David Laskin Message Board
Gene Gausman posts on 11/12/2005 10:34:28 PM
I haven't read the book, but after re-reading a clipping from a column by George Will, there is at least one thing in the book I must take issue with.
Will quotes the book a saying, "If there ever was a town of Ruby, Nebraska, it has disappeared, as has the Immanuel Lutheran Church". What does Laskin mean, "If there ever was a town of Ruby, Nebraska"?. As it happens, I live a mile from Ruby, Nebraska. Now, the town consists of a Co-op grain elevator, a township hall where residents of J Precinct, Seward County, myself included, go to vote, and a house the elevator owns and rents to an employee.
My father related tales from his own childhood when Ruby consisted of the elevator, a general store, a post office, a train depot, a stockyards, a dozen houses, and the same township hall. It's ridiculous to creat suspicion that the town ever existed.
By the way, today I visited the grave of Lena Dargeloh Woebbecke Schopp, one young lady featured in the book.
As the former manager of a newspaper and a sometimes writer myself, I suggest the three most important duties of any author are research, research, and research.
Note: the views expressed here are only those of the posters.