Sod And Stubble; The Story Of A Kansas Homestead

John Ise

• Publisher: Normanby Press
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781786252159
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

"A few years ago, as I listened one night to my mother telling incidents of her life pioneering in the semi-arid region of Western Kansas, it occurred to me that the picture of that early time was worth drawing and preserving for the future, and that, if this were ever to be done, it must be done soon, before all of the old settlers were gone. This book is the result-an effort to picture that life truly and realistically. It is the story of an energetic and capable girl, the child of German immigrant parents, who at the age of seventeen married a young German farmer, and moved to a homestead on the wind-swept plains of Kansas, where she reared eleven of her twelve children, and remembering regretfully her own half-day in school, sent nine of them through college. It is a story of grim and tenacious devotion in the face of hardships and disappointments, devotion that never flagged until the long, hard task of near a lifetime was done."—John Ise (from the preface) Deeply moved by his mother's memories of a waning era and rapidly disappearing lifestyle, John Ise painstakingly recorded the adventures and adversities of his family and boyhood neighbors—the early homesteaders of Osborne County, Kansas. First published in 1936, his "nonfiction novel" Sod and Stubble has since become a widely read and much loved classic. In the original, Ise changed some identities and time sequences but accurately retained the uplifting and disheartening realities of prairie life. Ushering us through a dynamic period of pioneering history, from the 1870s to the turn of the century, Sod and Stubble abounds with the events and issues—fires and droughts, parties and picnics, insect infestations and bumper crops, prosperity and poverty, divisiveness and generosity, births and deaths—that shaped the lives and destinies of Henry and Rosa Ise, their family, and their community.-Print ed.

Table of contents

• Title page
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• DEDICATION
• ILLUSTRATIONS
• PREFACE
• CHAPTER I - THE NEW HOMESTEAD
• CHAPTER II - THE NEIGHBORS
• CHAPTER III - THE FIRST MONTHS IN THE LOG CABIN
• CHAPTER IV - THE MAD WOLF
• CHAPTER V - THE BRIGHT-EYED BABY
• CHAPTER VI - GRASSHOPPERS
• CHAPTER VII - TWO LETTERS
• CHAPTER VIII - THE GREAT MENACE AGAIN
• CHAPTER IX - THE PRAIRIE SMILES ONCE MORE
• CHAPTER X - THE NEW HOUSE, AND A TRIP BACK HOME
• CHAPTER XI - DANGERS OF PIONEERING
• CHAPTER XII - HENRY SIGNS A NOTE
• CHAPTER XIII - THE COMING OF THE RAILROAD
• CHAPTER XIV - A PRAIRIE FIRE
• CHAPTER XV - THE ROAD FIGHT
• CHAPTER XVI - THE RETREAT OF THE DEFEATED LEGION
• CHAPTER XVII - UNKIND SEASONS
• CHAPTER XVIII - GOOD YEARS, AND THE NEW HOUSE
• CHAPTER XIX - TROUBLE FOR THE LITTLE CHILDREN
• CHAPTER XX - A HAPPY DAY, AND AN ANXIOUS NIGHT
• CHAPTER XXI - A SICK BABY
• CHAPTER XXII - MORE HARD YEARS AND HARD PROBLEMS
• CHAPTER XXIII - HENRY BUYS A WINDMILL, AND SELLS SOME CATTLE
• CHAPTER XXIV - MORE DROUTH AND ANXIETY
• CHAPTER XXV - GOOD CROPS AND THE NEW BARN
• CHAPTER XXVI - TROUBLE IN SCHOOL AND CHURCH
• CHAPTER XXVII - A DUST STORM
• CHAPTER XXVIII - THE DARKNESS BEFORE DAWN
• CHAPTER XXIX - BETTER TIMES
• CHAPTER XXX - THE END OF A BRAVE FIGHT
• CHAPTER XXXI - ROSIE AND THE CHILDREN MANAGE
• CHAPTER XXXII - THE SALE, AND THE END OF PIONEERING