Preservation celebrations in Cedar County
Hard work of historical society, nature enthusiast converge in 2 events on 1 day
BUCHANAN — History, agriculture, and nature commingled on Saturday at Bickett-Rate Memorial Preserve.
The site by unincorporated Buchanan, in Cedar County 10 miles south of Mechanicsville, hosted two events. One was a showcase of the barn as part of the Iowa Barn Foundation’s statewide fall barn tour. The other was a celebration of life for Barbara Boyle, who died Aug. 8.
Boyle, 74, was the driving force behind the relocation and restoration of the Althea Sherman chimney swift tower. Sherman, a self-taught ornithologist, built the tower in 1915 in the Clayton County town of National. The tower fell into disrepair and spent time in storage before its relocation to the preserve on May 7, 2013. (A tower currently at National Cemetery is a replica built in 2008.) “There were many times I thought this day would never come,” Boyle, a member of the Johnson County Songbird Project, told the Cedar Rapids Gazette at the time.
A year later, chimney swifts found the tower and raised hatchlings in it. Chimney swifts are a migratory species that spend winters in the Peruvian Amazon but hatch and raise their young in North America. An editor’s note with a story that Boyle wrote in 2013 mentions that Sherman’s tower was an “innovative design” that inspired towers built decades later for chimney swift conservation.
Boyle “was responsible for the microfilming [of] Althea Sherman’s voluminous bird journals and having the University of Iowa Press republish Sherman’s posthumously-published book, Birds of an Iowa Dooryard,” her obituary said.
Attendees at Boyle’s celebration of life, on a day with perfect weather, shared stories about “a real birder” who loved nature. Guests were encouraged to take a packet of wildflower seeds and a handmade string of crystals, another of Boyle’s passions.
Boyle, who was adopted, found her brother, Bill Warnecke, in 2000. Warnecke said his aunts had been looking for the “missing piece” in the family but after the death of his and Barbara’s mother, Adrienne Warnecke, it was Barbara who found them.
“You have a sister,” Bill was told. “I do?” he replied. They met at Mississippi Palisades State Park, Illinois, and immediately bonded. “We looked so much alike.” Barbara’s house was decorated “just like Adrienne’s, only on steroids.” Adrienne Warnecke had been a nurse; Boyle had trained a Great Pyrenees as a therapy dog.
Carol Morgan went to school with Boyle. “We went riding bikes, riding horses, driving country roads, doing things we weren’t supposed to do.” Morgan said she kept looking toward the tower expecting to see Boyle there.
Boyle “was a grateful person,” Bill Warnecke said. Cousin Kathy Warnecke agreed: “Gratitude. That was her word.”
Mike Boyle (no relation), treasurer of the Cedar County Historical Society, is definitely grateful for Barbara Boyle’s work. He talked about how kids from West Branch Middle School come out to see the tower and learn about birds and the site. In addition, the Iowa Young Birders group visited the preserve and tower on June 29.
“Those are memories those kids will take with them all their lives,” Mike Boyle said. Boyle believes in an educational mission for the preserve. “We don’t want it to be a secret.”
The barn at the preserve, originally built in 1922, was in bad enough shape in 2019 that it was on Preservation Iowa’s Most Endangered Properties list that year. Restoration of the barn cost over $120,000 plus assistance from various grants, said Mike Bixler, president of the Cedar County Historical Society. A group of Amish volunteers jacked up the barn and a cement floor was put underneath, protecting the structure from the onslaught of groundhogs.
It cost $300,000 and 4½ years to restore the farmhouse, which dates back to 1836. Sharon Lynch-Voparil led the work there. She and husband Kurtis Voparil welcomed visitors to the barn Saturday. Both have been with the historical society for decades. The smell of the barn “takes me right back” to her youth, Lynch-Voparil said.
A record 92 barns were open statewide over the weekend as part of the barn foundation’s tour. The Bickett-Rate Historical Preserve Barn will be part of a regional tour on June 21-22, 2025. Lunch will be at the Cedar County Historical Society Museum and Prairie Village site at Tipton, the foundation’s website says.
Perhaps visitors to the barn next June will take time to go up the tower and see if there are any chimney swifts there. Mike Boyle said six chicks were successfully fledged this summer and flew away.
Just like Barbara Boyle wanted.
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