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Prairie Reunion
Barbara Scot's memoir begins with a trunk full of memories and her mother's cryptic letters about a marriage unravelling. The author searches for the truth, which takes her back to a scene of tragedy - to the farm her family lost and the close-knit secretive community she left behind.
- GenresMemoirNonfiction
310 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 1995
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
December 28, 2021
Barbara Scot returned to the close-knit community in Iowa where she grew up, seeking understanding of her mother’s life and to reconnect with family who might have stories for her.
Her ancestors were Scots Presbyterians who farmed in Iowa and the land was deeply important to them. Her mother was a teacher and was proud that she could buy herself a car. She married a local man who ran up debt, borrowed against the farm, and finally ran off with another woman when the author was a baby. To her deep shame, her mother lost the farm and a couple of years later learned that her (ex) husband had killed himself. She never remarried, and died in her 50s.
Scot had grown up and left for graduate school, and ended up in Oregon, but she also had an unhappy marriage with a man who abused her. When she took this trip she was in her 60s, had remarried, and had two adult kids. Her brother had descended into drugs and alcohol and they weren’t in touch. In Iowa she visited historical societies and read church records of trials for fornication, and Native American accounts of life before white people came. She visits caves where early people wintered and speaks to a Native American man at the Mesquakie settlement. He talks of how their problem has always been how much of the outside they let in and whether old ways will be lost but says “It’s like a fire. Even when the fire dies down there’s always that little heartbeat. … Our fire as died down before. As long as that little center is still red, all God has to do is to blow on our coals and the fire starts up again. In our traditional religion, we call it the ‘fire of our people.’”
There’s no big discovery or revelation, but she finds peace in the plains and rivers, memories, and family bonds.
My mother’s family was similar to hers - farmers in Ohio, Scots Presbyterian (so I recognize the hymns she quotes). But my grandfather was a younger son who wasn’t going to inherit the farm; he went to college and became an engineer. My grandmother lived in the town and her parents ran the store. They left for California in the 20s for the milder California climate. I never heard them say anything nostalgic about the farm.
Her ancestors were Scots Presbyterians who farmed in Iowa and the land was deeply important to them. Her mother was a teacher and was proud that she could buy herself a car. She married a local man who ran up debt, borrowed against the farm, and finally ran off with another woman when the author was a baby. To her deep shame, her mother lost the farm and a couple of years later learned that her (ex) husband had killed himself. She never remarried, and died in her 50s.
Scot had grown up and left for graduate school, and ended up in Oregon, but she also had an unhappy marriage with a man who abused her. When she took this trip she was in her 60s, had remarried, and had two adult kids. Her brother had descended into drugs and alcohol and they weren’t in touch. In Iowa she visited historical societies and read church records of trials for fornication, and Native American accounts of life before white people came. She visits caves where early people wintered and speaks to a Native American man at the Mesquakie settlement. He talks of how their problem has always been how much of the outside they let in and whether old ways will be lost but says “It’s like a fire. Even when the fire dies down there’s always that little heartbeat. … Our fire as died down before. As long as that little center is still red, all God has to do is to blow on our coals and the fire starts up again. In our traditional religion, we call it the ‘fire of our people.’”
There’s no big discovery or revelation, but she finds peace in the plains and rivers, memories, and family bonds.
My mother’s family was similar to hers - farmers in Ohio, Scots Presbyterian (so I recognize the hymns she quotes). But my grandfather was a younger son who wasn’t going to inherit the farm; he went to college and became an engineer. My grandmother lived in the town and her parents ran the store. They left for California in the 20s for the milder California climate. I never heard them say anything nostalgic about the farm.
January 25, 2023
This is one of those irritating books which have hung around on my bookshelves for years, giving to me by someone (I can't remember who) and then when i finally sart reading it, I don't like it at all. But, for some unexplained reason, I can't stop reading it.
I suspect that the person who gave it to me was my mother. The memoir is by Barbara Scot who returns to her hometown in Iowa for a reunion of sorts. She is trying to track own, vaguely, her family history and come to some answers about why everyone in her family was so unhappy. My mother's mother (my grandmother) was raised in Southern Illinois on or near a farm. In the 1990s sometime my mother's family had a reunion where we met and visited with mom's cousins and their kids while tromping through the local historical museum, the family burial plot, and stood outside the family home talking since my mother's cousin wouldn't let us look at the inside of it (I guessed it was a mess, not out of meanness.) One of the biggest impressions in my memory of that event was all the corn and soy fields. They were everywhere without stopping. I wonder if my mother saw a little of her mother in this memoir.
I'm pretty sure that everyone has some bones to pick about the way we were raised or events that have festered long after childhood and leaving home. This book is full of them, all oddly wound up with the church and the land.
At times I'd think I was possibly going to like the book and then it would slip back into being disjointed, confusing, boring, or all three.
I'm sure if you haven't read this memoir by now that you won't. But if you are getting a hankering to read something about life on a farm in Iowa in the late 1800 through mid 20th century. Here is a book. One I don't recommend.
I suspect that the person who gave it to me was my mother. The memoir is by Barbara Scot who returns to her hometown in Iowa for a reunion of sorts. She is trying to track own, vaguely, her family history and come to some answers about why everyone in her family was so unhappy. My mother's mother (my grandmother) was raised in Southern Illinois on or near a farm. In the 1990s sometime my mother's family had a reunion where we met and visited with mom's cousins and their kids while tromping through the local historical museum, the family burial plot, and stood outside the family home talking since my mother's cousin wouldn't let us look at the inside of it (I guessed it was a mess, not out of meanness.) One of the biggest impressions in my memory of that event was all the corn and soy fields. They were everywhere without stopping. I wonder if my mother saw a little of her mother in this memoir.
I'm pretty sure that everyone has some bones to pick about the way we were raised or events that have festered long after childhood and leaving home. This book is full of them, all oddly wound up with the church and the land.
At times I'd think I was possibly going to like the book and then it would slip back into being disjointed, confusing, boring, or all three.
I'm sure if you haven't read this memoir by now that you won't. But if you are getting a hankering to read something about life on a farm in Iowa in the late 1800 through mid 20th century. Here is a book. One I don't recommend.
April 12, 2018
Barbara Scot is trying to make sense of her life by traveling to Iowa and her family homestead. Hard to be objective about this work, since I resonated with her search for what made her mother tick. Her father abandoned the family when she was very young. Yet her mother persisted in excusing him and trying to get him to man up. He impoverished them. Her mother died at 50 + probably because of her backbreaking efforts to pay off his debts and save the family farm. Barbara ponders why her mother made herself so secondary and how Barbara was made to feel women were a little less worthy. Why did she repeat her mother's pattern even though she recognized it as wrong? She explores her family's ties to the land and the Calvinism of the community's Presbyterian church which kept tabs on the sexual mores of its parishioners. By the end of the reunion journey she recounts in the book, Barbara has achieved a measure of peace about her parents and herself but in no way facile. She is encouraged to continue seeking, perhaps next with her estranged brother who was also affected by the circumstances of their childhood.
June 28, 2025
I picked this up from our school library discard rack (it is an older book). It is a biography, where the author returns to Iowa in her fifties to better understand her childhood and how she was raised. It is an interesting look at the transition from traditional farming to the farming of today. It also looks at the history of that area in Iowa and the communities that inhabited it. The author jumped between her own memories and what she was learning through her research (sometimes even between paragraphs) and I sometimes had to reread to keep up. Overall I liked it and as a midwesterner, I enjoyed the history.
April 4, 2021
I'll start this off by saying that Scot definitely has a beautiful way with words. Some of the passages are very evocative and stunning in their simplicity.
But this is a very hard read. The narrative is not linear and it drifts in and out of memories. Scot will be talking about one thing and then switch to a completely unrelated idea, then drift back to the original passage. Add in all the relatives and their memories or comments and it makes for a very disjointed read. I gave up at the halfway point because I was struggling to stay connected to her story.
But this is a very hard read. The narrative is not linear and it drifts in and out of memories. Scot will be talking about one thing and then switch to a completely unrelated idea, then drift back to the original passage. Add in all the relatives and their memories or comments and it makes for a very disjointed read. I gave up at the halfway point because I was struggling to stay connected to her story.
January 12, 2018
A memoir written by a woman who was trying to fill in some gaps in her family history. Two and a half stars. A little scattered, a little boring. There were parts I started to get into, but then it would drift off again. Ho hum.
(I bought it at the used book store because there were some striking coincidences between her family and mine, including the author's name.)
(I bought it at the used book store because there were some striking coincidences between her family and mine, including the author's name.)
July 29, 2014
This book is written by a woman who grew up in Iowa and had a difficult childhood. Book details her coming back to visit as an adult to help her try to come to terms with her past and the place and people she was raised with. I thought it was unevenly written, some sections much better than others and lots of jumping around to different time periods. I liked the Iowa connection and learning about that aspect.
April 18, 2010
A homecoming story to Iowa. She tries to piece together unsolved mysteries about her family when she was growing up in the 40's.
December 5, 2010
I can't say that I enjoyed it, but I didn't hate it, either. It was just ok. In the end, the main character found peace with her upbringing and reconciled her feelings for her mother.
July 28, 2013
This memoir was mesmerizing. Scot's attention to detail, memories, conversations, and research brings her story to life. She successfully melded memories and reality.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews