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WHERE WE COME FROM<br />
GREEN TIDE<br />
Fleeing the potato famine, early settlers came from Ireland to Eastern Iowa,<br />
building churches, starting farms, and forming rural communities<br />
In this picture from the O’Connor family history scrapbook,<br />
Jack O’Connor, left, and his father, Ed, take a break from<br />
their chores on their rural Donahue farm. Over the decades,<br />
the family raised corn, soybeans and hay for their cows.<br />
BY NANCY MAYFIELD<br />
EASTERN IOWA FARMER<br />
The day Jim O’Connor was<br />
born, his parents made a<br />
slight adjustment to the<br />
name they had planned to<br />
bestow upon him.<br />
It was March 17, 1948.<br />
Instead of James Edward, they decided<br />
to call their new arrival James<br />
Patrick, in honor of St. Patrick’s Day.<br />
O’Connor is the fifth generation to<br />
operate the Scott County farm started<br />
by his ancestors who came to Eastern<br />
Iowa from Ireland in the mid-1800s,<br />
escaping starvation and economic<br />
blight. They and other families<br />
settled in an area bordered by 120th<br />
Avenue on the west, Veteran’s Highway<br />
on the east, St. Ann’s Road on<br />
the south and the Wapsipinicon River<br />
on the north.<br />
“They came out here because the<br />
ground was easy to till. It was a sandier<br />
ground,” said O’Connor, who still<br />
lives on the farm in rural Donahue.<br />
54 EASTERN IOWA FARMER | SPRING 2024 eifarmer.com
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