Welcome to the Ruth Suckow Memorial Association (RSMA) Website 

This website is dedicated to the work of noted Iowa author Ruth Suckow and her husband Ferner Nuhn. She was a famous writer with Iowa roots; this website was created by the Ruth Suckow Memorial Association (RSMA) to celebrate her literary legacy, and to help readers find information about her life and work--as well as provide access to some of her short stories. 

To read more about their remarkable relationship, go to the page Ruth and Ferner.

2026 Annual Meeting, RSMA at the Hearst Center for the Arts, Saturday, September 12th, 2026.

The Iowa Digital Heritage website is a rich resource! https://www.iowaheritage.org/

You can search for the Suckow collection or type in the title of the short story.

https://www.iowaheritage.org/search/index/page/2?query=Ruth+Suckow

Includes 8 of the 14 short stories found in Iowa Interiors. You can download them and read them for yourself.

Since copies of this book are getting harder to find, here is a list of the Contents of Iowa Interiors. You can read most of it online, and we're going to scan in the other stories.

1. A Start in Life 

2. A Homecoming

3. The Daughter 

4. The Top of the Ladder

5. Mame

6. Uprooted

7. Renters

8. Retired

9. A pilgrim and a stranger

10. A Rural Community -- 

11. Just him and her

12. The Resurrection

13. Wanderers

14. An investment for the future 

15. Four generations -- IDH

16. Golden Wedding -- we're sending a copy to the Iowa Digital Heritage archive.

Come back here for the Agenda and more details about our day!

Who are we?

The Ruth Suckow Memorial Association (RSMA) was founded in 1966 by Ferner Nuhn, Georgia Nuhn, and a group of friends in Earlville, Iowa, where Ruth once lived and launched her Orchard Apiary beekeeping and honey business to support herself as a writer.  

We're a small non-profit dedicated to educating the public about Iowa's first feminist author. We have a heart for teachers and are helping digitize Suckow's short stories and novels for free use on the Iowa Digital Heritage site. We offer scholarships to help support teachers and students. We also support publishing new editions of some of her novels, thanks to one of our members, Jim O'Loughlin and his publishing company.

Have an idea about to incorporate one Suckow's short stories in one of your classes? We're giving scholarships to teachers. Above, left. Here is a very simple example to the right, when I taught Literature classes at Hawkeye Community College and incorporated 'A Rural Community' into the short story unit.

Pictures from the 2025 Meeting. Upper left, The "Nice Girls" Panel. Upper right, Lyz Lenz, speaker.

Upper left, the Radio play version of the ending of Odyssey. Upper Right, Panel discussion on the conclusion of the story.

The Suckow Traveling Exhibit

The Ruth Suckow Memorial Association, with the support of Humanities Iowa, is pleased to announce the creation of a Traveling Exhibit celebrating the life and work of Iowa novelist and short story writer Ruth Suckow, who lived from 1892 to 1960. 

We launched the Traveling Exhibit on January 1, 2024, as part of the Centennial Celebration of Suckow’s first novel, Country People. Host sites are now being scheduled for 2026 and 2026.

2026

April 12 – May 17 (five weeks) – Gibson Public Library

Libraries that have expressed interest in hosting and received an Application Form

Albia Public Library * 

Knoxville Public Library * Montezuma Public Library *

Ruthven Public Library

Visit the new Suckow Traveling Exhibit page

Officers for 2024-2025

President:  Barbara Lounsberry

Vice President:  Jim Schaap              

Secretary:         Sue Hummel

Treasurer:  Mike Dargan 

Webmaster: Cherie Dargan

If any questions, please contact our Treasurer, Mike Dargan.  treasurer@ruthsuckow.org

Looking for the membership form?

Click here.