Mardo Williams

Maude (1883-1993): She Grew Up with the Country

• Broschiertes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

This new edition of Maude (1883-1993) has been updated by Mardo Williams' daughters, adding historical details their dad wished to make, twice as many photos, and nine appendices not present in the 1996 hardcover (which won an Ohioana Library Award for its author). During her 110-year lifetime, Maude went from a 400-lb. wood-burning stove to a microwave oven, from an outdoor privy to indoor plumbing. She got the vote in 1920 and voted in the next 18 Presidential elections. With poetry and human dramas (two murders and a suicide), written by a master journalist, the book shows the impact of the changing times on shy, unassuming Maude, her fun-loving husband Lee, and their four active children. They farmed 100 acres on the banks of Rush Creek in Logan County (Ohio). A favorite with book discussion groups, Maude has been adopted by several colleges for use as a supplemental American history text. "Mardo Williams brings out the extraordinary in a seemingly ordinary century's worth of experiences in his fine biography of Maude."-Leonard Lopate, New York & Co., National Public Radio "Maude is not only a fascinating story of an extraordinarily resilient woman but also an invaluable insight into how family life, and making a living, changed so dramatically during the 20th century. The book is of considerable value not only to general readers but also to social historians..."-Dr. Richard Trainor, Vice-Chancellor, University of Greenwich, U.K. "The antics of the children are delightful, as is the wisdom of Maude and her husband, Lee. You'll read how neighbors helped one another during long days of harvest and butchering, you'll learn of games you've heard your grandparents speak of, you'll begin to understand the strength it took just to survive in a world without modern conveniences."--Wendy Green, The Logan Daily News "Maude ...puts a human face on history, showing us how the innumerable changes that occurred during the twentieth century forever altered life for one Ohio family." Michael Mangus, Ph.D., Lecturer, Ohio State University "Mardo Williams brings the harshness and deprivation of Ohio farm life vividly back to life as well as its simple joys. And at the center of it is Maude--dignified, supremely competent as she stood beside her husband and raised their children, and uncomplaining. These days, as politicians pay lip service to family values, Maude is what they're all about"--Ralph Gardner, Jr., New York Observer .."full of delightful stories about rural America-just the kind you wished you'd jotted down after conversations with your grandmother"-Joan Dyer-Zinner, Michigan Community Newspapers "Maude's life story is [one] of the transformation of America from a world of primitive farms to a world of electrified cities. More than a collection of stories, it is a tribute to one woman's love, patience, and courage."-Lindsay Peterson, Tampa Tribune "The book is 336 pages, brimming with photographs and funny little tidbits of history--and America's growing up years... The times were tough, but it was also a golden time..."-V. Daniels, Winter Haven (FL) News Chief "Life was not all Little-House-on-the Prairie perfect. A suicide and two murders grieved the family. Extraordinarily detailed and page-turning ...Maude was the grandmother we all wish we had." Janet Overmyer, Ohioana Quarterly

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Calliope Press
• New Material
• Seitenzahl: 414
• Erscheinungstermin: 15. April 2016
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 216mm x 140mm x 23mm
• Gewicht: 522g
• ISBN-13: 9780996501316
• ISBN-10: 0996501312
• Artikelnr.: 44887498

Autorenporträt

Mardo Williams' story is right out of the pages of Horatio Alger whose books he read as a young boy. Alger's heroes valiantly overcome poverty and adversity and this seems to be exactly what he did. He grew up on a 100-acre subsistence farm; serendipitously--after he lost his job at the Kenton, Ohio car shops because of the Depression--he answered an ad and became the only reporter at the Kenton News-Republican, a small Ohio daily. (He'd always had an inclination to write.) He had no college degree but while he'd been cleaning out the insides of the smokestacks of the locomotives up in Toledo, he'd taken two courses at the business school there, shorthand and typing, and so he was prepared to be a reporter. He did all the beats, hoofed it around the small town of Kenton digging up stories on slow news days.

Nineteen years later, after World War II ended, the Columbus Dispatch recruited him to the copy desk. He moved up the ranks from the copy desk to travel editor . . . and in 1954 he was asked to develop and write stories about the world of business. Columbus was booming at this time. Mardo, familiar with pounding the pavement to search out stories, did just that. Within the year, he was writing a daily business column with byline.

After he retired from the Dispatch in 1970, he freelanced for several years, editing a newsletter and doing publicity. He began his second career, writing books, at age 88, after his wife died after a long illness. At his daughters' urging, he learned to use a computer and began writing his first book, Maude. It was about his mother, who lived to be 110, and also about life at the turn of the century when everything was done arduously by hand. This was to be for family, but his daughter Kay read a few sections to her writers group. They loved it, and wanted more.

The manuscript grew from 50 pages to a 334 page book with a 32 page picture insert. The finished product was published in 1996, Maude (1883--1993): She Grew Up with the Country. It has been adopted by some college American history classes as a supplemental text "to put a human face on history."

Then Mardo wrote an illustrated children's book, Great-Grandpa Fussy and the Little Puckerdoodles, based on the escapades of four of his great-grandchildren. He decided at age 92 that he would try something completely different--a novel, One Last Dance. His magnum opus.

He spent three years writing the first draft while tour...