IOWA Barn Tour is including our barn on the North Place next week on it’s annual tour of barns across Iowa. I thought I would write a short history of the place but found out I don’t really know much history but simply just have a love for the place. I asked my Dad many questions over the years but I find myself often now thinking “ I should ask Dad that” but some of those things will just remain unknown. I often find my self telling stories to my kids and grandkids about the “old” days of what I remember…… I hope they remember those things. So from my heart….the story of the North Place.
The North Place
An Iowa breeze …shady trees and riding my pony round and around in the grove…..watching thunderstorms and dancing in a much needed rain are just some of my fondest memories of growing up on the North place. Of all the years I lived there it was never called home … It was always the North place but still it has always been my favorite place to live.
In 1965 my parents William J and Joyce Heynen packed up their little family and moved ¼ mile North to the farm they had just purchased from Henry and Betty Rikkers. They had lived in a small tenant house (still a structure at the Country home Motel) on the “home “ place with my Grandpa and Grandma . After the move We spent many hours outside there…..even when inside the windows were thrown open…the smell of lilacs and the chirp of crickets filled the house at night. The big barn was a favorite place to play…build forts….. Or search for a new batch of baby kittens. It seems like yesterday that my little hands gripped tight to the haymow ladder bringing me to my own playground. We still often laugh at the stories of my older sister stepping on my hands so I couldn’t get up…….the password was reciting a memory verse that she had picked out for me to learn that day! The barn had a big wooded slide out the back that ended up in a wooden hay manger…..I often helped my Dad haul bales to the little door…cut the ropes and slide the hay pieces down to feed the calves….there were times when us kids would do that with bales NOT during chores and position ourselves on the top of them and slide into the manger…. ( I look back at this now and it is kind of dangerous!). I think most of my childhood memories come from this place and I could write many pages of them. Catching baby raccoons when my dad was grinding or schelling corn from the corncrib and feeding them marshmellows……doing tricks on my pony and braiding her mane…..helping give pigs shots and feeding the calves hay in the wooden manger that still stands there today. I feel close to my grandpa and my Dad whenever I go there. It is a place where I find peace .
The History of the barn to me is quite unknown. It is said to be over 100 years old…..it is not original because I remember redoing the inside ….adding the white gates and swing doors on the front.
I lived there until I was maybe 10. Our family then moved back to the “home place” a ¼ mile south to the old house on that farm. We rented the house to many different families but still spent much time there as we still had livestock there and continued to use the corncrib….hog house and big barns as well as farm the land. When I was in my teens we built a new house on the home place directly in front of the old one. In 1981 I was married to Dan Buyert (a neighbor boy from down the road) and we began our life together in the little white house with green trim that I loved so much as a child on the North Place! The North place was again my “playground” and we lived there 7 years and had 2 of our 4 children there. In 1987 we had the opportunity to purchase the farm ½ east of here….”Sam’s Place” (which we still call it today) The house was burned by the fire department and the acreage was still used by us and we continued to have chores there. We lived on Sam’s Place for over 25 years raising our 4 kids and making many trips back and forth to both the north place and the home place where we farrow to finished hogs for many years. Just 3 years ago when my dad’s health started to fail we moved to the home place. Our daughter and her husband moved to “”Sam’s Place”. Since his death 1 year ago we purchased the North place…. We have redone most of the fences….took down the hog shed and machine shed…..saved the tin …lumber and doors. Our plans here are to rebuild the hog house with the lumber and tin we saved……we plan to save the corncrib……turn it into a garage….shed for tools and a place for feed. I have always wanted to put a house there again so we are in the process of that as well. It will be a small cabin type structure using old wood…..farm items and repurposed doors ,beams and give whoever lives there a view everyday of the beautiful sunrise and sunset that I have been able to enjoy for so many years. The future of the big barn is a tough one…..It has been let go for so long and would require a large amount of money to keep and use in some way.
Many say we should just bulldoze the whole place and plants crops……I just can’t do that…..it has to many memories…..it still always calls to me….I go there when things in my life are hard…..I love the smell of the dirt after a rain….the breeze that always blows there….. It seems like yesterday that my pigtails blew in the wind as my pony raced back around the corncrib or I read a book sitting in the haymow door…..and when I danced in the rain with my Dad. Some days I just want that feeling so I walk over there……yes it is still the North place but it still just always feels like home.
Stay tuned for a progress report on the Guest "Cabin" being built there......
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