LIVING LARGE in Small-Town Iowa Four couples share their secrets to living the good life. by SUZANNE KELSEY | photography by JUSTIN HAYWORTH
“She was snatched back from a dream of far countries, and found herself on Main Street,” wrote Sinclair Lewis of Carol Kennicott. That character’s ambivalence about living in fictitious Gopher Prairie, Minnesota, was the subject of Lewis’s 1920 novel, Main Street. Nearly a century later, many residents of smalltown Iowa have no such ambivalence.
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THE IOWAN | iowan.com
“I don’t have to live in New York or San Francisco to have this really rich, intellectually challenging and interesting life,” says Jim Powers of Grinnell. Here’s how Powers and his partner, Dave Thompson, right, and three other fascinating couples — from artists to farmers — live enviable lifestyles by making the most of their small-town Iowa home bases.