Iowa City

Forgot to mention, I’m back in Iowa City, having been very sorry to Leave Portland so quickly.

Off to Kansas City tomorrow to see my 94-year-old grandmother. She’s struggling at the moment, but is razor sharp when in her normal state. In fact, it is the literal truth that she was the target audience I had in mind when writing Heidegger Explained. “Will grandma [then 88 years old] be able to understand this section?” is the question I asked throughout during the writing process. She never graduated from college, but has always been an intellectual at heart.

The image below is of the Old Capitol building in Iowa City, which was only the territorial capital during the 1830’s. When Iowa became a state in the 1840’s, Des Moines became the capital as the population of the state shifted westward, and Iowa City was given the new university as a consolation prize– a better prize than the state capital, in my opinion.

And as I mentioned last year, this building is the reason that there are Harmans in Iowa in the first place. My great-great-great grandfather, Peter Dix Harman, was a stonemason from near Gettsyburg, Pennsylvania. He came here in the 1830’s to build this, and for whatever reason, he liked it enough to stay.

There is no knowledge of family history before his birth in the first decade of the nineteenth century. The name is presumably German in origin, but could also be English or even Dutch. The one time I checked semi-seriously, the majority of Harmans who emigrated to Pennsylvania (according to ship records) were from the area of Heidelberg, so that’s the best guess I can make.