Small Town U.S.A.

Small Town USA engages readers immediately with the history of Buffalo, Kansas, a town created at the start of the Civil War within the Kansas Territory amid the Osage Indians, and covers the span of 100 years. Profiles of the founders provide insight about the pioneers and their families who settled in Buffalo valley among the buffalo. Told by two native descendants from Buffalo with memories, photographs, and stories, the reader experiences the culture of small town living, where the entire village raises the children and families are fiercely protective of one another. The culture of a small town is different; and each town is unique depending upon the characters that comprise that community. You will laugh out loud at the humor within these pages and you will cry tears over the bareness in which stories are told. Discover life lessons about living with, and accepting, others despite economic differences, physical and mental differences. There are no neighborhoods to self-isolate from others in a small town, rather the definition of "being normal" is broadened and accepted. The town will have difficulty economically thriving;the way families spend their home life and the importance of church at the center of the community will threaten their world as they know it. Beautifully illustrated by contrasting two families, the families of the women who wrote the book. Time passes through the 1950s and 1960s experiencing irrevocable change in technology and transportation. One woman stays in her small town and raises her family there; the other takes a road less traveled. Both journeys will cause you to ponder. The book would be a good format for other communities who wish to write about their history, the founders who formed the old guard, and a way to share from the collective memories of their town folk.