Personal Narrative Essay: The Henry Adams Building

Awed by this stalwart activist and with visions of the petite lady and her troop of Girl Scouts standing arm-in-arm defiantly defending the stained glass from burly and befuddled construction workers, I stepped out of my car, which gave the enthusiastic conversationalist time to catch her breath. The dialogue moved to the sidewalk and the shade of a nearby shop awning, where the discourse progressed to a casual exchange. I spoke of my trip home from Ames and my desire to indulge in the artistry of Louis Sullivan’s architectural genius. She disclosed that her husband had been a banker and that they had become enamored by Sullivan’s work while living in Blooming Prairie, Minnesota, not far from Sullivan’s Owatonna bank. The Henry Adams Building, initially an alluring aspect of her husband’s transfer to Algona, became a passion as they guided the restoration efforts. I shared that I too had been

However, I soon lost my personal tour guide when she became distracted by a conversation with the museum attendant. I scanned the museum and opted to begin a self-guided tour by watching a video presentation near the entrance. An elderly man, also watching the video that showed prisoners laboring on a threshing crew, volunteered that he had childhood memories of POWs working on his father’s farm. Furthermore, his father grew up in Germany, immigrating to the United States and settling near Algona in 1925. Since he spoke their language fluently and shared a common cultural upbringing with the German prisoners he effortlessly empathized with their plight. The man’s father and other German-Americans in the area kept a watchful eye on the POW camp in order to alert authorities on any abuse of the prisoners by the guards or camp