Iowa

Stefanie Sargnagels Blick auf die USA ist so unverwechselbar wie ihr Schreiben: Sarkastisch, schonungslos ehrlich und doch voll Sympathie bringt sie uns das ländliche Amerika nahe und berichtet nebenbei herzerwärmend über die Lebensnotwendigkeit von Frauenfreundschaften. 2022 tauscht Stefanie Sargnagel widerstrebend das bequeme Wiener Sofa gegen ein Flugticket in die USA ein. In Iowa soll sie an einem College mitten im Nirgendwo Creative Writing unterrichten.

A Sweeping History of the Great State of Iowa From ancient burial mounds along the Mississippi to towering wind turbines across the prairie, Iowa's story is one of constant transformation and enduring resilience. In this sweeping narrative, Daniel Hardy traces the remarkable journey of the Hawkeye State from its earliest Native American inhabitants through its emergence as America's agricultural heartland and into its modern role as a leader in renewable energy and presidential politics. Hardy masterfully weaves together the grand sweep of history with intimate human stories—from the ...

Two bright futures. Two senseless murders. One state left in shock. In the summer of 2018, Iowa was rocked by the disappearance of Mollie Tibbetts, a college student out for a run in her small town. For five agonizing weeks, her family, friends, and the entire nation held its breath—until her killer led police to a shallow grave in a cornfield. Just weeks later, another tragedy unfolded. Celia Barquin Arozamena, a champion golfer with a promising future, was brutally murdered on a quiet morning at her university’s golf course. She never saw her killer coming. These weren’t crimes of ...

Tall Tales and Cornstalks is Iowa like you’ve never seen it. A place where ghost steamboats drift silently upriver, bulls bend rivers with their horns, and something with wings once clawed its way out of a coal mine near Van Meter. This isn’t your eighth-grade state history. Here, you’ll meet cryptids that lurk in cornfields, angels that turn black as night, and a hermit in the cliffs who may or may not have been talking to God. Some of these stories are straight out of newspaper clippings. Some come from the dusty corners of folklore. And a few? Well, they just felt too good not to ...

An Epic Tale of Adventure and Courage, of white water rapids, hostile Indians, freezing snows, lack of food and water, moving 500-pound wagons over the Rocky Mountains... In 1856, a dream of a new life in the Salt Lake Valley propels 500 English converts into an extraordinary adventure. Lacking funds for a traditional journey, they devise a daring plan: sail to Boston, take a train to Iowa City, and then, with hand-built carts, embark on a grueling 1,300-mile trek to their promised land. Leading this audacious expedition is Edmund Lovell Ellsworth, chosen by the church’s president for his...

As foreclosure fragments her family, five-year-old Mildred and her three siblings find refuge with her grandparents enjoying a modest retirement. When the "little heathens" flush the seniors and their child-rearing skills out of retirement, the grandparents deploy tough but loving bedtime schedules, Bible and prayer routines, and plenty of character-building chores. Having no electricity or indoor plumbing and with little heat or money on the farm, Mildred learns to find joy in the priceless blessings of life.

Beneath the rolling cornfields and along the forgotten highways of America’s Heartland, darkness is never far from the surface. Are you ready to uncover the most chilling murders, unsolved mysteries, and infamous serial killers that have haunted the Midwest for over a century? True Crime and Tragedy in the Midwest plunges readers into unforgettable stories of murder, mystery, and tragedy from across the Midwest, each case more gripping and real than the last.Inside You’ll Discover: Notorious Serial Killers: Encounter the twisted minds of John Wayne Gacy, H. H. Holmes, the Bloody Benders...

The undertow of the Great Depression becomes poignantly personal as we experience the travails of Leora and Clabe Wilson, a displaced Iowa farm family. Gritty determination fuels this family’s journey of loss and hope, a reflection of what many American families endured during those challenging times. In this true story the Wilsons slowly slide into unemployment and poverty. Leora must find ways to keep her dreams alive while making a haven for her flock of seven children in one run-down house after another.

This audiobook is not the usual boring history listen. It's a fast-paced, easy-to-listen-to, behind the scenes look at the making of Iowa and Illinois focusing on Eastern Iowa and Western Illinois. When you're done listening to it, you might even scratch your head and think - "Oh, yeah! That's what Mrs. So, and So tried to tell me back in seventh-grade history class." And, I tell you what. We're going to skip all the boring parts, like dates, politics, and founding fathers. We're going to go right to the fun stuff... Indian Wars. Murder. Suicide. Robberies. Killer storms.

In "When Dawn Hides Shadows, it Unveils Secrets," the tranquil town of Sunrise, Iowa, is rocked by an explosion at Millie’s Diner. Jack Wagner, a courageous local, risks his life to retrieve a mysterious package from the blaze, sparking a quest for answers. Set in 1933 during the Great Depression, the story weaves through the lives of the town's colorful residents, each hiding secrets that link to the diner’s fate. As Jack and Sheriff Jim Sandusky investigate, they unravel a tangled web of intrigue, suspicion, and hidden vendettas. With a backdrop of community resilience and the pursuit...

Gideon Clarke is a man on a quest. He is out to prove to the world, as his father tried before him, that the world-champion Chicago Cubs traveled to Onamata, Iowa, in the summer of 1908 for an exhibition game against all-stars from the Iowa Baseball Confederacy, an amateur league. The game, which was to be short, pleasant, and the Cubs thought, one-sided, turned into a titanic battle of over 2,000 innings, played mostly in the pouring rain. This game is not on the record books.

Murder, madness, and the macabre in Iowa? You've got to be kidding! When most people think of Iowa, their minds conjure up pigs, cornfields, and crotchety old farmers. But ax murders, mass killings, and ghostly sightings - those atrocities are reserved for big cities like Chicago or LA, not a little burg like Villisca, Iowa - population 2,000. Gruesome Iowa is a collection of true-life stories - most of them rescued from old newspaper accounts published over 100 years ago. Only a few of the events in this audiobook - such as the Villisca Ax Murders have ever made it into print.

During Leora Goff’s early decades, she gathered the tenacity, optimism and hope she would need throughout her long life. When she married Clabe Wilson, they became forged into parents who would shepherd their own family through two more great eras of world and local history--the Great Depression and WWII.

This very short eBook, about a 10 minute read, is the inspiring true story of Susan Collins. In 1875, at age 24, Susan became the first African American student at Upper Iowa University in Fayette, Iowa. A devout Christian, she was one of the first recruits of Rev. William Taylor for missionary work in Africa. Susan spent 35 years of faithful service in Africa before returning home to a hero's welcome in Fayette. During "retirement" she was a popular speaker in schools and churches across Iowa as she shared with children and adults about her time in Africa.

The construction timeline of Terrace Hill, the Iowa Governor's mansion in Des Moines, has a lot of holes in the official history. Questioning Terrace Hill talks about past research, the lack of blueprints or original construction documents, the lack of labor in the area at the time, and the actual cost of the Second Empire mansion. Further exploration is done regarding quarrying, brick making and construction technology during that era. The book goes into the lack of early photographs, the puffed up story in local newspapers of BF Allen, and other stories about the building and grounds.

Olov fled to America after murdering his parents. In his wake, he left a path of dead bodies. Once in America, he left another path of victims on his way to the Midwest. Settling in what would later become Iowa, he begins a new life hiding in plain sight. He sells parcels of his land to settlers who build towns where they settle.

Welcome to the Hawkeye State! Learn about Iowa's history, geography, weather, people, and more in this book that's all about our 29th state.

In Corn, Caucuses, and Catastrophes, Jordan Blake Carter takes listeners on a rollicking ride through Iowa’s past and present. From the Honey War fought over beehives to penny auctions that defied the banks, from floods that drowned cities to butter cows that drew crowds, Iowa has always been equal parts resilient and ridiculous. This is the state that feeds the nation, humiliates presidential candidates at the State Fair, and rebuilds after every disaster with casseroles in hand.

In this riveting tale of looming apocalypse, Pup is living off the grid for the summer with her parents on an island off the coast of Maine, when all three of them face the hardest decisions of their lives. Across the water one night they can see homes burning and hear gunfire. Pup and her parents, with their goat and chickens and garden and their dog, Opey, have no contact with the mainland, except for boat runs into town.

Three daughters and their husbands are pulled into a tangle of love, jealousy, and fear when their father, Larry Cook, grows too old to manage the family's fertile thousand-acre farm. As each couple struggles with their own tragedies and challenges, they know their father is judging them in light of the weighty inheritance that hovers within their reach.