This autobiography of the first Dean of the College of Agriculture at Cornell University offers an unconventional account of farm life in New York and the Middle West during the nineteenth century, and of the difficulties attendant upon building up a vital and progressive agricultural college. Born in Seneca County, New York, in 1833, Isaac Phillips Roberts emigrated west--first to Indiana, where he worked as a carpenter until he was able to buy a farm, and taught school during the winters; then, in 1862, to Mount Pleasant, Iowa, in a pioneer wagon with his wife, Margaret, and daughter. In 1869, he became the Superindent of the Farm and Secretary of the Board of Trustees of the Iowa Agricultural College at Ames, where he soon became Professor of Agriculture. In 1873, he returned to New York to take a similar position at Cornell University; shortly thereafer, he was made Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture and Director of the Experiment Station. During his thirty years of service in Ithaca, he wrote voluminously on agricultural subjects, and after his retirement, penned Autobiography of a Farm Boy, initially published in 1916, reissued by Cornell University Press in 1946, and now made available in paperback. He died in Palo Alto, California, in 1928.

From his childhood growing up in Depression-era rural Manitoba to his rise through the ranks to become a colonel in the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF), Col Gordon Brennand’s memoir, Farm Boy to Flyboy, is as much a history of the RCAF in the twentieth century as it is an account of his own life. Born a bit too late to participate in WWII, Gordon was inspired by Canada’s involvement in the Korean War to pursue a life in the military. After a failed start in the Navy, he enlisted with the Air Force with faint hopes of perhaps becoming a fighter pilot. Not only did he succeed, he logged four thousand hours on various jet aircraft types including over 1100 hours on the F-86 Sabre, which was the state-of-the-art fighter jet throughout most his thirty-four-year career, not to mention hundreds of hours on various other types of aircraft. He experienced several close calls during that time, including one incident when he had to eject and another when he had to force land due to engine failure. He went on to command two bases and has spent time living in most Canadian provinces as well as Germany, where he served for three years during the Cold War. Fascinating and insightful, this book will appeal to those who are fascinated by the military and flying as well as those who are simply seeking a first-person account of what life was really like for the men and women who served in the RCAF throughout one of the most pivotal periods of twentieth-century history.

Limping through Life A Farm Boy’s Polio Memoir Jerry Apps “Families throughout the United States lived in fear of polio throughout the late 1940s and early 1950s, and now the disease had come to our farm. I can still remember that short winter day and the chilly night when I first showed symptoms. My life would never be the same.” —from the Introduction Polio was epidemic in the United States starting in 1916. By the 1930s, quarantines and school closings were becoming common, as isolation was one of the only ways to fight the disease. The Sauk vaccine was not available until 1955; in that year, Wisconsin’s Fox River valley had more polio cases per capita than anywhere in the United States. In his most personal book, Jerry Apps, who contracted polio at age twelve, reveals how the disease affected him physically and emotionally, profoundly influencing his education, military service, and family life and setting him on the path to becoming a professional writer. A hardworking farm kid who loved playing softball, young Jerry Apps would have to make many adjustments and meet many challenges after that winter night he was stricken with a debilitating, sometimes fatal illness. In Limping through Life he explores the ways his world changed after polio and pays tribute to those family members, teachers, and friends who helped him along the way.

In 1942, Virgil Westdale was a successful young flight instructor when the government ousted him from the Air Corps and demoted him to army private. Having grown up as a Japanese American midwestern farm boy, Westdale had his first taste of Japanese culture when he was sent to train with the all Japanese American unit, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. He was ultimately transferred to the 522nd Artillery Battalion, where, as a member of the Fire Direction Center, he helped push the Germans out of Italy, rescue the Lost Battalion in France, and free prisoners from Dachau Concentration Camp in Germany. After the war, Westdale went on to pursue a career in research and development with large corporations. He received twenty-five U.S. patents and earned an international award for his work with photocopier components. In retirement, he has been working for the TSA, returning to the worlds of aviation and national security. Written for the lay reader as well as the history buff, Westdales stories of World War II challenge preconceived notions of what we think we know about a soldiers life in Europe and offer images that go beyond the history books. ---"Spanning over ninety years, Virgils amazing and complex life story vividly reflects Americas history from the early 1900s to our current fight against terrorism. His book reads if he were sitting before me casually sharing his life. A highlight of my careerboth as an Army officer and a Federal Civil Servanthas been the honor of working with and getting to know Virgil Westdale, a great American. This is a truly fascinating and memorable autobiography." John H. Mumma, Colonel, US Army Retired Federal Security Director, Transportation Security Administration ---"Virgil Westdales Blue Skies and Thunder tells a story that is both unique in American history and uniquely American. After growing up as a Midwestern farm boy whose Japanese father had largely assimilated into the local community, he found himself after Pearl Harbor viewed with suspicion by the very government he wanted to serve in the Second World War. Denied a chance to serve as a military pilot, or even as a pilot trainer, he eventually found his way into a newly created Japanese American artillery unit and served with distinction in Italy, France and Germany. Back in the United States, he completed college and made a career for himself as an engineer with multiple patents to his credit, and eventually served his country a second time, as an airport security officer. His account is highly readable and offers insights into a wide range of aspects of both his own life and the world around him." Dr. James Smither, Director Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project

The joys and challenges of life on a small farm are fast becoming a distant memory in our society, but for author Daniel Boerman, the memories are crystal clear. Through his memoir, The Flying Farm Boy, Boerman enables you, the reader, to appreciate life in a fresh new way by sharing his simple boyhood lifestyle; one he believes represents a rich heritage full of meaning for today. Like all young people, Boerman had a dream; he wanted to soar in life, to be confident, respected, and successful. Focused on flying above his humble, obscure beginnings, he was determined to impact the world around him, no matter what obstacles were thrown his way. Maybe, as his frequently-ill mother urged, he could become a minister, preaching powerful messages to his congregations. Whatever his future vocation, the author desired to find a way to live out the values he learned and achieve the success he desired. Boerman invites you along for an inspiring flight. Through reading The Flying Farm Boy, you too may discover the value of simple living and rise above obscurity

It has always been an ambition of mine to write an autobiography. I think many people could benefit from hearing about the way I have tried to deal with the unforeseen events of life that crept up on me. From humble beginnings, I find myself in situations in the Royal Navy where fear grips me, and I must overcome it. As an aircrewman, I describe my search and rescue missions with detail and humor. There is tragedy, where we are too late! Too late! Also there is success, where men are saved from the boiling seas. I explain what got me on the Christian path and how Liz and I had to battle with forgiveness to move forward together. If you have a romantic view of working for the church in different countries, then my stories of the harsh realities will give you wisdom to deal with the situations. My life has had its share of trials and tribulations, but my faith in God has brought me through.

Chesapeake Boyhood is an account of growing up on the lower Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake during the years following the Great Depression. Turner's stories include rousing tales of 'coon hunting, crabbing, boat building, duck hunting, oyster tonging, and Saturday jaunts to town. Turner brings the characters, experiences, waterscape, and landscape of rural Virginia to life as no one has done before or is likely ever to do again. His own drawings illustrate the stories, and they, too, win us over with their honesty and charm. "Its chief virtue (besides its highly literate style), it seems to me, is its intimate, sensory knowledge of a vanishing Chesapeake landscape: its sounds and smells, the way things feel to the touch, the lore lodged in the names of the commonest creatures and activities... At one point Turner likens the local farmers and fishermen sitting around the table in the country store to fixed positions on a compass, with `all the cardinal points taken,' and I think of this [book] as a kind of compass too, that describes one man's orientation to the Eastern Shore."--Andrea Hammer, St. Mary's College "Modern outdoor writing has enough anemic adventures by faint-hearted writers reared in the suburbs. What it needs more of is the droll wit of an Ed Zern, the robust foolishness of a Patrick McManus, and the lean prose of an Ernest Hemingway. It gets all three in the tales of Bill Turner."--George Regier, author of Heron Hill Chronicle and Wanderer on My Native Shore "Storms, boat wrecks, childhood pranks and even old dogs are remembered with a sense of humor in Turner's book. He has captured the rhythms of country life in a time before fast cars, credit cards, and air pollution." -- Waterman's Gazette

What is now called JCPenney, a fixture of suburban shopping malls, started out as a small-town Main Street store that fused its founder’s interests in agriculture, retail business, religion, and philanthropy. This book—at once a biography of Missouri farm boy–turned–business icon James Cash Penney and the story of the company he started in 1902—brings to light the little-known agrarian roots of an American department store chain. David Delbert Kruger explores how the company, its stores, and their famous founder shaped rural America throughout the twentieth century. “Most of our stores,” Penney explained in 1931, “are located in agricultural regions where the tide of merchandising rises and falls with the prosperity of the farmers.” Despite the growth of cities in the early twentieth century, Penney maintained his stores’ commitment to serving the needs of farmers and small-town folk. Tracing this dedication to Penney’s rural upbringing, Kruger describes how, from one store in the sheep-ranching and mining town of Kemmerer, Wyoming, J. C. Penney Co. became a familiar chain on Main Street, USA, purveying value, providing good jobs, and marking rites of passage in many an American childhood. Kruger paints a biographical and historical picture of an American business mogul distinctly different from comparable capitalists such as Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, or Sam Walton. Despite his chain’s corporate structure, Penney imbued each store with a Golden Rule philosophy that demanded mutual respect between customers, employees, competitors, suppliers, and communities. By tracing that spirit to its agrarian source, and following it through the twentieth century, J. C. Penney: The Man, the Store, and American Agriculture provides a new perspective on this American cultural institution—and on its founder’s unique brand of American capitalism.