R. D. O'Leary (1866-1936)

The journal displays the full measure of R. D. O'Leary in his myriad academic, social, political, and religious experiences at the University of Kansas atop Mount Oread; in the adjacent city of Lawrence, Kansas; and while traveling to rural Kansas during the summer months and to Minneapolis, Minnesota, in the dead of winter. Throughout his journal, Professor O'Leary portrays with humor and pathos his encounters with students, colleagues, his spouse, his three sons, his mother, shopkeepers, religious zealots, pro-German zealots, anti-German zealots, drayers, Pullman conductors, bankers, politicians, publishers, educated spinsters, and garden wasps, while vividly describing cold classrooms, interminable whist parties, trilling sopranos, Kansas football games, and Lawrence seed stores.

"R. D. O'Leary (1866-1936): Notes from Mount Oread 1914-1915" is a fascinating glimpse into the life and times of a revered English professor, half way through his forty years of teaching at the University of Kansas.