is the Better Homes & Gardens Test Garden.

Plants grown here are seen by millions of people in the pages of the beloved magazine.

The Test Garden was established in 1998 to evaluate new plant varieties and gardening techniques before recommending them to readers.

The half-acre lot was previously home to a car-detailing business and a dry cleaner.

Today, the garden is filled with hundreds of different kinds of plants.

It is this incredible living, growing lab for us.

We are testing plants in the test garden.

We have beautifully designed vignettes in the test garden that we can use directly for stories or we can try out new products.

Our test-garden manager, Sandra, is truly the expert on this.

She's been there since the beginning.

Gerdes: Before it gets any hotter, I want to make sure that everybody gets a drink.

Nebbe: Sandra Gerdes grew up on a farm in North Iowa.

After spending several years working at Walt Disney World in the hydroponic greenhouse at EPCOT, she was lured back to her home state to establish and manage the garden.

Gerdes: I thought I would be a Peace Corps worker or work an extension somewhere because, I mean, I did want to help people.

I've always wanted to help people, and agriculture is my background.

So here we've got lemon balm, and I'm actually just cutting off some of the flowers so that it'll keep producing, because most of the herbs, you need to deadhead before they go to flower.

[ Sniffs ] Mmm.

Mmm!

My goal and our goal, my team's goal, is to find good plants.

It's as simple as our name.

Better Homes & Gardens.

We want you to have a better garden.

Our role is to evaluate plants or garden techniques.

Maybe it's a pruning technique.

Maybe it's a fertilizing technique.

What's the best plan?

What's the best way to grow a plant?

You know, should this plant go in the front of the border, the middle of the border, or the back of the border?

How tall does it get?

Nebbe: Sandra collaborates with editors to determine what kinds of plants to grow for stories in the upcoming year.

While not every plant featured in the magazine is grown in the test garden, its proximity to the Better Homes & Gardens headquarters makes it an ideal location for curating articles.

Ford: ...how beautiful that is.

We might have a story on shade gardening, and we have this beautiful part of the garden that's under a tree canopy, filled with hostas and other things that do well in the shade, and we can use that space for photography to illustrate those ideas.

We also work very closely with Sandra to design container-gardening ideas, which are not things that are planted in the ground long-term, but things that we do on a seasonal basis so that we can give our readers new ideas for combinations and how to do it right.

Nebbe: From there, Sandra works with seed companies, plant breeders, or nurseries to order and test new varieties of plants, be it hydrangeas, tomatoes, or coleus, some of which aren't yet available at garden centers.

If they perform well, the plants eventually make it into the magazine for readers to consider growing or at least use as inspiration.

The test garden has more than 20 distinct areas, including a space for prairie perennials... a deck area... and a pond.

The garden is always evolving, and each season brings new growth and blooms.

♪♪ Gardeners, nature lovers, or those who are simply looking for a change in scenery for their lunch break can enjoy the garden every summer.

The test garden is open to the public from noon to 2:00 every Friday from May through September.

♪♪ After nearly a century in service, the iconic Black Hawk Bridge in Lansing is making way for something new.

Although its replacement is still years away from completion, the bridge's implosion made for a once-in-a-lifetime community event.

Man: Five, four, three, two, one.

Fire in the hole.

Fire in the hole.

Nebbe: That was Lansing's Black Hawk Bridge, and if you're only interested in explosions, you could stop here, but to do Lansing and the bridge justice, this story needs to start decades earlier.

♪♪ Long before its implosion, amidst the idyllic expanse of Northeast Iowa's Driftless Region, one long-standing staple was Lansing's Black Hawk Bridge.

Surrounded by beautiful mounds of earth, the sharp lines and geometric shapes of the bridge mark an abrupt shift in the region's topography.

While it has served travelers for decades, this type of bridge is actually quite antiquated, and specifically for the Black Hawk, its days are numbered.

Burke: It's incredibly rare in modern days to build another truss bridge like this.

The railroads do truss bridges still quite often, but we don't do these on the highway system anymore.

Nebbe: Originally opened in 1931 as a privately owned toll bridge, in 1957, the state took over the Black Hawk Bridge and rehabilitated it to comply with federal safety standards.

In its nearly 100-year lifespan, Black Hawk has become the icon of Lansing, with its likeness replicated all over town.

Burke: So I grew up right here in Northeast Iowa.

I have a lot of memories of the bridge here.

It's really an identity for the local community.

It's a core piece of infrastructure.

It gets people across the river to their jobs, their livelihoods, family, loved ones, so it's really a very important core piece of the local communities here.

Nebbe: But now, after 90 years, Lansing will have to identify with a new bridge, as the Black Hawk's time in service is coming to a close.

Burke: Unfortunately, all bridges have a lifespan.

That lifespan is typically around 100 years for modern bridges, and it's pretty impressive that this bridge, built in 1931, has lasted to this point.

After they're built, they immediately start to decay.

They rust.

The concrete starts to develop cracks.

And a bridge just gets more expensive to repair and to upkeep.

And in this case, we are looking to replace it with a bridge that doesn't have the same maintenance costs and a bridge that has modern safety features.

Nebbe: As the original Black Hawk is being dismantled and prepared for removal, simultaneously, the new bridge is being constructed.

While the project first had the community up in arms, it is now being watched closely, with its 2027 completion eagerly anticipated.

Burke: The first thing we proposed was an arch bridge.

It would not match anything in the community.

It wouldn't really feel like a good fit.

So there was a lot of resistance at first, and then we kept working through the public involvement process, and eventually we came up with a truss design that looked very similar to the existing bridge.

And after we presented that to the community and said, "This is an option that we can provide," the community started to relax and said, okay, this could be the next Black Hawk Bridge.

Nebbe: With a new bridge plan in place, the next step was removing the old bridge.

As careful measures were taken to dismantle sections of the Black Hawk, to make quick work of the truss span, there was really only one choice.

The project is coming up on the actual implosion of the existing structure.

There's a lot of excitement going on around town, as this is really a once-in-a-lifetime event.

If you see those boxes back there, there are explosives lining the bridge.

And then tomorrow, around 9:00 or 10:00 a.m., they will set off those explosives, and the truss will drop in the water.

Nebbe: "Excitement" is putting it mildly.

People drove in from counties away.

A raffle was held to push the ceremonial detonation button.

Local businesses held watch parties.

And with last-minute safety checks and crowds lining the river, we return to where this story began.

Man: Two, one.

Fire in the hole.

Fire in the hole.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Crowd cheering ] Nebbe: Now the real work begins.

With over a year remaining in the construction of the new Black Hawk Bridge, when it opens for traffic, travelers will find it twice as wide, the structure 15 feet taller, and it will have a wider river channel for water traffic.

So Lansing isn't so much losing a piece of its history, as it is upgrading.

We used to cross that all the time to go up to La Crosse, go see monster-truck shows for my birthday.

I was really excited to be able to work on a cantilever through truss design, and I hope the entire community is very proud of the new structure that we build, that it still becomes a core component of the communities.

That's all for this week.

Thank you for joining me, as we see how skill, resilience, and community show up in everyday life.

I'm Charity Nebbe.

See you next time for more "Iowa Life."

♪♪ ♪♪ Announcer: Funding for "Iowa Life" is provided by... ...and by...