Sarah Smarsh’s strongest work to date is in Bone of the Bone: Essays on America by a Daughter of the Working Class. Her first book, Heartland, was a sensation; her second, She Come By It Naturally, fell flat for me. Smarsh’s strengths are well suited to the type of short essays in Bone of the Bone.
In 2019, I attended an event in Iowa City where Smarsh was interviewed by Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Connie Schultz. Smarsh later wrote about this night in the essay, “In the Running,” where she described her consideration of a run for U.S. Senator from Kansas. At the time, I felt she was reserved. Reading the essay, I learned that in the green room before it started, she discussed the choice between being a writer and running for office with Schultz and husband Sherrod Brown. Brown was in Iowa exploring a presidential run, and earlier that day I heard him speak to small group of elected officials and activists about the dignity of work. Smarsh ends the essay by deciding not to run. In retrospect, her reserve that night makes sense.
When Smarsh assumes the persona of “Daughter of the Working Class,” I’m both thrilled and slightly annoyed. Thrilled because she writes from a perspective we hear too rarely: a woman who grew up poor and worked her way into public life. Annoyed because the persona sometimes feels deliberate, as if it stands between the reader and the fuller self behind it. I sensed that in Iowa City and again in this book. She makes the journey worth it.
What I admire most about Sarah Smarsh is how she integrates rural landscape, domestic life, and work into a lived sense of place. Her prose is stripped to essentials, plainspoken without being spare, and that economy draws me in. I respond to this style because it treats labor and class not as abstractions but as daily facts, shaping how people live, eat, and speak to one another. Unlike many essayists, Smarsh’s didactic impulse is present but hidden, carried by narrative rather than argument. The writing rewards our attention without insisting on agreement.
Smarsh is at the height of her writing ability in Bone on the Bone, which appeals on many levels. I highly recommend it.
At our consolidated Democratic precinct caucuses on Feb. 2, I gave two speeches supporting candidates. Here they are, prepared for delivery.
Nate Willems, Iowa Attorney General
I’m proud to endorse Nate Willems for Iowa Attorney General.
I worked with Nate, as many of us in the room did, when he ran for Iowa House after Rep. Ro Foege retired. People in our district know him because he represented us.
For nearly 20 years, Nate has fought for workers as a labor attorney — including his recent winning of a major wage-theft case that returned millions of dollars to Iowans who had been cheated.
That record is why Nate is endorsed by former Attorney General Tom Miller and the Iowa Federation of Labor AFL-CIO.
Nate is a life-long Iowan who understands that the Attorney General’s job is about protecting victims, prosecuting violent crime, and holding powerful interests accountable.
I trust Nate Willems to do that job for Iowa.
Jon Green, current Johnson County Supervisor
I’m proud to endorse Jon Green for County Supervisor.
Jon showed up in our area, canvassed with me, and listened — which tells you exactly the kind of County Supervisor he is.
One of the hardest issues we face is the jail. Jon understands we need a solution that works for the county, for county employees, and for the people who are incarcerated there — and that means real leadership, not delay or division.
As chair, Jon has proven he can lead in difficult moments. He builds coalitions, believes in transparency and debate, and makes sure every voice is heard.
At a time when local communities are often caught between state and federal pressures, Jon will stand up for this county.
We need local leaders who understand not only what the law requires, but what the people demand.
Before sunrise on the state park trail on Feb. 4, 2026.
It’s hard to believe half of winter is gone. Ambient temperature pushed toward freezing Wednesday afternoon, yet it didn’t quite make it. The lake remains frozen.
While I planned for it, political work on Sunday and Monday took a lot of energy. I’ve been recovering ever since. I finished the work by writing a personal note to each voter who attended caucus. The letter carrier just picked those up.
So today is a photo and a couple of paragraphs while I continue regaining energy. Life could be worse than that.
Iowa Democrats have a rare opportunity for party building before the 2026 general election. Our governor is the least popular in the nation and Republican activists don’t really like their field of primary candidates, according to the Cedar Rapids Gazette. That includes Randy Feenstra who hails from the most conservative part of the state and is the current favorite in their gubernatorial primary. Lack of talent and personality never stopped Republicans, though.
Our neighbors in Minnesota are largely driving the opportunity I see. People just don’t like how federal agents are on the streets terrorizing U.S. citizens. Dislike is turning into action with more public demonstrations against the Trump and Reynolds administrations during the last year than I can count. Led by large, national groups, as well as by locals, millions of people across the country are being activated in the political process, including in Iowa. Not only are people participating in demonstrations and direct action, some of them showed up at our party caucus for the first time on Feb. 2.
I served as site leader for seven precinct caucuses and going in, I knew no one from my precinct who planned to attend. We did manage 32 people for seven precincts. I was surprised when three voters I did not know appeared in my group.
With the City of Solon’s annexation of a large, new subdivision, when the precinct lines were redrawn after the 2020 U.S. Census, we gained some neighbors. To a person, those who caucused with us were trying it out to see what local Democratic politics is about. That has been rare in my political life and is the reason for my optimism about party-building. I had to tap the deep well of memory to remember why we have precinct caucuses and explain the statewide process meaningfully.
I don’t know the future of Iowa politics, but Democrats are on the cusp of something big. The first step is to recognize the opportunity. Do that and hope remains for Iowa politics.
It was Bill Gates while at Microsoft who said when he had a major project, he stored relevant stuff away and didn’t look at it. Then, when it was time, he focused all attention on that task and saw it through to completion. The benefit of the approach was loose ends tended to get sorted out in the waiting period. While busy for a short duration, the process made less work in the end. This was my approach to preparing for my role as a site manager in the 2026 Democratic Precinct Caucuses. The caucus was last night and I began preparation the day before. It was plenty of time.
I’m no Bill Gates and in some ways, that’s a good thing. This technique can work well when properly applied. Especially in politics, it is difficult to distinguish the signal from the noise, and time and calmness can help clarify that.
We had a good group of caucus volunteers. It made things go smoothly.
What characterized the 2008 presidential election for Democrats was the systematic use of nearly every procedural, legal, organizational, and technological lever within the electoral process to bring people to the polls that were previously infrequent voters. The Obama campaign innovated within the existing electoral system, integrating policy, organizational structure, data analytics, and ground tactics into one single, continuous outreach to voters. The results speak for themselves. Obama won — decisively.
I have living memory of that campaign, and it is worth examining how the underlying process has changed since then. In 2008, the focus was on persuading people to vote and vote for Obama and other Democrats. In the years since, a series of Republican-led changes in election law shifted the challenge away from persuasion and toward altering how voters participate in elections. These shifts in process are making a difference, particularly for the kinds of turnout strategies used by the Democratic campaign in 2008.
In Iowa, these changes took concrete form in the voting restrictions enacted by Republicans in 2021. The law signed by Governor Kim Reynolds redefined key elements of the electoral process in ways that made voting more difficult. I list the provisions of the law here in full because this post is intended as a reference. Taken together, these changes make campaigns like the one Obama ran in 2008 significantly harder to execute. The new laws must be followed, and campaign leaders have adjusted accordingly.
According to the Iowa State Association of County Auditors, the law required the following changes:
Voters must register to vote 15 days or more before the election to appear on the voter register on election day (formerly 11 days, and 10 days for general elections). Voters may still register to vote on election day, or when voting absentee in person, with both proof of identity andproof of residence.
A voter who has moved and has therefore been sent mail by the County Auditor to inquire of their proper address, andwho did not vote in the most recent general election (formerly the last two general elections), shall be marked inactive (unless they were not 18 years old at the time of the most recent general election). Registrations of inactive voters will not be cancelled until two more general elections pass with no voter activity.
Polls close at 8:00 pm for all elections (formerly 9:00 pm for primary and general elections).
When a registered voter is attesting to the identity and residency of a voter unable to present required forms of identification, the attesting voter must present his/her own required form of identification.
For a provisional ballot to be counted, the voter must either provide the necessary identification at the polling place before it closes at 8:00 pm, or provide it at the Auditor’s Office by noon on the following Monday. If the canvass by the Board of Supervisors will be held earlier than the following Monday (for cities with possible runoff elections), the identification must be provided before the canvass. (The post-election deadline was previously unclear.)
Employers must allow employees two consecutive hours to vote on election day, if they do not already have two consecutive hours off during the time the polls are open (formerly three hours).
The first day to submit an absentee ballot request form to your County Auditor is 70 days before an election (formerly 120 days).
The first day County Auditors may mail absentee ballots to voters is 20 days before an election (formerly 29 days).
The first day to vote absentee in person at the Auditor’s Office is 20 days before an election (formerly 29 days). (If you have requested a ballot by mail prior to this, your ballot will go out in the mail on this date.)
The first day to vote absentee in person at a satellite location is 20 days before the election (formerly 29 days), and satellite voting locations may only be established by a public petition with a minimum of 100 signatures (formerly County Auditors could establish satellite locations on their own motion). To learn how to request one, click here.
Absentee ballot requests for voting by mail must be received by 15 days before the election (formerly 11 days, and 10 days for general elections). Exception: If a voter is admitted to a health care facility, dementia-specific assisted living program, or hospital 14 or fewer days before the election, the voter may request an absentee ballot by telephone no later than 4 p.m. on election day.
Absentee ballots must be received by the county auditor by 8:00 pm on election day.(Previously, ballots were valid if postmarked before Election Day and received by the Monday following the election.) Postmarks or bar codes printed on ballot envelopes will no longer make a ballot received after election day valid, except in these cases:
Ballots from participants in the Safe at Home program received by the Secretary of State in time to be transmitted to the County Auditor by noon on the Monday following the election.
Ballots from uniformed and overseas citizens received by noon on the Monday following the election.
If an absentee ballot affidavit envelope is not signed by the voter, the County Auditor shall contact the voter, who may then:
Request a replacement ballot and return it by 8:00 pm on election day (changed from postmarked the day before the election or earlier).
Vote at the polls on election day.
Sign the affidavit in person at the county auditor’s office by 8:00 pm on election day (changed from 5:00 pm the day before the election).
Absentee ballot requests for voting by mail must be received by the County Auditor 15 days before the election (see exceptions above).
Must include the date the request is signed.
May not be sent to voters by County Auditors unless a voter requests one.
May not be sent to voters by the Secretary of State unless directed to do so by the state legislature in the event of a public health disaster declared by the governor.
May be sent to voters by candidates, political groups, and other private organizations, but no fields on the request form may be prefilled except for type and date of election.
The only people who may return a voted absentee ballot other than the voter are:
Someone living in the voter’s household
An immediate family member
The two special precinct election officials who deliver a ballot to the resident of a health care facility, dementia-specific assisted living program, or hospital
Voters unable to return a ballot due to blindness or other disability may use a “delivery agent” to deliver their ballots
Absentee ballots may be returned via designated ballot drop boxes (unless returned by a “delivery agent”), which if available must be located on the grounds of or within the building where the County Auditor conducts in-person absentee voting. (Auditors are not required to provide drop boxes.)
In the case of a voter unable to return a ballot due to blindness or other disability, the voter may ask a “delivery agent” to deliver their ballot. “Delivery agent” is defined as follows:
If a voter with a disability designates a delivery agent, the voter must complete and sign a designation form prescribed by the Secretary of State.
A delivery agent shall return no more than two absentee ballots per election.
The delivery agent shall fill out a receipt in a form prescribed by the Secretary of State and shall leave it with the voter.
The delivery agent shall collect the voter’s designation form at the same time as collecting the ballot, and shall deliver the ballot and designation form to the County Auditor at the same time. The delivery agent must:
Deliver the ballot in person to the County Auditor, not by mail or drop box.
Provide to the County Auditor the same identification as a voter at the polls.
Provide the following on a form prescribed by the Secretary of State:
Full legal name
Residential address
Phone number
Email address, if applicable
Sign a statement (prescribed in the law) certifying under penalty of perjury that the delivery agent has complied with the law.
There is lots to do to get ready for Monday’s precinct caucus so I am writing this short post and adding a photo. May we focus on the rising sun of each new day.
This January I’m thankful to have gotten back into the writing groove so quickly. I finished the first draft of my book and am a third finished with the first major edit. The narrative and language keeps getting stronger. If I did nothing else, that would be an accomplishment.
I managed to get outdoors for my 30-minute walk every day but one. In past years I struggled to get exercise during winter but I remedied that. Among other things I remedied was sleepless nights. After using artificial intelligence to generate some ideas, I developed my own process to fall asleep and stay asleep until it is time to get up. I’ve now been getting seven to eight hours of sleep each night.
Reading seven books this month was in line with my plans. February should be another good month, especially if it stays cold.
Friday I attended a visitation for a friend’s spouse. The older I get, the more I feel a sense of loss regardless of how long or how well I knew the deceased. Luckily several other people I knew were there and we were able to talk about more than a few common things. We could go on living.
The current schedule is to start the first garden seeds indoors on Feb. 7. The year is rushing toward us with unrelenting fury. A lot remains to be done before spring’s promise arrives.
On Monday, Feb. 2, beginning at 7 p.m., the Iowa Democratic Party precinct caucuses begin the trek to the 2026 midterm elections. We will talk about issues, sign candidate nominating petitions, elect members of the county central committee, and pick delegates to the county convention. In the turbulence that has been the last 12 months, it is difficult to predict turnout. As a precinct captain, I am concerned about that.
It seems obvious our politics is moving away from political parties. A person does not need to be a Democrat to be outraged by the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Likewise, showing up at a memorial or demonstration is speaking up against our government in what can be a non-partisan way. The caucuses are where the rubber meets to road in politics, and if people believe they no longer need a political party it has consequences.
One of my favorite movie lines is from Casablanca, in which Captain Renault says, “Major Strasser has been shot… round up the usual suspects.” From years of working in local politics, I know most of the usual suspects who will show up on Monday night. Here’s hoping they and others do. Regardless of who shows, we will get the engine rolling toward the midterms.
A group of us met to do a walk through of the elementary school where our group of seven precincts will hold caucuses. All of us have been working on Democratic politics for a long time, including one person who started during the 1972 Iowa caucuses. Experienced hands can make the process go smoothly. The weather is forecast to be warm, our leaders are energized. It should be a good night.
Family lore was we were kin to June Carter Cash, who was married to Johnny Cash. We had common family trees in southwest Virginia and for years, I called her a “shirt tail relative.” I descended from a line of Addingtons and so did she. I had an hour before having to get to the kitchen to prepare dinner so I typed in the ChatGPT chat box:
Genealogy question: I am descended from a person named Thomas Jefferson Addington who lived in Wise County, Virginia. He was my great grandfather. Family lore is June Carter Cash (spouse of Johnny Cash) also has an Addington from our area in her family tree, that she was or is descended from Addington line. What do you know about that and what are ways for me to learn more.
Long story short, AI determined, with additional information from me, that Cash was either my fourth cousin, once removed, or fifth cousin depending upon how the actual family tree branched out. By knowing my line traced back to William Addington and Margaret Cromwell, a founding family of the Trans-Appalachian frontier, and with the large language model’s vast access to public records, it took hardly any time of back and forth for it to draw this conclusion.
The key piece of the puzzle, which AI did not have, was a book called The Stallard Connection: A Family History edited by Nancy Clark Baker, Gladys Julian Stallard, and Margaret Russell Stallard, published in 1981. These women did legion work to assemble the information in this 900-page record of names, births, marriages and deaths, along with photographs and stories. It has been sitting on my book shelf since Mother gave it to me.
I lacked the ability to put the pieces together on my own. Artificial intelligence was helpful in that regard. After six rounds of back and forth I comprehended what years of studying the book and talking to relatives couldn’t effectively explain: What was my family tree and why was it important in history. At the end, I asked AI to write a narrative of the Addington-Cromwell part of the family tree. In less than a minute it produced the following.
William Addington and Margaret Cromwell: Founders of the Virginia Addington Line
The Addington family in southwest Virginia traces its beginnings to William Addington and his wife, Margaret Cromwell, who stand at the head of nearly all documented Addington lines in Scott, Wise, and surrounding counties. Though the surviving records do not reveal every detail of their lives, enough evidence exists—supported by county records, family histories, and consistent descent patterns—to place them firmly among the early settlers whose children helped populate the Appalachian frontier.
William Addington was likely born in the mid-to-late eighteenth century, probably in Virginia or the Carolinas, during a period when families were steadily moving south and west in search of land. His wife, Margaret Cromwell, came from a family name that appears frequently in early colonial and frontier records, suggesting established roots and connections. Together, William and Margaret formed a household that would become the nucleus of the Addington presence in the region.
By the closing years of the eighteenth century, the Addington family was part of the great westward movement into the upland counties of Virginia. At that time, Washington County, Virginia encompassed a vast area that would later be divided into several counties, including Scott County. It was into this evolving landscape of shifting boundaries, newly formed communities, and frontier conditions that William and Margaret raised their children.
Their sons and daughters grew to adulthood during a period marked by land clearing, subsistence farming, church formation, and the establishment of local governance. Records and later family histories consistently show that William and Margaret’s children married into other early families of the region, forming kinship networks that provided stability and continuity in an otherwise demanding environment.
One of their sons, William Addington, born circa 1784, carried the family line forward by marrying Sarah Stallard, a member of another prominent early family of Washington (later Scott) County. This marriage not only continued the Addington name but also cemented ties between families who shared geography, labor, and responsibility for shaping the early community.
Through these descendants, the Addington family became firmly established in southwest Virginia. By the early nineteenth century, multiple branches of the family were present in Scott County, and later in Wise County, appearing in census records, land transactions, court documents, and church memberships. These records reveal a pattern common to Appalachian families: close proximity among relatives, repeated given names across generations, and a gradual westward drift as new land opened.
The importance of William Addington and Margaret Cromwell lies not in public prominence but in continuity. Their legacy is measured in generations rather than monuments. From their household came farmers, soldiers, musicians, and community members whose lives intersected with major events in American history, including westward expansion and the Civil War. Notably, different branches of their descendants would eventually include both local families of Wise County and the Addington line that produced Maybelle Addington Carter, linking the family to a broader cultural legacy through her daughter, June Carter Cash.
Family histories such as The Stallard Collection, written close to the people and places they describe, preserve this origin story with a clarity that official records alone cannot provide. While gaps remain—as they do in all early genealogies—the consistency of the Addington descent from William Addington and Margaret Cromwell across multiple lines strongly supports their role as the founding ancestors of the Addington family in southwest Virginia.
In this way, William Addington and Margaret Cromwell stand at the threshold between colonial America and the Appalachian frontier, their descendants carrying forward not only a surname, but a shared regional history rooted in endurance, kinship, and place.
-o0^0o-
I take everything artificial intelligence says with a grain of salt. However, from my study of the Trans-Appalachian frontier, family history, and American culture, the narrative as written is not wrong. I need to set it aside and take another look in a week or so. By the way, I did prepare dinner on time.
Journey Home 
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