Chew on this: Doug Elam

Chew on This! Doug Elam
"$10 Casket and a $3 Robe, Iowa’s Poor Farm Cemeteries"

Doors open at 12:00 PM

​Program starts at 12:00 PM

The History Center

800 Second Avenue SE

Cedar Rapids, IA 52403

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Bring your sack lunch and we’ll provide the dessert!

Join us for lunch with speaker Doug Elam. As a lifelong student of history Doug wanted a reason to tour all 99 Iowa counties, not just drive through and say, “Been there – done that.” So when in the course of his work he saw that nearly all Iowa counties had a County Home (sometimes known as the Poor Farm) he wondered what ever became of the people who eventually died there. What started as a ‘slam-dunk’ (thanks to the impressive Marshall County Home Cemetery and Google Maps) turned into a four-year scavenger hunt! Doug and his wife, Mary Jo, have visited 53 sites so far. The cemeteries range from plowed-over corn fields to well-kept burial grounds with plaques and markers. Along this journey Doug has become the unendorsed “worldwide expert on Iowa’s Poor Farm Cemeteries”. His ambition is to write a book documenting these sites to honor those interred in these pioneer cemeteries.

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Tickets: $7.00 general admission; $5.00 for members of The History Center

Chew on this! is sponsored by: Rob & Kathy Cook