Tuesday, at the DAHM

Hamlin Garland

Old Jane Ripley grew so tired of her nightly dreams that she finally decided to act on them. Ever since they’d set up homestead, she and her husband had worked themselves half to death to prove up their claim. No matter, she says, she’s going home to visit her family. It’s been a dream for way too long.

The idea of her taking a vacation on her own is plum crazy, her husband tells her. Leave the homestead and take a train all the way to New York state? —all by your lonesome? He won’t hear of it, he says. He can’t imagine such a blame foolish thing.

And so begins “Mrs. Ripley’s Trip,” a comic short story by Hamlin Garland, whose tales of rural America, mid-19th century, are classics. “Mrs. Ripley’s Trip” is a hoot—part Garrison Keiller, part cartoon, one story a collection titled Main-Traveled Roads, by Garland, who, as a boy in the 1860s, lived just outside of Osage, Iowa.

Not long ago, on a trip to the other side of the state, Jim Schaap, I stopped in Osage, where a museum docent told me I could drive by the old Garland homestead. It was still there. When I did, I got interested, once again, in Hamlin Garland.

The Garland home--Osage, IA

We do have a history. Fifty years ago, when I decided to try my hand at writing, I started with little stories I found moving in the histories that emerged from Dutch-American settlements throughout what Garland called "the middle border." To be able to talk about life in the 1870s, I needed to understand what farm life was on newly created homestead. Boy's Life on the Prairie was a great help in establishing the "givens" of the story I needed to learn, the infrastructure required to get historical fiction right.

When I read “Mrs. Ripley’s Trip” and finally stopped giggling, I figured the story would make a rollicking good readers theater piece: a gutsy old woman wanting to visit family a half a continent away, a plan her old grouch of a husband simply can’t abide.

When the Dutch American Heritage Museum Board discussed the whole crazy project, they thought enlisting Jeff and Karen Barker to read the main characters would make an unforgettable evening’s entertainment. We asked, the Barkers said yes, and you can smile your way through Garland’s story for yourself at the DAHM, Tuesday, July 11, and 6:30.

The Barkers require no Orange City introduction. Karen Bohm Barker and Jeff Barker, Emeritus Professors of Theatre, taught at Northwestern for over 30 years, impacting countless students. In their retirement, they are building a home—Barnabury—on Karen’s family farm in Illinois. Jeff is writing a book on parables, and, among other ventures, they teach a Doctor of Ministry cohort at Western Theological Seminary.

It’s wonderful to have them back for this “world premiere” performance—a classic old short story redone as readers theater and performed by masters of stage craft. Ought to be fun.

Tuesday, July 11, at 6:30, at the Dutch American Heritage Museum, located at 120 3rd St SW in Orange City.