This story is about the Westward Expansion Era of our great American heritage as actually experienced by pioneer families spanning several generations. The original European immigrants began arriving on our shores about four hundred years ago and they were the founders of our country, which became a 'melting pot' for all these ethnic groups. These families eventually emerged from colonial times in early America however, and gradually started moving westward displacing the native Indian nations that were here before. The exemplary families of this story were thoroughly immersed in this western...

This story is about two pioneer families that migrated west from North Carolina and Pennsylvania, and then came together in southeastern Kansas Territory just in time to be caught up right in the middle of the Kansas/Missouri Border War and the Civil War campaign that followed. The Border War began in the mid 1850's and actually lasted throughout the Civil War years of 1861 to 1865. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 had opened up the land to legal settlement, but it allowed the residents of these territories to decide by popular vote whether the state would be a slave or free state, and that...

This story is about the families of three brother in the following few decades after the turn of the century in 1900. The old Victorian Age was ending and this new century ushered in many new innovations contributing to the rapidly changing lifestyles. These occurred during the eras of WWI, Prohibition, the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, and WWII; and what exciting times they were. But it is also the story of hard times and difficult circumstances for some. It reveals the vulnerable victims of these social and economic times, especially as a result of neglectful and estranged...

This story is about the lives of two generations of deep shaft coal miners and their families primarily during the five decades between 1890 and 1940. After immigration from Europe they spent their entire lives working and living in the mines and their associated camps in the southeast Kansas coal belt and the surrounding four-state area. In addition to having much local significance, due to all the local color and familiar scenes of its regional setting, it is definitive of immigrants and coal mining elsewhere. It turns back the clock for us and transports us back for a real taste of the...