RAGBRAI 2012: One rider's pilgrimage to Stone City

Andy Strauss, 52, made the trip to Stone City, driven by an interest in the works of Grant Wood that he acquired as a young boy.

Stone City, Ia. – For one second-time RAGBRAI rider, the chance to visit the off-route community of Stone City, where painter Grant Wood had an art colony in the 30s, was a pilgrimage of sorts.

When Andy Strauss was a boy of 10 or 11 in New York City, he spent a week home from school with the flu. During the week, he completed a 500-piece puzzle of Wood’s classic “American Gothic” painting.

He spent the rest of the week looking at the beautiful Iowa hills in the background, he said.

“I wanted to know where this guy lived, where he painted,” he said. “I just thought it was really cool. I had never seen anything like that.”

Though “American Gothic” itself was painted in Eldon, counties away in southeast Iowa, the chance to visit the town where Wood worked was a must.

He knew that Wood had painted and lived in the area, he said. But, the short trip wasn’t something he set out to do from the start.

Then yesterday, he ran into staff members with the Anamosa Journal-Eureka, and they were able to give him directions to the community, he said.

“They said go to Stone City,” he said. “I just got here, and figured I’d poke around a little bit.”

Today, Strauss lives just outside of Philadelphia and works as a city planner. His Iowa roots, however, extend beyond his love for Wood’s work; he is also a Grinnell College graduate.

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