Barns Around Iowa: A Sampling of Iowa's Round Barns

With approximately 1,000 of Iowas historic barns disappearing annually, this new title features over 100 of the round and multi-sided agricultural barns that existed during the last fifteen years. Even a few barns in the book have either burned or collapsed since Luella Hazeltine snapped their portraits. More than 200,000 barns once dotted the Iowa landscape. Less than 60,000 structures remain in Iowa. As we lose our barns, we lose a part of our Iowa heritage.
This 128-page book is a unique volume showing in color, Iowa agricultural heritage. Photographer Luella Hazeltine traveled the country roads of Iowa for over a decade in search of Iowas round jewels. The out-of-print book, Without Right Angles: The Round Barns of Iowa, by Lowell J. Soike of the State Historical Society of Iowa served as the guide to Luella Hazeltines ten-plus years documentary project. Her original photographic work will be preserved in the growing collection of barn photography at the State Historical Society of Iowa.

About the Photographer
Luella Hazeltine was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in 1929. She has lived in Linn County all of her life. After high school graduation, she worked for Quaker Oats for forty years, where her husband was also employed. He was also a honey producer for a while. After her retirement, Luella spent the next decade, and more, finding and photographing the barns in this book.
Luella shot the majority of the photographs, but her nieces, Rachael Strickel and d Lyse Abukaf, also played a hand in taking a few of the photographs. When Luella viewed a public television show about barns, she was inspired to find out more about them in her home state of Iowa. She began gathering the photos in 1993. Penfield Books asked to publish them to preserve in print Iowas agricultural heritage. The negatives are Luellas gift to the State Historical Society of Iowa.

About the Editor, Deb M. Schense
An Iowan all her life, Deb Schense grew up on a farm (with a late 1800s barn) northeast of Waverly, Iowa. She earned an Associate of Applied Science degree in computer programming from Kirkwood Community College and a Bachelor of Business Administration in Management Information Systems from the University of Iowa.
Since graduating, Deb has worked in corporate America, the federal government, computer consulting, and self-employment. She is an author of Eastern Iowas Historic Barns and Other Farm Structures: Including the Amana Colonies with two editions: black-and-white, and color. She is working on a comedy screenplay and book entitled Extended Vacation.