URBANDALE, Iowa — When Ann Hays’ husband Joe wrote a letter to Pope John Paul II inviting him to visit Iowa, no one dreamed it would be read, much less that the invitation would be accepted. But the Vatican accepted the invitation and added Central Iowa to the pope’s previously Planned United States tour. 

“Oh he was so excited,” Ann says of Joe, “and then things got crazy busy.”

She remembers reporters from all over the world waiting for her husband to get home from work every evening to ask him about the letter, and the upcoming visit.  

October 4, 1979 was uncharacteristically cold and rainy, but when the pope’s helicopter, ‘Shepherd One,’ arrived the rain stopped, and the sun came out.

“Oh it was amazing,” Hays recalls, “I swear it warmed up 20 degrees when he got here!” 

Ann and Joe and their four children were part of the mass at Living History Farms where some 350,000 people gathered. It is the largest crowd in Iowa history.

Ann tears up remembering her children presenting gifts to the pope and says it was a life-changing experience for their family.

“It’s always been fun to me when somebody says, ‘oh, your husband wrote the pope to find out where they were and what they were doing and what they experienced?’ Oh, it’s just cool. It’s cool to know how other people reacted and how thrilled they were to be a little part of it here or there. It’s just really neat.”