Book Description

No Indiana governor in the 20th century has been more popular or successful than Otis R. Bowen. This small-town doctor, who grew up poor in Fulton County but was rich in the things that mattered, served on the field of combat in World War II. After being elected Marshall County coroner in 1952, he went on to serve in the Indiana House of Representatives, eventually becoming Speaker, and then to the governor's office in 1973. "Doc" Bowen became a member of President Ronald Reagan's cabinet in 1985, as Secretary of Health and Human Services.

The first person to serve eight consecutive years as Indiana's governor, Bowen candidly explores the challenges, crises and triumphs of that period. We also learn of his personal life and his struggles after the deaths of his first two wives and how his third wife, Carol, has helped fill that void. As warm, down-to-earth, and genuine as its subject, Doc, will be welcomed by all Hoosiers, no matter their political stripe. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

A True Hoosier Hero
This is a must read for every Hoosier, Most physicans would also enjoy reading about this country doctor who did things the rest of us could only dream of doing. The book is warm hearted, entertaining, and well written. After reading the book, I felt as if I had sat by a fireplace sharing a very pleasant conversation with Doc Bowen. He is one of the few politicians I ever heard of who never was involved in any scandal, remained true to his principles, and remained loved by the folks of his constituency. As a fellow family doctor, I felt proud to have someone of my own profession rise to governor and later cabinet secretary on the administration of President Reagan. ... Read more

Book Description

Home To Where We've Never Been Before is an eye-opener to the essential truth that the 'simple life' can be the hardest thing a body might try. The book describes one family's modern day tale of their own Little House in the Big Woods. ... Read more

Book Description

How one family came through the most difficult economic period in U.S. history.They were made strong by the bad times by remembering the good times and being influenced by them.The little islands of Joy made each life richer. ... Read more

Book Description

A reprint of the autobiography of Michigan's controversial governor from the Upper Peninsula. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

sss
what i would like to know is who is r. worner. i know the book as he was my great grand father. curious as to why he is being studied now. chase ... Read more

Book Description

Maione paints a nostalgic picture of that corner and just what it meant to have a place to go and to be a part of something special to forge those bonds and memories that last a lifetime. ... Read more

Reviews (10)

It brought me back to the corner once again. Great.
I loved it. It is real, and so are the characters. My kind of book to read over and over again.

Tooty's Corner
The Author Michael Maione-book called Tootys Corner, was absolute the most exciting books I've read, the book talks about life on the South side of Chicago-I want to applaud Michael Maione on a job well done.

Also as a reader of Michael's work, I should ask the question, is there another book coming out in the future? Readers love your work!

Bring me back home
I picked up this book... last week on a recommendation from a friend of mine. Talk about enjoying something. I can relate to these times and these guys. I grew up in the 50'S but we hung around a movie theater. I hope he writes a sequel and doubles the amount of pages. 3 cheers for the book....

Guys & Events growing up on Chicago's South Side
Tooty's Corner is a book about guys & events growing up on Chicago's South Side around Tooty's Grocery store has touched me where I can relate to Mike Maione's richly detailed stories. Nostalgia for those days of innocence, when a bunch of guys took streetcar rides downtown got in trouble ate White Castle sliders, played four corner baseball. I would make this a treat for everyman. The guys held a reunion in 1995 and launced new friendships with the help of this book. Its the best little book you gonna find.

Lets go back to the 50's
I went to a book signing in Evanston a few months back where Mike Maione and some of the guys were signing books. It is a fun crowd, they really enjoy what they are doing. The author said something that day, which I will never forget, because I grew up in that time period. He said you know they were the golden years, not today. He is right they were. ... Read more

Book Description

Grandfather Stories chronicles the transition from family farming with a team of horses to the mechanized farm through the eyes of a growing boy. He recalls, “Dogs called Shep or Billy came and went. Cats followed Granddad from the barn with his two pails of milk. Chickens fussed and squawked and produced eggs, which had to be collected every evening. Night hardly cooled from the heat of the day. Rotating fans served as the only air conditioning after electricity came. Heat lightening walked across the slate sky. The kitchen smelled of wood-fire, fresh peach or cherry cobbler, and churned butter. On the back porch where the work boots and the straw hats resided, the slop bucket full of old milk gave off its sourer odor to mix with the odors of kerosene and mud. There were chamber pots under the bed for nighttime use rather than trekking to the outhouse. Long-legged calves with runny behinds bawled for the moms during the day.”

These farmers in Gentry County, Missouri traced their ancestry back to the British Isles. Some fought in the American Revolution before they began pushing westward. These were self-sustaining farms able to produce most of the meat and vegetables and animal feed necessary for their survival. The reader will join Perry in feeding and doctoring pigs, harnessing a team of horses, visiting a blacksmith, and making hay. Come attend a Saturday night band concert and Sunday church followed by a church picnic. Sit on the lap of a former slave. Take the long train ride back home after a summer testing your growth. Sample a life now absent from most of the United States.

Book Description

DECADE OF GRIEFFrom 1989 until 1999, we nearly lost our home.We were also threatened with physical deterioration due to exposure to the byproducts of petroleum and other dangerous chemicals.When the spiller didn't restore our home properly, we had to enter into a lawsuit.

This book is our story. ... Read more

Book Description

In this warmly witty account, Joel Vance re-creates what it was like for a city kid to have his life changed almost entirely when he is transplanted from his Chicago birthplace to his father's home country in rural Missouri. He shares his emotions, his dreams, and the realities of his high school days, capturing the essence of the experiences of many who lived in the Midwest at mid-century. ... Read more

Book Description

Archer B. Gilfillan was an anomaly.An Ivy League scholar with a broad knowledge of classical literature and a talent for writing, he nonetheless chose to herd sheep from 1916 to 1934 in a lonely, isolated part of the West.Out of this strange juxtaposition of expertise and experience, Gilfillan produced the classic narrative of American sheep-herding. ... Read more

Book Description

A humorous look at a boy's growing up experiences in small town and rural America during the 1930's and 40's.His problems are cast against the profound changes in American society brought by the Great Depression and World War II. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

The story is grand, the prose simple, the details fascinate
This memoir of service with the First Minnesota recounts the sojourn of James Wright, from Red Wing, Minnesota through the battle of Gettysburg. Wright wrote the book long after his service, and his over-long monograph sat in the Minnesota Historical Society until edited and published in this book. The book starts as a slow read, but picks up and eventually begins to mesmerize the reader.

Think of any major event of the day -- September 11th in New York, for example. How valuable will first person accounts be? A first person account of a major past event is very interesting for the details, the feel, the point of view.

Company F was Wright's home. He missed the famous charge of the First Minnesota at Gettysburg, as his Company was off to the side suffering severe casualties of their own during the battle. The story is as grand, even with this "missed" moment.

The editing is good, and preserves the author's tone. The book could have been even shorter, but with some effort during the opening chapters, the reader is well rewarded.

Excellent first person account of a union soldier
I was pleasantly surprised at the quality and content of this book. The author is Sergeant Wright of Co. F, First Minnesota Regiment. His writing is excellent. The editor has chosen to primarily include first person accounts while excluding most of the post war years analysis that often creep into such accounts.

This book so effectively complements "The Last Full Measure - The Life and Death of the First Minnesota Volunteers" by Richard Moe. The Moe book uses first person accounts though it focuses on the broader picture. This book, written by a soldier, effectively details the life of the soldier - including day to day activities from finding food, water, and shelter to the incredible hardships of the march and battle.

The First Minnesota Regiment fought in most of the civil war eastern battles from 1861-1863. It is noted for the highest union casualties at First Bull Run, as well as the highest casualties of any union regiment in the war (80%) at Gettysburg. The regiment has a brief appearance in the 2002 motion picture "Gods and Generals" - I was there for the filming although waiting to see the final production - fall 2002.

The book also contains interesting events not in the Moe book including a great chapter detailing the time in New York city during the draft riots and the eventful winter trip back to Minnesota. ... Read more

Book Description

This book is a creative adaptation of columns written for the "Drumright Gusher", the paper in Drumright, Oklahoma.

Set in the fictitious Boomtown Restaurant, each chapter features a group of men who reminisce about "the good old days." The struggles and the laughter of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression are told with wit and warmth. ... Read more

Reviews (4)

Tiger Creek Tales
"Fearful that this gem of a book may slip through the cracks, may I enthusiastically recommend, Tiger Creek Tales, Memories of an Oil Patch Kid by Billy Gene Carriker. The 297 page hardback consists of both a factual and hilarious account of an oil boom town during the Great Depression of the 1930s, i.e., Drumright, Creek County, Oklahoma, now an historic site. It is a prototype of those towns that sprung literally overnight with the discovery of oil. Hordes of people from other states and from foreign countries converged overnight and built Drumright on two impossibly steep hills. Merchants from Lebanon, Syria and Assyria were prominent; mixed with them were engineers, bankers, lawyers and displaced dirt farmers. Carriker cleverly mixes individual accounts with unifying narration from a dozen old-timers who meet in the Boom Town Cafe for coffee. The book is a remarkable re-creation of the town and the times; it is also highly entertaining. Carriker is right on the mark in his account of that time and place. I know, I was there."

Vivian Kelly Travis, Ph.D.
Psychologist
Associate Prof. Psychology Emeritus

Tiger Creek Tales
After reading the story of an 'oil patch kid' I was moved by the warmth and humor extended by the author, not to mention the knowledged of an earlier, easier time in life.Born and raised in Oklahoma, but too young to have grown-up during that time, I found the book entertaining as well as nostalgic.The sketches drawn through out the book helped me visualize the scenes that the author so eloquently described.All in all the book, the sketches, and the topic were well worth the time invested in reading from cover to cover the story of the 'oil patch kid'.

Thoughts About The BoomTown Cafe Coffee Bunch
What a fun book to read! As an adult born at the end of WWII in the central part of the country, I had grown up hearing tales about the 30s and 40s, but the stories in this book really expand on them. Expressions I had heard and words I never really knew the meaning of are sprinkled through the stories. It's actually a mini-history lesson presented in an enjoyable way. The format, the coffee bunch are so real. Growing up in a cafe, I know there is always a bunch of regulars and do they like to talk! I can see this book being a conversation starter for adults and an eye-opening experience for the younger crowd.
My dad talked about playing shinny, never knew what he was talking about. Blowing the plug out of a pressure cooker, feeding spiders and eating box suppers are experiences you never forget! Fill your coffee cup, settle in your comfortable chair and be prepared for sharing when someone catches you chuckling out loud....

oil patch stories of real people in Drumright, OK
This is a delightful book of wonderful stories about real people of all ages living and working in the oil patch of Oklahoma. Sometimes humorous, sometimes poignant, a flavor of rural atmosphere is injected into the stories that recall life in a simpler time.
As history reports, born in an unpainted and roughly-furnished shotgun house, located in an actively producing oil field, Billy Gene grew up on the banks of Tiger Creek near the city of Drumright in the new state of Oklahoma - the time was only a few years after Indian Territory was named the state of Oklahoma in 1907. And that oil bubbling up was the reason that Drumright was founded, becoming a boom town before Oklahoma became a state, years later being known as the "Pipeline Capital of the World". Many colorful characters were part of that history.
In a period of 14 years of growing up in Drumright, the author met many different people. His family moved 9 times, which meant he and his siblings changed schools often. In each instance, a new circle of friends was established to go with the old friends. During his elementary schooling, the author attended 5 different schools in the immediate area of Drumright, graduating from the 8th grade as valedictorian of his class.
Those formative years took place during the Great Depression in the Dust Bowl era, which meant the specter of poverty always hovered near. Despite the economic hardships--or perhaps because of them--the large family, attending different schools and living in the rural atmosphere provided an enriching environment for these indelible memories the author shares so beautifully.
You will be entertained by reading this author's work. ... Read more

Book Description

The daughter of Oklahoma sodbusters and a student of Edward Everett Dale Angie Debo was an unlikely forerunner of the New Western History. Breaking with the followers of Frederick Jackson Turner, Debo viewed the westward movement of European Americans as conquest rather than settlement. Her studies on the Five Tribes presented the Native American point of view and incorporated ethnological insights more than a decade before ethnohistory emerged as a separate field.

Shirley A. Leckie's biography of Debo is the first to assess the significance of Oklahoma's pioneering historian on the historiography of the American Indian, the writing of regional history, and the development of national law and court cases involving indigenous people. Leckie sheds light on Debo's family's background, her personality, and the impact of gender discrimination on her career. Finally, Leckie clarifies why Debo became a scholarly pioneer and, later, a "warrior-scholar" activist working on behalf of Native Americans during a period of changing Indian policy. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Who's Afraid of Angie Debo?
The same guys who were afraid of Virginia Woolf, that's who. Shirley Leckie has written a fine biography in the conservative biography tradition. It is published by the same press that gave Angie Debo the runaround back when she was doubting her own significance as a writer in mid-career. When she was in despair. Published by the same university, who, in the heyday of history department chauvinism, chose to groom and tenure by far less accomplished male scholars rather than to throw a crumb to Miss Debo, the one whose work would be of supreme importance. Leckie's version of the story is balanced in tone, raking no muck and slinging no mud, but the truth comes glimmering through, even so. Handled especially well is the relationship Debo shared with her mentor, Dale. He might have actually been a two-faced jerk who wouldn't have rescued her or her manuscripts from a criminal Faulkner fire. Leckie veers away from harsh judgement and leaves it to the reader to decide how much he really cared. Many things come to mind from reading this insightful book, especially the fact that men who ran history departments could get by with a lot of crap, like promoting their publish-nothing buddies while placing one of the century's outstanding and memorable historians such as Debo on the back burner. Is there any doubt that she may have scorched back there? Angie Debo was the last of the old maids in many respects. Never married, never encouraged flirtation. Lived with and lived for her mother in the little town of Marshall. Pretty much given the cold shoulder by the universities during her 30s and 40s. Finally, in her fifties, the Old Boys loosened up a little. Leckie does make it clear that Debo was more of a lone wolf than a team player, especially when the team-players were a little thick. And yeah, I guess I wanted more from a bio, wanted Debo to be more than an old maid, jilted by the academic system, as far as personal relationships go. Perhaps if the biographer had focused upon the truly intense relationship Angie Debo had for her own writing and research of the Creeks and Choctaw tribes, the drama of the bio would have been heightened. When the life and the work is one and the same, as it was with Debo, the life had to have higher highs and lower lows. I think her early childhood illnesses which nearly killed her probably altered her ways that the biographer did not explore. Maybe the Debo soup was actually a little thicker than that which has been served here. The biographer chose to be choosy, to write a tasteful and conservative assessment of a life. Maybe Miss Debo wouldn't want anymore said than that. Could it be I suffer from some kind of popular misconception about the life of such a significant writer, believing like Dolly Pardon, who said: "Some people think less is more, but I say more is more"? ... Read more

Book Description

The world turned upside down for city-bred Marjorie Douglas when, in 1943, her young husband moved her and their baby, Anne, from suburban St. Paul to a western Minnesota stock ranch to help his parents stave off financial disaster. With wit and wisdom Douglas's memoir describes a midwestern way of life of fifty years ago. ... Read more