Central Kansas Library System

An account of the lives of the author's parents.

An extensive update, this edition includes, for the first time, 96 color photographs of salamanders, frogs and toads, turtles, lizards, and snakes, as well as an impressive collection of black-and-white photographs. The addition of 1,000 new records since the first edition has enhanced the accuracy of the maps, which identify counties where each animal has been found. Also new in this edition is information on a snake recently discovered in Kansas,...

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...

This illustrated guide to Kansas ghost towns will delight travelers and armchair tourists alike. Organized by region, it tells the story of 100 towns that have either disappeared without a trace or are only "a shadowy remnant of what they once were." Fitzgerald chronicles each town's settlement, politics, colorful figures and legends, and eventual abandonment or decline. Ten maps and detailed intructions for finding each site are included.

When war broke out in 1861, Christian and Elise Dubach Isely, soon to be married, found themselves in the midst of the conflict. Having witnessed the atrocities of Bleeding Kansas firsthand and fearful of what would come from this war, Christian enlisted with the 2nd Kansas Cavalry to fight alongside Union forces. During the next three years, the couple would write hundreds of letters to each other, as well as to friends and family members. Their...