• Article Photo. Nira Primer Geiger, 1984.
    Nira Primer Geiger, 1984.
  • Article Photo. The Primer family
    The Primer family
  • Article Photo. Nira Primer as a child.
    Nira Primer as a child.
  • Article Photo. This photo of Nira Primer Geiger is among those featured in the 'In Her Own Words' video.
    This photo of Nira Primer Geiger is among those featured in the 'In Her Own Words' video.

 

Born at the dawn of one century, she died at age 97, just short of the next century.  
"I've grown up in a marvelous age," Nira Primer Geiger told an interviewer in 1984, "and I expect the next 100 years will probably be a lot more marvelous than this 100 years have been. My grandfather hitched up the oxen and plowed with oxen. I saw that. I've seen farmers plowing with horses and mules when I was little. There wasn't such a thing as a tractor. And then I've seen the automobiles come in, and tractors come in. Look at all this machinery they have now. And airplanes too. And I've seen them walk on the moon. People will probably be living on the moon in the next 100 years. It has just been a marvelous age that I've lived in, really. "
Her stories, and those of nine other Benton County women, will be featured on the big screen at the Iowa Braille School Sunday, March 25 at 2:00. The free event will also include short video snippets of three of the women from the Vinton Sesquicentennial project, an introduction by humanities scholar Kӓren  Mason, curator of the Iowa Women's Archives, and comments on recording your own family history. 
 
The women featured include Esther Williams, Freida Brehm Geiken and Nira Primer Narber Knapp Geiger , all of Vinton; Gertrude Nellist Smith of rural Vinton/Urbana; Bess Shurtleff Burrows of Belle Plaine; Jennie Koch Beck of Keystone and Belle Plaine; Ruth Gongwar Mumford of rural Atkins; Dorothy Weigand Sallee of Mt. Auburn; Allegra Bush Grady Schueler of Van Horne; and Alvena Selken Schroeder of rural Keystone.
his Programm is supported by Humanities Iowa and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
 
This Program is supported by Humanities Iowa and the National Endowment for the Humanities.