KPR Presents; 150 Best Kansas Books; Part 2

Next time on KBR presents the 150 best Kansas books, I'm Kay McIntyre, join me eight o'clock Sunday evening for this two-part series on the best books about Kansas. Maybe this very stretch of highway we are driving on is the exact center of the whole world, what everything else spirals out from. Miss Fairchild said no Evelyn, that's just the way the map is made. The air had gone a greenish yellow, even in the darkness she could detect the change in color, the coming vacuum, the impending stillness in the center. These weren't mark cuddle, this wasn't my ranch. I had nothing to lose if the turgals got 250 steers into the middle of Kansas City and they scattered all over the place. All the poetry about spring that Laura was studying for her English class, April is the cruelest month, blossomed by blossom the spring begins. Why did no one write a poem about the winter wheat coming to life? KBR presents the 150 best Kansas books, eight o'clock Sunday evening on Kansas Public Radio. What's your favorite book about Kansas? What about your favorite 150 Kansas books? I'm Kay McIntyre,

today on KPR presents part two of the 150 best Kansas books, a list compiled by the Center for the Book at the State Library of Kansas. We heard about some of the selections on last week's KPR presents, if you missed it, that show is archived on our website kpr.keu.edu. We've got more authors and readings on today's show, everything from geology to historical fiction to a cookbook, all with a Kansas touch. My first guest is Rex Buchanan, he's the interim director of the Kansas Geological Survey and a regular commentator on Kansas Public Radio. He has two books on the list of the 150 best Kansas books, Kansas Geology, an introduction to landscapes, rocks, minerals, and fossils originally published in 1984 and republished in 2010. His second book is Roadside Kansas, a traveler's guide to its geology and landmarks originally published in 1987 and republished

in 2010, both books by the University Press of Kansas. Welcome, Rex. Thanks, Kay. Good to be here. Tell me the story behind Roadside Kansas. How did that book come to be? That's a book that Jim McColley, a geologist from the survey who is now retired, Jim and I did that together. I think that was largely a function of traveling throughout the state and having a lot of interest in, not just the geology of the state, but the plants, the animals, the history, a little of everything. In some respects, the book was almost written to please ourselves. In the sense of, as we drove across the state, we saw a lot of stuff that was interesting to us that obviously wanted to share that interest, but I think it was also interesting to find out that information. I sort of view it as the first audience ought to be yourself as you work on these things. One of the things we were trying to do there was deal a little bit with that issue that reputation Kansas has as being flattened and boring because in our minds, obviously, we thought

that wasn't true. Our feeling was if we could tell folks a few things that they might see as they're going through the state anyway. We're not dumb enough to think that we're going to be able to get people to go see things just for their own sake, but if they're driving through the state anyway, as a way to go see some things that if they knew a little bit more about them, they might find more interesting and maybe also at times encourage them to get off the major highways, go some places they wouldn't go otherwise and learn some things about the state that they didn't know that might make them appreciate a little bit more. Well speaking of the Kansas Highways, talk about the methodology of this book. You basically picked a couple highways and followed the road. Yeah, we did. We started with all of the major, the four-lane highways, like I-70 interstates, that kind of thing, and then we picked some representative two-lane roads that we felt gave us pretty good coverage across the entire state, and so that was sort of how we defined what we were going to cover. Then we just went out and drove the things. Typically, it was when we were going someplace else where we had to go say out west to

do some other, for a meeting or for some field work, we would work on it as we were going through that process. When we originally did the book, I think we drove all of these roads at least six or eight times, and we always tell people that we're the only people that we know that have on repeated occasions driven from Lawrence to the Colorado border, stopped, turned around and come back. So we have done that a number of times. So we drove it repeatedly in that process, and the information in there is a key to Cording and a Milepost marker, which are those green rectangular signs that you see along the roads, and so people can pinpoint exactly what feature it is that we're talking about at any point in the book. They don't get lost that way. So you could ideally keep this book in your car, Roadside Kansas, and be driving somewhere in Kansas and think, I wonder what kind of geological formations I'm seeing here? Ideally, we believe you should carry it with you at all times, of course, and always have it with you. That would be ideal, and not just one copy, but I believe multiple copies, don't you?

That would be ideal, but yeah, it's the kind of book that really isn't meant to be on the shelf or on your desk or something like that. It's really meant to be out in the field. It's a field guide, and so yeah, it does best when it's in the cubby hole or in the back seat, so that when you're going someplace it, yeah, you can pull it out and refer to it or maybe use it in a whole variety of ways, but it's meant to be dog-eared and staying in that being used and not just sitting around at home. Sure. So Rex, say I'm taking off down I-70 heading west. Tell me a couple of things I might see along the way that I might not think to look at without my copy of Roadside Kansas. One of the things, and this is really something we tried to achieve with this book, is sometimes it almost seems to us in the course of working on that book, as if roads go out of their way to avoid interesting scenery, and in some respects they do because people who build roads want to take the path of least resistance. They don't want to be going up and down hills all

the time if they can avoid that, so they avoid relief up and down hills or topographic relief, and they try to stick to the path of least resistance. So a lot of times if you'll just get a little ways off of those major roads, you'll see some really pretty interesting and almost startling scenery that you have no ideas there. And the best example that I have that to answer your question is if you go out take I-70 west around the town of Wilson, and you go just get off of I-70 at the Wilson exit and go north up to Wilson Reservoir, you'll go through a number of steep-sided canyons where you'll see the Dakota sandstone that forms some really pretty dramatic hills, and then a little bit further on you'll see a fencepost limestone that's used for a lot of the buildings out there, and in the fenceposts and bridges in a variety of other ways. It's really, I think one of the more scenic 20 or 30 miles of driving in this entire state, but if you're stuck on I-70, you not only won't see it, you won't even know it's over there. So this, that's exactly the

kind of experience we were looking for in this book. That little side trip up to Wilson Lake, it would take a half an hour I think is something that everybody ought to do at one point or another in that drive. Okay, so say I get off of I-70 and I drive up to Wilson or any of the other spots along the road that you've pointed out in roadside Kansas. Say, and this is not much of a stretch here, that I know nothing about geology. How much are you going to be holding my hand in this book? How much background information are you assuming that your readers have? Yeah, that's a good question. We really aimed this. It's not aimed at a geologic audience, although geologists use these kind of guides. Geologists are always doing field trips wherever they happen to be, and these are the kind of guidebooks that they use, but this one is written with the idea that anybody ought to be able to pick it up and use it. So you really don't need any of the kind of technical background that geologists would bring to the table to be able to follow it. And in fact, that's part of the reason that we threw in a lot of other information, because obviously, Jim and I knew that geology

is more important than any other facet of human knowledge that's out there. We also understand that not everybody looks at the world quite the way we do. And so we, that's why we included information about history and plants and animals and baseball players from Kansas, and really almost anything that we could think of that would bring along those people who might not be inherently interested in the geology, but they might be interested in botany or birds or whatever. We put a lot of place-name information in there because I think that both keeps people interested and it reveals something about the Kansas landscape when you can find out why certain counties are named the way they are or towns or rivers or creeks or whatever. It just, it gives your richer fuller knowledge of what the state is all about. And so we really weren't just focused on the geology, although that's obviously sort of what the book is built around. We did try to accommodate a whole variety of interests and anybody could handle the book. I've never really had anybody come

up and say that there was something in there that was so technical they couldn't handle. If the idea behind roadside Kansas as you throw it in your car and take it with you, what's the idea behind Kansas geology? Yeah, that book is a little different. It really is meant, almost more as a reference type book that it's aimed at talking about both the landscapes, the fossils, the rocks and minerals that are in the state. And it's more of a book that for somebody who's, say, got a sort of a casual interest in geology, but they want to learn more about those things. That would be the book that they would turn to. It's not really, it's not highly technical. Again, almost anybody could handle it, but it's more background kind of information as opposed to what you're actually seeing out on the highways. And the one thing that probably does cover in more depth than roadside Kansas is fossils, which Kansas has a long history of producing a lot of really spectacular vertebrate fossils from dinosaur periods. And those are described in there in a fair amount of detail very nicely by chapter by Deb Bennett. And so

it does bring that kind of, it's almost one of those if you want to learn more kinds of books. If you've got a taste in your interest, it's a good kind of another beginning touch point to start with. So maybe start out buying roadside Kansas going out and seeing some sites realizing that geology really does hold some interest for you and then buy your Kansas geology book and learn a little more. No, I think you should buy multiple copies of both of them at the same time. That you should, you should always buy as many books as you could possibly buy. And you never know when you're when they're when they're going to come in handy. So yeah, don't they make excellent Christmas gifts. They're found at better bookstores and you can tell the better bookstores because they will have these books. And so yeah, that's that's what that's, you know, that's what I would recommend. Rex, thank you so much for coming in. You're welcome. That's Rex Buchanan, author of Kansas geology and co-author of roadside Kansas, both published by the University Press of Kansas. As you would expect, the list of the 150 best Kansas books includes a number of books about

Kansas history and the people who have shaped our state. John Brown to Bob Dole, Movers and Shakers in Kansas history is a collection of 26 essays about 27 Kansans covering the Civil War period through the present. Virgil Dean is the editor of John Brown to Bob Dole. Welcome back Virgil. Thank you. How did you go about picking these particular Kansans? It was a really, as you can imagine, it was a pretty, pretty tough exercise to come up with only 26 or 27 to deal with. And I approached it in, well, a number of, a number of criteria, really, that I tried to use. First of all, the project started with some discussions with Fred Woodward at the University Press of Kansas, who was interested in something, a book, something of this kind, and basically asked me to make a proposal to the press. And so I had to begin making my

selections and justifying my selections from the very beginning. And decided early on that I wanted, since we were approaching the, at that time, the sesquicentennial of this territorial period of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, that we'd start with 1854 and try to go pretty much to the present and cover some important themes or thematic periods in the state's history. And so I wanted individuals, I wanted to pick individuals that I felt would allow, allow us to explore not only the person's life, but the different things that they were involved in, whether it was the abolitionism, or free state movement, or sustainability and agriculture at the end of the book, or late 20th century politics within the case of Bob Dole. So we were looking at people that would help us cover the range of Kansas history and explore a lot of different issues and in addition to the individual's life. And also those people who, you know,

there are a few people that you've just about have to include John Brown and Bob Dole, or the most prominent examples per half. Especially if you name the book. Yeah, especially if you become a book. But the book was named later. So that's another story, another part of the story we can cover later. But there's also a lot of people that I think in 20 some years of studying Kansas history are important that people really don't know today. So I would also say that it's from the very beginning I didn't want it to be a book about famous Kansas. I don't call it a book about famous Kansas at all because what's fame? First of all, only fame is very fleeting. People who were famous in the 1890s, nobody's heard of today. Best case in point is John J. Ingalls, who just a lot, who is about to lose his place in the state capital because somebody decided that they didn't know who he was and that they would remove him and put somebody better known in and happened to the other one too, George Glick. The first Democratic governor of the

state of Kansas was in statutory hall in the capital in Washington, removed a few years ago to make room for Eisenhower because some people decided, well, we ought to have somebody that people recognize. Now you divide your 27 Kansas into three categories. You've got your agitators, your motivators, and your innovators. How do you characterize each of those qualities? Well, I started out, actually at the beginning, I suggested that the title, kind of the working title for the book was agitators, motivators, and innovators. And I was going to have something like Kansas who made a difference. I kept the theme and changed the title basically, but the underlying organization and structure really is still based around this idea of agitators, motivators, and innovators. And I defined or kind of interpreted and I defined agitators as individuals who

excited public opinion and moved their fellow citizens to action in response to a real or perceived political, social, or economic problem. Somebody like John Brown, who would be probably everybody would probably agree that they were an agitator. They were out championing a cause, trying to get people to follow them and do something. And they weren't too concerned about how far they took their actions. They're in many cases a little bit more extreme. Mary Elizabeth Lease would be in that category during the populist period, who's also covered. And there are several others who would be in that category. Then motivators, to me, were people who just took a little bit more traditional approach to causing change, a little bit more traditional than the agitators, perhaps. And they were less significant and often had a more permanent impact, I think, because

it's just the way that they guided, tried to lead people. The person who I wrote about Walter Huxman, former governor and federal judge, I put in that category. Bob Dole, I would put in that category. You're talking about people who generally are working within the political structure. They would be very unlikely to go outside the bounds of that political structure or the norm, what's accepted behavior. William Allen White would be another one that I would think would be in that category. Motivator, you could argue he was perhaps an innovator in some areas, too. And there's a lot of crossover from this. You could make a case for them being in one or the other, but that's how I looked at it. Somebody that would be pretty traditional in their approach. It doesn't mean that the things that they worked for were really conservative or not liberal,

or they weren't radical in some respects, but they were probably working within the system to accomplish change and using pretty well accepted methodologies and trying to make that happen. And then what about your innovators? Innovators, I looked at as individuals who affected change through the introduction of new ideas or methods of doing everything from growing and grinding wheat to protecting the public health. So, public health is Samuel Crumbine, who was without data an important cancer, important figure nationally during the early 20th century, and very innovative in his approach to getting these kinds of things introduced and accomplished, or just coming up with new ideas about things. In some cases, he was really out front. Otherwise, he figured out ways to promote something that maybe that idea that was already around,

but he was still able to effectively come up with ways to get the public to buy into it. As far as agricultural concerns or concern Bernard work in teen is the one that I have, and he was a part of the midnight migration in the 1870s to central Kansas and the introduction of hard-read wheat, and particularly with work in teen, the milling industry. Hard-winner wheat was only good if it could be ground effectively, and he came up with processes that made that more possible. And in the process, develop the industry technologically and in its scope, and really turn Kansas into something that we don't think about too often, and that's kind of a milling state. I mean, you can, as Norman Saul who wrote that essay has argued, it Kansas is a milling state during the late 19th, and much of the 20th century, or flower milling,

is really significant, and it's a major industry in quite a number of towns throughout the state. And work in teen is just as important in that development as anyone you can cite, perhaps the most important person in that area. Virgil, as you mentioned, one of the Kansas movers and shakers you cover in your book is newspaper editor William Allen White, the sage of Emporia. Do you have an excerpt from Sally Griffith's essay on William Allen White that you could share with us? Yeah, I just have just a short paragraph that I think kind of in a way kind of encapsulates where he was at, and how he moved into his views changed. And I think that's one of the things that's really interesting about white, and makes him somebody that I've always been fascinated by, is his ability to grow and change over the years. And in the early part of the book where she's kind of setting this up, she says William Allen White was an American archetype. Yet as the story

suggests, he also lived in a particular time and place, one spanning a significant transformation in American history. And then talks a little bit about the changes that were taking place in not only in White's outlook in his political, social, technological thoughts about technology, and all that meant because that's what the progressive era is really all about is the change that was going on and how we adapt to that and go from a more traditional time to a very different time. And then she says, as the culture wars of the late 20th century showed, ideology has continued to play an important role in America. Over a long and active life as journalist, author, politician, and pundit, White observed and helped shape the period in which ideological and technical approaches first competed for primacy. He consistently served as a mediator between

the old and the new, reflecting the compelling issues of the day while demonstrating a remarkable ability to continue to grow in the breadth of his sympathies and understanding. And it's a lot packed into that paragraph, I think, and it really does say a lot about William Allen White, not that he didn't have his flaws and an interesting thing about White is that he became famous in 1896 by writing his best known perhaps to us today, at least editorial, what's the matter with Kansas? And it's a theme or at least a phrase that we've repeated over and over again over the years. And yet it was a tirade against the populace of the period. And in fact, the story goes why to have been the owner and publisher of the Emporia Gazette for only a year at that time. It's still in his late 20s was out in the street coming back to his office in downtown Emporia. And he was accosted or

kind of annoyed by some populace in the street. And he went back to his office just before he was going off for vacation and leaving hot Kansas on August and going out to Estus Park where they always went for vacation in the summer months. And he went back in and dashed off the editorial what's the matter with Kansas. And it hit the press. It became so popular where the Republicans who were in the middle of the McKinley-Brien presidential campaign that White almost overnight became a celebrity in the Republican Party. And they reprinted the essay over and over again during the campaign and later. But it's interesting that somebody who would later be remembered for making a transition to a strong backer of theater Roosevelt and Kansas Progressivism, Republican Progressivism, would be launched by a very reactionary editorial that was very critical

of some of the individuals. He actually, although I think it was very hard for him to admit, he actually came to admire in later years. But he made a very significant transition and growth in his outlook. And that's I think kind of part of what Sally is getting at in that paragraph. As you might expect, William Allen White appears in a number of places on the list of the 150 best Kansas books. The list contains his Pulitzer Prize winning autobiography, his 1937 book 40 years on Main Street, and the Children's Biography from Emporia, the story of William Allen White by Beverly Olson Butler, published in 2007 by Kansas City Star Books. Sally Griffith's essay on William Allen White appears in John Brown to Bob Dole, Movers and Shakers in Kansas history, edited by Virgil Dean. Virgil, thanks for coming in today. Thank you for having me.

I'm Kay McIntyre. You're listening to KPR Presents on Kansas Public Radio. We'll travel back in time to hear about our next selection on the 150 best Kansas books list, Revolutionary Heart Chronicles, the Life of Clarinin Nichols, who crisscrossed the country in the 1800s, speaking out on temperance, women's rights, and abolition. Her crusade brought her to Free State, Kansas, where she and her family farmed in Southern Douglas County before settling in Quindaro, now located in Kansas City, Kansas. Clarinin Nichols speaks here through the voice of Diane Icaf, author of Revolutionary Heart. Kansas is my adopted home, though I spent my first 44 years in the East, yet I have cast my lot with Kansas. Come wheeler, come woe, there is a tie to her blood stained soil that I could not undo, nor do I want to. My husband came to Kansas for a milder climate, if you can believe that.

My sons came to seek their fortunes in the West, but I came to Kansas to work for a government of equality, liberty, fraternity. My friends told me, you are going to bury yourself in Kansas just at the point where you could have done much good in Vermont. Perhaps, perhaps, but I was tired of the slow progress in conservative old Vermont. Every time we took one step forward, we were dragged two steps back, but in Kansas, in the new state to be, I thought things might be different. I saw a chance for success and my heart said go. I remember my first day in Kansas. It was the fall of 1854. One of those splendid autumn days like no place else except New England, with the trees

all red and gold and brilliant oranges. We were riding along in the coach from Kansas City when we pulled into the immigrant aid office in Lawrence. There was a hooping and a howling and I thought to myself, what a popular man the Colonel must be to get such a reception. But then Dr. Robinson, now Governor Robinson, came out of the immigrant aid office laughing. He said the cheering was for me. Well, it seems some of the boys had been arguing about women's rights. One said he wished the others could hear Susan B. Anthony on the subject and a second said he wished they could hear the Reverend Antoinette Brown. But a third said he thought the best speaker on the subject was Mrs. Nichols of Vermont. Just then the announcement came that my stage coach had arrived in Lawrence and no two ways about it. Those boys pestered me to lecture that very evening. I was of course exhausted

from my long journey. But the following evening at the ringing of the town dinner bell, everyone gathered at the new meeting house. It was quite a novel scene. The man lounged on bundles of hay strewn about the floor. The women sat more properly and the immigrant trunks that lined the sides of the meeting house. The meeting house roof was sharply pitched from its top all the way to the ground and tatched with prairie hay. So if anyone got too close to the walls the hay would tickle their noses. They had strong a couple of lanterns from the ceiling. I remember the the soft glow they cast on the faces of those those hopeful immigrants. It pleased me very much. I stepped up to my podium a couple of toolboxes piled on top of each other and delivered the first lecture I'd air say

on women's rights in Kansas territory. Oh there there was an openness to women's rights in Kansas at that time that I never saw any place else except perhaps Wisconsin where I had lectured the previous year. But in my home state of Vermont where I had been the editor of a progressive political newspaper for over ten years Nachador was open to me on account of my ultra radical views especially on suffrage the right to vote. Oh I I suppose my my views on temperance were too extreme for song. The ROM sellers, grok shops, hotels and taverns were ardent spirits were sold illegally. I'm out of that. We're glad to see me go. One of them told my mother that I have gotten everybody worked up on the subject and they were all happy to see me leave Vermont. My sympathies my sympathies have always been with the wives and the children of drunkards

though my first husband was not a drunkard. He did not support our family. I had done it from the first so I knew what it was like to be in a marriage without support. Woman is indeed the greatest sufferer. Under the laws of most states married women are powerless to do anything but endure. The wife's property her wages even every article of her clothing all these belong legally to her husband and there is nothing that she can do to protect herself and her babies. A wife has no legal protection against a drunken, irresponsible or even an abusive husband. That's why I'm for temperance. Elca Hall is the root cause of so many evils in our society.

You're listening to Clarinin Nichols portrayed here by Diane Icaf, author of Revolutionary Heart, the life of Clarinin Nichols and the pioneering crusade for women's rights. Just the other day my neighbor feeling Johnson came to me at dusk with a woman desperate to be free. You must hide Caroline, he said. Caroline? I ask. Out of the bushes, stepped a young woman. Her face was muddied, her clothing was torn, her one arm hung limply at her side but it was her eyes that riveted me. They were filled with the consternation and anxiety common to the fugitive running from the tyrant who hasn't slaved her but there was something more. I soon learned what it was. An ocean of grief. That very morning Caroline's little daughter had been sold away from her to a slave master running south into Texas. This brave woman put up a

tremendous fight. They had to break her arm to wrench the little girl from her. Later in the day, she managed her own escape and here she was. 14 slave hunters are circling the town looking for Caroline. We must act hastily, Mr. Johnson said. But where I thought for a moment then it came to me my underground sister. It was clean and dry. Quickly we helped Caroline climb down a ladder into the cistern. I handed down a chair pillow comforter. We replaced the lid Mr. Johnson went home. Caroline and I were left alone for the long night. She and terrible pain but physical and mental. All night long I tipped her back and forth on slipper feet between my house and Caroline's hiding place keeping a sharp lookout and whispering words of comfort to Caroline in her cell. Toward midnight,

I made a pot of fresh hot coffee and handed a cup down to her. I drank my own coffee, seated on the floor near the door from whence I could see all the approaches to my house. Apparently cheerful but really in a tremor of indignation and fear. Indignation at a government that protects the oppressor and not the innocent victim of oppression and fear of a prolonged incarceration for Caroline. But toward dawn the slave hunters rode out of town toward Lawrence and by the next evening Caroline and another young woman had hidden themselves in the back of a wagon and were heading north to Levinworth the next stop on their bittersweet journey to freedom. These are difficult times my friends but let us have faith. It is our constant ally in the struggle and if we lose faith

we lose all. There's a good time coming friends hard times never last forever and the causes for which we gladly dedicate our lives will triumph in the end. God is with us there can be no failure. That was Diane Icaf, author of Revolutionary Heart portraying the book's subject Clarininicals. This portrayal was recorded at the River City Reading Festival in Lawrence in 2008. And now we have another first person portrayal from the KPR archives Osa Johnson of Shunut was a pioneer of a different sort an explorer aviator and filmmaker who chronicled her life with husband Martin Johnson in her 1940 book I Married Adventure. We had heard of an island in the New

Hebrides called Malacula where we had been told cannibal activity was still practiced so Martin and I hire a boat and a crew to take us there and landed and as we landed a rag tag group of natives met us on the beach and told us that their chief would like to meet us. Okay we said so Martin got all of his camera gear and I got our bags of trade goods and we followed these natives up winding dangerous hot mountain trail for what seemed like hours and we finally entered a clearing where there were more natives in silence. We stood there a few moments and then out of the jungle stepped the most magnificent man I had ever seen. He was tall muscular noble looking clearly a chief and this was Nagapaki chief of the of the big numbers tribe. I heard a funny noise behind me and it realized it was the horror of the camera. Martin had filled Nagapata's entrance. He said to

me don't let them see you're afraid. Smile Osa open up the trade goods. So I start opening up our bag and handing him beads and Calico and suddenly Nagapaki grabbed not for the Calico but for me. He took my arm and scraped it my skin and the color didn't come off and that surprised him so he grabbed a piece of rough bark and rubbed it some more and seemed surprised when it turned pink and he knocked off my hat and looked at the roots of my hair that he grabbed my hair and turned me around so you look at the back of the neck. Finally at this time Martin stopped filming and reached around me and grabbed Nagapata's hand in a great big handshake. Okay shook his hand then turned to shake my hand and I felt relieved until his other hand closed over mine he grabbed me and dragged me toward him. I thought I was going to faint just then a British frigate sailed into the bay and Martin started screaming man of war man of war employing that the boat had come

to rescue us. The natives disappeared. I turned to run Martin grabbed me made me walk slowly without fear out of the side of the Indians then we started to run creaking through the jungle with briars and vines grasping at us. I was terrified my heart was beating louder than the native drums. Finally we escaped onto the beach just as Nagapata's men emerged behind us and our bearers grabbed us into the boat. I just collapsed at the heap at the bottom of it. Never been so glad to get back to our main ship and even Martin confessed to being afraid of that. In fact he wrote in his diary that night now that I've confronted the big adventure it terrified me. We're going home never looking for cannibals again which is exactly what we did but we got home and the footage of Nagapata was far better than we could ever have dreamed. Martin made a feature film of it and soon Nagapata's

scowling face was looming in theaters all over the United States. Well with all the glory we forgot about our pledge never to go searching again and that's the beginning of our nearly 20 years of adventures. You've just heard Explorer Osa Johnson author of I Married Adventure portrayed here by historian Karen Ray of Topeka. My next guest comes to us in the year 2011 but writes of Civil War era Kansas. Tom Mack of Lawrence has two books on the list of the 150 best Kansas books, Sissy and all parts together. Tom thanks for coming in today. Thank you very much for inviting me. Sissy and all parts together are parts one and two of the Jessica Radford trilogy. Tom who is Jessica Radford? Well Jessica Radford is actually an archetype of a woman living in the 19th century who has a strong interest in being her own woman. At the beginning of Sissy the first

line of the book with who her character is because she comes in a stage coach arrives in front of the the elevator hotel and she gets she's about to get off the stage coach when the driver wants a scar off and she says she's not helpless you know she can get off the stage coach herself and that shows you where she's coming from and it takes it takes from there Sissy actually takes you from about the summer of 1862 to the August of 1863 which is the culmination of the control raid of Lawrence and so this takes in about almost a year and a half of time span in Jessica Radford's life. I should probably want to tell you too because people will probably ask about Sissy as a title it is a strange title and I've been told that. Well Sissy is a black 10-year-old angel who wants to comfort Nellie. Nellie's the name of the girl who actually was escaped so we have

Nellie as a girl who escaped and we have Sissy as the angel and only she can see the angel. So the beginning of the book starts with the fact that she just escaped from the slavers she crosses the Missouri River her mother unfortunately has been captured by the slavers and she is discovered by an underground railroad conductor named Otto Heller and he escorts her to a farmhouse that is owned by the Radford family and the Radford family takes her in an adopter so that's sort of sets out the beginning of the book. Tom I'd like you to raid me and excerpt from Sissy just to set it up at this point a couple of years have passed and Jessica Radford is now working as a nanny for Otto Heller. He's a way one evening and while he's a way she helps to go to a study and sees a slip of paper on Otto's book in Otto's book. Jessica's eyes widened and shocked. She counted the names and that list. 31. Maybe these were 31 slaves Otto helped escape as a

conductor for the underground railroad. Lazarus was named here so was Nellie. Otto never talked about the slaves he helped set free but here was a written record. Perhaps he would be upset if he knew she had seen this. There was another notation of margin. What was this? Hebrew's 1323 did that have something to do with those slaves he helped set free? Of course I should mention that Hebrew's 1323 is says do not forget to show hospitality to strangers for by doing so some people have shown hospitality to angels but not knowing it. That's an excerpt from Sissy book one in the Jessica Radford trilogy by Lawrence author Tom Mack. The second book in the trilogy all parts together also made the 150 best Kansas books list. Tom how do these two books fit together? Good question. What I like to do to address that is to first tell you how I came up with that title for all parts together and that title comes up from a Walt Whitman quote and that quote is

sure as life holds all parts together death holds all parts together and that was Jessica's favorite quote and she then understand it when she first said it says what does that mean and as a civil war progressed and people got killed and lies were lost and hearts are broken and fame has got destroyed she thinks she thinks she knows what the answer is death holds all parts together. So I thought all parts together would make a good title because it also meant something about Jessica as well about holding yourself together in spite of all the stress and hardship that's inflicted upon her and the people that she loved. All parts together and Sissy are parts one and two of the Jessica Radford trilogy by Lawrence author Tom Mack. Tom congratulations on being named to the 150 best Kansas books list and thanks for coming in today. Thank you for inviting me. The 150 best Kansas books list includes a number of children's books as well as you'd expect little house on the prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder is on the list as are several books illustrated

by artist Brad Sneed. Children's book authors Devin Skillian and Corey Stanisac Skillian have two picture books for children on the list. One Kansas farmer, a Kansas number book and S is for Sunflower. You can listen to an entire KPR presence on the book S is for Sunflower. It's archived on our website kpr.keu.edu. I had the chance to visit with the Skillians when their book One Kansas farmer was named a Kansas notable book. They joined me by telephone from their home in Detroit. Great to be with you. Thank you. Glad to be here. How did you decide to do a number book based on Kansas? Well it's the our publisher sleeping bear press had done all these alphabet books one for each state. In fact Corey and I wrote S is for Sunflower which is the Kansas alphabet book and the hunger for those seemed to work so well and just about all over the country that then they started getting into counting a number books and I had done the national number book

which is called One Nation and so we were the obvious choice for the Kansas book and we dug right in. Now as I mentioned you're a husband and wife team how did you divide up who did what? Devin is the poet of the two of us so he gets to be the rhymer and I like to look things up and so I got to do the research and it worked out really well that way. Can I get you to open up the book One Kansas farmer and start reading? Sure. You can do a number book a million different ways but I loved being able to have numbers that are specific to something instead of just sort of random numbers and growing up in Kansas Corey and everybody remembers the signs on the highway. One Kansas farmer in a field of amber grain looking after cattle he checks the sky for rain. You have a piece of bread you have a slice of meat one Kansas farmer grows a lot of what you eat and then of course refers to the signs that one Kansas farmer feeds more than 128 people plus you the signs of course have fallen into they haven't been updating them the way that they used to

but they're such a great part of the Kansas landscape. Very next page I was able to find a you know something specific for two two songwriters wrote a little ditty folk sang it in Pratt and out in Dodge City. A prairie waltz became our song sung to this very day sing about our Kansas home where the deer and antelope play. It's a great story about how they because a tons of people originally claim to royalties and rights to the song when it first came out but it turns out it was two fellas from Kansas who Dr. Brewster Higley and Dan Kelley near Smith Center who wrote the song. Corey what's your favorite? Well my favorite picture out of the book is the prairie chickens for sure and the illustrator Doug was so kind as to bestow that upon us and we have that in our home now and I absolutely love it and because we you know you're trying to integrate all the things that pertain to Kansas of course each state has its identity items like its state tree its state bird its state you know flower all those things but one of the things very strongly recognized with Kansas is the prairie chicken and I just think they're wonderful

creatures I've never actually seen one in the wild which I would have loved to but I haven't but wanted to include them anyway and they ended up at number 12 and to count to 12 we catch a glance at the little birds who seem to dance round they go cute as a dickens account to 12 prairie chickens. I do love that painting too yeah and then lastly the other one that I think that the Corey and I are both really really fond of this piece of Kansas and especially in central Kansas where we grew up you see these all over the place and that was for what we used for the number 30 so you need to build a fence but you haven't got a tree nothing but prairie grass as far as you can see we use 30 post rocks just like the pioneers will fence in our horses our dairy cows and steers and of course when the pioneers first got out into a treeless landscape they weren't sure how in the world they were going to build fences with lumber so far away but they found that if you dug just a little bit under the earth into the limestone it was soft enough to cut you cut the post you pull them out and then in the air they were dry and hardened and so many of them are still

standing there especially if you head out south of Salina. And that explanation and all the explanations of the numbers are on the side of each page so it's not just a number book it's also a lot of Kansas history. Yeah and that was that was a lot of fun you know I had grown up there and obviously had taken my Kansas history back in fourth grade but so much of it I just didn't remember and so when we had the opportunity to do the number book as well the alphabet book to sit there and just dig into things that I either remembered a little bit or had learned and forgotten or had never known to learn more about the state was just tremendous fun and to have the opportunity to do that was just just really neat. And I think it was a really bright stroke of our publisher this is kind of a format that they came up with with the very first alphabet book that they did and we followed it with S's for Sunflower as well as this the book kind of works on two levels there's a rhyme that works for much younger readers because rhymes work really well especially when you're trying to learn things and then the side bars are give us a chance to kind

of maybe go go with a little for a little older age group and kind of even adults again on a flesh things out a little bit more. Well and I have to tell you I've learned a thing or two on your side bars. Again I've been talking to Devon and Corey Skillion. They're the authors of One Kansas Farmer, A Kansas Notable Book. Congratulations for making the Kansas Notables list. Thank you very much. That's Devin Skillion and Corey Stanisac Skillion. I talked to them by telephone in 2010 when their book One Kansas Farmer was named a Kansas Notable Book. One Kansas Farmer along with their book S is for Sunflower were named among the 150 best Kansas books. My last guest today is the author of a very different type of book. Janie Carey is the co-author of A Kansas Cookbook published in 1989 by the University Press of Kansas. Welcome Janie. Hi. Okay it's nice to be here. As I'm looking over the list of the 150 best Kansas books I could be wrong about this but I think yours may be the only

cookbook. What was the idea behind writing a Kansas themed cookbook? Well my husband Frank who I co-wrote the book with and I were interested in cooking and we were interested in what people were cooking in Kansas and we had written a little self-published book along the way and some people at the University Press of Kansas saw that book and they called us in and asked us if we'd be interested in writing a book about Kansas cooking. This was in May of 1988. The University Press of Kansas really stirred up a hornet snest when they sent out a press release to newspapers across the state soliciting recipes for the Kansas cookbook and in that release they quoted to Dateline America article in which Charles Carroll put out a traveler's advisory to those heading west from Kansas City and he warned people that you better stock up on peanut butter because there's going to not going to be anything to eat until you get to Denver and then he went on to call Kansas

the gastronomic wasteland of America. So as you can imagine that really stirred people up and people began sending us their recipes and not only their recipes but their family histories their stories their positive comments saying you know we're so glad somebody's going to write a book about Kansas. So as you can imagine for Frank and I it was a unique experience that we had and we were just so energized by the positive support as we started to write the book so it was a very exciting time for us. So what is it about these recipes that make them particularly canton? Well a lot of things we have recipes that are family favorites that have been passed down in families for a long time for many many years and people tell us those stories about their families and about when their families came to Kansas. Many of them are ethnic recipes from the immigrants that settled here in the state. We also have recipes from cattle ranchers and from from people

who grew wheat and have the big you know wheat harvest dinners and also we did some contemporary recipes to really showcase all of the wonderful ingredients that we have here in Kansas to work with. Well speaking of which let's crack up in the cookbook and let's pick out a recipe and tell me a little bit about it and what makes it canton. Okay well there are so many it's hard to know where to begin. I was thinking one of them is a recipe that Frank and I just love and we make it all the time. It's called Lou Bell's Best Ever Meat Loaf and it was submitted by Lou Bell Meyer from Sylvan Grove, Kansas and her family is in the cattle business and they as far as I know are still their family is still on the original homestead that's over a hundred years old. They were proud of the cattle and the beef that they raised and this is one of their family favorite recipes. So just on and on like that another example is the recipe for beer ox by Esther Riley from

Dorrance and of course that was that recipe came to Kansas with the vulga Germans who immigrated from Russia and it's a very very popular recipe down in south central in western Kansas and it's a yeast pastry filled with ground beef and cabbage and you'll find it at festivals down there and people make them in their homes and in earlier times you might stick a beer rock or two in your pocket and carry it out to the field so you'll have something to eat during the day so but I have to tell you that you know in all of the recipes that we did what Kansas seemed to like you know given by the recipes that were sent to us and there were so many is desserts and among them apple pie seemed to be the favorite so we have seven different kinds of apple pies in in this book and they're all very different very interesting but my personal favorite and Frank's too is the birch sugar pie from a lady named Twyla Rowan in Osborne Kansas and she said that in 1928 her father brought this recipe home to his wife because the neighbors had served it when he was on a

threshing crew and it became their family favorite that they passed down through their family over the years and there are just so many recipes like that in the book and that people are still making today some of them have been a little modernized but those family connections are very important here to people in our state and it keeps that heritage alive. Speaking of desserts tell me the story behind Mary Kelly's home front chocolate cake. Oh yes that's a good one. Well you know during World War II when people were conserving making a cake was a luxury and most cakes called for butter but it was really just too expensive to be using your rationing stamps to purchase butter and so you could make a cake by using clarified chicken fat and that means you know you're most everybody had a chicken in the pot so you boil your chicken and then you strain out the broth and let the fat congeal on top and then you can take that fat off and you can use it for cooking all

kinds of things it's really quite delicious to use that kind of fat and making biscuits and breads and things like that but it was really delicious had delicious flavor so it was great for things like that but you could use it to make a cake and I made this cake and it was a perfectly delicious cake because in a way the flavor was very rich like butter and so you could use your ration stamps for something more important and save your chicken fat for the cake. So did it taste like chicken? No no no no not at all. No it tasted fine if I made it for you you wouldn't probably know that it was chicken fat instead of butter but it added you know richness to the cake just the same way butter would. Jamie there are over 400 recipes in this book. Did you and Frank cook them all? Well we tried to most of them we did because we had to test things. Sometimes recipes weren't very well written or they were something was left out so we really had to test everything to make sure everything was right. I will admit though and I have admitted admitted this freely and

so is Frank since the beginning and that is that we did not test the recipe for two recipes. One was the buffalo barbecue and that was a recipe from author David Dairy and the reason is because it calls for 100 pounds of buffalo meat and digging a pit in your backyard to cook it in. I can't imagine why you didn't do that. Yeah we didn't have a buffalo. The other one was for the the barbecue beaver. Now that recipe calls for boiling 130 to 60 pound fully dressed beaver and mentions to be sure to cut all the fat off of it because it would be very greasy if you don't and then after you boil it then you finish it with a barbecue sauce and you know I thought we'll just take the guy's word for it on that one. I've been visiting with Janie Noth Carey. She and her husband Frank Carey are co-authors of the Kansas Cookbook published by University Press of

Kansas. Janie thanks for stopping by today. Thank you for having me. The Kansas Cookbook. I'm married adventure revolutionary heart one Kansas farmer S's for sunflower sissy all parts together John Brown to Bob Dole Kansas geology roadside Kansas. These are just 10 of the books on the 150 best Kansas books list compiled by the Center for the Book at the State Library of Kansas. You can find the entire list on the State Library's website or by entering 150 best Kansas books in your favorite search engine. I'm Kay McIntyre. I hope you've enjoyed this look at some of the best books about Kansas. You can hear about eight other books that made the list on last week's KPR Presents. It's archived at our website kpr.keu.edu. University Press of Kansas has very generously given Kansas Public Radio a copy of today's first book to give away. If you'd like a chance to win

roadside Kansas by Rex Buchanan and James McCauley, drop me an email. My address is Kay McIntyre at kayu.edu. That's kmcintyre at kayu.edu. Or send me a note the old fashioned way at Kansas Public Radio 1120 West 11th Street, Lawrence 66044. KPR Presents is a production of Kansas Public Radio at the University of Kansas.