Guide to the Oskaloosa Collection

Autobiographies of a man and woman, Oskaloosa, Kansas, late 19th century

Administrative Information

PREFERRED CITATION

Oskaloosa Collection, Kansas Collection, RH MS D177, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas

ACQUISITION INFORMATION

Gift, Lynn Bretz, 1976

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Restrictions

RESTRICTIONS on ACCESS

No access restrictions.

RESTRICTIONS on USE

Spencer Library staff may determine use restrictions dependent on the physical condition of manuscript materials.

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INDEX TERMS:

Names:

Subjects:

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SCOPE and CONTENTS

These autobiographies are brief accounts of the lives of a farmer born near Oskaloosa in 1863 and a woman who may have been the farmer's wife. There are two separate accounts. The first is written by a man, perhaps Charles E. Decker, and treats his life from about 1871 to circa 1903. The man's account relates his childhood on the family farm, his efforts to acquire a formal education, his first business venture, and his subsequent life.

The second account, perhaps written by Monica S. Lowman Decker, relates the woman's marriage to Charles B. Decker, the birth of a child, Ruth, and the woman's life with her husband on a farm purchased after Charles' trip to Alaska during the gold rush. The woman describes the farm house, and relates an incident involving black farmer laborers on her family farm.

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