KALONA, Iowa (KCRG) - Iowa became the 29th state in 1846.

But European-Americans moved in earlier than that, and started to build some of the lives and communities we know today.

Nancy Roth’s family has lived in Iowa for generations, and her great-great grandfather came to Kalona on a train as a traveling salesman. Her family stayed, and now she helps keep the day-to-day life of an Iowa pioneer alive, and in action at the Kalona Historical Village.

Roth says each building, and each artifact, is a reminder of how Iowa’s pioneers began. “Think about what the time would have been like living in that, you know, working off the land, working hard, but knowing that you had what you had because of what you did,” says Roth.

Many of those legacies, like her family’s, live on. “We’ve had a lot o

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