Iowa Life Episode 310

[CHARITY NEBBE] Coming up on this episode of Iowa Life, we'll learn how one Iowa organization is preserving America's garden heritage.

[MIKE BOLLINGER]  These are varieties that have come from home gardeners, mostly, from all over the country.

[NEBBE] We'll meet the students bringing a remarkable Civil War story back to life.

[ADYSEN GRIES] They sacrificed their lives for what is right for America.

[NEBBE] And we'll visit with the leader of one of the nation's most respected opera companies.

[MICHAEL EGEL] I believe it's our responsibility to add to the canon and to continue to contribute our voice, a uniquely Iowa voice, to the world's operatic literature.

[NEBBE] It's all coming up next on Iowa Life.

[ANNOUNCER] Funding for Iowa Life is provided by the Lainie Grimm Fund for Inclusive Programming at the Iowa PBS Foundation.

[ANNOUNCER] And by Friends, the Iowa PBS Foundation.

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[NEBBE] Hi, I'm Charity Nebbe, and this is Iowa Life. As America celebrates 250 years, we are taking some time to look at some of the many ways that history is preserved in Iowa. Some stories are remembered through monuments. Some through art. Some through the memories that are passed down from generation to generation. Others are preserved in something much smaller, a seed. At Seed Savers Exchange in Decorah, thousands of heirloom varieties connect today's gardeners to generations of families, farmers and immigrants who shaped this nation. Their work ensures that these living pieces of history will grow far into the future. 

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[NEBBE] Every seed has a story. They connect us to the past and help guide us into the future. They're the reason we get to enjoy fresh fruits and vegetables, walk through a field of sunflowers, and grow gigantic pumpkins. Perhaps most importantly, they provide a living link to our food history, which is where the story of a humble nonprofit with a worldwide reach begins.

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[NEBBE] This is the Seed Savers Exchange Heritage Farm, a 900-acre plot of land in northeast Iowa that's home to thousands of seeds, two herds of ancient white park cattle, historic apple orchards, a trout stream and lush display gardens. The organization operates with a simple mission, to grow, preserve and share heirloom seeds in order to help protect America's diverse garden heritage. Seed Savers Exchange is the largest non-governmental seed bank in the country. It safeguards more than 20,000 varieties of fruits, vegetables, herbs and flowers. But it all started with the simple idea of saving just two seeds more than 50 years ago.

[DIANE OTT WHEALY] I grew up on a dairy farm about 10 miles from here. And part of my childhood memory was sitting on the porch and visiting my grandparents after touring their garden. And he had morning glories trained alongside of the porch. So, I just sat in this little cozy morning glory room, not really knowing anything about where the morning glories came from. But I just knew it felt really wonderful.

[NEBBE] When Diane and her former husband Kent, started their first garden, she asked her grandfather for the seeds. He also gave Diane a small envelope of German pink tomato seeds and said they were both brought to Iowa when his parents immigrated to the state from Germany in the late 1800s.

[DIANE OTT WHEALY] You know, all of a sudden, I realized that I was connected to a family that I really didn't think about or knew about, but I had a living connection to them. So, after my grandfather passed away and we realized that we were losing a lot of these seeds, and unless there was some systematic way of collecting them, they would be lost forever. So, we thought, well, let's see if there are other people out there interested in saving these older varieties. We put a small ad in the Mother Earth News, hey, is anybody else out there saving heirloom seeds? So, we got this response from, yes, yes, we save heirloom seeds. Thank you for recognizing that they're important. Soon our house was full of letters and seeds, and we thought, well, now what do we do with this? People entrusted us with their family heirlooms. So, then we started thinking about having a place like we have today.
Can you guys do two extra rows?

[MIKE BOLLINGER] Seeds are where everything starts. The uniqueness of the Seed Savers Exchange collection is that these are varieties that have come from home gardeners, mostly, from all over the country. They were being grown for a meal in mind and for their family in mind and for their community in mind.

[NEBBE] Of course, for any seed to remain viable and healthy, they need to be grown out. But from a practicality perspective, Seed Savers can't place plant each seed in its collection every year.

[MIKE BOLLINGER] We can't grow 20,000 varieties out every year. We have to have curated crop plans to really be able to say, here's how much we can regrow this year. So, you know, this year for us, that's about 560 different varieties that we're going to be growing here on site in Decorah.

[NEBBE] Plants grown for seed at Heritage Farm fall into three categories, distribution, evaluation, or to simply maintain viability.

[CORBIN SCHOLZ] So, we are getting our tomatoes and squash planted for lot checks, evaluations, just kind of trialing the plants. 

[CORBIN SCHOLZ] When people pull into Seed Savers Exchange, they want to see, like, a prime example of a beautiful garden. And so, we try to give them that experience. And also, maybe there's a catalog variety they're interested in getting, but they want to see it being grown. And so, we grow out some of the varieties that are offered in our catalog already so that people can kind of see what they look like, how big they get, what the fruit looks like.

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[NEBBE] There are eight gardens spread throughout the property in order to maintain proper isolation distances to avoid cross pollination. Unlike other gardens, most vegetables at the Seed Savers Exchange Heritage Farm aren't actually grown for consumption. Their purpose is to provide for more seeds so others can enjoy them. In the fall, the fruits are harvested and the process of collecting the seeds begins. After being threshed, winnowed, and sorted, they'll dry out before being put back into storage, where they'll sit for months or years waiting to be grown out again. It's a simple life cycle that Seed Savers Exchange has stewarded for more than 50 years, and one that gardeners have been doing since the beginning of time. Saving and planting seeds is an act of hope and optimism and guides us into the future while maintaining ties to our history.

[CORBIN SCHOLZ] Being a farmer or someone who grows food, you can like, everything is a tangible thing. You know, you can see all the progress you're making throughout the day. You can watch the plants grow. It, like, really grounds you, and it makes you feel like a part of nature.

[MIKE BOLLINGER] For me, it just feels like a breath of fresh air when you come here. And I feel like that is something that Kent and Diane really envisioned when they started. It was a place for people to come and experience and kind of, you know, understand what biodiversity looks like and feels like and tastes like.

[DIANE OTT WHEALY] We are a seed bank, but we're more than a seed bank because we are living linked to so many histories and so many families and so much food that we bring it all to life here at Seed Savers Exchange Heritage Farm. It's like a living museum.

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[NEBBE] The Soldiers and Sailors monument behind me reminds us that even though the Civil War was fought hundreds of miles away from Iowa's borders, Iowans answered the call in remarkable numbers. Tens of thousands left behind their families, farms, businesses, and classrooms to fight for the Union army. In Greene County, a group of students is making sure that one extraordinary chapter of this history is not forgotten.

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[FEMALE STUDENT #1] My soldier is Hardin Hall, and he is part of the 39th Company E. He died in active service, and he was the first one that passed away in active service. He was actually shot in the chest and killed in war in Georgia.

[MALE STUDENT] After the war, he didn't have any occupation. He lived a peaceful life after.

[FEMALE STUDENT #2] He got discharged for disability, and then he died when he was 75.

[NEBBE] These Greene County high school students are telling the stories of 32 students and two teachers who left Rippey, Iowa, to join the Union army in 1861. Because so many enlisted, the school closed behind them. Eleven never came home. Their story wasn't widely known, even in Greene County. That changed, though, when history teacher Dena Boyd invited local historian Chuck Offenburger to speak to her class.

[CHUCK OFFENBURGER] She said, if you know of a local story that would be impactful to high school students today, this would be a good time to tell it. And so, I told him about the schoolboy soldiers of Rippey, which is that's what I've always thought of these soldiers as. And that really got the attention. And so, you can imagine the war breaking out. And if you're a pioneer building a new farm outside of Rippey, Iowa, how does this impact you? I mean, what do you, you know, this is stuff happening in a whole other part of the country.

[ADEN BARDOLE] A lot of them probably weren't 18 yet, and they still went off to fight. 

[OLIVER HARRIS] That was one of the first things I imagined was, like, the conversation they had where they told each other, like, hey, you know, this is the war that's going on, you know, we should join. 

[ROMAN SEBOURN] We weren't even a big town. And then half the men go off to go fight. No farming or anything like that until they got back.

[ADYSEN GRIES] They sacrificed their lives for what is right for America. 

[NEBBE] To learn more, students turned to their community and to the Greene County Historical Society. Their research led them through newspapers, obituaries, memoirs, and cemetery records.

[DENA BOYD] Right now, they are working on researching each soldier.

[ADYSEN GRIES] We took a tour around the museum, and then eventually we had asked questions about our soldiers and what had happened.

[ROMAN SEBOURN] I spent my entirety of Iowa history trying to focus on who this person was and what they would wear. And I even helped on participating in reenactments.

[NEBBE] Along the way, the students began doing more than reading about history. They started wearing it, carrying it, and imagining what life might have felt like in 1861.

[DAVID BURKETT] This is an 1863 Springfield musket.

[DENA BOYD] They really rise to the occasion when we leave the classroom, when we can get outside and actually march and step in the actual uniforms. That's the goal of history, is to try to put yourself in the shoes of somebody who lived then.

[DAVID BURKETT] Now you have to have it just kind of stick by your foot, just hold it just like that and tell your story.

[ADYSEN GRIES] I mean, what school and what class, you know, gets to reenact something like this?

[DAVID BURKETT] New commanding officer has arrived. Everybody, please meet Lieutenant Boyd. 

[DAVID BURKETT] Well, today we're just kind of working on what the basics of how to handle a weapon, how to march in line and march as a unit. But we're trying to also get them to learn what it was like back in 1861 and what they were going through and stuff.

(drum cadence)

[OJ FARGO] The drum was to keep cadence. You heard me and a couple other people that left. I want these guys to be sharp. I want to be proud.

[NEBBE] Marching in uniform and retracing the soldiers’ lives made some students wonder how a story like this could have gone largely unrecognized for so long.

[MAN] Company halt.

[OLIVER HARRIS] It really was an amazing story. So, I figured there should be something to remember them by. I originally asked him, like, is there a monument or anything that, you know, commemorates the soldiers? And he said there wasn't.

[NEBBE] The students, their teacher and members of the Greene County Historical Society formed a committee dedicated to honoring the schoolboy soldiers of Rippey.

[DENA BOYD] And the students’ desire was to build a monument. And so, the committee said, absolutely, let's do it.

[ADEN BARDOLE] So, it's going to be a seven-foot monolith and there'll be etching of a soldier on one side. And then kind of the history.

[ADYSEN GRIES] I had helped with the sizing of the monument and where to place the words and where we should put the picture on it. 

[LILA OSTERSON] I kind of volunteered almost to do the drawing on the monument. And it was kind of cool to me. I was like, this is kind of insane, like I'm never gonna do this ever again. And my work will be on something for a really long time. And that's just kind of like beyond what I can picture.

[DENA BOYD] This is gonna be the location of where we put our second monument.

[ROMAN SEBOURN] I just think it would be really important to learn about this, especially on this type of day and especially this year, because we're 250 years old and we don't want to forget the past.

[DENA BOYD] My hope is that they have first a better knowledge of the Civil War and of local history and appreciation for the people who walked on these very streets because we wouldn't be where we are without those who have gone before us.

[FEMALE VOICE OFF-SCREEN] Sleep on, sweet one and take thy rest. God called thee home. He thought it best.

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[NEBBE] While some history is preserved through monuments and museums, other stories are kept alive on the stage. At Des Moines Metro Opera, artistic and general director Michael Egel has helped to transform a summer opera festival into an internationally recognized company. His story is a reminder that world class art is flourishing in Iowa.

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[MICHAEL EGEL] We at Des Moines Metro Opera, I think are in a small but select group of opera companies in North America that are on an upward trajectory that have been gathering financial and artistic strength over the last 15 years or so. 

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[MICHAEL EGEL] That repertory format, that idea of being able to come to Iowa and see three operas each summer, was an ideal model that was set up at our founding. And the way I began to refresh it was to make sure that a couple of those pieces every year were really unusual and new things that might draw people from around the world. 

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[MICHAEL EGEL] A successful summer opera festival in a small rural community that succeeds on an international level, that is so utterly improbable and unbelievable. And the only way it works is because of the thousands of people over the years who have really contributed to the dream of this company. 

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[MICHAEL EGEL] We have a very long commitment of presenting American operas. In fact, it goes back to our founding in 1973 and has been with us since then. To be able to turn to Of Mice and Men, this great classic story by John Steinbeck and Carlisle Floyd at America 250 is a special treat. Of Mice and Men was a novella that was written in 1937 and another depression era story by Steinbeck. Four companies have pooled resources to share this production. There will be elements to our performances, I'm proud to say, will be only DMMO specific. Anytime we can have John Moore with us, it's a homecoming of sorts.

[JOHN MOORE] I grew up in the Iowa Great Lakes region in Milford, Iowa, at the southern tip of the Lake Okoboji area. And it is awesome that I get to now participate in Of Mice and Men to dig deep into the gritty and tragic and hopeful story of America.

[MICHAEL EGEL] I've been at the helm of the company more or less now for about 15, 16 years. I became artistic director in 2010 and general director in 2013. There have been many opportunities to do the same sort of work elsewhere and in other organizations, but I feel a real deep commitment to this organization, to this state.

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[MICHAEL EGEL] I was born in Estherville, Iowa. I had formative years in theater in the Spencer Iowa Community School District and then went to high school in Algona, Iowa, which is my hometown. I found a place in the theater and even though I didn't really know what I could offer at that point in time, they still let me come into the fold and I just couldn't leave. They couldn't get rid of me once I got there, so I'll always be grateful for that.

[PAUL WIGLEY] Michael always worked harder than everybody, and he was never shy about kind of expecting everyone to work as hard as him. You had to up your game a little bit. He led by his creativity and by his passion for making anything just a little bit more vibrant and able to connect to the audience.

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[MICHAEL EGEL] When I graduated from high school, in my yearbook, it said, where do you imagine that you will be in 20 years? And I wrote either the next great Broadway star or another out of work actor living in the streets of New York. So that didn't -- it didn't quite work out that way. I began at Des Moines Metro Opera during the summer of 1994. I was a Simpson College student. I was asked to stay on to work for the opera company in the summer. I like to say that I learned the company from the ground up. So, for four or five summers I worked as an intern, even coming back while I was in grad school. There are very few aspects of this company on all sides of the curtain from fundraising, to being on stage, to being in an orchestra pit, to working in costumes, to calling stage management cues, to running a spotlight, there are very few things I haven't done in some way or another. I didn't come from a musical family. In fact, my family, who still live in Northern Iowa, I think still probably scratched their heads a little bit that my life and career path turned towards music and specifically opera, because there was no way to have predicted that.

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[MICHAEL EGEL] In recent years, we've been fortunate to do two world premieres here at Des Moines Metro Opera. In 2022, we were fortunate to present the world premiere of A Thousand Acres, based on the Jane Smiley novel. And in 2024, we presented the world premiere of American Apollo by Damien Geter and Lila Palmer. I believe it's our responsibility to add to the canon and to continue to contribute our voice, a uniquely Iowa voice, to the world's operatic literature.

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[MICHAEL EGEL] I am just the luckiest person in the world. People have been there for me and have made it possible. I absolutely was shaped by the fact that the wind was behind me and the sky was the limit.

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[NEBBE] Before we go, let's travel back in time 50 years. During America's Bicentennial, Iowa PBS, then known as the Iowa Educational Broadcast Network, went to Colfax to capture the character of small-town Iowa. These days, this film serves as a time capsule, preserving the sights, sounds and rhythms of Iowa life in 1976.

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[FEMALE VOICE OFF-SCREEN] There is an attitude that prevails in a small town that almost amounts to an ethic. You can feel it and see it in the pace of living. Join us now for a musical excursion to Colfax, Iowa. It's time to celebrate the country's 200th birthday and a small town's legacy.

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[MAN SINGING] America, land that I love. Stand beside her and guide her through the night with a light from above. From the mountains to the prairies to the ocean white with foam. God bless America my home sweet home. God bless America my home sweet home.

[MALE VOICE OFF-SCREEN] Colfax became a town in 1866. So, you see, we've been here, this town has been here for more than a century now. One thing that helped Colfax get going was the coal we had around here. We had camps and coal camps in towns all around here. Now, let me tell you, coal was big business. But that wasn't all we had. No, sir. We had mineral water. That was something. Came out, it could cure everything from rheumatism and constipation right down to a wart on your big toe. We had a real water boom going. Why, we had hotels, and every one of them had a mineral spring. This was a real resort town.

[CLOWN] Where'd you get that little doggie? Did Mommy make that for you?

[GIRL] Uh-huh.

[CLOWN] Oh, that's nice. There you are. You see me a little later. Bye bye.

[MAN] Now, listen, the band is going to turn in between Warwick and Cross' Jewelry Store, but the parade will be going on.

[FEMALE VOICE OFF-SCREEN] Things like this are taking place in numberless small communities. But with all of them, there is something distinctive. The folks in Colfax are planning a real wing ding. There will be a parade, an historical pageant, a black powder shoot, and an honest to God greased pig contest.

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[MALE VOICE OFF-SCREEN] Our Heavenly Father, this day we're drawn together in the spirit of oneness that this nation might be a melting pot of people from all nations with all kinds of differences and backgrounds and different colors. Amen.

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[NEBBE] That's all for this week. Thank you for joining me as we explore Iowa's place in our nation's story. I'm Charity Nebbe. See you next time for more Iowa Life.

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[ANNOUNCER] Funding for Iowa Life is provided by the Lainie Grimm Fund for Inclusive Programming at the Iowa PBS Foundation.

[ANNOUNCER] And by Friends, the Iowa PBS Foundation.