We Neal cousins grew up on farms around Dexter, Iowa, attending the same grade school, singing in the same church choir, visiting the same grandparents, attending the same family holidays gatherings, including Grandpa’s July 5 birthday.

School reorganization messed up going to school together, in 1958, because Dexter sits in the corner of four counties. Each of with the five families lived in three different counties, so we were split between three school systems (Dexfield (with Redfield), Stuart, and Earlham), which had been our rivals before. After high school, we cousins split up college-wise (mostly between the University of Northern Iowa and Iowa State University), marriages, the Vietnam war sidelined some of our husbands (Bob Johannesen, Tom Isenhart and Guy Kidney), jobs, babies, even moving to other states.

Decades later, Grandma Ruby Neal and all five of our mothers spent their last days at the Stuart Care Center. As cousins came home to visit their moms, we’d have impromptu get-togethers, but now that we are missing them all, it’s harder to get together.

Judy’s sister, Jane isn’t well, so they drove up from Texas this week to check on her and her husband. Judy got together as many of us for lunch as she could this week–at the Machine Shed Restaurant!

The four “War Babies” have already turned 80. Two “Baby Boomers” will join us this year, then two more in 2027.

Two cousins now live in Texas. The rest of us live in/near several towns (Ames, W. Des Moines, Ankeny, Dallas Center, Earlham, Dexter, Stuart, Bedford) along and west of I-35, and Omaha.