The Ruth Suckow Memorial Association (RSMA) was established in 1966 to preserve the legacy of Iowa author Ruth Suckow. It highlights her accomplishments, including establishing memorials in Earlville, Iowa where she lived and wrote. The RSMA has held annual meetings for over 40 years and more recently created a website and social media presence. It continues to promote Suckow's works and organize events honoring her contributions to American literature.

1. The Ruth Suckow Memorial
Association (RSMA)
Cherie Dargan
Associate Professor, Communications
Hawkeye Community College
Waterloo, Iowa 50704

2. Overview of the presentation
• We will look at the origins of our
organization, including some of the
early leaders.
• We will highlight some of the
accomplishments of the past 40
years, such as the centennial
celebration in 1992.
• We will also note the more recent
developments, as we’ve used the
internet to create a website & use
social media.

3. Who was Ruth Suckow?
• A writer from Iowa who lived from
August 6, 1892-January 23, 1960.
• She wrote about the ordinary
people living in small towns and on
the farm.
• She published her short stories,
poetry, essays, and novels in the
decades between 1924 and 1959.

4. Ruth Suckow, 1892-1960

5. Overview of Ruth Suckow’s life
• Ruth was a famous Iowa author who wrote during the 1920s-1950s
• She lived in a number of cities in Iowa: her father was a minister and
they moved several times to take on a new church
• She also traveled extensively around the country, living in New
York, New Mexico, Iowa, Massachusetts, Colorado, Arizona and
California first as a single woman and then after marrying Ferner
Nuhn
• They settled in Cedar Falls for almost a decade, where Ferner
helped his father with the family business
• She wrote richly descriptive stories about the lives of people in the
small towns and farms of Iowa during the early 1900s

6. Overview of her life, cont.
• She taught at the local university in Cedar Falls (Iowa Teachers'
College, which later became the University of Northern Iowa).
• She wrote a dozen books, and after her death, two were reprinted
by the University of Iowa press. An additional book was published,
collecting 11 of her short stories.
• In addition, she wrote numerous articles, reviews, and essays.
• She was published in a number of popular magazines.

7. Suckow's husband: Ferner Nuhn
• Literary critic, artist and author
• He was younger than Ruth but
they soon found they had a lot
in common, and enjoyed
spending time together.
• After they met, she wrote to a
friend that Ferner likes cats
too!

8. They met in Earlville
• Ruth learned about the apiary
(beekeeping) business in
Denver while attending
college; she kept bees in
Earlville for 6 years or more,
spending her winters in New
York city, writing.
• Ferner had read her work, and
wrote to ask if he could meet
her.
• After exchanging letters, he
drove his Model T to Earlville
to meet Ruth in 1926.

9. Ferner and Ruth marry
• They married in 1929: he was in his mid 20s and she was in her mid
30s.
• They traveled extensively, going to a number of writers’ workshops
and retreats, living out west in New Mexico and out East in New
England.
• They were friends with Robert and Frances Frost, and other poets,
artists, & writers.

10. Work in Washington, D. C.
• They lived in Washington for two years in the mid 1930s, while
Ferner worked for the Dept. of Agriculture, under fellow Iowan Henry
Wallace.
• He wrote and edited articles, brochures, and other material.
• He also helped Wallace write a book.
• Ruth served on the Farm Tenancy Commission for President
Roosevelt.

11. World War II
• Ruth had not supported the first World War and it created tension
between her and her father.
• She reached out to the conscientious objectors in 1943 and visited
several work camps where they were gathered on the West Coast.
• http://www.powys-lannion.net/Powys/America/Suckow.htm
• A Brief description of their activities and friendships

12. Their life together
• When his father became ill,
Ruth and Ferner returned to
Cedar Falls, Iowa—his
hometown.
• They made friends, got
involved in the community,
and enjoyed their life together
for almost a decade there.

13. Ferner's portrait of Ruth
• This portrait shows Ruth
holding a cat.
• It is part of a series of
portraits done while at a
retreat for writers and
artists.

14. Health Problems
• Ruth developed arthritis and Ferner had allergies, so in the late
1940s they moved west, hoping a milder climate would help both of
them.
• They first settled in Arizona and later moved to Claremont,
California.
• Ruth continued to write.
• Ferner taught at the local college.

15. Retirement to California
• They both became active in
the Friends (Quakers) and
Ferner began writing
pamphlets for the national
organization
• She published her memoir & a
collection of short stories in
1952, Some Others and
Myself.
• In 1959 Viking Press brought
out The John Wood Case, her
last novel, which concerned
an embezzlement case in a
church.

16. Her death
• Ruth died in 1960. She was at work on a new novel at the point of
her death.
• She is buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Cedar Falls, Iowa, next to
her father, William Suckow.
• Source: Wikipedia article on Ruth Suckow

17. Suckow graves in Greenwood Cemetery

18. How did the RSMA get established?
• Ferner worked to ensure that
Ruth’s stories would not be
forgotten.
• The Earlville Library was renamed
the Earlville-Ruth Suckow
Memorial library in 1964, in the
little town where they had met.

19. Ferner marries Georgia
• After Ruth's death in
1960, Ferner remarried a
wonderful woman named
Georgeanna, (or
Georgia) who was also
Ruth's cousin.
• Her husband had died a
few years earlier.

20. Ferner & Georgia’s work
• In 1966, he and Georgia worked with a
group of people to form the Ruth Suckow
Memorial Association (RSMA).
• At first, it was focused only on the group
in Earlville.
• They worked together to preserve Ruth's
legacy, collecting and organizing her
papers for the Special Collections at the
University of Iowa library.

21. Special Collections, Iowa City

22. The Ruth Suckow Memorial Association
• Ferner and Georgia met with a group of people in
Earlville: they discussed Suckow’s characters and
stories and formed the Ruth Suckow Memorial
Association (RSMA) in 1966.
• The RSMA still gathers each June: members come from
all over the Midwest.

23. Memorials to Ruth Suckow
• Ferner and Georgia worked with the Ruth Suckow
Memorial Association to establish several memorials to
Ruth:
• The Park in Earlville, Iowa (on the grounds where Ruth’s
cottage & apiary once stood)
• The Library in Earlville, Iowa
• The birthplace in Hawarden, Iowa

24. Georgia & Ferner die
• Georgeanna Dafoe Nuhn, a founding member of the RSMA, died on
May 28, 1984 in Claremont, California. She was 79 years old. She
is buried in Tecumseh Cemetery, Tecumseh, Johnson County,
Nebraska.
• Ferner moved into a retirement home in Claremont. He died at age
85 in 1989.
• After a funeral in California, his body was returned to Iowa where he
was buried beside his beloved Ruth in Greenwood cemetery in
Cedar Falls.
• However, it wasn’t until 2009 that a headstone matching Ruth’s was
put in place.

25. Suckow’s grave—between Ferner and her
father

26. Hawarden: the Suckow birthplace

27. Earlville: the Ruth Suckow Park

28. Earlville: Ruth Suckow Memorial Library

29. Dedicating the Ruth Suckow Park
• Ferner and Georgia were
there for the dedication of the
Suckow park in Earlville, Iowa
in 1982.
• Here they are with Barbara,
Ferner's niece, who has many
wonderful memories and
stories about her famous Aunt
and Uncle.

30. Highlights of the RSMA’s achievements
• Our group has been blessed with many talented, hard working
people.
• Some have been literature professors or writers, and others have
ordinary people who liked reading Suckow’s stories.
• Members have written about her life and work.
• The group has advocated for several books to be reprinted.
• They also began meeting annually to discuss her work and to –plan
their projects.
• They sponsored a play, “Just Suppose,” in 1992, on the Centennial
of Suckow’s birth.
• They got Suckow’s papers donated to the Special Collections at the
University of Iowa, Iowa City.

31. “Just Suppose: the story of Iowa Novelist Ruth
Suckow”
• Rebecca Christian wrote a
play in 1992, in honor of the
Centennial of Suckow’s birth.
• It was sponsored by the
RSMA & the Hawarden Ruth
Suckow Centennial
Committee, as well as the
Iowa Humanities Board.
• It was a one woman play
performed by Lenore Howard,
and spans 1928 to 1959.
• It was performed on August 6,
1992.

32. Early leaders & scholars in RSMA

33. Pictured on the previous slide
• Clarence Andrews is the gentleman in the light blue jacket on the
front row; he wrote a book about the literary history of Iowa that
included a chapter on Ruth Suckow.
• He titled her chapter, “The Poetry of Place”
• Andrews calls her “close to being the best Iowa writer of fiction…”
• (A Literary History of Iowa, University of Iowa Press, Iowa City,
1972)

34. Leedice Kissane, biographer
• Next to Andrews is Leedice Kissane, seated in the middle of the
front row.
• She wrote the definitive biography of Ruth Suckow, one of the
Twayne’s United States Authors series (1969, New York, Twayne
Publishers)
• Kissane describes Suckow’s writing style as “quiet and restrained, it
was characterized by detachment and almost stark simplicity.”
• She is sometimes called a regional writer and other times as a
realistic writer.
• All of her stories have Iowa settings for the most part.

35. Others in the picture
• Ferner is in the back row, at the far end. The other two men are
Joseph Wall, historian at Grinnell College, and Dale Bentz, from the
University of Iowa Library.
• Clarence and Leedice were both involved with the RSMA and their
efforts as scholars helped to establish her literary legacy.
• Margaret Kiesel, a teacher at Grinnell College, wrote articles about
Suckow, edited its newsletter and served on the RSMA Board. She
is seated on the end of the front row.

36. Why read Ruth Suckow today?
• Today her writing has value for readers who enjoy good storytelling
as well as for social historians looking for details about life in the
early 20th century, particularly in the small towns of Iowa.
• For those of us whose families have lived in Iowa for several
generations, it is also a way to understand the daily lives of our
parents, grand parents, and great grandparents.

37. Her place in American literature
• Suckow is often called a regional writer, but she did not like the
label.
• She said that she wrote about "people, situations, and their
meaning."
• Her stories take place in the small towns and farms of Iowa, but her
characters and storylines are universal.
.

38. Iowa Women's Hall of Fame
1978
• Day, Jacqueline Jacqueline Day
• Houghton, Dorothy Dorothy Houghton
• Pendray, Carolyn Carolyn Pendray
• Suckow, Ruth Ruth Suckow
She was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1978

39. Her books
Country People. New York: Knopf, 1924.
The Odyssey of a Nice Girl. New York: Knopf, 1925.
Iowa Interiors. New York: Knopf, 1926.
The Bonney Family. New York: Knopf, 1928.
Cora. New York: Knopf, 1929.
The Kramer Girls. New York: Knopf, 1930.
Children and Older People. New York: Knopf, 1931.

40. Her books, cont.
The Folks. New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1934.
Carry-Over. New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1936.
New Hope. New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1936.
Some Others and Myself. New York: Rinehart, 1952. [short stories and
"A Memoir"]
The John Wood Case. New York: Viking, 1959.

41. Her Other Work
• She wrote 40 short stories and critical essays
• She also wrote Three novelettes
• She wrote numerous short articles for a variety of
publications

42. Recent accomplishments of RSMA
• Mike Dargan created the first Suckow website in the early 2000s;
Cherie Dargan took it over, and recreated it. (www.ruthsuckow.org)
• We started a blog and later a Facebook page.
• We began posting some of Suckow’s stories for download on the
website, and hope to expand those offerings.
• Mike wrote the Wikipedia article about Ruth Suckow.
• Cherie wrote the Wikipedia article about Ferner.
• We began scanning in old documents and archiving them.

43. www.ruthsuckow.org

44. RSMA Annual Meetings

45. Rural Lit Rally
Rural Lit RALLY, an organization devoted to promoting
the literature of yesterday, found our website the
summer of 2012 and contacted us. http://rurallitrally.org/

46. Rural Lit Rally Project, Fall 2012
• Rural Lit Rally wanted to feature Suckow on their website in August
and September.
• In addition, they wanted to find a way to interact with some readers
about Suckow’s writing.
• Cherie Dargan’s Intro to Literature class at Hawkeye Community
College read one of Ruth Suckow’s stories, “A Rural Community” as
part of their Fiction unit.
• They discussed the story on a special Facebook page with members
of the Rural Lit Rally organization.

47. Rural Lit Rally Project, cont.
• Students were intrigued to find that there
were adults out there who liked to read,
and enjoyed interacting with the Rural Lit
Rally members.
• A few of our RSMA members were also
involved in discussing the story online.
• At the end of the semester, students were
surveyed about the experience, and the
additional discussion resulted in them
remembering more details about the
story.

48. Iowa Public Radio--Talk of Iowa
Several of the participants were interviewed on Iowa Public Radio
about the project: Cherie Dargan, RSMA webmaster, and Dr. Paul
Theobald, Project Director, and his wife Maureen.
It was a great opportunity to discuss Suckow’s life and career, and
promote both organizations and websites.

49. Follow up activity
• Later, Rural Lit Rally put together a
display about Writers with an Iowa
Connection, and sent it to the
Hawkeye Community of College
Library, where it was on display
during the late Spring and summer
of 2013.

50. Rural Lit Rally exhibit at Hawkeye Community
College Library

51. Rural Lit Rally Website
In addition, Cherie was featured on the Rural Lit Rally
website, in an interview about her work with the Ruth
Suckow Memorial Association this Spring; she is the
webmaster for the Ruth Suckow website.

52. Annual meeting 2013
• We have met in several communities for our annual
meeting, including Earlville, Grinnell and most frequently
in Cedar Falls.
• This year we went to the birthplace in Hawarden, Iowa,
which is in Northwestern Iowa.

54. Earlville: Suckow Park & Library

55. Park in Earlville

56. Birthplace now part of Calliope Village

57. Birthplace in Hawarden

58. Front room and office

59. Annual meeting 2013
• Here is Barbara Lounsberry,
retired UNI Professor, writer,
Suckow scholar, and the
President of the Ruth Suckow
Memorial Association.
• She is standing on the porch
of the birthplace in Hawarden,
Iowa.

60. The Birthplace in Hawarden
Here is Cherie, visiting
the birthplace for the
Ruth Suckow Memorial
Association's annual
meeting in June.

61. Our partners in Hawarden
• Mary is a long time Board
member and has worked hard
to help restore the house.
• Here she poses with our
guide, Jamie Strong, the
President of the big Sioux
River Valley Historical
Association, the group that
cares for Calliope Village.
• The Birthplace is open for
tours on selected days in the
Summer.

62. On display in the House

63. The kitchen

64. Dining area and sewing room

65. Front room and display case

66. Bedroom and office

67. Kitchen and sewing room

68. Front rooms

69. Want to know more about us?

70. Want to join?
• http://www.ruthsuckow.org
/home/how-to-contact-us
• Membership costs $15 a
year
• Go the link on the website
for more details

71. Sources
• The Ruth Suckow website,
http://www.ruthsuckow.org
• Back issues of the annual Ruth Suckow
newsletter
• “Ruth Suckow,” Wikipedia entry.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Sucko
w

72. Sources on Ruth Suckow
• Christian, Rebecca. Just suppose, the story of Iowa novelist
Ruth Suckow : a one-woman show in two acts. 1992.
• Christian, Rebecca. "She wrote of Iowa and of Life.“ The
Iowan, September 30, 1992.
• Grant, Dorothy. “Ferner Nuhn: His Art and Writings.” The Ruth
Suckow Newsletter, Summer 1998. Martin Mohr, editor.
Published at Luther College, September 1998. Decorah, Iowa.
• Grant, Dorothy. Self-published booklet, "History of The Cedar
Falls Supper Club." June 1993.

73. Sources on Ruth Suckow, cont.
• Grant, Dorothy. “Ruth and Ferner: Their Years Together in
Cedar Falls.” The Ruth Suckow Newsletter, Summer 1998.
Martin Mohr, editor. Published at Luther College, September
1998. Decorah, Iowa.
• Nuhn, Ferner. Biographical note on the book jacket of The
Wind Blew From the East. Harper & Brothers, 1940. New York &
London.
• Nuhn, Ferner. Biographical notes at the conclusion of a
brochure written by Ferner, The Ice Wagon and Other
Vanished Wonders, a booklet written for the Cedar Falls
Historical Society, May 8, 1981.

74. Sources on Ruth Suckow, cont.
• "Ruth Suckow." Wikipedia entry. Michael Dargan, editor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Suckow
• The Ruth Suckow Memorial Association Website. Cherie
Dargan, Webmaster. http://www.ruthsuckow.org/
• White, Lee. Biography of Ruth Suckow Nuhn.
http://www.uni.edu/historyofblackhawkcounty/peopbiograph
y/Nuhn/Nuhn.htm