It began in the Ronneburg Community Kitchen. The Herman household. The community kitchens cooked the meals family style and they were carried home in baskets. Kind of like a picnic indoors, every day. Unmarried members ate at the community kitchen together. This continued until the Change in 1932. And as all visitors who have ever eaten in the Amanas know, you can't beat the food or hospitality anywhere on the west side of the Mississippi.

My mother was born February 3, 1920 to Peter G. Zimmerman and Louise Zimmerman (Herman). Henrietta was the first of three children, followed by Marie and Paul. She had two cousins, Helen Louise and George.

At that time the Amanas traded with the outside world, but were able to maintain a separate existence, with their own customs, much as the Amish do, but without such staunch isolationism. They shared a communal life, working for the common Society. Stamps were issued, depending on their needs, to make purchases at the General Store, until the Change, when cash became the standard currency.

The church is a long building in the center of town. The elders sat in the front, with the congregation facing them. Women on one side and men on the other. The hymns were sung in German. Though I only attended service a couple times, and desperately tried to sing in German at my Oma's funeral, I clearly remember the tones that came to our house a block away. The booming bass notes of the men mingled with the high treble of the female voices. It's both an eerie and a soothing sound, as the hymns flew through the windows, filling the town with the power of human voices raised in song and praise. That memory is a tribute to a heritage that I lived in, yet somehow was never quite embedded in, since I too was a product of a changing society.

Yet I clearly remember the way that family worked together and visited with each other. My mother carried the Amana generosity with her when we moved away. I remember being sent with a large casserole or some dish of food, if a neighbor had lost a job or had some trouble in their life.

I listened to a mixture of German and English and answered in English. Within a few years of moving away at thirteen years old, my ears lost the knack of understanding German, and unfortunately, it's never really returned with the ease it had as a child. Of course, when the ladies got together to do needlework or work on a quilt, I couldn't keep up with the gossip too well. For a while, we had a quilting rack sitting in one of the downstairs rooms, after my Aunt Marie got married and moved out.

I remember one time when we were visiting, and Oma asked, "Wie ist sein Gaul?"

Ich habbe gesacht, "Was ist Gaul?"

She had asked how my horse was, and I had forgotten the word. Somehow that loss of language feels like a desertion, a loss of the heritage that is still a part of me. I was gone for 25 years. I returned to Iowa, to Cedar Rapids, after college, a year in Europe, and 16 years in Chicago. And now, later in life, I am aware of what a shaping influence Amana had on my own life and values.

I returned to be with my folks while they were still living, and to be of some help when they needed it. I will never regret that decision, as we ate together a couple times a week for 15 years. I'll get to more of that, when I write about my family.

But right now, my mother is on my mind a lot, since she passed the summer of 2002, and I've just about finished emptying the house, thus acquiring these photographs. It's sad to sit in a bare house, that holds so many memories, not only of the last 15 years, but about 10 more, when I would visit from Chicago. Half my life, that was the family homestead, and Dad's trees are now grown.