There's No Place Like Home

About the Book

In the 1950’s and 60’s, Kansas farm life meant milking cows, gathering eggs, and butchering hogs and steers. It meant raising a garden, preparing meals from scratch, sewing clothes, and churning butter. It meant living close to the earth. It was a special time when children could wander the pastures and fields without fear and come home dirty after a day of hard play and harder work. Farmers produced much of what they needed to live, and were almost completely self-sufficient. Farm life was basic, simple and sweet, and family was the most important thing. There’s No Place Like Home is the story of a Kansas farm family. It is the unique story of life in a different time and place, before technology and automation changed how things are done on the farm. It was a time when a farm life was a family project, and everyone contributed. A collection of anecdotes and oral histories, this story includes the tales of a childhood on a Kansas farm in the mid 20th century, and the joys and regrets for generations of such a life. It is the story of a life on the Kansas prairie, a celebration of the land and people of Kansas and a re-telling of the histories of one family, recounted around the kitchen table. It tells of the struggles, hopes and disappointments of life in a simpler time and place.

About the Author

Jean Studebaker has been a secondary school librarian and English teacher for the past 35 years. She has lived for the past 30 years in Fredonia, Kansas, where she met and married her husband, Jack. Jean and Jack have two grown sons and one daughter-in-law. She has lived in southeastern Kansas all her life.