L is for Liking the Book

Radell Smith of the Yahoo Contributor Network interviewed Bobbie H. Here’s what Smith wrote:

She had been asked to take a gander at Gail Martin’s “My Flint Hills Childhood” and see if she could relate to the stories woven by an octogenarian from Kansas. The request, more an effort to help Bobbie find her own biographical voice, turned out quite a different result entirely.

“I have to express my pleasure and thoughts about this little masterpiece,” Bobbie concluded when asked to share her thoughts about the life and times of Gail’s family in 1930s Kansas.

Bobbie says that as she went deeper into Gail Martin’s biographical account of what it was like to live in the Kansas prairie during the era of the Depression, she couldn’t help but “think back to my own childhood and relive many memories of my own.”

While not a product of that generation, Bobbie says some activities and actions by Gail and her family resonated with her anyway.

“My Flint Hills Childhood” and the Depression Period

“Gail grew up during some of the hardest times America has ever known,” Bobbie lamented, adding, “Because of ancestors who knew the most important things in life was God and family, she was instilled with great values of love of God, family, and country.”

In our current economic climate, those values would be a welcome attribute today many would conclude. But this reader wasn’t finished with her accolades for Ms. Martin, heaping more praise for the book with less than 200 pages from cover to cover.

“Gail also learned survival techniques which have obviously served her well.“

Indeed, the octogenarian is still around to tell others about them, serving previously as a webmaster for an online memory-writing website called Our Echo. The friendly and informative writing venue encourages others to do like Gail and share treasured family memories about bygone eras — or current ones, for the younger generation. (since this article came out in 2011, Gail Martin has died)

You can pick up a copy of Gail’s historical journey for yourself from Amazon or go directly to the publishing entity known as Blurb.com. There’s an author website at http://gailmartin.wordpress.com and a fan page at the Gail Lee Martin Facebook Page.

Gail’s book “My Flint Hills Childhood” won the 2010 Ferguson Kansas History Book Award and the author has enjoyed the attention of writers as esteemed as those found on USA Today, who say that “Grandma’s greener than you.” The USA Today article featured Gail’s memories of thrifty times in the 1930s.