The Hartigs

Also published as "The New Iowan," The Chronicle, 10-15-2009


In 1962 Jack and Francina Hartig, my grandparents, left their life in Barnum, Iowa to move to California. As the story goes, it was a bitter winter when Jack and Fran auctioned off their belongings and loaded three kids in the car for a nonstop drive to The Golden State. Their oldest child was twelve years-old and grew up to be my mother, Nancy.

My move to Iowa, on the other hand, involved neither an auction nor a cold winter. In the sweltering June heat of California, I hauled a loaded pallet jack back and forth as my husband fork-lifted all our belongings into a semi-truck. What we had in common with my grandparents was leaving everyone we knew and loved, along with some internal drive for a different life.

My grandfather passed away in California twenty years ago, followed five years later by my grandmother. The family I have remaining in Iowa is mostly in Manson, including my great-aunt Sally who is my grandmother’s only sister. On visits to Manson I’m always told how everyone cried and cried when Jack and Fran left for such a far away place. I know there are a few in California who are feeling this way about my move.

Until this past weekend, I had only found time to visit Aunt Sally once since my move. I was excited to see her on Sunday because she invited me to an 80th birthday party for one of my Grandma Fran’s best friends from the Barnum days. We headed to the Clare Community Center for birthday cake and coffee. Aunt Sally showed my husband and me around like celebrities, explaining I was Francina’s granddaughter who had just moved from California to Odebolt. Reactions were mixed – I looked like my grandmother, it was something in my eyes, I had my mother’s round face, I must have “a little Hartig” in me. One reaction was common: that it was wonderful how we had “come back.”

How could I have come back to a place I never left? I guess it’s flattering that people think I’ve made the family circle complete after 47 years. That fits well with the answer I’ve been giving when Odebolt residents ask me where I am from. “I’m from right here,” I say. I haven’t left home because I’ve come home.


Copyright Rachel Burns 2009