What Are You Reading?

[W. Gray]

Blatherskites, The Frazer/Gibson Murders by D. A. Chadwick

Some background on the Frazer/Gibson murders comes from the following cut and paste from a Good Old Days post by genealogynut in November 2006.

From the Howard Courant, July 4, 1890, Thompson & Sons publishers:

Many cattle are dying with Texas fever or something of the kind. Westly Best, south of Moline, has lost many fine cattle and others in that neighborhood have lost quite a number. There is much feeling among the farmers and secret meetings are being held and violent talk is indulged in...

John T. Frazier of Moline, was found murdered in the Gibson pasture near Sedan, Monday, the 1st of July. His throat was cut and there were many knife wounds on his body and a couple of bruises on the head. There has been no reliable evidence against any person, though it is said five Chautauqua county men have been arrested and questioned.

Frazier was a half owner in the big Gibson herd which was driven in from Texas before the 1st of March, the legal limit for bringing southern cattle into Kansas. Fever broke out from the Gibson-Frazier cattle and Wesley Best was the principal loser, and his cattle were all fine blooded stock. Frazier was a single man, 33 years old and very popular. It is said he called on Best a day or two before his death and assured him he would remunerate him for his loss, if it took every cent he was worth.........

The coroner's inquest did not bring out any reliable clues as to the perpetrators of what looks like a cowardly, cold-blooded murder. The commissioners of Chautauqua county have offered a reward of $1000 for the apprehension of the murderers, for it looks like several must have been implicated in it.

(genealogynut's note: The Frazier murder has never been solved and is one of the mysteries in that line destined never to be accounted for).

The book is a fictionalized version of what might have happened based on the author's research and the family stories of the Lawless family of Elk County.

The word "Blatherskites" in the title was suggested by a July 1890 edition of the Moline Republican.

[Wilma]

I just finished Margaret Coel's "The Spider's Web" and am starting her " The Silent Spirit".  Her main characters are Vicky Holden, an Arapahoe lawyer and Father John of the Wind River reservation church.  Together they solve mysteries involving people of the reservation.

[thatsMRSc2u]

 Just finished The Rainmaker by Grisham and am reading Women Who Run With The Wolves by Clarisa Pinkola Estes the second time

[Warph]

It's often said that every author has at least one good book in him.  In George Orwell's case, their are many.  One of my favorites of his, "Coming Up for Air" is a must read if you're a Orwell fan.  Coming Up for Air begins with one of the most disarming and quintessentially English sentences in all of literature :

    "The idea really came to me the day I got my new false teeth."

The speaker is George "Fatty" Bowling, an insurance salesman, with a wife he does not love and two children he finds annoying.  The idea is to take the seventeen pounds he almost accidentally won on a horse race and to go visit Lower Binfield, the village in which he grew up and which holds so many happy memories of youth and of a simpler England.  The story is set in 1938, the War approaching, and George's thoughts continually drift back to the time before WWI.

I have read this twice and will probably re-read it again sometime down the road.  Like I said, It is a must read!

[sixdogsmom]

I'll have to look this one up as I have not read it. Thanks Warph.

[Clubine Ranch]

W Gray, Blatherskites, The Frazer/Gibson Murders by D. A. Chadwick for some reason sounds so familiar, I looked through my collection but only found a copy of The Ranch a short booklet about the beginnings of the Quivira Scout Ranch in the Black Jack Territoy. Will take time to reread and see if some of this is mentioned and will also check with Kristi at Moline Library if they have a copy of Blatherskites or can get a copy through lending library.
I just finished The Help and truly enjoyed that read.
Sure like this thread as it gives good reference to what to check out and read.
PS W Gray, Just meet your mother a couple of weeks ago at a Pickers event. Rosie is a very nice lady, enjoyed our chat.
Barbara

[W. Gray]

The book was written in the early 2000s.

Even though a fictionalized account and with several typos, the book is interesting if you are from Elk or Chautauqua counties.

It has been revised into a new title of "Hunter's Canyon."

Hunter's Canyon is an area of Chautauqua County where one of the murders took place.

The book was written by D.A. Chadwick of El Dorado. She apparently also wrote a screenplay of the book called "Red Water."

[thatsMRSc2u]

  That sounds like an interesting book...will have to see if I can find it.

  I just finished She Who Remembers by Linda Shuller...picked it up at the DAV store for a quarter.....turned out to be a pretty good book. About the Anasazi, the Vikings and the Toltecs.

[Jo McDonald]

Barbara....You mention you had just finished reading The Help.  Did you buy the book - or check it out of the library?
I would like to read it, and was wondering if it is available>
   Jo

[sixdogsmom]

Well, I have done something that I don't very often do and that is give up on a book. I am a great fan of science fiction and thought that I would really enjoy L.Ron Hubbards' Battlefield Earth. It is a hugely overinflated tale that just goes on and on and gets worse and worse. About 2/3 way through I threw it down in disgust it is so bad. Lol! I did buy the neatest book at the thrift shop the other day. It was published early in the twentieth century and is entitled How To Do. It is a huge collection of instructions on how to do about anything from setting chickens to making pomade etc. etc. I love to browse that type of book, and have been known to get lost in a dictionary and go into a trance with the encyclopedias, so this is right down my alley. So here's to my next sci-fi book, hope it is better than the last!