"Canalou: People, Culture, Booheel Town" - a book!!
SEMO State U's Center for Regional History has published my book about life in the former swamp of our region known today as the Bootheel. It's a book about the original settlers who went in to harvest timber in Gray's Ridge and Canalou in the late 1890s and early 1900s.
The book will later be available locally in Dexter at fellow columnist/blogger Kathleen's "Korner" Dover's place of business in a book signing we're setting for January or February. I'm so appreciative of Kathleen's interest, and especially that of her husband, who has positively reviewed the book with a lot of Stoddard and New Madrid county names and families.
I so admire those rugged souls who braved the swamp elements to chisel out a way of life for our generations.
Canalou, my childhood hometown, was not founded until 1902, when original settlers went into the swamp that brimmed over with dangers, including panthers, bears, swamp rats and disease-carrying mosquitoes. This makes Canalou one of the Show Me State's last true "frontier towns".
The swamp was described as "rough and wooly" by 1860s-era U.S. government surveyers, so rugged that Frank and Jesse James had a hideout cabin that stood near Canalou until someone burned it down in 1936. Law enforcement was reluctant to go into the swamp for fear of never coming out alive.
I would be remiss not honoring those brave souls (not Frank and Jesse, but also the great educators who nurtured my generation's education, making us employable for jobs around the globe.
I would not have graduated (1962) if not for the late great Superintendent of Richland Schools Robert Rasche, and my English teacher, the Rev. Omar Brooks, and school bus driver, Frank Wyman, three men who impacted my young life positively.
Presently, people can order my book by emailing me your address at danwhittle@comcast.net, $25 per, including shipping, or through the Center For Regional History, 1 University Plaza, Southeast Missouri State University, Cape Girardeau.
This old country boy is humbled that the prestigious Center For Regional History saw the value of publishing important Bootheel culture and history that's never been told. Invaluable encouragement came from (now retired)historian/scholar Dr. Frank Nickell, well known in Stoddard County for his tireless support of the Stars & Stripes Newspaper Museum between Dexter and Bloomfield.
Also in January and February, I can be available for other book signings and speaking engagements at schools, churches and civic groups. My last speaking engagement in the Bootheel was the annual Gray Ridge/Richland/Essex School reunion held a few years ago at Dexter's VFW Building.
I reside near Nashville, Tenn., as a semi-tired newspaper columnist/speaker/wildlife photographer. My home phone is 615-459-7650. Thank you for reading.
Comments
- -- Posted by goat lady on Fri, Dec 13, 2013, at 7:16 AM
- -- Posted by Dexterite1 on Fri, Dec 13, 2013, at 10:16 AM
- -- Posted by Canalou on Fri, Dec 13, 2013, at 1:38 PM
- -- Posted by bwkingdingo on Mon, Dec 16, 2013, at 4:05 PM
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