The tour

Yesterday morning after checking out of the Amana RV Park I headed in to town and the Visitor center and got the last seat on the van tour of the colonies. Darrell was our guide and driver and was very knowledgeable about the colonies. The first stop was in the industrial area of Amana and then it was off to Middle Amana where we visited with Bill and toured his home.

This is Bill's home. He explained to us that during the communal days when a couple married the were assigned quarters in a home like this that was completely furnished by the community. Entering the front door you are in a hallway with two rooms to the right and two rooms to the left. In front of you is a stairway to the second floor with the same room arrangement two rooms right and two rooms left. Before you get to thinking how spacious this house was each of those two room sets served one family, so this was a  4-plex. Each family has a parlor and a bedroom and as the children came along the space allotted didn't increase, a pretty effective form of birth control I suppose.

This and the next picture are shots of the parlor. Everything in this room was made within a mile of this location.

Plain was the name of this life style.

Some more of the furnishings of the parlor.

Moving to the bedroom it was noted that the couple was given two twin beds for furnishings. This again was in keeping with the theme that simple is better.

Sex in the colonies was for procreation and not recreation and twin beds was just another form of birth control.

This beautiful grandfathers clock was actually built by Bill's grandfather and was one of his proudest possessions. 

The home was divided into three parts, the front was the apartments, the middle was this kitchen and the back was a communal dining room. This kitchen has been upgraded for Bill's use today. To the extreme right of the picture you can just see the edge of a microwave oven. I didn't know it until later, but it was one of the first 50 Radar Ranges produced by Amana.

When the communal way of life ended in 1932 in what is known as the 'great change' stock was issued to all the members of the church as their share of the new corporation. Some of the members opted for lesser amounts of stock in order to retain their homes and this is the way Bill's family acquired his home.

Bill is a tinsmith and tomorrows pictures will include a trip to his basement shop. Today we are overcast and threatening rain, but I'm going to do a bit of checking out of my new locale while enjoying the good life.