Green meets his partner

October 9, 2022

Eleanor Taft, Green’s partner, originally turned down Green when Green asked if he could take her to a bar. Taft said Green handled the turn down like a gentleman and gave him a second chance.

Eleanor and Jon recently moved into a new home in the small town of Lone Tree, Iowa. Lone Tree, with a population of about 1,400, is tucked away in the progressive Johnson County country side.

In 2016, Green spent time with the Sanders presidential campaign, where he met his eventual partner, Eleanore Taft. Two years later, the two worked together to remove a gender-biased policy in the Iowa Democratic Party’s delegate selection process that forced individuals seeking to become a delegate to choose a gender on paper. The policy created situations where a political candidate might falsely identify themself to run for office in the state.

However, the relationship really began to take off in 2017 when the two organized a benefit for the Domestic Violence Intervention Program in Lone Tree. There, Green asked Taft to go out for a drink. But it would take yet another year for the two to become an item — a date at the Riverside Casino to see Trombone Shorty perform was the spark the couple needed to make things official.

Taft, originally from Iowa City, remembers being impressed the first time she saw Green and heard him speak in 2016. The two attended the same state central committee convention for the Iowa Democratic Party.

The couple, overloaded with vegetables from their new home’s garden, puts everything to good use. Eleanor believes in making the garden efficient and recyclable. (Jerod Ringwald)

“There were so many amazing people giving speeches, and he just really impressed me with his … few words, but the right words,” Taft said. “It seemed like he was able to kind of cut to the heart of things and demonstrated the clear moral compass that I’ve continued to know and love.”

In their now daily routine outside of politics, Green and Taft wake up early and take care of their recently purchased Lone Tree residence, which the couple moved into last November.

On a typical day, Taft might run a labor-intensive gardening shift to ensure the garden grows full of fresh food while Green might care for their chickens and their pair of ducks. The ducks spend the majority of their time with each other.

Everything in the couple’s garden gets put to good use. The couple composts waste, which in turn helps more vegetables grow. Taft, a former chef in New Orleans, turns the goods into special dishes like a carefully crafted lamb stew or a delicately whisked egg frittata on rare occasions when the couple gets a chance to sit down for dinner.

While Jon helps out on the farm as much as he can early in the morning, their dog Rosco gets nervous without Eleanore’s presence. Eleanore said Jon works almost 24 hours a day preparing for work, working, and then doing more preparing.

Green attempts to help with Taft’s cooking, but jokes he has no idea how to make sure the lamb chops are cooked properly. Taft insists when a lamb chop is done right, the meat falls right off the bone. Green said he has more skill with the outdoor grill on the deck, anyway.

“Something that makes our relationship really strong is the fact that we are so different and we bring such different things to the table,” Taft said. “Like we have a lot of shared values, but we also have very different skill sets.”

Taft and Green provide each other with the support needed to perform the other’s job. When Taft travels for work, Green has no problem stepping into Taft’s roles while getting to spend extra time with their dogs Rosco — who loves jumping into the Iowa River and going for swims — and Snoopy — a veteran hound at sniffing out invading moles.