Funny Names





For four years we have been tickled by this sign. We think it is the strangest name for a town. What Cheer. It sounds like broken English.

We are usually whizzing past this sign at about 75 mph (75 when dh is driving and 72 when I am driving)
and we have never ventured off the highway and deeper into southern Iowa to see What Cheer in person.

We did go to Winterset Iowa. Home of John Wayne, the Bridges of Madison County and Liz Porter and Marianne Fons quilt shop...

That was my big chance to leave the highway and explore...

But I think I would rather wander around the Southern corner of Iowa where Evelyn Birkby is from. Her town is gone...her beautiful white tall steepled church is gone, but her stories of life and radio and cooking make me want to go there. I have read two of her cookbooks, which are very biographical. She was a wife and mother who did a radio show out of her kitchen. You may listen to at her website.

Her books are called Up a Country Lane Cookbook and Neighboring on the Air:Cooking with the KMA Radio Homemakers.

I recommend them! In fact, I need to have these books in my personal collection...

Encourage one another,
Donna