Author. Artist.
In honor of Women’s History Month, each of my blogs this month will introduce an artist or writer, mostly from the nineteenth century, all with fascinating stories. I first encountered Hannah Ropes story in researching my book about Kansas Territory. Her story fascinated me and […]
This is the first in a new weekly series on journaling tips and ideas. Journals have always been a place to express one’s self. Journals bring to mind a notebook with thoughts and contemplations on a day or an event. But this papery place of […]
I learned about Samuel J. Reader early on in the research for my book. I believe our paths were meant to cross-his diary entries provided me with inspiration as an artist and writer. Once I saw Reader’s journals, I knew we were kindred spirits. Watercolor sketches have been part of my own journals for years and I had always hoped to illustrate my book on Kansas. A copy of his self-portrait is pinned to the bulletin board above my computer as a reminder to paint and write, even in the toughest of times.
Samuel Reader began keeping a diary at age thirteen. His inspiration came from the diaries of explorers Lewis and Clark who documented their travels, accompanied by maps and drawings. Reader’s journals, now at the Kansas State Historical Society in Topeka, contain wonderful watercolor sketches of his life in the Territory, beginning in 1855. Thirteen of the original fifteen diaries are in the collection of the Kansas Historical Society in Topeka. Volumes one and four were destroyed in 1890 when his farmhouse in Indianola burned. Reader continued documenting life until a year before he died in July 1914 at age 78.
Only 19 when he moved to Kansas Territory with his Aunt Liza and her husband, Samuel Reader staked his claim in Indianola, just north of Topeka. He had stopped attending school at sixteen or seventeen, as he preferred to learn on his own from books. He taught himself shorthand and French, both of which appear in his diaries. From his writings we also learn just how well read Reader was, with books such as The Last of the Mohicans (in French), Dickens, and Shakespeare, among those he mentioned.
As Willa Cather wrote in O, Pioneers, “The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or woman.” Samuel Reader’s diaries give detailed accounts of early Kansas events, as well the everyday life of a farmer. He wrote about border warfare, historic figures such as John Brown, and local history. He described the weather, local residents, and the growth of the Topeka area. On a more personal level, he wrote about his family, wife Lizzie, and the deaths of two of their daughters.
Reader’s diaries are a valuable record of life in Kansas Territory. They show the importance of the written personal journal and how ordinary words become extraordinary.
Hardly believing it was already June, I turned the calendar page and read the quote for the new month: “You are never too old to set another goal or dream another dream.” C. S. Lewis As I am currently fully engaged in preparing for the […]
May 11, 2013 The mothers I read about in my research on early Kansas, though living in a very different setting, had the same hopes for their children that we have – good health, education, and a chance to pursue their dreams. Mothers gave their […]
This is the second in a series of blog posts for Women’s History Month
Boasting forty-two members from a population of two hundred, the Moneka Women’s Rights Assocation of Moneka, Kansas Territory, committed themselves early on to fight for equality for women. Chartered in February 1858, the group organized themselves in a town that had itself been founded in Linn County in eastern Kansas just the previous year. The group included several male members. The dedication of the membership to their cause showed the character of a community still struggling to provide the basics for its citizens.
Here are words from the Association’s Preamble:
“Because, Woman is constituted of body and mind and has all the common wants of the one and the natural powers of the other
Because she is a progressive being ever out-growing the past and demanding a higher and greater future – or in other words,
Because she is a Human Being and as such is endowed by her Creator with the full measure of human rights whether educational, social or political . . .”
The group petitioned the Territorial legislature to enact laws to protect women’s rights, including a woman’s right to retain any property that she possessed before marriage and a woman’s right to a “just proportion of the joint property of the husband and wife acquired during marriage.”
One of the Association’s credos, adopted at the February 27, 1858 meeting, read:
“Whereas women can not vote and yet feel the necessity of just laws, therefore Res. that every woman in Kansas who believes that equal rights belong to women should consider herself a committee of one whose duty it is to do all in her power to convert to her views at least one legal voter.”
Those legal voters to be targeted? Men, the only legal voters.
National Women’s History Month brings attention to many prominent women in our history. But let us not forget groups like the Moneka Women’s Rights Association who played an important part in the struggle for women’s equality.
February 26, 2013 What do pioneer diaries and your personal journal have in common? They are both part of history. For my book, Hope Amid Hardship: Pioneer Voices from Kansas Territory, I read the diaries of many Kansas pioneers. With few exceptions, none of these […]
