Nyle Kardatzke – författare

Leatherport, Ohio was a tiny settlement near Elmore on the north bank of the Portage River. The town disappeared soon after 1851 when the railroad crossed the river at Elmore. Leatherport lived on in the one-room Leatherport School and in the minds of people who populated the countryside nearby. You will read of rustic practices long lost to modern methods of farming and eating. Small adventures and disasters are magnified in the book''s close-up lens. A boy''s outdoor adventures with turtles and snakes and other critters are here. Comic events in Elmore and the majesty of Toledo cast the stories in historical context. World War II ended just days before the author''s class entered school, and he looks affectionately at the teachers he exasperated there. He graduated near the bottom of his class in 1957 but learned to type, a skill that made this book possible. Elvis Presley''s show in Toledo on November 22, 1956 foreshadowed other events yet to come.

Leatherport, Ohio was a tiny settlement near Elmore on the north bank of the Portage River. The town disappeared soon after 1851 when the railroad crossed the river at Elmore. Leatherport lived on in the one-room Leatherport School and in the minds of people who populated the countryside nearby. You will read of rustic practices long lost to modern methods of farming and eating. Small adventures and disasters are magnified in the book''s close-up lens. A boy''s outdoor adventures with turtles and snakes and other critters are here. Comic events in Elmore and the majesty of Toledo cast the stories in historical context. World War II ended just days before the author''s class entered school, and he looks affectionately at the teachers he exasperated there. He graduated near the bottom of his class in 1957 but learned to type, a skill that made this book possible. Elvis Presley''s show in Toledo on November 22, 1956 foreshadowed other events yet to come.

When the Cherokee Outlet was opened to homesteaders in the great Land Run of 1893, Wilbert Bruner and his wife Eliza lived in Kansas with two very young sons. Avoiding the mayhem of the land rush, Wilbert staked a claim in the Cherokee Outlet in spring 1894. He slept on the ground and lived alone in a crude sod house until he could build a small frame house for his wife and sons. The book includes stories of the extended family''s 250-year migration across America to Oklahoma, stories adventure, success, poverty, heartbreak, and joy.