Interview with Evelyn Birkby: Part 4

What was the best part about representing Iowa at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival?

Oh that was a wonderful experience. Being interviewed by newsman Paul Hendrickson and a subsequent two-page spread  in the Washington Post. The time High Sidey (raised in Greenfield, Iowa) of Time magazine walked onto our broadcast set and joined in a discussion I was moderating that went out over the air. The television interviews I did with the Washington Monument in the background. And being a presenter in the food tent of some of Iowa’s most interesting cooks. That was great fun.

The final night with Lee Kline when we helped present a magical evening. Lee and I were the co-masters of ceremony, and we decided to make it like a real live old-fashioned radio broadcast. Somewhere the Smithsonian has a tape of that evening. It deserves to be preserved. And I made lifelong friends--Lee Kline, Lorene Horton, Riki Saltzman, etc.
The hotel where we stayed also had the people from the South who were part of that event, and I learned to love every one of them, especially the Native Americans. The day we said good-bye, one of them told me, ”We may not meet again in this world but hopefully we will meet again in the spirit world.” I told him, “I hope so, too.”

If your friends from the University of Iowa Press were coming to your house for lunch, what would you serve us?

My favorite menu for company lunch now is chicken in a sour cream sauce over rice, orange sherbet salad, probably a green vegetable, pie made with fruit in season—and if I have time and energy, fresh Hay Hand Rolls coming out of the oven when we are ready to eat, served with my homemade strawberry jam.

Evelyn Birkby is the author of Always Put in a Recipe and Other Tips for Living from Iowa's Best-Known Homemaker, as well as Up a Country Lane Cookbook and Neighboring on the Air.

Plant of the Week

Common evening primrose

Oenothera biennis (L.) 

other common names: night willow-herb, large rampion, tree-primrose, king's cure-all, scurvish, evening primrose

Oenothera: a name used by Theophrastus for a species of Epilobium, another genus in this family. It also is Greek for "wine scented," referring to the scent of the flowers or to the fact that the roots were once used for wine.

Biennis: meaning "biennial," for its characteristic of living two years

Evening primrose family: Onagraceae

Photograph by Thomas Rosburg, Wildflowers of the Tallgrass Prairie: The Upper Midwest, Second Edition

Interview with Evelyn Birkby: Part 3

You started writing your “Up a Country Lane” columns in 1949. How have your readers’ interests changed over the years? What hasn’t changed?

I still see people needing a smile. I see people hurting and worried and sorrowing. And I see people who find joy in everything around them. The lives of women have changed drastically with the coming of more labor-saving devices—being a wife and mother is far easier now than in those earlier days. Fewer people live in the country, and the familiar neighborhoods have changed; country school neighborhoods are gone and many of the old farmsteads have been torn down.

I always said that women were interested in everything, and I’ve tried to write and talk about a broad range of subjects. We are not just limited to “homemaking topics”; I never did figure out why people used that term to limit what women do.

The radio homemakers were career women. There have always been career women.


Your first column, about the Christmas box, the hard work of farming, and an encounter with an elderly stranger over a yard of red gingham, is one of my favorites. Do you have one favorite column?

I can think of many: “The Snake Trap,” “The Night the Bed Fell on Our Honeymoon,” “Two Mothers,” “Too Old to Be Elderly.”




Evelyn Birkby is the author of Always Put in a Recipe and Other Tips for Living from Iowa's Best-Known Homemaker, as well as Up a Country Lane Cookbook and Neighboring on the Air.

Interview with Evelyn Birkby: Part 2

I’ve always thought that one main strength of your writing is your ability to demonstrate connectivity—the enduring connections among your rural and small-town neighbors. Can you tell us what these connections mean to you?

Little did I realize that living in a small-town minister’s home would prepare me for what finally became the path of my life. Day after day my father and mother showed by their loving care for the people in their congregation and in their community that people matter, that caring for them in a loving way is one of the important ways to have a fulfilled life no matter what else you do.

Both my parents were educated and spoke well, which gave me a good foundation for knowing how language should be put together. I never was very good in English, but rather I sensed its correctness, which made it possible for me to speak well. And my parents insisted that I do everything I was asked to do that got me up in front of an audience. (I thought they were being cruel—little did I know that they were preparing me for my future.)

Our family did a lot of what we might call community service, and as a child I went along handing out food, taking clothes to those in need (it was the depth of the Great Depression), and visiting hospital patients, usually children, with my father because, he said, I was cheerful and helped bring a little comfort to someone hurt or ill.  

Everything I did after I grew up involved people. Teaching school, going into religious education, and working with children and youth—the great loves of my life—in many different ways. Then when I married and moved back into small-town and country Iowa, here were all the same kinds of people I had grown up with, so we were instant friends. When I began my writing and radio work, I realized how true it was, as my first publisher told me, “Always write friendly, there are many lonely people out there.“ I had a positive father who always lifted people’s spirits. Once he was gone, I took it on myself to be a positive, up-beat, “sunshiny” person. So many sad  people, so much trouble. So I deliberately let in the light and smiled and was (and am) positive.

In the process I made close friends with those around me, and that circle expanded to include my

readers and listeners. It was like being a part of a family. 

Evelyn Birkby is the author of Always Put in a Recipe and Other Tips for Living from Iowa's Best-Known Homemaker, as well as Up a Country Lane Cookbook and Neighboring on the Air.

Interview with Evelyn Birkby: Part 1

For your new book, Always Put in a Recipe and Other Tips for Living from Iowa’s Best-Known Homemaker, you had to winnow through thousands of your “Up a Country Lane” columns. How in the world did you make a final selection?

It all started when my publisher, Tim Craig, asked me to find some of my favorite columns to put in the Valley News Today newspaper in 1999 for the 50-year anniversary of writing my column. By the time I had chosen a few to reprint, the idea came to me that I just might have a book.

So I started with those columns, and then I continued to sift through the back columns. It turned out to be a much larger task than I had expected. Let’s see, 62 years (which is what I finally researched) at 52 weeks a year is 3,224 columns! I had the advantage of the fine Iowa Women’s Archives resources, for they have gathered my columns all these years and digitized them in a form for researching.

But it was harder than I expected to choose. I found waaaay too many I liked—it took some doing to winnow them down. Then I decided I couldn’t just plop them into a book. I had to edit them, correct errors (yep), and make them better in some cases.

Even when I thought I had the book finished I discovered, with suggestions from the UI Press, that I had too many columns. Their eagle eyes thinned the manuscript down and tightened it up and made it better. I plan to look at the ones that got left out and see if they just might, someday, make another book.


Evelyn Birkby is the author of Always Put in a Recipe and Other Tips for Living from Iowa's Best-Known Homemaker, as well as Up a Country Lane Cookbook and Neighboring on the Air.

Making college campus green: Portland State University

At PSU, student-led green innovations are cause for annual celebration. Every year, the Solutions Generator, a student and faculty committee, chooses a handful of environmental proposals submitted by their peers and colleagues, as well as local community members. This year, 13 proposals were selected. They include:

•   An organic waste recycling system enabled by Black Fly larvae

•   A greywater collection system using mushrooms that filter waste and plants that enable water to easily evaporate

•   A community fruit orchard, allowing students to grow several different species and study tree fungal growth

•   An artistic exhibition space that exclusively utilizes recycled and/or reused materials

This post was created by Madison Jones

Finding Projectile Points

Finding Projectile Points

Collecting artifacts is an enjoyable hobby; follow these common-sense guidelines provided by the Office of the State Archeologist at the University of Iowa. Always get landowner permission before collecting. It is illegal to collect on public lands without a permit. Surface collect; do not try to excavate a site. Identify, catalog, and label your find and record site locations with the OSA. The OSA can help you document, process, manage, and care for your collection. Do not collect human remains. All prehistoric and modern cemeteries and burial sites in Iowa are protected by state and federal law. Report any human remains or burial sites you encounter to the OSA. Avoid buying and selling artifacts. This activity encourages looting and the loss of our nonrenewable cultural heritage. Many items on the market today are recently made copies.

Keep your collection intact; do not let it get dispersed. Be proactive with your collection. Read about Iowa archaeology, allow professionals to study your collection, give programs to school groups, participate in public field schools, and join the Iowa Archeology Society.

Visit the Office of the State Archeologist at the University of Iowa

Visit the Iowa Archeology Society

A Guide to Projectile Points of Iowa, Part 1: Paleoindian, Late Paleoindian, Early Archaic, and Middle Archaic Points by Joseph Tiffany, photographs by Christian A. Driver