Suckow's Country People

Ruth Suckow's niece has given us permission to post one of Suckow's books, Country People. However, due to space, we will arrange for it to be posted on the Iowa Digital Heritage page.

Country People  Originally published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1924.

Reflections on Country People by Cherie Dargan

I'd like to reflect on what drew me to Ruth Suckow's writing, and then use a review to talk about how Suckow and her first novel were received. Finally, I'll tie that together with my experience of writing a fiction series and explain how Suckow helped me in the writing process.

Part one

I've told the story of Mike taking me to my first Ruth Suckow Memorial Association's Annual Meeting, which was held in Earlville that year. We drove down with Barbara and Harvey Hess. I tried to read some short stories on the way. Almost immediately, I fell in love with Suckow's writing because she wrote about the Iowa my mother grew up in. It was the world my grandmother and great grandmother inhabited, with her portrayal of small towns—like Garwin. Her detailed descriptions of small-town life, church events, the countryside, daily routines, and the resilient people of Iowa made me smile in recognition.

Suckow biographer Leedice Kissane observed that although Ruth Suckow was classified as a Realist and a Regionalist, “she was something more. I think that “something more” is Suckow's remarkable storytelling abilities, and her realistic portrayal of characters—especially women. 

Suckow focused on portraying characters as real people, living the ordinary lives of the common folks. Her vivid descriptions of the countryside made readers visualize Grant Wood’s paintings of Iowa farm fields. 

I found a lovely quote from The Christian Science Monitor that compared Wood’s 1936 painting “Spring Turning,” with Suckow’s first novel, Country People, 1924. “The farmer with his team of horses which accent the foreground of the painting might have been her fictional Iowa farmer, August Kaetterhenry, out early on a spring morning to plow his lush field.” The writer and painter shared “an eye for the minutiae of everyday life as well as a deep love for the beauty of the Iowa farmland.”  

Country People is a quiet book that details one family's experience, beginning with their courtship and marriage. August and Emma build a life together, have children, send their sons off to the Great War, and wait for their return. Their adult children marry and give them grandchildren. The family cares for Emma's aging parents. August and Emma retire from farming and move to town, where August builds them a lovely home. 

Then they settle into town life until Emma is ailing, and they go to Rochester, to the Mayo clinic. She has surgery and recovers. But August is bored and misses the farm. He doesn't want to join clubs the way Emma has and made friends. He goes out to help Carl and overdoes in the heat. It soon becomes his turn to go to Mayo, but there is no surgery—he has high blood pressure and needs to watch his diet. August dies and is revered as an esteemed resident. Emma adjusts to life alone and takes pride in her children and grandchildren, especially Junior, an adorable baby. She takes comfort in the friendship with another widow and they often sit together at night and talk.  

IV: Mrs. Emma Kaetterhenry

" Her personality, smothered and silent for many years, was blossoming out, very faintly and timidly, but a little, enough to shed a kind of light of content and freedom over this quiet end of life. She might be lonely later on, but she was not now. She was a Stille, not a Kaetterhenry. That showed now. She could be happy pottering about on her own devices."  

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Today we tell novelists to create a web presence, using social media, as they publish their first novel.

However, the person writing this review asserts that people already know Ruth Suckow's work in magazines, like The Midland, edited by John T. Frederick.

https://cdn.theatlantic.com/media/archives/1924/09/134-3/132385892.pdf

The Atlantic's Bookshelf, September 1924

Country People, by Ruth Suckow. New' York: Alfred A. Knopf. 1924. 12mo. viii+205 pp. $2.00. I

Country People, the first novel of Ruth Suckow, has been described by her publisher as ‘a simple and poignant chronicle of the dull and monotonous lives of a small community of farmers in Iowa.’ 

The wonder is that Miss Suckow’ has been able to invigorate so comprehensive a chronicle. This she has done powerfully; the novel is direct, beautiful in its simplicity, and alive even when monotonous. And certainly the German temperament lends itself to monotony. It is sombre, deliberate, inarticulate — qualities which become impressive under Miss Suckow’s treatment. In her book there is no wit, no fun, but rather a grim humor that stirs pity. 

Edward Augustus. W e e k s , The Atlantic editor. 

Finally, I thought of Ruth Suckow's famous phrase, "Just Suppose" as I worked on my fiction series Grandmother's Treasures. I got the idea several years ago to tell stories with my family quilts. But it took Covid to finish Book One, and then I wrote Books Two, Three, Four, and Five. Since then, the first four books have been published, and I'm revising Book Five. When I began the process of brainstorming the series, I found myself saying, "What if? (my take on Suckow's phrase, 'Just Suppose'.

So, what if a grandmother left her only granddaughter a gift that unlocked the secrets from WW2 when three sisters went to California to build bombers and nurse injured sailors?

What if another grandmother found an old quilt while helping her sisters-in-law clean out Grandma Mary's house, and a great aunt calls to tell her to burn it, but she doesn't. What if it dates to the American Civil War?

What if Gracie, the granddaughter, and the main character, juggles three jobs? She teaches at the local community college, helps organize exhibits at the county museum, and writes articles for the Jubilee Times, her family's newspaper?  

What if Grandma Grace met Ruth Suckow and bought all her books, and Gracie grew up knowing about her, and used some of her short stories in her literature classes?

I had fun writing my series, and I included Ruth Suckow in several of the books.

PART ONE I:August Kaetterhenry's Place9II:The Kaetterhenrys14III:Emma Stille32 

PART TWO I:The Farm and the Children53II:Grandma and Grandpa67III:Loosening Up82IV:The War100 

PART THREE I:Operation115II:Town133 

PART FOUR I:Retired Farmers151II:Obituary167III:The Estate185IV:Mrs. Emma Kaetterhenry199