Eastern Iowa Farmer Fall 2018

WHY FARMERS MATTER
up their own hard-worked land as
collateral. A loan obtained for the
church, they returned to Garryowen
in a mood “of great merriment,”
as the story goes.
Over time, the farmers and their
families who built the church continued
to support it, and it continued
to support them through cycles
of marriages, deaths, celebrations
and crises. The town name
changed to Garryowen, in honor of
Limerick and under the influence
of Dennis Mahoney.
Across the Midwest, the pattern
repeated, as farmers plowed,
raised families and animals and
built churches.
About 40 rural churches operated
in Jackson County alone,
according to Jackson County
Donald Wentworth
Jackson County
Historian
historian Donald
Wentworth.
Religion and
culture divided
some farming
communities:
for example,
“old Springbrook”
was
about a mile
east of the
current town, until Catholics built
their church at the new location,
and the Protestant community
faded.
Though many rural churches
closed as roads improved and
centralized commerce, those that
remain have “deep roots,” Wentworth
said.
Garryowen served as the mother
church for other parishes, including
Cascade, Bellevue, South
Garryowen, Temple Hill, Bellevue,
Silvia Switch, Fillmore and
the first parish in Nebraska. Five
priests have been called from their
home Garryowen parish, as have
67 nuns.
Eventually, the town center
transferred to Bernard just up the
road. The general store and the
dance hall at Garryowen closed.
The parish school grew and expanded,
then was folded into
Aquin in Cascade. Agriculture
changed, too: mechanizing and
changing from diversified, smaller
acreages to row crops.
Many of the last names of early
settlers are still familiar in the
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96 EASTERN IOWA FARMER | FALL 2018 eifarmer.com