When you grow up on a farm or in a small community, you never forget the fellowship you share with your neighbors. Favors aren’t paid for in dollars, but by mutual transactions of kindness, services are exchanged through gestures of goodwill, and generosity is measured by time and labor spent lending a helping hand.
These selfless acts are what build kinship and compassion among rural dwellers, and if you’re lucky enough, those tight bonds often last from one generation to the next. Your neighbors become your friends. Your friends become your family.
Although few folks claim Rodman, Iowa as their neighborhood today, I dare to say the fellowship of the farm families who live near the “Small Town with a Big Heart” is undoubtedly alive and well. The post office, churches and main street businesses have long since vanished, but the kind and hard-working people who have lived in the area, some for at least three generations, remain.
That’s part of the reason my soul smiles every time I pull off of IA-15 onto County Road B55. I still know almost every family that lives along the three mile stretch to the Banwart farm. Generation to generation, we’ve attended the same schools, supported the same local businesses and farmed the same ground left to us by our forebearers.
It’s the very stuff that can be both one person’s humdrum, yet another’s homecoming.
I’ll admit it’s been one and the same to me during different stages of my life. I didn’t start to miss it until I was older, but as I continue to reflect I realize it’s part of what makes home feel like home.
So here’s to the “Rodmanites” who raised me – the community who taught me to do good unto others and engrained in me the power of repaying debts with kindness. No matter the distance, reason or season, the unique bond we share with our friends and neighbors is always worth celebrating. Here’s to the fellowship of farmers.
A special shout out to the Bargman, Thatcher and Anliker families represented in this post alongside my dad, John Banwart. Neighbors for 74 years, friends for a lifetime!
Great pics & story! Thank you for writing.
Thanks for reading! Glad you enjoyed it!
Great story
Thank you!
Awesome!! So happy you are using your wonderful talent!!!!
Thanks, Luan! Appreciate your readership and the compliment too. 😊