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UPDATE (April 5, 2021)
Helen has distributed the last of the 100 sets of her book that she had printed and bound at the end of 2020. She is considering ordering a second run of the book but will decide on a plan in which she probably will wait until a sufficient number of people commit to buying the book before she places her order. Check back for further information about her plans. If interested in obtaining a set of the books, write to her and tell her your intentions. Thanks.
Helen’s book, The Road I Grew Up On: Requiem for a Vanishing Era, is a two-volume anthology written from a liberal perspective and consists of regional and neighborhood history, personal memoir, spiritual insights, other opinions, and both grayscale and color photographs. The seeds for the project were sown in fall 1989 followed by years of Helen’s taking photographs, shooting video footage, recording interviews, conducting other research, and writing about the neighborhood and culture where she grew up. The first volume (344 pages) consists of material completed in 2004, while the second volume (196 pages) consists of chapters written in 2019 and one completed on July 31, 2020, about living in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The price for the two-volume set of the 11×8.5 inch paperback books is $80, which is the cost per set to print and bind 100 sets for the first edition. Helen is considering donating copies to the public libraries in Ames and her home county. If interested in obtaining more information about the book, including ordering information, please contact Helen.
ON-LINE DIGITAL VERSION
The Iowa State University Parks Library Digital Press has posted Helen’s book on its Internet server, and the public can access the two volumes free of charge. Volume One Volume Two
NAVIGATING ISU DIGITAL PRESS SOFTWARE
When you go to one of the book sites, have patience while getting a feel for how the university’s software for on-line books in PDF format works. The best strategy in Windows 10 seems to be:
1. Avoid using the blue “download PDF” button under the title of the book because that could mean downloading 152 megabytes for Volume One and 73 megabytes for Volume Two. That’s fine if you want an entire book, but it will take several minutes and the file will not be as easy to navigate.
2. Instead click on the blue-lettered “chapters” link toward the bottom of the page. It will take you to a list of the chapters for that volume. Click on the chapter you want to read. You will come to a summary page for that chapter. Click on the blue “download chapter” button.
3. Find the a small white box just above the Windows start button in the extreme lower left of your monitor. It will contain the name of the file. Choose an option such as “open in system viewer.” Enjoy sampling or reading the entire chapter.
4. When you are ready to find other chapters, go back to the browser tab for that chapter and under the lefthand image of the book, click the blue menu button that says “Back to The Road I Grew Up On …” And from there, choose the blue-lettered “chapters” link again.
I love reading books about rural life, books such as Mildred Armstrong Kalish’s
Little Heathens
and Ronald Jager’s
Eighty Acres
, but most of those accounts are not honest about the
disadvantages of rural life. Helen’s willingness to admit the “nostalgic and disenchantment, the
love and disdain” is the reason
The Road I Grew Up On
is so fascinating.
Helen’s examination of the limited agricultural opportunities for women farmers is especially
fascinating. As she now manages her Pocahontas County farmland and has transformed her
Ames properties to a delightfully diverse urban farm, she certainly is a triumphant example of
what women can accomplish.
Helen’s book is not only a gift for today but for future generations, for those who may come to it
to learn about an ancestor, old farming techniques, land ownership patterns, changing gender
identities and much more. 
Helen's words give us a look at life, community, hard work, pain, joy and struggles of family
farms in a day when the street address for a rural home was simply, "Rural Route." Where her
words stop, her striking photos deepen the story. As she reflects on the changes in her lifetime
from vibrant rural communities and diverse landscapes to big Ag and the expansive monoculture
of row crop farming, one can only imagine what the next 75 years have in store for Iowa. While
Helen's story is about Iowa and Iowans, it also provides a chronicle of a nostalgic time in
America's rural agricultural history that is still idealized. Her book, thirty years in the making, is
part documentary and part autobiography. It's a story of diminishing community, yet finding
community, rural challenges and optimism. Helen is a deep thinker, well-attuned to her feelings,
who lives a life toward healing the land and people through her art, storytelling and relationships.
Her story is a legacy about doing what is right for the land and the people, and that gives us all
hope.
A deeply personal and thoughtful history of rural Iowa at a crossroads. Interweaving family
history, personal narrative, oral history, and a keen photographer's eye, Helen's portrait of a
country road frames the stories of farm families in order to explore traditional themes of
ancestry, community, and rebirth, as well as very timely issues such as sustainability, patriarchy,
and gender. Iowans will immediately feel at home on this road, one way looking forward to an
unfolding future, the other looking back to a well-traveled past.
The Road I Grew Up On: Requiem for a Vanishing Era
traces the relationship among people and
place in the light of changing technologies, values, and political-economic context. We meet
those who gained title to the land; and those who farmed it as tenants and owners - not just the
farmers, who the norm of the 1950s and before were assumed to be men, but the families; the
institutions that brought families together; and changes in the land and lives of those who had
lived along the northwest Iowa road. The descriptions of places and people are amplified through
photographs illuminating each era and family over time. The narrator's perspective of link over
time, reflecting on the influence of social norms and expectations, huge changes in the socio-
technical regime, and alternatives to that regime, makes this both a memoir and a morality tale
about the structures that rend people and place asunder, as well as the values and innovative
practices that bring them together. This book is an excellent mix of history and biographies, and
a joy to read.
Told with honesty and deep reflection, this book contemplates rural life and agriculture's past
and future in Iowa. Helen weaves together personal memories, agriculture and rural life trends
with accompanying photographs, letters and drawings, to give readers a glimpse of how
multifaceted farm life in Iowa is. Through her narrative Helen tackles death, gender, land
stewardship, and implications of modern agriculture. Helen eloquently describes the way these
big issues intersect her life, and how her thoughts on life's big topics continually evolve. Helen's
openness to share provides inspiration that we can all seek to do better, by learning from our own
experiences and those of our fellow persons.
Like her expressive photographs, Helen Gunderson presents a clear-eyed vision, an unvarnished
perspective, showing how her Iowa roots left a lasting impact on her life. Using
The Road I
Grew Up On
as her platform, she spent decades documenting the evolution of modern rural life
and takes the reader along on a transformative spiritual journey. For many, Iowa's land represents
a sanctuary, a sacred place of beauty and potential. Once populated and revered by the likes of
her ancestors, the familiar shared heritage of farm life is now erased from the landscape,
conquered by seemingly uncontrollable forces. What remains across time are immutable parallels
between the past and remnants of once prosperous rural communities grounded by generational
ties.
Use the form below to order a single set of the book online.
