A Comment from Louise McCeery

Louise wrote in to Creating Great Places and we wanted to share her story:

(This is in reguard to) The articles in the Guthrie Center newspaper concerning the activities you are planning for the 50th Anniversary of Nikita's Historic Visit to Iowa on August 29, 1959. My daughter and I attended that event. We lived only a few miles from the Garst Farm which they visited. As we were waiting for the visitors to pass by us where we were standing, it stopped suddenly and one of the visitors from Russia got off of the hayrack and came over to where we were standing. He asked Mary, my daughter, if she would like to ride out to the field with them. He told us he has a little girl about her age and was homesick to see her. Mary was ready to go so (she) took his hand and went on the hayrack onto the Garst field of corn. When they came back, he asked if she would like to eat lunch with him at the farm house. She did, so away they went again, hand-in-hand. Mary was seven years old at the time and is now Mrs. Clarence Leighty. She lives on a farm close to Guthrie Center, and is the high school librarian at the school at Aububon. I am her mother and wanted you to know about our wonderful experience that day.