Iowa Two - Text
Interview subject is a 53-year-old Caucasian female. She was born and raised in Belmont, Iowa. After her high school graduation, she moved to Iowa City for four years to attend the University of Iowa for her undergraduate in Dietetics. Once she obtained her degree, she spent a year and a half in Sioux City, IA. She then moved to Council Bluffs, IA on the southwestern border of the state for her Dietetic internship in the neighboring Omaha, Nebraska for two years. She resides in Osage, Iowa and has remained there the last 28 years. The subject speaks of her college roommate. She then speaks of moving to her current home of Osage and two children. Her son’s upcoming marriage arrangements are the next topic, including the venue and his fiancée’s dress. Finally, she ends the interview explaining of why she was tardy in returning the phone call for this interview. The subject has the characteristic nasality and rhoticity of the Northern Mid Western Region. Vowels are pronounced with a fair amount of tension, particularly emphasized before /r/s. Please notice the subject’s use of the pure [o] in the word home in the end of the extemporaneous portion of the interview. This deviation is due to the Northern position of Osage in Iowa, near to the border of Minnesota. In “Comma Gets a Cure”, the subject’s /o/s are diphthongs, which represents her mid-state upbringing.
Well let me think…(um) after I graduated from high school I went to college at the University of Iowa, in Iowa city, and following in my older sister’s footsteps, who was already there for a year, (uh) I lived in a dormitory, which at that time was all women and ended up with a roommate who was very near the area…who was from the (uh) area that I was also from. In fact, we both grew up on a farm and our farms were only…probably (oh) six miles apart. We did not know each other, however, because we went to different school districts, but we got to know each other. We did have one mutual friend… in our high school years (um) because the friend which she knew from school attended the same church that I went to. Anyway, (uh) we had great fun as roommates and did crazy things (uh) living in the dorms as well as just having fun socially with other people during that first year. I did graduate (uh) in December of 1977 from the University of Iowa and got married (sighs) then in (breaths) February...ya (uh) February of 1978. We were looking for a place that (uh) my husband would be able to practice law and I would be able to work as a dietitian. So we ended up here in Osage, Iowa, which is in northern Iowa. And after moving to Osage, (uh) after being here a couple years we had our first child, just married herself this past summer. And then three and a half years later our son was born, who is currently (um) applying for medical school in Iowa City and will be married next summer. They have everything reserved and she actually has ordered her dress, and we just saw them today before we headed home, and she said her dress is actually here. Already! So, she’s not gonna go and, ya know, get fitted for it yet, obviously. But, she...they have made a lot of the decisions and things are reserved and so they’ll be getting married in a church in Iowa City and (um) the reception is actually in a (stutters) it was a church previously and it’s now been converted into a reception or a venue for larger parties. It’s called Old Brick Church, that’s what it’s referred to, and it was…it’s basically right on campus (um) just down the street from where I would have lived in the dorms. Oh for pete’s sake, I kept thinking I should do that on our way from Iowa City to home and then I thought “no”, because we always run into this dead spot and calls get dropped and I thought sure enough we’d be talking (laughs) and that would happen and then when we got home everything kinda just, you know, went out of my head.
This interview was recorded by Amanda Poryes via telephone on Sunday, November 9, 2008. Running Time: 00:05:25