MARVIN RYCHNOVSKY FAMILY
As told by Jan with input from Marvin

My maiden name was Van Vleet, and mom's maiden name was McKee, so I have a Dutch/ Irish heritage. I was born in Creston, Iowa, and I am the oldest of four siblings. I have two sisters and a brother. Mom was a homemaker for most of our growing-up years, but she pursued her dream to become a nurse when I was in high school. My parents divorced when I was about 19 and Dad moved to West Virginia. Mom remarried after several years, and she and my step-dad, Wayne, have been very active in the Urbandale community, especially within the Aldersgate Methodist church in Urbandale. They do a lot of volunteer work, and have many grandchildren's and great grandchildren's activities to follow.

I was educated in the Des Moines school system, on the south side, beginning with Park Avenue Elementary School then continuing at Jefferson Elementary. When I was in 6th grade, our class was moved into the newly finished Brody Middle School, and I went there from 6th grade to the middle of my 9th grade year.

My father worked for Hoxie Wholesale Foods, then it became Continental Hoxie, and now it is Sysco Foods. The company transferred him to Waterloo, in the middle of my grade year. It was kind of a traumatic move, but while we were there, I joined the Chevaliers Drum and Bugle Corps. I was in the Color Guard and I loved it! We practiced all year round. During the school year, we marched inside at the local armory, but during the summer we were on football fields or wherever we could find a place. We traveled to contests all summer — including out of state to Wisconsin and Wyoming. There were about 100 of us and we were like a family. We were transported on Greyhound buses — girls on one, boys on the other, with about four chaperones on each bus. At that time there was four competing corps in Iowa: Waterloo had two, there was one in Osage, and the Colt 45s of Dubuque, which is the only drum corps left.

Our family lived in Waterloo about two years, until the middle of my junior year in high school, when my dad was transferred again. We moved to Urbandale and I graduated from there. Because I went in the middle of my junior year, I never did feel connected to Urbandale. I was more interested in finding a social network and filling the hole of drum corps. I had good teachers throughout high school, and I especially remember the Home Economics teachers in both systems.

When I graduated from high school I already had two part time jobs, but I didn't really know what I wanted to do. Mom hoped I would become a nurse, but I really didn't want to do that. I didn't go on to college until much later.

After I fmished high school, my parents divorced and Dad eventually moved to Parkersburg, West Virginia, to fulfill his dream of owning a wholesale foods company. He remains there, and drives the ten hours straight through when he returns to Iowa.

I always loved spending time on the farm with relatives, taking care of animals and gardening. I went to my aunt's and uncle's farm, near Prescott, Iowa in the summer They had five stair-step kids and I loved to be there. One cousin and I were about the same age, so when I stayed with the family, he and I would pal around together.

Marvin is my uncle's brother and I have known him since I was very young. He lived his whole life on the same farm, and in the same house in Prescott. As the youngest of three, with a big gap between siblings, Marvin got lots of attention. His school experience was much different than mine. The school was K-12 and the classes were small. The kids always seemed to look out for each other, and I know his class was very close. Everyone knew everybody in town. They knew who their parents were and where everyone lived.

Marvin played basketball and baseball in high school and he was involved in the annual school plays. My maternal grandmother was his seventh and eighth grade English teacher. Although she always thought Marvin was an angel, she later found out he had pulled a couple of harmless, although, ornery pranks. (One involved a metal chair bouncing down the fire escape) After graduation, Marvin enrolled in barber school. Upon finishing, he enlisted in the National Guard, served for six years and returned home to farm. Although he did not pursue barbering, his family members always enjoyed free haircuts. Our sons and grandsons have never paid for a haircut unless they couldn't get an 'appointment' with their dad/grandpa.

While he was still on the farm, Marvin would come over to his brother's farm and help with chores. Actually, my cousin and I would kind of pester him. Thankfully, I grew up, and Marvin and I started dating after I finished high school. We had the love of farm life and several other values in common, and we married when I was 19. In 1974, I became Jan Rychnovsky. There I was, on the farm! We purchased my grandparent's farm, north of Prescott, near Williamson, Iowa.

Our last name is Bohemian; I kid Marvin about being stubborn, which is, I have been told, a Bohemian trait. His parents were both Bohemian. His grandparents came over from the "old country," which is now a part of Czechoslovakia. His parents, Andrew and Mary, were farmers. They lived on the same farm for most of their married life of 67 years and were both in their 90s when they died. They were very kind and faith-filled Catholic people.

I connect with kids in school through stories, and I tell about my in-laws and other family members. When Andrew was 90 years old, he decided to paint the barn - with a brush, oil paint, and standing on a ladder. The only reason he didn't paint the peak was because the whole family banned him from doing so. One of his granddaughters finished the job. Ryan, our youngest son, wrote a character sketch about his grandfather. One of the sections he wrote was that every night before he went to bed, Andrew was on his knees praying. Andrew's priorities were God, then family, then friends. Our boys and all of the grandchildren have a very strong example for how life should be lived.

The fact is our children have been blessed with a very strong background. My Dad's mom just passed away in March, 2011 at the age of 98. Although she lived many years in Iowa, after her boys were grown, she moved to Arizona and later to California. Our sons didn't get to see her very much, but they remember her as  the grandmother who loved baseball. She knew the league standings and cheered for her Dodgers. Grandma had a very dry sense of humor; she loved to read and was a whiz at Yahtzee. She had a tough life and reared three boys mostly by herself, but she did not complain.

My maternal grandmother was also a very strong lady. She was a farmer's wife and as mentioned, a seventh grade English teacher. She was a little non-traditional in having a full-time job off the farm. In those days, one did not need a formal degree to teach. After several years of traveling back and forth to Maryville, she did obtain her degree.

Marvin and I remained on the farm for 13 years. Our life on the farm, north of Prescott, was filled with plenty of hog and cattle chores, gardening, putting up hay, etc. Our boys loved the farm and they all enjoyed being out with their dad and grandpa in the fields or choring. We realized, though, it was time to look at careers that would hopefully give us more family time and less worry. I took a part-time job off the farm at the Creston hospital to help with expenses. I worked with ladies who had been there a long time and they were very knowledgeable. We really were a team. I was a certified nurses' aide when nurses' aides did a lot. I worked on the surgical floor most of the time and had many responsibilities. I thought about going to nurses' school but the drawbacks included working holidays, weekends and possibly being on call. All three boys were born in the Creston Hospital and I was always grateful to have my co-workers around. I knew my babies and I would have good care.

Although I began taking business classes at Southwestern Community College (SWCC), I realized the business path was not my thing. I turned to English classes and education and really found my niche. I finished my Associate's degree at SWCC. Marvin was hired by Dekko to work at the Afton plant. (He eventually worked his way up to plant manager and he remained there for 12 years.) By the time I was ready to finish my education at Simpson; we had liquidated our farming operation, sold our farm and chose to move to Osceola. This was a pretty big step for all of us, especially Marvin, who had never lived anywhere but rural Prescott.

The big question Marvin and I faced when we moved here in 1989 was how do we keep three active, ambitious farm boys, Matthew (11), Travis (TJ, 9) and Ryan (6) busy and productive in a town setting? They were used to being so involved in our family farm. We knew they would stay in 4H, taking care of a few head of livestock, but we also knew that would not be enough.

We lived near the Nelson Fry family, and Joel introduced Matt to mowing in town (which is different than mowing a country yard). Joel was known to be very particular, and he taught Matt the ropes. Matt began with a push mower, and when he had saved enough money for a down payment, Marvin took him to a local bank to get a loan for a riding lawn mower. He believed it was important for Matt to talk directly to the loan officer. Matt actually shook hands with the loan officer, and proceeded to pay off the loan that summer.

Gradually, Matt and TJ expanded to a few yards each, while Ryan stood in the front yard and cried because he wanted to mow. Marvin told him when he was big enough to push the mower, he could also start mowing. Ryan looked under and between the handles of the mower, but he proved he could do it. His first yard belonged to an elderly neighbor lady. By the time he was ten, Ryan knew what he wanted to do with his life. He wanted to own a lawn business—which was the closest thing to farming he could do.

From the beginning the lawn business was a family operation, although Marvin and I tried to keep a limited profile. Marvin helped mow when he was asked and also suggested bids on yards until the boys were older. I took phone messages and passed them along to the boys. The boys were responsible for keeping their own books, collecting money, making deposits, buying, selling, and paying for the upkeep on the equipment and scheduling their yards. Each of them purchased a mower at some point. In the early years Grandpa Anderson (my step-dad) donated a small cart frame on which Marvin built a box to hold a push mower, weed eater, gas can, etc. to pull behind the riding mower, before the boys were old enough to drive. (Matt still has it.) Together, the boys and Marvin collected many wonderful memories including a lot of laughs!

In an essay he wrote as a senior, Matt recalled one of his most embarrassing moments. When he was in junior high, his mower died on the way home, right in the middle of the underpass. To make it worse, as he told it, Marvin was actually riding in the cart. It happened to be on Prom Night, and while Matt was mortified when he realized he was holding up traffic for all the prom-goers, Marvin laughed as the two of them pushed the mower and cart through the underpass and out of the way. Matt's classmates gave him a lot of ribbing about that incident.

The boys learned many lessons from the lawn mowing business: Mother Nature doesn't always cooperate, some people are extremely hard to please, and there are a few people who take advantage of young entrepreneurs. They also made life-long friends and had many, many older people, especially, who treated them very well. (We called them adopted grandparents) They ate lots of homemade treats throughout the mowing season as they listened to their customers' stories. They all learned many, many life lessons about people and the business world. The business helped all of the boys with college expenses. Matt and TJ attended Simpson for business and finance and Ryan attended Kirkwood for Turf Management and Landscaping.

After I finished my education at Simpson with an English major, a Secondary Education degree and endorsement in journalism I graduated in December and began substituting at Clarke immediately. My first full-time job was at Mormon Trail teaching 7-12 English and Mass Media. I was expecting to return to Mormon Trail until Ellie Vets called me. I had been a student teacher with her so she knew me quite well. She told me she obtained another job and was moving. She said, "Get your resume over here and apply for my job!" I thought they would hire somebody with more experience, but when Principal Mike Ashton asked why he should hire me, I said, "Because there is a whole bunch of information other people need to learn about this school that I know. I know most of the kids, I know the teachers, I know the routine, and I know a lot of the parents, so there is a lot I don't need to learn." I guess that was the right answer!

It was the '92-93 school year and I have seen a lot of changes in journalism, especially! Of course, I was green as a gourd when I started. I think the first staff I had was nine, but they were great kids. We began with a meeting and I said, "OK, I'm depending on you a lot so here we go." I've always have said I would rather have a staff of nine hard-working, really dedicated kids, than a large staff who don't get along or don't show the best leadership skills.

In the first few years, the staff literally had to type the copy into the computer, print it out and paste it either on a yearbook spread or newspaper layout fours. Frank and Sally Morlan, and all the others at the newspaper office, were so patient and helpful! The kids took pictures with manual 35 mm cameras; they processed film in our darkroom and printed the pictures we needed to print. The darkroom was constantly in use. It took nearly a class period to get the films developed and another hour for drying. The kids had to choose the pictures they wanted and order them for print. I loved the darkroom and the process of developing and printing. We printed every single picture we used for the yearbook and newspaper, and that was a lot of pictures!

As stated, every single part of each story had to be pasted down: captions, headlines, and graphics. Now, it's WOW! What changes there have been! We went from pasting to desk-top publishing. The newspaper templates have changed immensely. The Student Chief used to be eight pages, and the format was much bigger. It began to shrink and shrink and now the Chief is four pages! We don't get a lot on each page, and we only publish once a month. We look at what the Sentinel is doing and try not to do the same thing. We try to add the 'color' and of course, more pictures.

I think the first year books were about 146 to 148 pages. Now we do 160. My philosophy is it's not a picture book, but the history of the year for Clarke High School. The kids write copy for every single spread. Another goal is to get every student in high school in the book at least twice. We try to pick a theme that represents the personality and uniqueness of the graduating class. I am the advisor and the mentor and the 'pusher.' I will help, but students learn by making and correcting mistakes. Students produce, edit, and hopefully learn along the way. For yearbook, we printed, sent to proof, reprinted then published. It was a long process which lasted through the summer months. Now, we do our yearbook on-line which cuts costs and time, although we still work through the summer because of the whole-year coverage

Digital photography cut out the costs and time of the dark room. We can also print a full-color yearbook. I miss the dark room procedures, though. I think it has taken away from the art form of photography; I believe black and white pictures are art. Digital photography also brings up questions. I think there is a line we shouldn't cross. I don't think the picture should be changed they should represent what the photographer sees. There is a time and place for everything, including photo editing.

Having my own children in school and teaching them was both rewarding and stressful. I probably pushed them harder than other kids at times, just because I didn't want people to think I was being easy with them. The boys did well with it and didn't complain very much. They all took Writing Lab with me and all three were in journalism. Whatever they had to handle outside of my classroom, they did it well, and I know there was some teasing. They were all active in school and had well-rounded experiences. Matt, Travis (TJ) and Ryan all went to college to pursue their future goals.

Matthew was very upset when we left the farm; his dream of being a farmer didn't happen but he found the next best thing. Matt is an Ag loan officer with Great Western Bank in the Clive office. Vicariously, he still gets, to farm because he visits his customers. He loves his job and working with farmers. Married to Jackie (Wilms), they have two little boys, and live in Adel. Jackie is an elementary teacher but she is currently not a full-time teacher. I mean, she is not getting a paycheck for teaching. She is at home with the children, teaching them. She also supervises some home school families.
The two little grandsons, Grant and Owen, are the light of our lives and so much fun — fun to see the world through their eyes. We see them a lot, we are only an hour away and we've always said, "If you need somebody to watch the boys and get away, we're here." Jackie's parents live about three hours away so we know how fortunate we are to be so close.
T.J (Travis) is Operations Manager with the Foster Group in West Des Moines. He is responsible for establishing many protocols in that company and was recently recognized as a "Forty under Forty" recipient. Travis and his wife Jenise (Colby) live in a condominium in the old Liberty building in downtown Des Moines. Jenise is a counselor at the Valley Church in West Des Moines. They were married in the middle of the city at Nolen Plaza and their reception was in Capital Square! They love city life, traveling, trying new restaurants, going to the Farmers' Market, etc.

Ryan has established his own business, which is what he always wanted to do. As he attended Kirkwood, he drove home every weekend during the season to maintain his customers' yards. Once he finished college, he began looking for his own place with enough land to accommodate his business, while not being too far from town. He eventually purchased Jon Pederson's place on Old Highway 34 - known to locals as the 'McComas's place.' We bought a couple acres from Ryan to build our house. We actually lived with him while our house was constructed! It was an interesting situation. Luckily Ryan's house had lots of storage room, but we had mismatched furniture everywhere! We had come from a five-bedroom house and had to stuff all our things into a 1 1/2 story, two bedroom house. It was quite comical, but Ryan is a laid-back guy — he was flexible and it all worked out fine.

Somewhere between Matt getting married and us moving back out to the country, Marvin decided it was time for another job change. He now works for Great Western Bank, where he will retire someday. He enjoys working with people and not having all the stress of management!

Ryan was very recently married to Sara (Rude) who is a Family Advocate for the Drake Head Start program. They are currently remodeling their kitchen and upstairs. Although Sara is a city girl, she is quickly learning about landscaping and country life. Marvin and I feel blessed to finally have three 'girls.' Our daughters-in-law are all talented and wonderful ladies.

Ryan is living his dream, but the family is still there for support and help when needed. In the summer of 2011, he contracted with the Osceola Public Library to landscape the lawn for the 100 year celebration. It turned into a family affair because of uncooperative weather and a tight deadline. Although determined to make the deadline, Ryan also had to keep four full time employees and three part time employees (including Mom) on schedule with mowing and lawn maintenance. Matt and TJ keep  tabs on their 'little' brother. Matt, especially, has donated a lot of time to helping Ryan. Marvin is always willing to listen, make suggestions, and help. Mom is employed for errand runner and landscape maintenance in the summer months.

Marvin and I were babysitting our grandsons the weekend Ryan broke ground at the library. Grant, the 5-five-year old, shoveled loose dirt, picked up sod, and asked a lot of questions. Owen, the 2-1/2-year-old, picked up small pieces of sod and frequently checked the contents of the trailer. Marvin removed dirt, carried sod, and emptied several wheelbarrows-full of debris. Ryan's employees helped with site preparation, heavy digging/lifting, laying brick and moving/removing plant materials. I was sent to buy plants and then concentrated on laying out the beds, removing/dividing existing plant material, transplanting, trimming, and planting the pots near the patio. Matt came down, one evening after work, to pitch in on some of the last heavy lifting, and the goal was met!

When Marvin decides to retire, I hope he can do for Ryan what his dad did for him — be the fixer of things, the go-for, and the listener. Until I retire from teaching, I will also help when I am needed. I tell people I get to spend Ryan's money, play in the dirt and get paid for it! We may have taken a non-traditional route, and our goal of farming didn't exactly work out, but with a lot of support and a little luck, we remained a close-knit family with deep agricultural roots in Southern Iowa.

Return to main page for Recipes for Living 2011 by Fern Underwood

Last Revised February 1, 2015