Eldon Makes the News!

Eldon in the news!

Last week I provided a link to the Ottumwa Courier’s coverage of a pie baking class taught at Cardinal HS by my neighbor in the Gothic house. Since then it’s come to my attention that the event was also reported on by the Fairfield Daily Ledger on December 16. Beth’s activity in the community is bringing more positive attention to Eldon!

Iowa blogger ‘Walkaboutdoc’ and friend visit the Gothic house but unfortunately the Center is closed. See the parody photo they took using their tripod, and read about the doctor’s impression of how time has changed the area.

The Daily Nonpareil of Council Bluffs, Iowa published an article on December 19 about Grant Wood’s 1927 mural in the city’s Hotel Chieftain. The mural was hung in the lobby of the Pottawattamie County Courthouse last Saturday.

“An Omaha art consultant believes that one segment of the mural Wood painted for the Hotel Chieftain’s Corn Room – a segment now owned by US Bank and put on loan to the Bluffs Arts Council – “previews the ‘American Gothic.’”” Read more.

Emma Lee Godfrey, also from Council Bluffs, had her poem Grant Wood’s Iowa published in Lyrical Iowa 2010. The book has been published annually for 65 years by the Iowa Poetry Association.

Happy holidays all! I leave you with Ms. Godfrey’s words.

Grant Wood’s Iowa

With the strokes of his brush
painter Grant Wood published
a show for the world about
his home state, Iowa.

His most famous painting
American Gothic, portrayed
the architecture, the landscape,
and the hard working people.

His hilly landscapes dotted
with trees bore his unique style
and gave viewers the experience
of Iowa just as surely as
the French painter, Monet, welcomed
viewers to his country gardens
with his studies of light and color.

Grant Wood painted what he
knew best and made a record
of the cornfields and pumpkins,
the hills, and the people
as they were in his time.