In the spring of 1990, Jeanne Jordan's father Russel called Jeanne and her husband, Steven Ascher, in Boston and announced that he might very well be facing his last year of farming. Jeanne and Steven were in shock.

The farm that Russel and Mary Jane Jordan worked and lived on had been in the family for 125 years. It had survived the dust bowl, the Depression, two world wars, and the economically turbulent 1980's. Now Russel and Mary Jane were doing all they could simply to stave off foreclosure.

In Troublesome Creek: A Midwestern, filmmakers Jeanne Jordan and Steven Ascher return to the Jordan family farm in Iowa, where a new regional bank has decided to call in an accumulated $70,000 debt, forcing the family into some difficult decision making. During these days of soul searching and discussion, Jordan and Ascher filmed life on the farm as it took place. There was no script. There were no re-enactments.

Though Troublesome Creek: A Midwestern is a deeply personal film, narrated with effective understatement by daughter and filmmaker Jeanne Jordan, the story it tells is universal. It is a story of passages, and the undeniable sweep of changing times. It is also a story of how family and community ties can be maintained, and even strengthened, during the most trying of times.