Growing Up Country: Memories of an Iowa Farm Girl

" I have only to close my eyes and breathe in to remember the smell of a field of new-mown hay, flex my fingers to remember the feel of a calf sucking as it learned to drink, open my ears to the sound of my mother smoothing over a cooking mistake. Then I remember my dad sitting on the feedbox petting a yellow tomcat and I want to go sit by him again and talk about the work that has yet to be done." (Epilogue, Loc. 2921, Kindle version)For some 33 years now, I have listened to my husband and his siblings reminisce over memories of their growing up on a cattle farm in the Yakima Valley of Washington state. I often wondered if their experiences were unique.You see, I grew up a city girl in Nashville, TN, a far cry from Iowa or Washington. My memory banks hold no recollection of ever setting foot on a dairy farm during my childhood or even as an adult.To date, I have taken my acquired family's stories at face value, believing each farm would have its own unique set of stories with no semblance to another farm family's set of stories.Carol Bodensteiner, in sharing her memories in this charming memoir, Growing Up Country: Memories of an Iowa Farm Girl, has proven me wrong. So wrong in fact I was guilty of running to my husband and suggesting he remember a certain story about calving or planting or haying and then reading aloud to him Carol's story of similar experiences.Carol's gift of storytelling is rich, distinct, and nourished with truth. Each vignette she shares draws the reader in to experience it with Carol, her sisters, and their folks. Whether it is a family or farm story, a story drawn from community at school or church, or a story of certain relatives or friends, a tapestry of a simpler life on the farm when time moved more slowly and memories were more easily cherished is woven thread-by-thread until you feel transported to the Bodensteiner farm.This isn't to say that growing up on the farm was always easy for the Bodensteiner girls. Carol shares easily the difficult times as well as the good. She does not shy away from letting her reader know that life was not always smooth, losses were hard, and the weather could change the success of a crop or the success of a cow giving birth to a healthy calf.Carol ended her epilogue with the quote shared above, but I have another favorite that speaks clearly to the writer's ability to draw in her reader. It is found in the prologue:"This land of my childhood releases sweet, long forgotten memories and brings me back home. Home to the farm. Home to my family. Home." (Prologue, p. 3, Kindle version)What reader would not want to turn the page to explore this farm, meet this family, and discover home?My Recommendation:Fans of memoir, farms and farming, simpler times, and stronger community will fall in love with Carol Bodensteiner's Growing Up Country: Memories of an Iowa Farm Girl. Each chapter or vignette can stand alone, and I think they would be lovely read aloud to children teaching them of a disappearing lifestyle on which our country once depended upon.

I loved this book, the autobiography of a young girl growing up in the heartland. Carol Bodensteiner,maiden name Denter, grew up on a farm in Iowa, the middle girl of three sisters. Her childhood was not that long ago but children growing up around her childhood in the cities had much different lives. There were movies, fast foods, jeans and different ways of dressing, fancy toys and trips to Disney Land.Carol Bodensteiner had a wonderful childhood, not wealthy, but loved. The family was close, they all worked together, the children had their chores. Their two grandmothers spent alternate visits with the family so the girls grew to know their grandmothers. The kids loved playing with the baby animals but knew not to get too attached to them or give them names because the cows and chickens were their meal tickets plus their meals. Much chicken! But that was life. The parents were good, honest, decent people who taught their girls their own values to be carried on. Chores had to be done but were made to be fun. Food was home grown. Carol Denton felt honored to help with the milking. Her mother milked and did as much work as her husband. Carol felt grown. Her younger sister got to sleep late, but Carol felt important. Another time she got to drive the tractor with her fathers' help.The family attended a small country church. When Carol was two, her father gave her a coin to be placed in the offering thus teaching her to honor God and to give to the church. Her mother taught her to cook and to plan meals. She wanted her girls to know their way around the kitchen plus around the rest of the house. The mother made the girls dresses which they wore to school every day. When the weather was cold they could wear long pants under their dresses. On the first day of school the mother lined the girls up and took their pictures. There are black and white pictures throughout the book. Carol and her sisters attended a one room school.The father told his children never to buy anything they couldn't afford to pay for. He and Carol's mother were close with moeny. Carol Bodensteiner writes of these lessons in different chapters. Vacations lasted for one day, always visiting relatives, leaving after the milking, then returning home around dark.I enjoyed reading about good, decent, hard working folks who lived the old American way of life. Old fashioned people with old fashioned ways.

This is what childhood should have been about, with the children joining in the family work as well as having fun. Carol writes in an easy to read style that so characterises both the age when she grew up and the pace of her life. It brings everything to life with charm and remarkable detail that somehow never becomes boring.This is a memoir everyone should read.