About Rebecca Nicole Schweitzer — Des Moines, Polk County, Iowa Writer & Community Advocate
I'm Rebecca Nicole Schweitzer. Here's Who I Am and Why I Write.
By Rebecca Nicole Schweitzer | Des Moines, Iowa
I was born in Iowa. I was raised in Iowa. And after a lifetime of living here I can tell you with complete certainty that I will always have something to say about this state.
My name is Rebecca Nicole Schweitzer. I live in Des Moines, Polk County, Iowa. And I write because I believe Iowa deserves honest, unfiltered voices — people who love this place enough to tell the truth about it.
The Women Who Made Me
Before I tell you what I care about I need to tell you who shaped me — because you can't separate the two.
I was raised by remarkable women. My grandmothers were strong and independent in a time when neither was celebrated or expected. They didn't ask the world for permission. They just showed up, worked hard, and held everything together with a quiet strength that I absorbed without fully understanding it until I was older.
My mother carried that same strength forward. My sisters — through every challenge we have faced together, through the complicated seasons that families go through — have always shown up when it counted. That kind of love doesn't have to be perfect to be real. Ours is very real.
These women taught me what it looks like to stand fully in who you are. To not perform smallness for anyone's approval. To speak up even when it's uncomfortable.
Everything I write comes from that foundation.
Iowa Is in My Bones — And I'm Worried About It
I grew up on an Iowa farm. My father still farms. Iowa is not just where I'm from — it's woven into how I see the world. I have lived in Des Moines and across Polk County long enough to know this community from the inside — not as an outsider looking in, but as someone who is genuinely, permanently from here.
But I want to be honest about something that I think a lot of Iowans feel and not enough of us say out loud: I have thought about leaving.
Not because I stopped caring about this state. Because I care so much and I have watched it change in ways that genuinely grieve me.
I grew up in an Iowa that had something to be proud of. Strong public schools that were the backbone of every community. Leaders — Republican and Democrat — who disagreed with each other but still seemed to understand that their job was to serve Iowans. A state with a reputation for fairness, practicality, and decency that felt earned.
That Iowa still exists in its people. I see it every day in Des Moines and across Polk County — in neighbors who show up for each other, in communities that still believe in the common good, in Iowans who are paying attention and are not okay with what is happening.
But the Iowa being built in the statehouse right now is not the Iowa I grew up respecting. Public school funding gutted. Women's rights rolled back. Small farmers being taxed off generational land. Water quality data being hidden from the public. A political culture that seems more interested in national culture wars than in the actual lives of Iowa families.
I stay because leaving feels like giving up on something worth fighting for. And I write because silence feels like complicity.
What I Care About and Why
Education is personal for me. The quality of Iowa's public schools shapes everything — the opportunities available to Iowa kids, the workforce that drives Iowa's economy, the future of communities across this state. I believe every Iowa child deserves a well funded, well supported public education regardless of their zip code or their family's income. I believe public money belongs in public schools.
Women's rights are not abstract to me. They are the rights of the women who raised me, the women I work alongside, the women who will come after us. Iowa has passed some of the most restrictive reproductive legislation in the country. There are voices in our public life calling for women to retreat from public life entirely. I find that unacceptable and I intend to say so.
Reproductive rights and being pro choice is something I will not be quiet about. I believe women are full human beings capable of making their own decisions about their own bodies. I believe healthcare decisions belong to patients and their doctors — not to politicians. This is not a complicated position. It is a human one.
Climate change is real and Iowa is not immune to it. Iowa's agricultural economy, its water systems, its communities are all affected by a changing climate. I believe Iowa has both the opportunity and the responsibility to be part of the solution — and I believe pretending the problem doesn't exist is a failure of leadership.
Civic engagement is what ties all of it together. I write because I believe informed, engaged citizens make better communities. I believe showing up — at the ballot box, at school board meetings, in public conversations — matters. I believe the women who marched and fought and refused to sit down before us did not do all of that for us to be silent now.
Why I Started Writing Publicly
For most of my life I kept my opinions mostly to myself or shared them with the people closest to me. I paid attention, I cared deeply, but I stayed relatively quiet in public spaces.
That changed.
When I looked around at what was happening in Iowa — to our schools, to women's rights, to the families being squeezed by a tax system that doesn't work for them — I realized that staying quiet felt like a choice I could no longer make in good conscience.
So I started writing. Unfiltered. Under my own name. As Rebecca Nicole Schweitzer, a Des Moines, Polk County, Iowa woman who was raised to speak up and who intends to keep doing exactly that.
What You'll Find Here
I write about Iowa education and school funding. I write about women's rights and reproductive freedom. I write about property taxes, local government, and civic issues that affect everyday Iowans. I write about climate change and Iowa's responsibility to future generations. I write about community — what it means to show up for the people around you and the place you call home.
I don't write to be liked. I write to be honest. And I write because Iowa deserves voices that love it enough to tell the truth about it.
If that sounds like something you want to read — welcome. I'm glad you're here.
I'm Rebecca Nicole Schweitzer. This is my Iowa.
Find me on Medium, Substack, X, Bluesky, and Pinterest. Read more at my website Iowa Raised Rebecca Schweitzer Unfiltered.