Time Passed

It was a partly cloudy and warm morning, with a welcome strong wind that helped to dissipate the heat. I was on a gravel road looking northwest up a gentle slope of predominantly corn to a highpoint. On that highpoint, a good half mile distant from where I stood I saw a farmstead surrounded by tall evergreens and deciduous trees. The interplay of sun and shadow, as the clouds passed the sun to my back, provided a metaphor for life in this generally non-descript area of Iowa. An area that time seemed to have passed by. 

View of A. Pitzenberger Farm, 1 Aug 2024

I was looking at land my great great grandfather, Andreas Pitzenberger, an immigrant from Austria, had purchased from the US Government in 1859. I turned around, and with some struggle I could make out the two steeples of the Catholic Church in St Lucas Iowa. Founded in 1855, the parish likely was attended by Andreas and his family, although the present church was constructed in 1914. I was taken back in time, to a different age. As I looked to the farmstead, on that warm first day of August, with the wind whipping the pages in a binder that had maps and other family information, I imagined what Andreas would have been doing on a Thursday morning over 160 years ago. His crops growing, I pondered whether he was tending a garden, or contemplating the harvest of his Irish Potatoes (1860 IA Ag census). Had he, I also wondered, planted some of those trees as a break to the strong Iowa winds which to this day continue to sweep over the Iowa prairie? Standing there as the corn swayed in a melodic manner I got a look into a time long past. A time of hard and difficult back-extensive work, but also with a sense of fulfilling purpose for an immigrant people cultivating life in a foreign land.

Top portion of A Ptizelberger Land Patent
from US, 1859.  Source: BLM

A couple weeks ago, the wife and I took a trip to Winneshiek Co, Iowa. Thursday, August 1, we spent about six hours doing what I refer to as a genealogical tour of the locations of my Pitzenberger side of the family. I should say, I spent, she spent the six hours being bored. Winneshiek County is located in northeast Iowa, its north line borders Minnesota, and it is the second Iowa county west of the Mississippi River. Much of it is part of the driftless area, which they take great pride to present. This may be one of the only areas of significant topographic relief in Iowa, so well that they should take pride in its undulating topography. This post is not to discuss my genealogy tour and what we did and see, as much as the cultural and social geography present in the area. I had mixed emotions. Sad for the people who struggled and toil, today, with this land to make a living in ventures which always seem to be on the edge due to economics and weather. Sad to see an area that time seems to have forgot. Yet, there was also some relief to see a part of the area of my ancestors still little touched by modernity and sprawled development. 

Part of farmstead discussed above. 1 Aug 2024

When I look at my Hovel line ancestral village of Ratiborova Lhota, Bohemia (family traced back to at least 1585) and compare the Cadaster mapping of the first part of the 1800's to air photos of today one notices little change. It almost seems that way for the 140 to 150 years of these towns. We spent Wednesday afternoon in Decorah, the county seat, and the night at a hotel in everywhere USA in Decorah. Decorah had the requisite fast food and Kwik Star (Kwik Trip brand) convenience store. Thursday we headed southwest to Spillville, which has two defining features: St Wenceslaus Catholic Church, the oldest Czech Catholic Church in the nation, and the Bily Clock museum. After meeting Michael Klimesh, a local historian and our guide of the varied places of my ancestors, we made our way through Ft Atkinson, IA, to farmland east and south formerly owned  by my ancestors. Andreas' farm had a Fort Atkinson mailing address. We then went to St Lucas, a few miles from the Andreas Pitzenberger farm, to Festina where my great grandparents had a general store, and where my grandma was married. We then headed home.

The area we mainly travelled was south of the County seat of Decorah, and in the southern part of Winneshiek Co. Michael Klemish, provided commentary on various historical and genealogical aspects present. Michael is Czech, with a bit of Swiss, and has a great knowledge of the area and is highly involved with some historical societies for which he does varied research. Spillville is Czech, even to this day, while St Lucas, Fort Atkinson and Festina are known for their German settlers and heritage which still run deep. In moving to Iowa, the Pitzenberger's moved to a location with a socio-demographic/economic group similar to what that they had left. The culture of the area was centered on the Catholic Churches which sprung up regularly over about a ten year or so time span in these rural communities. This was not uncommon in the US and today they remain as quilt squares in what is a decidedly unique American quilt. The culture was not so much a melting pot as a  stew with certain cultural features remaining, not unlike chunks of carrot and celery in a stew. 

Our Lady of Seven Dolors Church, Festina, IA
1 Aug 2024

While its physical geography mimics part of western Dane Co, its cultural geography is different. Dane County, regardless of attempts to control, is ever present with sprawl which is gobbling up good farm land as if it were a never ending story. All in the measure of "economic development." When comparing southern Winneshiek to Dane County, it is a tale of two very different places. Dane Co, for example, in just over three years grew by about 14,000 persons, with Fitchburg and Sun Prairie being the fastest growing cities. By comparison, Winneshiek's total population is 19,974. The towns I noted have had little population change over the past 140 years. 

Pitzenberger Communities, population table

Yet there are some similarities, parts of northern Dane Co were also settled by Germans, with Dane and Roxbury or Pine Bluff being the Dane Co version of, say, Festina. The difference is temporal, how time has changed Dane Co much more so than Winneshiek or Fayette Co. (St Lucas is just across the southern border of Winneshiek in Fayette Co.) The former parochial school in St Lucas is now home to the German American Museum and Library. An amazing venture considering how small the town is, but yet this is a clear expression of their values. Further evincing pride of place, the former St Lucas parochial school is being reroofed back to cedar shingles, its original roof style. New windows, will at some point, come to replace the plywood now covering many window openings. There is a resilience and a commitment to the past showing that time can have a preserving effect.

These towns have been affected by the economic revolution and the change in the time-space continuum. As an example, in early years Spillville once had four mills located along Turkey River. None exist today. Products were grown and in many cases processed locally as transportation was by horse and cart, and in some cases rail. My great grandfather Martin Hovel, however, used to take wheat from his farm near Manly, IA to McGregor, IA, across the river from Prairie du Chien for processing with a horse drawn cart. This is a 116 mile trip one way by current roads. Perhaps his wheat was bound by barge to some large urban center for processing in order to feed the growing urban population. 

Mathias and Teresia Pitzenberger
Tombstone, 1 Aug 2024

Spillville, as rural as it was then and today, was home to Anton Dvorak during the summer of 1893. It must have been a place to make his creativity run as during his Spillville summer, he "composed two of his most celebrated and enduring works." (IA PBS) It was the birds, the rolling water of the Turkey River, the wind in the trees that drove his imagination as he walked the river bank.

Rural can be determined by population density, but I believe rural can also be explained based on cultural features, or in this case lack thereof. After leaving Decorah we did not see a Culver's restaurant until Prairie du Chien, WI. Further, after leaving Decorah we saw only one Kwik Star in Postville, IA. Postville is said to be the most highly diverse town in the nation, its major industry a processing plant for kosher meats, has drawn to this once German enclave, Hasidic Jews, Hispanic and now Somali immigrants. Kwik Star (Kwik Trip) and Culver's are two current Midwest cultural icons which are mainstays of suburban sprawl. Suburbia and scattered rural home sites are not highly present in this area of Winneshiek Co. 

Table Comparing Dane Co, WI
to Winneshiek Co, IA

There are a few scattered homes in Winneshiek, but not near as many as in Wisconsin. In Dane County, it is hard to find a farm without at least one or more non-farm homes built at its edge, in a woodlot or a hilltop, proving the adage that the definition of an environmentalist is one who already as their house in the woods. Hilltops, in this part of Iowa, were not for a wealthy persons house, but a woods or cornfield. My wife, taking time out of being bored, commented that she had never seen so much corn in her life. Few restaurants existed, and if they were present they were local. The main businesses seemed to be mechanics and welders. We had lunch at a bar in Festina in which the most valuable piece of equipment was the big screen television playing the Olympics. As my wife said, it is not a bar for a lady. The ladies restroom was denoted with word "Peaches" on the door, and the men's with the word "Bananas".  Of the three towns and the hamlet, Spillville has the largest population, but we did not see a restaurant in that town, although Fort Atkinson has a restaurant called "The Fort". Spillville, being Czech must have a bar or more. 

St Wenceslaus Steeple, Spillville, IA
1 Aug 2024

It appeared that sewerage treatment for the communities is handled by treatment lagoons. Spillville's sits next to a park where one can camp. St Lucas had large dumpsters which residents would deposit their recyclables and garbage. In Spillville, garbage is picked up. It is not like they are without some, what we in the planning world called urban services.

These communities were created in a time before the car became famous, a mode of transportation that  has lessened the space-time continuum. The internal combustion engine also affected the developments of these towns so that it seems as if time has passed by. At about five to six miles apart the towns became small mercantile centers for the farmers. Festina already had a general store when my great grandfather Mathias Pitzenberger and his wife, Theresia, opened their store in 1890. Demand for goods was increasing as the rural area was dominate in 1890. The mercantile trade area must have been rather small, and certainly not the population it takes today too be supported. For some reason these small general stores make me think of Oleson's General Store in "Little House on the Prairie." Similarities are evidenced in rural Bohemia or even Forest County, WI with former small logging or mining towns spread about six to seven miles apart on Hwy 8. Foot and horse travel was the basis for much of the nation's original settlement pattern. Railroads then brought another.

Andreas and Maria Pitzenberger
Tombstone, 1 Aug 2024

Winneshiek Co. was first settled in its northeast section by Yankees who then moved and made room for Norwegians. German and Czech Catholics settled in the south and portions of the western parts of the county. The heritage is evident in the Catholic churches and related cemeteries. The area is heavily Czech by Spillville, and German by St Lucas, Festina, and Fort Atkinson. Spillville has St Wenceslaus Catholic Church, which is Czech, and a Catholic church for the Germans just outside of town toward Ft Atkinson. It is said that all the graves in the Our Lady of Seven Dolors cemetery in Festina have German surnames. Looking at Spillville its iron crosses and names give credence to a heavily Czech population, not to mention a dealer of the iron crosses lived in Spillville. When one walks the main path that splits the Seven Dolors cemetery into two parts, one side by the path contains the graves of premature born babies, or infants who died, a testament to the fragility of life. Each of the community's Catholic Churches also, for a time, had a school associated with it. The one in Spillville, now named St Theresia of Calcutta (originally St Wenceslaus school, it was renamed by a priest who did not care what the parishioners thought, and a year later he was gone but his chosen name lives on) is still operating. The language used in the Festina parish school was high German until the advent of WWI when it switched to English. My grandma Pitzenberger spoke both German (high) and English. Her mom, Teresia Kamen from Bohemia, spoke Czech, but given the time, dominance by the Austro-Hungarian Empire with German as its language, likely may have known German, and her father, from Austria, would have spoken German. 

Part of St Wenceslaus Cemetery, Spillville, IA 1 Aug 2024

The defining characteristic of Winneshiek County is farmland. Being in the driftless area of Iowa the hills and valleys and small towns are reminiscent of the rural area south and east of LaCrosse, WI. Both off the beaten path, although more so in Iowa than the area south of LaCrosse. In Dane County, WI, on the other hand, too often farmland is viewed as holding land for development, yet Dane Co is one of the largest agricultural production counties in WI. Dane County's farmland value is said to be less than that in Winneshiek Co, where they seem to understand that good farmland is important to their agricultural lifestyle. Nationally, the agricultural lifestyle has been disappearing since about 1910 to 1920. Farms are often operated by mega farmers. It is said Bill Gates is the largest owner of farmland in the US. Chinese investors, however owns more than Gates does. Geographer Yi-Fu Tuan once said that we value things we like and important to us. Iowa, quite literally, values farmland as important. I doubt Ray Kinsella would plow under Iowa corn to make a baseball field today.

The intelligentsia and elites in the nation often seem to discount people in our nation's rural areas. The elites view them as parochial, out of touch, if not deplorable. The values and way of life of the rural cohort are downplayed if not degraded. I have to say, I looked somewhat out of place at the bar in Festina. No area is static, but it seems that these small towns are close. And, change that is occurring, depopulation in many cases, is not good. Time may have passed by these small Iowa communities in terms of service and retail icons (Culver's and Kwik Trip) so common in everyplace America. Their small, old downtowns, now predominantly empty or with many former storefronts now put to noncommercial uses, harken to an age when business was along a main street, and where people walked rather than drove. When persons valued a locally owned shop tended by a merchant who was a neighbor. These old values represent an America that is long past. These values are as fleeting as the wind over the corn growing on the sloped fields of Iowa's driftless area.