For the Ruth Suckow show at the Hawarden Library

Some of Suckow's books

I'm scheduled to give a little talk at the library in Hawarden soon, when the local Historical Society and the Chamber of Commerce meet to present a new exhibit in the library, an exhibit which honors the life of a novelist who grew up in Hawarden at the turn of the 20th century, Ruth Suckow. This is what I'm going to say. 

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The first time I ever saw the name Ruth Suckow was in a book handed to me, an anthology of literature text for a class called "Introduction to Literature." “A Start in Life,” is the painful story of a girl who is “working out,” that is, literally housekeeping for a couple of greater means, at least sufficient means to hire poor country girl to take over household duties while Mom recovers from having a child.

I had no idea that kind of underage employment existed until my mother-in-law told me she did it herself when she should have been in eighth grade. Instead, her widowed mother, during the height of the Depression, sent her oldest daughter to “work out” on nearby farms and thereby bring in some family income. Her father had lost a battle with diabetes before his fortieth birthday, which left her mother with a houseful of kids and no financial means. Little Bertha Visser’s employment in households down the road was nearly the family's only source of income at a time when there were no government-sponsored safety nets.

Somehow, somewhere, I read that this writer, Ruth Suckow, was from Hawarden, Iowa, just down the road from the town where I lived. Regardless of whether or not I liked the story, that she was born here, in Sioux County, Iowa, made her really interesting to me, although not interesting enough to make me read more from the books she had written.

Then maybe 15  years ago, a man I didn’t know called to tell me he thought I’d be interested in a meeting that would be held right here—in the Hawarden Public Library, a meeting of the Ruth Suckow Society. He was right—it was interesting in the way an English teacher would find it interesting: it included a really in-depth discussion of The John Wood Case, a novel that most Ruth Suckow fans believe has its source in a Hawarden story she remembered from her childhood.

Strange thing happened. I’ve been a member of Ruth Suckow Society ever since, and it’s the Ruth Suckow Society who is sponsoring this library exhibit, an exhibit which is having its debut right here in the town where Ms. Suckow was born and reared, her hometown. Her father was a preacher in a church right here in town. (By the way, he left a memoir himself which is fascinating if  you’re interested at all in the history of Christianity in small towns like Hawarden. Much of it is set here.)

I don’t need to tell you much about Ruth Suckow. You live in a town which celebrates her life and work by preserving her childhood home. What’s more, if you don’t know much about her, this library exhibit is meant to bring her alive, in a way, to tell you about her and her life here and in a variety of towns in Iowa. Maddie says the library has multiple copies of Ruth's work.

Let me just be candid here. Ruth Suckow doesn’t write stories people love. She writes about people the way she believed they are and were, not the way we would like them to be. Which is not to say she took a wrecking ball to Iowans. Not at all. She finds salf-of-the-earth Iowans wonderful and fascinating—and maybe a bit peculiar. She knows how to find the weaknesses we’d rather not admit we’ve hidden away, and she knows how to show them to the world.

“A Start in Life” is not a happy story. It explores just a few weeks in the life of a little girl who sheds her childhood when she is employed by a good family who consider her an employee and not, well, a little girl. It’s a story that outlines the kind of experience we all have as each of move from the innocence of youth into the far more difficult world of adulthood.

Let me just list a few factors which make Ruth Suckow’s writing difficult. First, it’s not always happy. “A Start in Life” is kind of sad really, not a joy.

Second, Ruth Suckow is a demanding. She wants you to think, not just experience a story. It’s entirely possible you could read a story, put down the book, and ask yourself why on earth she wrote what she did. She wants you to do that. None of her characters are superheros, and the Devil in the stories is in all of us. Hers is a complex world.

Third, she probably writes more words than she should. The detail can be overwhelming sometime, even though the detail is being drawn from the lives of all of your grandparents and great-grandparents.

But Ruth Suckow is worth the investment, especially here, in Hawarden, where she grew up, and where, on some special days, you can walk through her house—and where the library has multiple copies of her books.

But as a member of the Ruth Suckow Society—most of the members are from eastern Iowa—so I might say, as a representative of the biggest fans of Ruth Suckow's stories, I want to thank you, Maddie, and library board and staff for allowing us to bring in this exhibit meant to honor your Ruth Suckow.

We exist in admiration of her work, and we hope, by way of this exhibit, to spread once again great interest in your Ruth and her thoughtful stories spun from her deep love for small-town life in Iowa, a love planted in her by a childhood right here in Hawarden.