South Dakota Books

In one way this book accurately depicts life on a family ranch in the area where the author lives; she says nothing that is totally untrue. On the other hand it is misleading. Ranch life is more rewarding than Hasselstrom seems to find it. The somewhat trite whining about minor problems masks some of the real fulfillment and pain that comes with ranching. The author has published several books since this one first appeared in 1987. Some of the later work is much better.

The book has some quality things going for it. The author also writes poetry and that comes across in her prose at times, as it does in the chapter titled, "Sixth Gate." Humor also shows through; the "Seventh Gate" is a good example. The author express well the joys of a spring morning, riding to look at the livestock in good weather, and gazing across a South Dakota landscape that is often delightful. The ranch lies between the Black Hills and the flatlands farther east. She hints at the great feelings that come with pride in raising quality livestock, bring up children in a wholesome environment, helping a new calf come into the world, and taking responsibility for living an independent life. The "Eleventh Gate" about battling a prairie fire is the finest in the book. It illustrates how rapidly fighting fire can demarcate success and failure on a vital scale.

If the reader finds a rancher who has time to talk and asks them what is good about their life, most will list all of the positives found in this book and more besides. Ask about the most serious problems and you will find that most of the big ones are in this book, although nearly hidden in some cases. The uncertainty of the weather and markets may be the first things mentioned. The need for water, both surface water or in wells, is perhaps the most important issue facing ranchers and farmers in the Dakotas, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and Nebraska. Another valid issue for family operations is the difficult of competing with larger operations, growers located closer to their markets, growers in climates better suited to production, and producers in countries with lower standards of living. It is likewise true that long-term declining profit margins have forced family operations to continually get larger, with fewer people on the land.

Ranchers can also fill your ears with complaints about hunters who won't shut gates, vegetarians, environmentalists, litter from fast food containers, dumb people from the east, and myriad other things. They will also complain about things such as governmental policies, water rights, expenditures on welfare, corporate agriculture, people's disregard of the worth of the family farm, and public right-of-way across their land. At lot of it is simply boilerplate. There is far too much of that in this book. If the author takes it seriously, it is hard to fathom why she came back to the ranch or continues to live there.

Fortunately for us, Hasselstrom does more than ranch; possibly out of both mental and financial necessity. There are several fine books on our shelves that she has written or edited.

I first read this book in a regional lit class in college. Being a farmer's wife, I related easily to her tales of life as she "passed through the gates" on the ranch. What an interesting format. The book touched on the important past as well as present rural issues that make that life unique. The author comes across as a strong, independent, and thoughtful woman--someone who respects the power of the past and is interested in the future. The clash of technology and ranching is also explored in a sensitive way. It was a great "journey"--going with her as she rode the ranch--a vast empire of land that holds special significance to her and many others.

This is one of my favorite books. I first read it when I had left the traffic clogged freeways of LA to live the rural life. I will never forget the sense Hasselstrom gave of what it really takes to battle the elements (and the political and economic changes) that create such a harsh reality for real working ranchers. As an editor I often refer writers to this book as an excellent example of memoir writing. I highly recommend this and Hasselstrom's other books. She is such a skilled writer that whatever she writes about is surely worth reading.

If you are interested in early South Dakota Railroads & Depots in particular, this book is a must have. It has a fine selection of photographs with captions and reproduction is first rate. Not only is it
fascinating reading, but it is also fine reference tool. I did find a couple of errors in the captions, but it did not distract from the overall quality of the book.

The book contains great old photographs of SD railroads, predominantly in the Eastern part of the State which was settled first. The photos show the travails of railroad men fighting the elements and of terrible trainwrecks. They are a wonderful chronicle of the history of railroading in South Dakota.

First, let us emphasize the positive aspects of this slim book: The photographic reproductions, while understandably monochromatic given their 1910-era coverage, are generally sharp, well-focused, and consistently oriented to the railroad motif promised by the title of the book, IMAGES OF RAIL: SOUTH DAKOTA RAILROADS. They are also plentiful, two appearing on each page of the 128-page book. These images originally appeared on postcards, and a more descriptive title for the book would have been SOUTH DAKOTA RAILROAD POSTCARDS; however, the fact that all of the pictures have been previously published on postcards does not detract from their interest. The multitude of photographs is, of course, the central focus and the main strength of the book, which never purports to emphasize text, which is good, as we shall now see.

The authors should probably have relied totally upon photos with captions even more minimal than the brief and repetitious ones they included, for whenever any text appears, problems arise. To look at some typical examples, we can start as soon as page 4, with an envelope bearing the return address of the C&NW Depot Hotel in Huron, SD. The caption identifies this as the Canadian and North Western Railway Hotel and adds that "This railroad later became the Chicago and North Western." Perhaps, but I've never read of such a Canadian railroad before this. The Chicago & Northwestern RR began by purchasing the assets of the bankrupt Chicago, St. Paul and Fond du Lac RR and soon merged with the Galena and Chicago Union RR. Early on, it also owned a majority of stock in the Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis and Omaha Ry. Nowhere in its history, however, can I find any other mention of something called the "Canadian and North Western," and I believe the photo caption to be erroneous by creating a non-existent rail line.

Two other fictitious lines are created a few pages later when the Chicago, St. Paul, MINNEAPOLIS and Omaha RR is mis-identified as the Chicago, St. Paul, MINNESOTA and Omaha, a railroad that never existed outside this book. Likewise, the Minnesota and St. Louis RR is wrongly named the Minneapolis and St. Louis. Had the authors consulted the photographs on pages 20, 98, and 109 of their own book, they would have discovered their errors.

Beyond these factual errors, grammatical mistakes abound in the scanty text. The acknowledgments page thanks the "wife's" of the two authors, using the singular possessive rather than the plural form of the noun. A caption on page 11 and another on page 19 throw in the pronouns "their" and "they" with no antecedent nouns to identify the references. A caption on page 13 tells us that "the sender" of the postcard was "postmarked August 25, 1916...." Plural and compound subjects are followed by singular verbs as in a caption stating that a "Depot and elevators ... is pictured here...." Back to factual errors, page 42 includes a photograph of a line of grain elevators while the caption implies that they are for coal storage.

Things don't improve as one progresses through the book, either. On page 96, the town of Mystic is misspelled "Mistic." Photographs of an accident on the Milwaukee Road on pages 103 and 104 cannot agree on the date of the wreck. On page 166, a photograph of a burning Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul box car is captioned "fire in the Chicago, Milwaukee and Puget Sound boxcars...."

Occasionally, the authors apparently do not even understand what they're looking at. Page 125 depicts a locomotive "off the tracks" and implies that snow is the culprit. In fact, the locomotive has plunged off a misaligned turntable, leaving the front end down in the pit. While technically "off the tracks," the engine has suffered a mishap quite different from a mere derailment, and the snow likely had nothing to do with the cause.

There are also some errors of omission in this collection. The title notwithstanding, with only two or three exceptions, the book does not depict "South Dakota Railroads," but EASTERN South Dakota railroads, for the western lines that served the Black Hills are not included or even listed on the page that claims to identify the "following 12 railroads [that] operated in South Dakota during the 1907 to 1920 period." Where are the Deadwood Central, the Black Hills & Ft. Pierre, and the Burlington and Missouri River? All missing.

Judged by its photographs alone, this collection probably rates four Amazon stars, missing the fifth because of its lack of inclusion of the Black Hills region of the state. However, the copious textual errors of both fact and grammar rate no more than a single star at best. The two-star rating I've chosen to assign is a grudging compromise between these extremes. The book is quite adequate as a collection of early twentieth century railroad scenes; however, as even a cursory history reference, it falls abysmally short.

After watching the entire first three seasons of Deadwood on DVD, I decided to take a shot at this book. I found it to be a fast read, and I was a little disappointed by the lack of complexity in the character development. I flinched at the way women were characterized in the book, (let's just say that only one of the prostitutes had a "heart of gold," and even she came to a bad end.)

The good guys were pretty much mostly all good, with little or no dark side. This is especially true of the hero of the story, Dan Ryan. I would have liked to see more complexity in his and other key characters. The bad guys were pretty much all bad, with little or no good to them. One good guy went bad, and one bad guy went sort of good, but more could have been done with that.

There were no female heroines in the story except Lou the cook, and she didn't seem to do much more than cook - Calamity Jane was described in way that seemed to dismiss her as drunken, sleazy, parasitic trash. Regardless of what Calamity Jane was and wasn't, it isn't fair to paint such a one-dimensional portrait.

There were two rather dubious romantic sub-plots, neither of which had much depth.

If it weren't for the sexually explicit passages in the book, the cursing and the violence, the simplistic plot would have made me think it was a children's book.

Very good reading, a page turner, will definetly leave you wanting to read the other two in the series. My advice, buy the other two when you get this one. Pretty close to actual historical events. Great Read

This is pretty well done for one of those writer-for-hire Western book series. (You know the ones, where each "novel" is written by a different anonymous contract writer but always under the same fictitious name? No, Virginia, there is no 'Mike Jameson' -- that's why the book is copyrighted by 'The Berkley Publishing Group' instead of by an actual person.)

Usually the first book of this type of series is contracted out to a really good writer. The ones that follow in the series tend to vary in quality, so it's a very good idea to give those the old first page test before plunking down the bucks for them. (If a writer can't write a great first page, he damn sure can't write a whole book.)

But whoever wrote this one seems to know his game. The citizens of Deadwood are historically true to life and the made-up ones mesh perfectly into the scheme of things as well. Fans of the TV series 'Deadwood' will be very much at home here. Hickok, Calamity and Al Swearengen are all there, though mainly as background.

A generally fine entertainment and a nice start in a potentially fine series.

Whoever this first 'Tales from Deadwood' novel's author really is, I hope he (or she) gets more work soon.

'Tales from Deadwood 2: The Gamblers' is due out in May 2006.

Hope it's as good.

I grew up in the Hidewood area and I have purchased some copies of this book as gifts which were given to old friends. The book is well written, factual, reasonably documented for a work of this sort, contains many names I recognize, and it provides an accurate verbal picture of life in this small part of the country during that period of time. I do not know the author, but his style certainly fits comfortably with the culture he describes. This is rural South Dakota depicted as I also recall it, and it has been written by one of our own. There is another author, Jim Roth, who has published a book titled "Memories of Estelline" which describes this same small region a couple of decades later in a series of short essays. However, I suspect books of this sort will be of interest to a rather limited population.

I grew up two miles and one generation away from the setting of this story. It brought back childhood memories of familiar locations and names. The author uses an interesting technique of telling the story with different points of view in each chapter. It makes for enjoyable reading even though it's a mostly fiction story based on real characters. The author's POV is used often enough to bring out the emotions of a coming-of-age story and the social aspects of mid-Thirties farm life. There are many similarities between this Hidewood memoir and mine, "A Farm in the Hidewood: My South Dakota Home."

This is the history of the years (1890-1906) that Bruce Siberts spent as a cowboy and rancher in central South Dakota. Walker D. Wyman edited oral and written material obtained from Mr. Siberts between 1945 and 1950. The account is more open and frank than other personal histories from the Dakotas and Montana during that time. It is an important part of the history of the plains.

Bruce Siberts was in South Dakota during a period of great change. When he arrived, a few cattlemen were running large herds on open range. Mr. Siberts was one of the first of the wave of homesteaders that ultimately closed off the open range. Early in his tenancy, he was a small operator running a few head of cows and working at various jobs wherever he could. By the time he left, Mr. Siberts had a large and profitable horse operation that depended on the open range. It was also a time of personal change for Siberts. Initially he was a greenhorn criticized for riding mares during a roundup. Before he left, he was boss of a roundup.

It was a hard life. Wind, cold, and severe winters were the rule. Like most of the others living in the area, Mr. Siberts had a dugout, a small cabin dug into a hillside with a sod roof and no floor. He was unmarried and it was a long way to any white neighbors. Many of the white people in the country were outlaws. A constant fear was that injury or loss of your horse would leave you unable to get to help in time to save your life. Few people had any money, and a dollar per day was good wages if you could find work.

It was also a time of change for the Native American population. There were many Sioux; they outnumbered the permanent white population. The Indians had admitted defeat in their struggles against the whites and were reluctantly moving to reservations. Whether living on the reservation or not, the Indians were dependent on the U.S. agencies for food since the buffalo were gone and the government didn't allow the Indians to keep their guns.

The relationship between whites and the Indians is an interesting part of the book. Both lived in similar conditions. Early on, a rider arriving at a home received free food and lodging, regardless of whether the rider or the homeowner was white or Indian. Later on, as more whites arrived and the reservation system degraded the Indians, there was greater discrimination against the Indians. There were also many half-breeds in the area and their culture was different from either of their parent races.

By far the weakest part of the book is the foreword and the preface. Mr. Siberts didn't have anything to do with writing these; but, ironically, the authors of those sections are the names on the book cover. Both accounts are slightly disparaging of Mr. Siberts and his narrative. They raise a question as to its authenticity. That is unfair. Some of the tales may reflect nearly fifty years between the happening and the telling. Some may have evolved slightly through many tellings. However, I knew a few of the old cowboys and my father was working livestock in Nebraska during part of the same period Mr. Siberts was in South Dakota. This account is accurate, without the glamour and romanticism that books and movies have added to the cowboy life in the intervening years

This is a true story of a man in the South Dakota territory between end of the Indian Wars and the settling of the homesteaders. This will fill the void that this time period is seldom written about.

L. Frank Baum is known best for The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, a children's fantasy that has achieved classic status through its multiple reprintings and because of the movies based on it, including the MGM classic The Wizard of Oz starring Judy Garland and the 70s musical The Wiz. Part of the appeal of Baum's fantasy is that it is quintessentially American, set in the heart of the midwest, and in some ways deals with the American spirit. Academic commentators have gone further in their study of Baum's work, saying that it can be read as a treatise on the America of the late 1800s, citing various political undercurrents in the novel. These arguments are based on Baum's work as a newspaper publisher, editor and columnist in South Dakota. Now the University of Nebraska press has made available a collection of the "Our Landlady" columns[1] written by Baum from January 1890 to February 1891--forty-eight installments about a fictitious boarding house in the town of Aberdeen where Baum's newspaper was published.

The columns are edited and annotated by Nancy Tystad Koupal, who does an outstanding job of placing the column in the appropriate time setting, explaining to the modern reader the differences that one hundred years have made on newspapers, political parties, mercantile exchange, and other aspects of frontier life. This is especially important in the context of the "Our Landlady" columns which were intended as editorials on the doings of city hall and the state legislature. The column also mentions, by name, actual townspeople in Aberdeen, and these people are described by both Koupal's annotations and in a separate index of important people and places of South Dakota in 1890.

For adult readers of Baum's children books, these columns are a rare insight into the mind of the author, dealing as they do with his strongest personal opinions. His advocacy of suffrage and the rights of women help explain the strong female characters in the Oz books (best seen in the strength of Glenda the Good's magic compared to the ineffectual humbuggery of the Wizard). One can also see his interest in the future, including fantasies of unlimited electrical power and methods of irrigating the plains, interests that were then displayed in the Oz books as different magical lands. Finally, you can also see him honing his talent for satire and humor, from broad-based visual pratfalls to punning wordplay, all things that would late prove useful in his career as a children's novelist.

Baum failed as a newspaper publisher and editor in 1891, just as he had failed years earlier as a shop keeper. But these failures proved useful when he finally found his calling as an author of whimsical children's novels, as he turned his experiences on the frontier into settings and characters for his books. Today, Baum's books are constantly in print and remain in the hearts of children of all ages. Koupal's rescue of Baum's earlier work is a blessing for those people interested in the real Wizard of Oz.

"Our Landlady" is a book filled with the newspaper columns Baum wrote for his newspaper. They are stories about daily life and problems during the 1880s-1890s. Baum wrote thse before his Oz books, but they are just as good and just as funny. (For example, Mrs. Bilkins, the landlady, says when talking about a group of girls that fight in the army "They are all single, and are bound to stay that way until they get married.") I would strongly recommend reading "Our Landlady" if you like to read Oz and other books by L. Frank Baum. I'm sure you'll love this as much as the other books.

I've been to South Dakota a number of times and have had many questions about the landscape, etc. This book has the answers and the pictures to go with it. I especially appreciated the glossary and the further-reading list.

I bought this book for a weeklong driving tour through North and South Dakota, and found this book invaluable. If you are interesting in the natural resources and park systems in these places, it has lotsa info you won't get in maps (especially many beautiful color photos) altho the advice given wasn't always useful.

This is the life story of Sarah Ponsonby and Lady Eleanor Butler - the Ladies if Llangollen, who eloped together from their Irish homes in 1778, and settled in Llangollen, where they set up a household which was famous in their day, and ever since, as the `Ladies of Llangollen'. Mavor's work - originally published in 1971 - remains the definitive work on the subject, largely in the absence of any competitor. Mavor gives a detailed description the circumstances of the Ladies elopement, and their living arrangements at Plas Newydd in Llangollen. She situates the Ladies in the `society' of their day, to the extent that I wondered whether Mavor fancies - or wished - herself in similar circles. There are interesting questions about Sarah and Elizabeth's backgrounds (both Irish, on Protestant, one impoverished Catholic), and how far their backgrounds account for their choice of such and unconventional lifestyle, which might be better addressed by a contemporary author, with an understanding of the operation of `oppression'. On the question of whether the Ladies were lesbians, Mavor is straightforward in supporting their denial of such an accusation, and her presentation of the evidence is rather stronger than some more recent attempts to claim Sarah and Eleanor to the cause, without really considering the circumstances of their lives. However, there is room for an investigation of the subject which is more aware of recent work on the subject. The Ladies remain a fascinating and under-researched subject, and Plas Newydd is a delightful place to visit; in the absence of a new account, Mavor's work remains definative.

Harold Adams's "Barbed Wire Noose" is the best yet of the Wilcox series that I've read. In this story set in a bitter South Dakota winter in the mid 30's, Carl Wilcox temporarily takes over the job of the town cop, Joey, who is ailing with pneumonia. And just before a major blizzard hits Corden, a man named Arthur Foote is found dead with a barbed wire noose around his neck. Carl immediately knows its murder, and he sets about discovering the killer, but his guests, some of whom are suspects, settle in, another man is murdered and Wilcox digs deeper into finding out why. The sadness comes out as motives come to the surface as sons go against their fathers and tragedy divides.

Picture on cover is a recovering Byron Dale,
a libertarian South Dakota farmer who made
his own money, redeemable in nothing, like
the military script we carry around in our
pockets every day, issued by the criminal
enterprise know as the 'Ferderal Reserve',
which is NOT Federal (any more than Fred
Smith's Federal Express!) and has NO reserves!
Agents of the 'Fed' went to call on Dale @
his farm and bashed him over the head with
a 32 oz. Hunts ketchup bottle! Dale never
did get his lawsuit processed but then, at
least he didn't end up like Gordan Kahl &
his family either. Recommended reading of
US government tyranny, when they are bored
and mad...