The Duke meets Dirty Harry in adorable Winterset, Iowa

The Grand Opening of the brand new John Wayne Birthplace Museum, adjacent to his birthplace home in Winterset, Iowa takes place May 22-25, 2015. The charming town is also where Clint Eastwood directed and starred in the romantic film, “The Bridges of Madison County.” Winterset is approximately 30 miles southwest of Des Moines, on Iowa-169.

Since 1982, the historic John Wayne Birthplace home has drawn over a million visitors to see where John Wayne’s life began. The new John Wayne Birthplace Museum will enhance that visitor experience, with a colossal 6,100 square feet structure, which includes a theater, gift shop, and gallery display area with over $2 million in artifacts and interactive exhibits documenting his life and career. This is the only museum in the world dedicated to John Wayne, born Marion Robert Morrison on May 26, 1907.

John Wayne and Clint Eastwood are 8th cousins, 1 time removed. Their common ancestor is Cornet Joseph Parsons who emigrated from England in 1635. Both stars are Western movie legends, but Eastwood often played more sensitive characters in non-Westerns; whereas Wayne’s characters were generally more rough and tough. At least that’s what I was told – I’m married to a cinéaste who knows Hollywood inside and out.

Brian Downes, Executive Director of the historic John Wayne Birthplace and new museum, led us through both sites and knew the story behind every one of myriad of artifacts on display. Downes knew The Duke personally. As a young reporter, he interviewed Wayne at the star’s home in California in 1977. Downes had an unusually smooth encounter with the star, who was kind and generous in real life. This led Downes toward a passion for the actor’s oeuvres. The new museum is somewhat of a shrine to Wayne’s greatness, both as an actor and man.

The grand opening weekend is chalk full of free and low-cost activities for anyone who visits Winterset late May. A rodeo and dance will occur on Friday evening, May 22. Admission to the Museum and tours of the Birthplace house are reduced during the grand opening. There will be a Firemen’s Pancake Breakfast on Saturday morning, offering a fabulous all you can eat meal. The Iowa Military Veterans Band concert at 11 am on Saturday, May 23rd and the ribbon cutting and keynote by New York Times bestselling author Scott Eyman that follows is free. So are the John Wayne movies on the big screen at the Iowa Theater and the Cowboy Mounted Shooters on Saturday and Sunday.

No visit to Winterset would be complete without visiting the local “Bridges of Madison County,” iconic in the eponymous film. We were thrilled that Glenna Finney, a native of the county, gave us a personal tour of the sites from the narrative – a 1992 Robert James Waller novel followed by the 1995 Clint Eastwood-Meryl Streep film. Like Casablanca, The Bridges of Madison County is a romantic tear jerker indelibly etched in my mind and heart. For me, visiting the bridges brought back emotions felt when seeing the film for the first time. I place Meryl Streep on a pedestal that towers above all actors – she is my John Wayne.

Glenna said fictional Francesca’s situation was very real. In the mundane rural landscape of Madison County, women get married and spend years taking care of their families and homes; fragrant red roses and romantic trips to Tahiti just aren’t part of the equation. This is a life for practical people who spend most of their day not just working, but working hard. It’s where Midwestern Puritanism laces the corset of uptight English repression.

Brian Downes & John Wayne

Glenna Finney at Roseman Bridge

Roseman Bridge

Glenna took us to Roseman Bridge, where Francesca first led Robert to take his photographs; Francesca also left a dinner invitation here for him. Thirty years hence, Francesca’s children scattered her ashes off the Roseman, as it was the place she first fell in love with Robert. Glenna Finney grew up here, and knew the Smith family whose property abuts the bridge; the structure served as a river crossing for almost 100 years. Glenna’s family and the Smiths own huge swaths of land around the Roseman – it was their playground during their childhood. It was almost surreal that her everyday playscape became world-famous in book and film. Glenna stressed that the story of Francesca and Robert really was fiction; in this town, everyone knows everybody, and if such a scandal had actually happened, someone would have figured out who the Italian housewife was.

The Northside Café is located at 61 Jefferson Street, on the square in downtown Winterset. It’s a small, old-fashioned eatery with bar stools and a long counter. It looks the way one would imagine it being in 1965, the summer when the romantic story takes place. Robert took a seat at the café, where he met the scarlet woman, Lucy. It’s ironic that Robert likely took a lover at every assignment, and this poor chick was ostracized because everyone knew her business. Living in the corn belt is hard living in more ways than one.

Glenna took us to the picturesque stone arch bridge shown in the film, where Francesca and Robert stole away for a romantic picnic. It is located at Winterset’s City Park, immediately south of the Cutler-Donahue covered bridge. The park contains other notable features: In 1922, a 6,000 pound boulder was placed in Winterset City Park to honor Jesse Hiatt, the man who cultivated the very first “red delicious” apple in 1872 on his farm in Old Peru, Iowa, some 10 miles southwest of Winterset. The peel of Red Delicious apples carries the biggest punch of antioxidants among deciduous fruits; many people eat them as a preventative for cancer. The park also is home to Clark Tower Castle, a monument to early pioneers in Madison County.

Holliwell pin-connected Pratt pony truss bridge, built over the Middle River in 1880, is the second where Francesca and Robert met, after she bought a new frock in Des Moines. We tried to locate this bridge on our own before meeting up with Glenna; unfortunately our GPS took us into a muddy cornfield path that almost swallowed our rental car. Having an onboard guide is always the smartest way to see all the bridges.

Pammel State Park, southwest of Winterset, is where Francesca’s children Carolyn and Michael went at night to read more of the letter. The park has a ford across the Middle River cars can drive over when the water level is low enough. If you venture when the creek is rising, be careful not to get swept down the river – John Wayne won’t be there, around the bend, to rescue you.

Travel industry professionals seeking further information about John Wayne’s birth place can contact Brian Downes at 515-462-5817; and for the bridges of Madison County contact Glenna Finney at 515-462-1185.

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