the next seven years of Nuhn and Ruth’s lives together by saying that they traveled extensively: “roosting and writing in cabins, ramshackle old houses or writers’ colonies in places such as the Iowa Mississippi river town of McGregor; northern Minnesota; Des Moines; the MacDowell Colony at Peterborough, N. H.; and Washington, D. C. They also visited the writers’ retreat, Yaddo in Saratoga Springs, where Suckow hated the pretentious atmosphere of artsy largesse from people ‘rotten with money’ but loved the quiet and the food.” At Yaddo, each writer had a small cabin and meals were brought on a tray and left at the door, so they could focus on their writing. At the MacDowell Colony, in Peterborough, New Hampshire, Nuhn began a series of oil character sketches he later called “Figures of the Thirties.” They included John Cowper Powys, Charles Wakefield Cadman, Robert Frost, Henry Wallace – and Charles Hearst, of Cedar Falls, The collection has been exhibited at the University of Northern Iowa. Dorothy Grant provides a more extensive explanation: Ruth and Ferner were at a writers’ workshop when he decided to sketch some of the people in the group. He wrote comments about the people he had sketched, and made copies of the booklet. Eventually, copies of the booklet were given to the Hearst Center, while the original is in the Special Collections Department at the University of Iowa library in Iowa City. Nuhn's collection of sketches showed his interest in people and their occupations. He wrote, “Most of the persons portrayed in this collection were fellow colonists of myself and my wife, Ruth Suckow, in the early 1930s, at Yaddo, the art colony near Saratoga Spring, New York....Included in the list are the names of some nationally-known artists, playwrights, poets, essayists, composers, and novelists as well as the name of Henry A. Wallace, who is described as “Agriculturist, Author, Statesman.” Dorothy Grant notes that the collection provides valuable insights into the political scene as well as the Arts during the 1930s. Others on the list of people he sketched include: William Rose Benet—poet and playwright Charles Wakefield Cadman—composer Carl Carmer—novelist, editor, and conservationist Leo Fisher—sculptor Felix Fox—composer Frances Frost—poet, fiction writer Robert Frost—poet Horace Gregory—poet, critic, and editor Albert Halper—novelist Roy Harris—composer Charles Hearst—Iowa farmer Jeffrey Levy—painter John Cowper Powys—novelist, poet, essayist Evelyn Scott—poet, novelist Ruth Suckow—novelist John Brooks Wheelwright—poet, critic Henry A. Wallace—agriculturist, author, statesman Two