© 2024 Iowa Public Radio
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

"Buying the Farm" and Buying the Farm

The concept of 'the eldest son inheriting the land' is an outdated one, and families without a coherent and explicit will may leave their descendants a mess of trouble after their deaths.

Inheritance of any family business is a sticky issue. But when that family business doubles as your childhood home, emotions run even higher.

That's what Mary Swander, Iowa's poet laureate, discovered when she started researching her latest play, "Map of My Kingdom." It follows Angela Martin, a lawyer and mediator of law disputes. And while the play is fictional, the stories are incredibly true-to-life.

"The play debuted in July and as I was walking out, I heard people in the audience say, 'Well we own farmland; we've never thought about what will happen to it.'"

The next showing of the play is Thursday, September 25th, in Chariton. On this Talk of Iowa, Charity Nebbe talks with Swander and with Tom Frantzen, a full-time farmer of forty years who has dealt with three generations of farm transfer.

Charity Nebbe is the host of IPR's Talk of Iowa