{"id":1234,"date":"2020-12-04T16:44:02","date_gmt":"2020-12-04T16:44:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/harrietweltyrochefort.com\/wordpress\/?p=1234"},"modified":"2020-12-04T16:44:02","modified_gmt":"2020-12-04T16:44:02","slug":"you-can-take-the-girl-out-of-shenandoah-but-you-cant-take-shenandoah-out-of-the-girl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harrietweltyrochefort.com\/?p=1234","title":{"rendered":"You can take the girl out of Shenandoah\u2013but you can’t take Shenandoah out of the girl"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

People sometimes wonder about me. Mostly, they wonder about how I got to Paris, France from Shenandoah, Iowa, and why I stayed. Actually, when I was in college in the not all that far away state of Michigan, people wondered, even asked me “how I got out of Iowa”. I would stare at them to see if they were serious and when I had ascertained that they actually were, I would answer: “I walked out. Iowa isn’t a prison, you know.” But of course they didn’t know anything more than their prejudices – for those people, Iowa is a land of corn and pigs and Iowans are hicks. Whoa! Was I ever tempted to fib and tell them that I was from someplace else? Someplace sophisticated, like New York City or San Francisco or Cape Cod? Tempted perhaps, but I never did it. And now I couldn’t if I wanted to because my fellow Iowan and journalist colleague Chuck Offenburger has written a very long piece all about me that details the story of my childhood and my roots in Iowa \u2013 and they are deep. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you are interested in finding out how a girl from a small town in Iowa ends up in Paris leading a glamorous life far from home (think Jean Seberg but I’m a writer, not an actress…), you will find the answers in Chuck’ s article. He decided to write it after attending one of the zoom book chats I gave for my fourth book and first novel, Final Transgression: One Woman’s Tragic Destiny in War-torn France<\/em>. He liked the book, he liked the reporting I did for the book, he liked my presentation of the book and he especially liked the idea that a former Shenandoahan had not only gone out into the big, wide world but had done it with style (panache, as the French would say). After asking permission to write a profile of me (I immediately said oui<\/em>), he set out to trace my trajectory, interviewing an impressive slew of friends and family along the way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my opinion he did a terrific job. But that’s for you to decide, dear reader. Here’s the link. Now sit back and enjoy the ride! http:\/\/offenburger.com\/index.php\/from-shenandoah-iowa-to-paris-france-what-a-trip-harriet-welty-rochefort-has-taken-a-bunch-of-us-along\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

People sometimes wonder about me. Mostly, they wonder about how I got to Paris, France from Shenandoah, Iowa, and why I stayed. Actually, when I was in college in the not all that far away state of Michigan, people wondered, even asked me “how I got out of Iowa”. I would stare at them to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":783,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/harrietweltyrochefort.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/harrietweltyrochefort.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/harrietweltyrochefort.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harrietweltyrochefort.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/783"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harrietweltyrochefort.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1234"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/harrietweltyrochefort.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1234\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1237,"href":"https:\/\/harrietweltyrochefort.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1234\/revisions\/1237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/harrietweltyrochefort.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harrietweltyrochefort.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harrietweltyrochefort.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}