Sod and Stubble: The Unabridged and Annotated Edition

By John Ise

Book Overview

"A few years ago, as I listened one night to my mother telling incidents of her life pioneering in the semi-arid region of Western Kansas, it occurred to me that the picture of that early time was worth drawing and preserving for the future, and that, if this were ever to be done, it must be done soon, before all of the old settlers were gone. This book is the result--an effort to picture that life truly and realistically. It is the story of an energetic and capable girl, the child of German immigrant parents, who at the age of seventeen married a young German farmer, and moved to a homestead on the wind-swept plains of Kansas, where she reared eleven of her twelve children, and remembering regretfully her own half-day in school, sent nine of them through college. It is a story of grim and tenacious devotion in the face of hardships and disappointments, devotion that never flagged until the long, hard task of near a lifetime was done."--John Ise (from the preface)

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 uplifting and disheartening realities of prairie life. Von Rothenberger brings us a new annotated and expanded edition that greatly enhances Ise's timeless tale. He includes the entire first edition-replete with Ise's charm, wit, and veracity, restores four of Ise's original chapters that have never been published, and adds photographs of many of the key characters. In his notes, Rothenberger reveals the true identity of Ise's family and neighbors, provides background on their lives, and places events within a wider historical and geographical context.

Ushering us through a dynamic period of pioneering history, from the 1870s to the turn of the century, Sod and Stubble abounds with the events and issues--fires and droughts, parties and picnics, insect infestations and bumper crops, prosperity and poverty, divisiveness and generosity, births and deaths--that shaped the lives and destinies of Henry and Rosa Ise, their family, and their community.

One hundred and twenty-five years after Osborne County was organized and Henry Ise homesteaded his claim, a corner of nineteenth-century Kansas social history remains safeguarded thanks to the tenacity of John Ise and the insight of Von Rotheberger, who enlivens Ise's story with revealing detail.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0700607757
• ISBN13: 9780700607754
• Release Date: June 1996
• Publisher: University Press of Kansas
• Length: 482 Pages
• Weight: 1.44 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.0" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Incredible book....

This book is out of this world. So realistic. The author tells about his ancestors who settled a portion of Kansas (I presume under the Homestead Act) and made a life for themselves. It rates up there, in a different genre, with Willa Cather's "My Antonia". Both of which have vaulted into my favorite books... Both occur after the Indian Wars for that area (and I am indeed sympathetic to the Native American situation, but the point is these settlers were not participants in that conflict; they arrived afterwards). They helped make a country from "nothing" as they found it into "something", before the rural flight of the Dustbowl & Great Depression years when their children or grandchildren would migrate back to cities for industrial jobs. Perhaps a 60 year period (?). This is a (now) little-remembered, and poorly understood, part of Americana that ought to be taught more often.

A compelling story.

Part of my family settled in Kansas not far from Ise's in the same period. They never mentioned how hard the life was for most people. The majority of settlers, in fact, failed. Some died from disease or accidents, others simply discovered that farming was not as lucky or simple as they had been led to beleive. The climate was against them. Finances and the market were as much luck as anything. If they didn't draw the best of land as a homestead, it was pretty much a no-win situation. Ise's plain spoken story illuminates the situation well. It's an eye-opener.

the most informative and most interesting book

"Over the years, I have recommended this book to hundreds of people in all walks of life and of almost all ages. Many have declared it to be the most informative and most interesting book they have read about Kansas history. The new material Rothenberger has located will add substantially to its value."--Leo E. Oliva, author of Woodston: The Story of a Kansas Country Town"A first-rate edition. The annotations are informative in content and graceful in style."--Susan J. Rosowski, general editor of The Willa Cather Scholarly Edition

Great book!!

This book does a wonderfull job of depicting the struggles involved in raising a family & building a farm on the great plains. Just 3 or 4 generations ago many of our own families were living the same life as the Ise's.

I love sod and stubble. you get lost in the story .

You can get so lost in this story that you will laugh and cry with the family as they go through the years.through birth and death rain and shine you will enjoy every line of this book.I got a real feeling of what it must have been like to settle the country, and the early years of this century. now that we are leaving the 1900's in the space age learn what it started out like.