Producer Interview: The Pope's Visit to Iowa

Anybody who was here that day from Monsignor Bernardo, the filmmaker Marty, to my relatives, to other colleagues, anyone who's here all talks about the same thing that this was a reverent moment beyond anything anyone had ever described.

My name is John Torpy. I am a producer with the Documentary and Travel Unit with Iowa PBS.

I have personal ties to this project because I was six years old when he came, and so we had parked it 86 and Hickman that dolls there and the whole family hiked down Hickman Avenue and I remember how cold it was.

I just remember it was a huge deal and there are so many moments in that day that I still remember.

You know throughout the whole documentary and Marty, the filmmaker really presented it so well. And he's absolutely right. It's not so much about the Pope's visit that's like the icing on the cake, but where it really comes together. It's the people. Yeah. Joe Hayes, farmer in rural Iowa, writes this letter with the backing of the National Rural Conference that gets into the Pope's hands.

The Pope's from a rural spot. So he's intrigued already. But then once the word comes out, watching the whole community and watching all these people come from everywhere to help out, you know, there were farmers who were harvesting their corn early and taking a loss because they thought that living history farms might need more parking. There were people who there were businesses that just gave executives to the diocese for 30 days and just said, you need leadership to pull this thing off.

Here you go.

think what people find most surprising is how fast they pulled this off. Like the Vatican scouted this place August 19th and. 46 days later, 350,000 people are living history farms. Two interstate systems are shut down. And basically the whole town gets the day off to pull this event off.

You could never do that today. There's just be unfathomable. I couldn't see how you could make that happen.

As soon as we started this project and I approached the Living History Farms and I said, hey, this, you know, we're going to do this program and we really want you guys to be involved. What do you have for your resources? And, you know, they had some scrapbooks and they've had some donated pictures in this in that.

And we scanned some things and I was like, okay, it's a good start. But the was really looking for some higher rez, higher quality photos. And I was like, you know, we're early in the project. These will come about, well, about two days after our first visit, I get an email from of the historian at Living History Farms who says, hey, this family just dropped off this book full of photos.

The photos happen to be from a photographer named Albert Chesky. He was assigned the, the press liaison for the event, and he had all access, from, like, me to you to the pope. I mean, he was right there with him. And it was funny because Jamie at Living History Farms had sent me the photos and said, I think this guy might have been with the press.

And I'm looking at this photos where he's over the Pope's shoulder. I'm like, had a little bit better access than that. And, she ended up allowing me to scan and use all of the photos from the Albert Chesky album, which numbered a total of like 93 exquisite photos of the whole event. And I was able to reach out to the Chesky family and ask if I could use them.

And while Albert Chesky, who's locally known, had passed away, I was able to get Ahold of his son, who told great stories about how much of a moment this was for his dad and how he spoke about it forever. And so it's really cool to be able to take those photos and use them in this documentary, because they're just gorgeous.

And my goal is for those watching the documentary who were there, who were around in 1979 to be able to go, oh, yeah, I remember that because it was the coolest feeling. in the documentary, there's a part where Marty Jorgenson, the filmmaker, describes what it was like when the helicopter first shows up and everything just becomes more reverent.

I still remember seeing that helicopter on the horizon, and all of a sudden the clouds parted. It warmed up and it just became like the most peaceful place on earth without anything. It just like that, it just happened. And anyone that was there for that moment, I hope I captured it right. I hope I did the moment justice because you can't describe it.

So I really hope that the viewers come away with the best I could do, get in that moment across to the viewers

if I am measuring my own nostalgia and emotional equity of the event, the 350 other thousand people that were there also have that same emotional equity. And I don't want to do that wrong.

it's almost like a full circle moment. It's a I get to be here. You know, the Pope was standing like 20ft away was where the altar was. It's right back there. And so to be here and being a producer for a show that I was six years old for 45 years ago, it's just the best thing ever.

That's awesome.