This spring and summer I’ve been involved in a long labor of love. This involves taking my late father’s three books and preparing them for reprinting as Amazon paperbacks and Kindle ebooks. The work hasn’t been easy. But it really has brought me back in touch with Dad. In fact, it feels like he’s been holding my hand along the way!

The Books

The three books include County Seat Paper, the story of the community of Gallatin, Missouri, the small town in northwest Missouri that my father wrote about and loved for nearly 50 years. The second book is Post Scripts, a collection of Dad’s favorites from the weekly columns that appeared in The Gallatin North Missourian. And the third is his book Para(graph) Trooper for MacArthur, which covers his experiences during World War II. He began as a private in the old horse cavalry but quickly rose through the ranks to become a captain on General Douglas MacArthur’s press corps.

My Favorite?

I didn’t start out to even do this project. I really intended to write a book of my own about growing up as the daughter of a small-town newspaper editor in rural America in the 1950s and 1960s. But as I started looking again through County Seat Paper it became apparent that much that I wanted to write was already written. So, I guess this is my favorite, though probably not the most dramatic.

The Editor’s Role

I devoted my own life to journalism because of the lessons I learned from my father. And County Seat Paper certainly portrays the dedication one must have for good journalism. Dad’s details his heartbreak about working for a dam project he felt would renew economic viability for the area only to have it go down in defeat. He writes about the town’s alleged “lady of the night” who really had many other redeeming qualities. He talks about the unusual man who developed a horseradish business while living in a half-cave, half-house near the river. He mentions the oldest business in town (now, unfortunately, gone). He writes about the colorful Virginia McDonald, who developed a “tea room” that established Gallatin on the map for a time.  Duncan Hines named it as one of the top 10 places to eat in America. And Virginia’s cookbook, now a collector’s item, was the first cookbook ever selected as the top pick by the Book of the Month Club. I could go on.

Post Scripts

Post Scripts contains his weekly musings about family life, some of the characters mentioned above and some of the highlights of his time as editor and publisher. He writes about the time in 1961 when President John F. Kennedy invited him and a group of other Missouri newspaper editors to have lunch at the White House. He writes about the tragedy of a young Congressman named Jerry Litton, who died, along with his family, in a plane crash on the night he won the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate. Dad was certain that Jerry, who was almost like a son, would have been president one day had this tragedy not occurred. Again, I could go on.

Para(graph) Trooper for MacArthur

I suppose the book that might have the widest appeal, at least to those interested in history, would be his final book, Para(graph) Trooper for MacArthur. In this book, you learn that Dad was drafted while writing part time and working as a copy boy at The Kansas City Star & Times.  He began as a private on the horse cavalry at Fort Riley, Kansas, though this was pretty quickly phased out. From there, he began editing the camp newspaper and moved up the ranks until he became a member of General Douglas MacArthur’s press staff. His job was facilitating the jobs of the war correspondents and photographers and ensuring their stories and photos got back home for publication. This took him to many major battles in the southwest Pacific. He viewed war from the front and sidelines. He saw drama within the commands. He also took the first planeload of media to Nagasaki after the dropping of the atomic bomb. And he helped with media work during the signing of the peace treaty on the USS Missouri after the war.

The book also details his wartime romance and marriage to my mother, a marriage that by the time my father died five years ago had lasted 72 years.

All Three Completed

All three books are available through Amazon. A narrator is working on County Seat Paper.  I hope it soon is available as an audio book. Since I just finished Para(graph) Trooper today, it may be a few days before it shows up on the Amazon site. I’d be happy to hear any critiques or comments.