Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation: Portrait of a Lady

Tjada Sweers spent her entire life in the Iowa River valley of Hardin County. The Tjada Sweers Fund will protect natural lands in the state she called home.

When we met Tjada Sweers in 2000, this impressive 91-year-old lady still lived where she’d been born, on her family’s century farm in Hardin County. Tjada had graduated from Alden High School, received her teaching certificate from Ellsworth College and taught at Buckeye. But home was always this farm and the Iowa River Valley.

We were introduced to Tjada by her niece, Carolyn Sweers. Carolyn already supported INHF’s mission of protecting Iowa’s natural heritage. She thought that her aunt, with her deep connections to the land, would also appreciate our work.

She was right. In her estate plans, Tjada gave all of her U.S. Savings Bonds to INHF to create the Tjada Sweers Fund within the INHF endowment — a fund to “permanently protect natural lands or to establish or expand public conservation/recreation areas in Iowa.”

Tjada passed away last year at age 97, but her gift is only beginning. As her endowment starts to provide funds for future INHF land projects, we look forward to listing the Tjada Sweers Fund on recognition plaques from time to time, honoring this loyal Iowan’s commitment to the land.

“Tjada had a good and long life,” Carolyn told us recently. “She will be missed, but she will also be remembered in many, many ways — one of which is her deep love of Iowa and for the land on which she lived so long.”