Old Jules

1046 Old Jules, by Mari Sandoz (read 18 Mar 1970) This purports to be a biography of Jules Sandoz, a Swiss who settled in the Nebraska Panhandle. It is an amazing story of pioneer hardship and of a real character who was so mean he makes me cringe. He tells of life as I am sure it was in Nebraska not long ago--he died in 1930. The book has moments of high poignancy, even for one who never knew the hardship: "They would never hear the thunder of the ice going out on Niobrara again, never see the gold of autumn along the bluffs, the ash, the slender yellow pencils, the cottonwoods rustling in chartreuse and orange, the creeper blood splashes on the silver of the buffalo berries. It was only a memory now, like her lover, he who made gay show more music on the Rhine." show less

This is the story of Mari Sandoz' father. Jules Sandoz was an immigrant who came to western Nebraska then wrote back to the Old World to try to drum up settlers for the area. He was not a very nice person but this books shows what it took to homestead in those days. I was particularly interested because my dad is from this area and my grandmother went to school (one room school house) with the Sandoz girls. A very worthwhile read about pioneer days. This book was originally published in 1935.

I picked this book up as a teenager in a small service station somewhere in the middle of nowhere in Nebraska. I started reading it while sitting in the car on the way to the Black Hills. Reading this book while watching the landscape in which it was written pass by, was amazing. I have since re-read this book almost every year.

an amazingly real story -- biography of the author's father, a very influential and fascinating if not terribly likeable pioneer in the upper Niobrara region of western Nebraska in the 1880's-1920's. I recommend it as an easy read: history, geography, and an enjoyable story.