• December 27, 1993

The Wives of Madison County

When Robert Kincaid, the Bridge-Photographing Hero of Robert James Waller's Best-Seller, Strolled Up to An Iowa Porch, He Found Love with a Farmer's Lonely Spouse. Wondering What Madison County's Real Farmwives Think of the Novel, We Went Calling Too

JEANNE HENRICHSEN
'Women have more options now'

For 25 years she has happily shared a 100-acre farm with her husband, Ken. "Women have a lot more options today [than in 1965, the time of Bridges]," says the 47-year-old mother of two grown sons. "Most of us work at least part-time, so we're out in the world, and divorce no longer carries the stigma it once did. Some women would stay and be the martyr, but most would have left with Kincaid and taken the kids with them."

KIM HOWELL
She has never even seen the famous bridge

I'd never have gone with a strange man, shown him the bridges and had him stay for supper," says Howell, 35. "This is the '90s; people are afraid of serial killers." Busy with (from left) Wesley, 4, Raelynn, 6, and Lindsay, 8, and married to David, a farmer and dairy worker, she enjoyed Waller's book but has never seen Roseman Bridge (where Francesca leaves notes for Kincaid), though it's just two miles from home. "Too busy, I guess."

KATHY WILDIN
It made them sound 'like hicks'

I did not like [Fran-cesca's] husband—he sounded like a mean old man," says Wildin, 50 (with dog Skipper). "A woman that miserable today would leave." Wildin, who has raised two sons with Vin, her farmer husband of 30 years, adds, "I liked the book, although it made us sound a little like hicks. But for us that live in the country, we can relate to the living-on-the-farm part."

GEORGINE BELLAMY
The book 'glorified adultery'

Although Bellamy, 38, mother of three and a part-time surgical nurse, found Bridges "entertaining." she's glad that it's fiction. "I thought the book glorified adultery," she says during a break from monitoring the corn harvest on the farm she and her husband, Bruce, have worked for the past 12 years. "It's common in our society, I guess, but it's not something I can identify with."

TERESA HOFFELMEYER
'Nice love stow—but I love my husband'

When she's not cooking or canning, the 40-year-old mother of four is organizing a Madison County cook-book for a local church. "We don't have much time for fantasizing about what might have been," says Hoffelmeyer, married for 16 years to Mike, a farmer and industrial-arts teacher. "It's a nice love story, but I couldn't put myself in her position because I love my husband.