Eco Composition Sunday: How it Once Was

(It’s a stretch to call this one eco-composition, but work with me)


As a child, my family moved quite a bit. And so, place and the idea of home became somewhat of an obsession in my college days. I was in a whirlwind of trying to find myself and where I fit—home was never the answer, because I didn’t have just one.

I was born in Iowa and spent the majority of my first nine years in various Iowan cities. A majority of my family still lives in Iowa (having never moved), so the visits were very frequent. Because of this, Iowa holds a special place in my heart. When I go to visit, little changes. It’s my stability. And, even beyond that, full of wild, untouched places that I can’t get enough of.
Last week, my eco composition was about my maternal grandparent’s house and land. This week, we take a bit of a turn over to my paternal grandparents. Whereas my maternal grandparents were raised in town and didn’t move out of town until their youngest was in college, my paternal grandparents are more farm people.

Both my paternal grandparents grew up on farms, as far as I know. My dad was born in the same farm my Grandpa and his father had been born on. And, the family lived on that farm until the mid to late sixties when they moved to a small town nearby.

Over the years, the farm and the house were sold to a friend of my Grandfathers. Back in the early nineties (or maybe even late eighties) it somehow came about that my Grandfather and my Dad wanted to buy the farmhouse back. Since the owner was a friend of my Grandpa’s, it wasn’t a problem. The farmhouse was back in my family’s possession.

If memory serves me, the house was built in 1890, so it is over 100 years old. Quite unfortunately, the house looks its age.


Despite its lack of use, the farm holds a lot of fantastic memories for me. I first drove on the gravel road outside the house, nearly backing my Dad’s minivan into a ditch. One winter, snow had blanketed the area with inches upon inches and the wind had made large drifts. My Grandpa took my sister, my cousin and myself out to the farm and we stomped along in snow up to our knees. I remember being disappointed when it was time to go, and standing knee-deep in snow and looking at the sparkling blue winter sky. How hard I wished that this would be mine.

One visit, we actually got to go on an inside tour of the house. I remember what almost every room looks like. I loved this house. In my mind, I could see it the way it once must have been—the alcove looking over the side yard and the apple tree, the large parlor type room, an old bedroom that looked over the fields. In that moment I was wondering what it would have been like to live there, and wishing that someday I could make it a reality.

My Grandpa kept an old piano in there, and he told us he liked to go out and play it when he visited the farmhouse. Such a sad picture, my Grandpa playing the piano in a falling apart room—the ghosts of his past in every crevice of decaying room.

The last time I made a visit out to the farm was two summers ago. It was July and I had brought my camera. I wanted tangible evidence of this dream place—this place that every time I set foot on its land I seemed transported to a different time or deep within the recesses of my own imagination.

The sun set quickly, and I didn’t get as many pictures as I would like.

It’s hard to say what will become of this old place. If I had a load of money, I would spend as much as I could on restoring the house. My Dad would probably say the same. My Grandpa as well. But that fact is, no one has that kind of money so the house continues to decay, to fall apart.
And when I think about the farm, far away in my apartment, I imagine my Grandpa at the piano in the front room, playing songs to those long gone. I imagine he sees what I see when he looks around: how it once was.