R. D. O’Leary (1866–1936): Notes from Mount Oread, 1914–1915

By Margaret R. O’Leary

Over the span of forty years, Professor Raphael Dorman OLeary labored tirelessly to make his students understand the importance of originality and of apt expression in English composition. He especially loved words well chosen and dared his students to put beauty and smoothness and sinew into their sentences. He tried passionately to make them feel the dignity and the majesty of the English language at its best. When he died after a short illness in 1936, his personal effects passed among descendants until finally coming to rest with Dennis OLeary and his spouse, Margaret, who discovered them in a poor condition while restoring a family house. Amid Professor OLearys papers was his handwritten journal from the year 1914 to 1915.

The journal displays the full measure of R. D. OLeary 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 OLeary 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. OLeary (18661936): Notes from Mount Oread 19141915 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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Apr 15, 2015
• ISBN: 9781491758731

Margaret R. O’Leary

Margaret R. O’Leary served for many years as an attending emergency physician in several academic and community hospitals and as a professional writer. She lives in Fairway, Kansas. Dennis S. O’Leary served as a medical executive at the George Washington University Medical Center (1971–1986) and as president of the Joint Commission(1986–2007). He lives in Fairway, Kansas.

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Copyright © 2015 Margaret R. O’Leary, MD and Dennis S. O’Leary, MD.

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ISBN: 978-1-4917-5874-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-5875-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-5873-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015901572

iUniverse rev. date: 03/16/15

CONTENTS

Preface

Preface Notes

Brief Biography of Professor R. D. O’Leary

Brief Biography Notes

Chapter 1 Ah, Wasps!: August 10–August 31, 1914

Chapter 1 Notes

Chapter 2 Narration and Description: September 1–September 30, 1914

Chapter 2 Notes

Chapter 3 Hattie Lewis: October 1–October 31, 1914

Chapter 3 Notes

Chapter 4 Bountiful Thanksgiving: November 1–November 30, 1914

Chapter 4 Notes

Chapter 5 Minneapolis December 1–December 31, 1914

Chapter 5 Notes

Chapter 6 Old Mr. Impatience: January 1–January 31, 1915

Chapter 6 Notes

Chapter 7 All University Party: February 1–February 28, 1915

Chapter 7 Notes

Chapter 8 Mott Campaign: March 1–March 31, 1915

Chapter 8 Notes

Chapter 9 Strawberry Patch April 1–April 13, 1915

Chapter 9 Notes

Appendix A:

Appendix B:

Appendix C:

PREFACE

T he handwritten journal transcribed in this book has a colorful history. Briefly, when Professor R. D. O’Leary died in 1936, his papers and personal effects passed to his spouse, Mathilde Augusta Henrichs O’Leary (1875–1958), and, after her death, to their youngest son, writer, editor, and literary critic, Theodore Morgan O’Leary (1910–2001). Upon Theodore’s death in 2001, Professor O’Leary’s papers passed to Dennis Sophian O’Leary, Theodore’s son and Professor O’Leary’s only surviving grandson. In 2008, Dennis and his spouse, Margaret R. O’Leary, discovered Professor O’Leary’s papers in unmarked boxes in the basement of the house in which Theodore and his spouse, Emily Sophian O’Leary (1913–1995), had lived for six decades (1940–2001).

Professor O’Leary’s journal spanned his life in Lawrence, Kansas, as a teacher, writer, editor, colleague, employee, spouse, father, son, brother, farmer, and citizen, from mid-August 1914 to mid-April 1915. He was honest, singularly transparent, and without any kind of pretentious exterior.¹ Thus, his journal may interest people with the surnames O’Leary and Henrichs; people interested in the history of Kansas and of the University of Kansas; and people interested in the history of higher education and of the teaching of English language and literature in the United States.

One other surviving journal by R. D. that narrated and described his time in Oxford, England, from 1910 to 1911, has been published in a separate volume titled R. D. O’Leary (1866–1936): Notes from Oxford, 1910–1011.² A biography, covering R. D. O’Leary’s entire life, is underway by the editors of his two journals. The biography does not contain his two journals, whose length precluded their inclusion in it.

The editors transcribed Professor O’Leary’s journal verbatim, while clarifying spelling or grammar in brackets and adding footnotes and images to enhance his highly referenced text.

Margaret R. O’Leary, MD

Dennis S. O’Leary, MD

Fairway, Kansas

January 2015

PREFACE NOTES

1. Professor O’Leary showed what he was to the world and no more thought of concealing his faults than of exploiting his virtues, said one colleague. "He did not so much believe in honesty; he was honesty. Tolerant of personal shortcomings in his friends, whom he sometimes valued beyond their worth, he could also be intolerant,— intolerant of cheapness, of vulgarity, of pretence, and above all of charlatanism. W. S. Johnson, Same Spirit Through Life," Memorial Services In Commemoration of Raphael Dorman O’Leary, Fraser Theater, University of Kansas, May 3, 1936, 1–2.

2. Margaret R. O’Leary and Dennis S. O’Leary, eds., R. D. O’Leary (1866–1936): Notes from Oxford, 1910–1911 (Bloomington, IN: iUniverse, 2014).

BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF PROFESSOR R. D. O’LEARY

P rofessor Raphael Dorman O’Leary, known to his friends and colleagues as R. D. O’Leary, was born on September 19, 1866, in a farmhouse on a 160-acre farm east of lower Wolf Creek, near its mouth on the Neosho River, about two miles southeast of Burlington, Coffey County, in southeastern Kansas. R. D.’s mother, Katherine (Kate) Mabel Moser (1846–1921), was born in Pineville, Missouri. His father, Theodore O’Leary (1833–1878), was born in Clarke Township, Durham County, Upper Canada. Upper Canada was later called Canada West (1841–1867) and then Ontario Province.

Theodore O’Leary attended college for three years—two (circa 1852–1854) at New York Central College¹ in McGrawville, Cortland County, New York, and one at Antioch College² (circa 1854–1855) under Horace Mann (1796–1859)³ in Yellow Springs, Greene County, Ohio. He did not graduate because of failed means.⁴ Theodore O’Leary next taught school in Missouri and in Canada West before moving to Kansas to farm in 1862 with his spouse, Miranda Moulton (1840–1862). Theodore imbued R. D. with his keen appetite for language, literature, and philosophy.

Theodore’s two older brothers also were born in Upper Canada. Arthur O’Leary, MD (1829–1905), was a phrenologist and allopathic physician, author, lecturer, and entrepreneur. Jeremiah O’Leary (1823–1864) was a schoolteacher and yeoman who fought with the First Michigan Sharpshooters during the American Civil War and perished in 1864 at the Confederate prison camp near Andersonville, Georgia.⁵

R. D. had two younger brothers: Theodore Arthur (1869–1946), known to R. D. as A. T., and Edgar Paul (1873–1941), known as Paul. A. T. was a farmer, mail carrier, and newspaperman in Kansas and Ohio. Paul was a University of Michigan–educated attorney and land surveyor in Michigan and Colorado.

On November 15, 1878, Theodore O’Leary died during a cave-in, as he and his farmhands worked out a coal seam. The coal was to heat the O’Leary farmhouse on the family’s second farm (owned by Arthur O’Leary, MD) near Waverly, Rock Creek Township, Coffey County, Kansas. Upon Theodore’s unexpected death, Kate, as sole owner of the O’Leary farm near Burlington, quickly retreated there with twelve-year-old R. D., nine-year-old A. T., and five-year-old Paul. She subsequently married Thomas Edward Francis Bryan (1857–1932), with whom she had one daughter who died in infancy.

R. D. O’Leary received his early formal education at Wolf Creek School in a one-room schoolhouse not far from the O’Leary farmstead. He attended the fledgling Burlington High School for one year; the University of Kansas preparatory department for one year (1888–1889) in Lawrence, Kansas; the University of Kansas (1889–1893), from which he graduated Phi Beta Kappa⁶ with a bachelor of arts degree in modern languages; and the Graduate School of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, from which he earned a second bachelor of arts degree in 1895. While at Harvard, R. D. studied under philosopher William James, MD (1825–1896);⁷ philosopher Josiah Royce (1855–1916);⁸ and folklorist Francis James Child (1825–1896),⁹ whom Charles William Eliot (1834–1926),¹⁰ president of Harvard University (1869–1909), had appointed in 1876 as the university’s first ever professor of the English language.

In June 1895, the board of regents of the University of Kansas, by recommendation of Chancellor Francis Huntington Snow (1840–1908),¹¹ offered R. D. O’Leary a one-year position as an instructor in the university’s fledgling English department. R. D. eagerly accepted and soon joined the English department’s two existing instructors, Charles Graham Dunlap (1859–1936)¹² and Edwin Mortimer Hopkins (1862–1946).¹³ For a half century, these three gifted teachers cultivated the English language among legions of collegians, most of whom, like R. D. O’Leary, ambled to Lawrence from their Kansas farmsteads.

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R. D. O’Leary (1866–1936), 1893.

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R. D. O’Leary, (1866–1936), 1898.

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R. D. O’Leary, (1866–1936), 1916.

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R. D. O’Leary, (1866–1936), circa 1925.

On August 20, 1896, a Unitarian minister¹⁴ married R. D. O’Leary and Mathilde Augusta Henrichs in her father’s house in Humboldt, Allen County, Kansas. Mathilde earned her bachelor’s degree in Latin science from the University of Kansas in 1895. She was inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa society in February 1895. Mathilde was the second eldest of five surviving sisters born in the United States to Prussian immigrants Martin Henrichs (1840–1907), a harness and saddle maker, and Bertha Henriette Hartwig (1852–1890). Mathilde’s four living sisters were Emilia (Emelia, Emelie) Wilhelmina (1873–1965), Emma Helena (1878–after 1940), Bertha Edna (1884–1972), and Bessie Anetta (1887–1964). Most of Mathilde’s sisters graduated from college. Mathilde, her four sisters, and their families remained close throughout their lives.

R. D. O’Leary stood five feet and five and five-eighths inches tall and weighed 120 pounds. His forehead was broad and high, his eyes were blue, his nose was medium length, his mouth was straight with thin lips, his chin was medium length and single, his hair was dark brown, his complexion was fair, and his face was long.¹⁵ His frail body perhaps lacked robustness but was endowed with surprising powers of endurance attributed to his childhood on his family’s farm.¹⁶ He was always clean shaven and well groomed without pretentiousness of dress.

Early in his long teaching career, Professor O’Leary taught rhetoric, advanced English composition, and the history of English literature and language. Later in his career, he taught narration and description, the English essay, essay writing, eighteenth-century English literature, eighteenth-century prose, methods of teaching English composition, and the history of the literature and teaching of rhetoric in English.¹⁷

R. D. O’Leary climbed the academic ladder of rank as an assistant professor of English (1895–1901), an associate professor of rhetoric (1901–1915), and a professor of English (1915–1936). He served as chairman of the English department for two years (1921–1923). He was the founding editor in chief of the Graduate Magazine of the University of Kansas (1902–1905). Students identified him as among the best teachers at the University of Kansas every decade between 1900 and 1940.¹⁸ Between 1892 and 1935, he published extensively in various print media.¹⁹,²⁰,²¹,²²,²³,²⁴,²⁵,²⁶,²⁷,²⁸,²⁹,³⁰,³¹,³²,³³,³⁴,³⁵,³⁶,³⁷,³⁸,³⁹,⁴⁰,⁴¹ In 1928, he published his only book, titled The Essay, whose first draft he wrote during his sabbatical year at Oxford, England, in 1910–1911.⁴² R. D. and Mathilde O’Leary raised three sons: Dorman Henrichs O’Leary (1897–1968), Paul Martin O’Leary (1901–1997), and Theodore Morgan O’Leary (1910–2001).

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Mathilde Henrichs O’Leary with her two sons Dorman (1897–1968) and Paul (1901–1997), circa 1904.

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Mathilde Henrichs (left) and two friends at the University of Kansas, circa 1893–1895.

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Mathilde Augusta Henrichs (1875–1958) (center), three of her sisters, and her mother (upper left), circa mid-to-late 1880s.

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Mathilde Henrichs O’Leary with her third son, Theodore (1910–2001), in Oxford, England, March 1911.

BRIEF BIOGRAPHY NOTES

1. Cyrus Pitt Grosvenor (1792–1879), an American Baptist minister of the American Baptist Free Mission Society, helped to found New York Central College in 1846 to rebuke the American Baptists who refused publicly to eschew slavery. Students received a classical education within the framework of the college founders’ five core beliefs: unity of the human race (no slavery), women’s rights, manual labor, Christianity with the Bible as the textbook in morals to be studied in English and its original languages, and temperance (no alcohol, tea, coffee, or tobacco use). The college struggled financially and ceased to exist in 1861. Albert Hazen Wright, Cornell’s Three Precursors: I. New York Central College (Ithaca, NY: New York State College of Agriculture, 1960).

2. The Christians (so called because of their scruple about bearing any sectarian name) founded Antioch College at the General Christian Convention in Marion, Wayne County, New York, in 1852. The Christians commanded all true Christians to unite, take no name but Christians, adopt no creed but the Bible, allow each person his or her own judgment in interpreting its teachings, and make the evidence of a Christian life and character the only requisite to admission to their fellowship. The Christians recruited educator Horace Mann (1796–1859) to serve as the college’s first president (1853–1859). Students at Antioch College received a classical education. Articles of Incorporation, Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Greene Col., Ohio (Xenia, OH: Patton and Findley, 1875). See also Historical Sketch of Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Greene County, Ohio (n.p., 1876). See also Robert L. Straker, Brief Sketch of Antioch (1853–1921) (Yellow Springs, OH: Antioch College, 1954).

3. Jonathan Messerli, Horace Mann: A Biography (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1972). See also Mary Mann, Life of Horace Mann by His Wife (Boston, MA: Walker, Fuller, and Company, 1865).

4. Arthur O’Leary to R. D. O’Leary, August 26, 1894, O’Leary Family Archives, Fairway, Kansas, 2014.

5. The Confederates captured Jeremiah O’Leary at the Battle of Petersburg (June 15–18, 1864). He died of dysentery at Camp Sumter military prison, Andersonville, Georgia, in 1864.

6. The Phi Beta Kappa collegiate honor society was founded in 1776 at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. The University of Kansas chapter was established in 1890. John H. McCool, Eight Is Enough, April 2, 1890, KU History, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas.

7. New York City native William James earned his medical degree from Harvard Medical School in 1869 at age twenty-seven but never practiced medicine. Instead, he taught anatomy, physiology, psychology, and philosophy, in that sequence, over his thirty-four-year professional career at Harvard University. Jacques Barzun, A Stroll with William James (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1983). See also William James, The Principles of Psychology: The Briefer Course (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1892). See also Louis T. Cacioppo and Louis G. Tassinary, Centenary of William James’s Principles of Psychology: From the Chaos of Mental Life to the Science of Psychology, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 16, no. 4 (December 1990), 601.

8. Josiah Royce was born in Grass Valley, a mining town in Northern California. He graduated from the University of California at Berkeley in 1875; earned his PhD degree from Johns Hopkins (his dissertation was titled Of the Interdependence of the Principles of Knowledge: An Investigation of the Problems of Elementary Epistemology) in 1878; returned to the University of California as an assistant professor of English, as there was no organized field of philosophy; substituted at Harvard University for William James by James’s request during his sabbatical year abroad in 1882–1883; and remained on the Harvard faculty as a philosopher and scholar for the remainder of his career (1882–1916). John Clendenning, The Life and Thought of Josiah Royce (Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 1999). See also Frank M. Oppenheim, Dawn Abert, and John J. Kaag, Comprehensive Index of the Josiah Royce Papers in the Harvard University Archives (2010).

9. Francis James Child was elected class orator of his graduating class at Harvard in 1846. After studying Germanic philology at Göttingen and Berlin (1849–1851), he joined the Harvard faculty to teach English composition and elocution to undergraduates. On June 20, 1876, the president of the fledgling Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, tried to lure Child to chair an English department. At the time, Harvard did not group courses by department. In 1876, Charles William Eliot responded to the outside threat by creating a Harvard English department and appointing Child as Harvard’s first professor of English. In his new position, Child was relieved of correcting undergraduate compositions. Four Generations of Oral Literary Studies at Harvard University, Child’s Legacy Enlarged: Oral Literary Studies at Harvard Since 1856, Milman Parry Collection of Oral Literature Online, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. See also Biographical Sketch, Child Family Papers, 1833–1916, Cambridge Historical Society, Cambridge, Massachusetts. See also Gerald Graff, Professing Literature: An Institutional History (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2008), 65–66. See also Stephen Hequembourg, The Harvard English Department: A Brief History, Department of English, Harvard University, 2012–2013.

10. Henry James, Charles W. Eliot, President of Harvard, 1869–1926 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1930). See also Charles William Eliot, A Turning Point in Higher Education – The Inaugural Address of Charles William Eliot as President of Harvard College, October 19, 1869 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969).

11. Francis Huntington Snow was a twenty-six-year-old Congregationalist minister from Fitchburg, Massachusetts, who moved to Lawrence in 1866 to teach mathematics and natural science to students at the fledgling University of Kansas. Snow earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Williams College in 1862 and 1866, respectively, and completed a course of study at Andover Theological Seminary from 1862 to 1866. Clyde Kenneth Hyder, Snow of Kansas: The Life of Francis Huntington Snow (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 1953).

12. Charles Graham Dunlap (1859/1860–1936) was born in Chillicothe, Ross County, Ohio, where his father was a dentist. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Ohio Wesleyan University in 1883, held a scholarship in English at Johns Hopkins University from 1885 to 1886, joined the faculty of the University of Kansas in 1887, and earned a master’s degree from Ohio Wesleyan University in 1889. He rose to the rank of associate professor of English at the University of Kansas in 1889, and professor in 1890, at the young age of thirty-one years. In 1892, he earned his degree of doctor of literature from Princeton College. Dunlap taught English at the University of Kansas from 1887 to 1928 and chaired the department from 1893 to 1921. He married Anna March in August 1891. Guide to the Charles G. Dunlap Collection, Personal Papers of Charles G. Dunlap, 1887–1928, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas Libraries, Lawrence, Kansas. See also Charles Graham Dunlap, English Language and Literature, Quivira ’93 (University of Kansas Yearbook), 17. See also Charles Graham Dunlap, Illustriana Kansas: Biographical Sketches of Kansas Men and Women of Achievement Who Have Been Awarded Life Membership in Kansas Illustriana Society, edited by Sara Mullin Baldwin and Robert Morton Baldwin (Hebron, NE: Illustriana Incorporated, 1933), 346.

13. Edwin Mortimer Hopkins (1862–1946) was born in Kent, Putnam County, New York. He attended the State Normal School at Albany, New York; earned his bachelor’s degree in 1888 from Princeton University; tutored students at Princeton for one year; and accepted a faculty position to teach English at the University of Kansas in 1889. He earned his PhD degree from Princeton in 1894. He was married to Madeline May Mundy. He was the first coach of the University of Kansas football team, beginning in 1891. He also inaugurated the journalism program in the English department in 1903. Guide to the Edwin M. Hopkins Collection, Personal Papers of Edwin M. Hopkins, 1889–1946, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas Libraries, Lawrence, Kansas. See also Veteran K. U. Faculty Member Dead at 83, Emporia Gazette (Emporia, KS: June 13, 1946), 8. See also Edwin M. Hopkins, Illustriana Kansas: Biographical Sketches of Kansas Men and Women of Achievement Who Have Been Awarded Life Membership in Kansas Illustriana Society, edited by Sara Mullin Baldwin and Robert Morton Baldwin (Hebron, NE: Illustriana Incorporated, 1933), 551.

14. Reverend Clark Goodhue Howland (1831–1899), the Unitarian minister who performed the marriage ceremony between R. D. O’Leary and Mathilde Henrichs, was born in Barre, Michigan. He was entirely self-educated. He was ordained a Universalist minister in 1860 but soon switched to Unitarianism. He served pastorates in Tremont, Illinois (1860–1865); Kalamazoo, Michigan (1865–1881); and Lawrence, Kansas (1881–1898). Howland, Clark Goodhue, 1831–1899, Andover-Harvard Theological Library (Cambridge, MA, 2007). See also O’Leary—Henrichs, English Professor at Lawrence Takes a Humboldt Bride, Topeka Daily Capital, August 20, 1896, 4.

15. R. D. O’Leary’s passport application, July 27, 1910. National Archives and Records Administration, Washington DC. Passport Applications, January 2, 1906–March 31, 1925. Roll#118; Volume #: Ross 0118 – Certificates: 35271–36170, 13 July 1910–27 July 1910.

16. A colleague wrote, [His] persistence and energy … must have taxed his rather frail body to the limit of his strength. But it should be said that his lack of robustness was offset by surprising powers of endurance, as those who had him as an opponent at tennis, years ago, will bear witness. He played carefully, methodically, tirelessly—and won over the more showy players who took chances. With somewhat the same spirit, … he attacked the bales of theme papers which he carried home. Tirelessly, methodically he won victory over his daily assignment, with the deep satisfaction that in winning he was teaching the less experienced how to achieve mastery.

Another colleague wrote, He had come from a farm near Burlington, where he had grown up face to face with nature in her elemental aspects. He was accustomed to the full light and heat of the sun, the gentle flow and the strong sweep of the winds, rain in moderation and in torrential downpouring; all observed with concern as to their effect on the crops, and he had watched the Neosho at its flood undoing plans and labors—the crops of the year swept away and obliterated. Facing such unmitigated reality, the rare endowment of mind and spirit in his inheritance had been shaped for the intellectual career that was to follow. L. N. Flint, Memorial Services In Commemoration of Raphael Dorman O’Leary, Fraser Theater, University of Kansas, May 3, 1936, 13. See also William C. Stevens, Memorial Services In Commemoration of Raphael Dorman O’Leary, Fraser Theater, University of Kansas, May 3, 1936, 7.

17. A student of R. D. O’Leary wrote, Some English instructors are satisfied with mere correctness. Professor O’Leary expected and demanded something above and beyond grammar and syntax. More than any other man I have ever known, he loved words well chosen. He labored tirelessly to make us understand the importance of originality, of apt expression. He wanted us to put beauty and smoothness and sinew into our sentences. He tried passionately to make us feel the dignity and the majesty of the English language at its best. Ben Hibbs, Poetry in His Heart, Memorial Services In Commemoration of Raphael Dorman O’Leary, Fraser Theater, University of Kansas, May 3, 1936, 39.

18. George R. Waggoner, Our Finest College Teachers, Third Annual Report of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Kansas (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas, 1960).

19. R. D. O’Leary, The ‘Lost Atlantis’ of Plato, Seminary Notes 2, no. 1 (October 1892), 7–11.

20. R. D. O’Leary, History and the Historical Novel, Agora 2, no. 2 (October 1892), 158–164.

21. R. D. O’Leary, A Bad Heritage, Graduate Magazine of the University of Kansas 5, no. 7 (April 1907), 213–236.

22. R. D. O’Leary, A Certain Rich Man (book review), Graduate Magazine of the University of Kansas 8, no. 2 (November 1909), 74–75.

23. R. D. O’Leary, The Alien, Graduate Magazine of the University of Kansas 9, no. 5 (February 1911), 161–168.

24. R. D. O’Leary, The Adventures of Young Maverick (book review), Graduate Magazine of the University of Kansas 10, no. 2 (November 1911), 76–77.

25. R. D. O’Leary, Pity the Poor English Teacher, English Journal 1 (January–December, 1912), 552–557.

26. R. D. O’Leary, Slang in Kansas, Nation 94, no. 2445 (May 9, 1912), 462.

27. R. D. O’Leary, The Most Empirical of the Professions, Sewanee Review 21, no. 1 (January 1913), 1–15.

28. R. D. O’Leary, A New Novel by Mrs. Kelly (book review), Graduate Magazine of the University of Kansas 12, no. 1 (October 1913), 63–64.

29. R. D. O’Leary, Louis Pasteur, Sewanee Review 22, no. 1 (January 1914), 22–37.

30. R. D. O’Leary, Swift and Whitman as Exponents of Human Nature, International Journal of Ethics 24, no. 2 (January 1914), 183–201.

31. R. D. O’Leary, Compulsory Candidacy for State Legislatures, Nation 99, no. 2558 (July 9, 1914), 43–44.

32. R. D. O’Leary, Some Considerations Bearing on the Fundamental Basis in Human Nature of the Doctrines of Good Use, presented at the Twentieth Annual Meeting of the Central Division of the Modern Language Association of America, held in Minneapolis, Minnesota, under the auspices of the University of Minnesota, December 29, 30, and 31, 1914. A summary of R. D. O’Leary’s speech is at Proceedings of the Twentieth Annual Meeting of the Central Division of the Association, held at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, December 29, 20, 31, 1914, Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 30 (1915), Appendix, xxxi–xlix.

33. R. D. O’Leary, University Atmosphere, Graduate Magazine of the University of Kansas 13, no. 4 (January 1915), 115–116. This article is reproduced in Appendix A of this book.

34. R. D. O’Leary, Culture, Sewanee Review 23, no. 1 (January 1915), 1–13. This article is reproduced in Appendix B of this book.

35. R. D. O’Leary, Major Prophets of Today, Graduate Magazine of the University of Kansas 13, no. 6 (March 1915), 187–188. This article is reproduced in Appendix C of this book.

36. R. D. O’Leary, Professor George Edward Patrick, Graduate Magazine of the University of Kansas 14, no. 8 (May 1916), 226–228.

37. R. D. O’Leary, Newspaper Writing in High Schools by L. N. Flint, Graduate Magazine 16, no. 6 (March 1918), 182.

38. R. D. O’Leary, Walking-Stick Papers by Robert Cortes Holliday, Graduate Magazine 17, no. 3 (December 1918), 76–77.

39. R. D. O’Leary, Once More: The Chancellor To Be, Graduate Magazine 18, no. 8 (May 1920), 217–221.

40. R. D. O’Leary, The History of a Hero, Oread Magazine (May 1920), 29.

41. R. D. O’Leary, Archie Hogg, Kans. Alph ’92, Shield of Phi Kappa Psi 56, no. 1, (November 1935), 86.

42. R. D. O’Leary, The Essay (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1928).

CHAPTER 1

AH, WASPS!

AUGUST 10–AUGUST 31, 1914

A ug. 10 (Mon.) Rained a little last night – and is cool today – about 80 degrees at 3:30. Dorman [R. D.’s eldest son] spent the day at Carrol’s ¹ getting acquainted with the duties as clerk he is to perform there, beginning Aug. 15, and for a period of two weeks. Theodore lost that bracelet, and we hunted everywhere for it last night in vain. This morning, I found it in the front yard, near the sidewalk, where he had lost it. He could remember nothing at all about it.

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Dorman Henrichs O’Leary (1897–1968), 1919.

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Young Theodore Morgan O’Leary (1910–2001), undated.

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O’Leary family house at 1106 Louisiana Street, Lawrence, Kansas, circa 1915.

War news all against the Germans still, except that they may possibly have Liège, though Brussels denies it.² – Read two letters of Bolingbroke’s Study and Use of History – III and IV³. B[olingbroke] is diffuse, but contains real ideas, and sometimes puts things supremely well.

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Portrait of Henry St. John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke (1676–1751), 1678.

I made two visits to Rowlands⁴ to try to get a Benvenuto⁵ for Edna⁶, but they seem to be closed, although a notice on the door says Gone to lunch. Be back at 2. Both attempts – vain. – Dorman brought two leather suit-cases home with him, from Johnson and Carl’s⁷, one $6.00, one $7.00. We chose the latter.

Aug. 11 (Tues.) A letter from Miss Elisabeth Cox, at Wellsville, saying she got the Hardin College place.⁸ I picked a kettle of grapes, for grape-juice. The wasps are eating the grapes badly. I have killed many with an old broom, yesterday and today. – Dorman took the $6.00 suitcase back to J[ohnson] & C[arl]. I gave him a check for $7.00 for them. We were to divide the cost of the suit-case among the family, I to pay half, but I concluded to pay it all. – Read two more letters of Bolingbroke, On the Study and Use of History. It is clear that he has a profound dislike of churchmen and theology. – Little news from the war. The postman told me early in the afternoon that the Germans had re-taken Mülhausen and were driving the French out of Alsace.⁹ I went down to the bulletin board, and the news about Mülhausen was true. A great battle is said to be in progress in that vicinity. Everything is rising in price – sugar, for example, has gone up a cent, a pound flour, 40 cents a hundred. This is due to American greed taking advantage of the disturbed situation. – Mrs. Barrow and the children called.¹⁰

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Edna Henrichs (1884–1972) in Switzerland, 1911.

Aug. 12 (Wed.) Warming up – 88 degrees about 2 P.M. No rain. Mathilde telephoned to Rob Rowlands¹³, and they said he would be at the store at 10. I went at 10, waited a few minutes, and he came. But he didn’t have the Benvenuto after all. Dorman took an advertisement of the garnet bracelet to the Gazette¹¹ this morning. It cost 25 c[en]ts. He also took my wheel [bicycle] to Dyche¹², to get a puncture repaired. He also got a Durham Demonstrator razor, for 35 c[en]ts., and a coupon that will enable us to get a $5.00 razor for $1.00.

The morning war news is that the French are more than holding their own in Alsace, and have reoccupied Mülhausen. No card from Paul [R. D.’s middle son] since he left [to visit his cousins in Humboldt, Kansas]. I planed the top of the kitchen door (outside one), and filed the latch-plate. Sent check for my Metropolitan life insurance to Topeka. – Mathilde [R. D.’s wife] and Theodore [R. D.’s youngest son] to Morgans¹⁴ after supper to see Miss Guyer¹⁵, an old maiden lady from near Leavenworth, who is interested in a young woman, Minnie Moody¹⁶, coming to enter the university. The Guyers are farmers and fruit-raisers. They raised Miss Moody. I went out about 9. Saw a brilliant meteor, and several small ones. Miss Guyer was a kindly faced little old lady in black. She expressed pained awarement [sic] at the Kaiser’s¹⁷ conduct. Her father came to this country when his son was born to save the son from having to serve in the army. – They have 30 varieties of grapes, and last year had 2000 barrels of apples to ship and others for home market.

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Advertisement for Durham Duplex Razor in the Atlantic Monthly magazine, 1920.

Aug. 13 (Th.) Picked a dishpan of grapes and picked them over. They made 4 quarts of grape juice, and a quart bottle, besides. Day before yesterday, we got 2 quarts. The wasps will get the remaining grapes. They have already eaten many. Got my hair cut. Dorman got himself and me each a $5.00 Durham razor, for a dollar each. He cut my finger flourishing mine as I reached out to take it – a deep gash. It was perhaps more my fault than his. Very cloudy in the south, from early in the afternoon, but no rain here.

Aug. 14 (Fri.) Not at all hot – 78 degrees at 3 P.M. Very cloudy, but no rain yet. Went with Crawford¹⁸, Elderkin¹⁹ and Dr. Chambers²⁰ in the Doctor’s automobile to see the Foley 80, west northwest of town, which the Country Club thinks of leasing for 20 years at $50 a month first 10 years, $60 the second. There are no improvements. At the end of the 20 years we should have nothing. Crawford enthusiastic for it, and says the rest of the governing board do [sic], none of us favorably impressed with the idea. Crawford thinks almost wholly of the golf interest. It would make a fine golf course. The Hubach place, except the house, is in bad shape. The Club meets Monday night to decide the matter. – Dorman is going to Burlington²¹ and Humboldt²² with us, and coming back Sunday, to go to work at Carrol’s Monday morning. Train left Lawrence 20 minutes late. At Ottawa, a young fellow got on, took a seat opposite us, stared at me, and presently said, Aren’t you Professor O’Leary? I admitted the fact. He said his name was Sanders, and he graduated from Law School in 1905²³. A fine looking young fellow – lives in Burlington – At Waverly, found it had rained more than an inch that afternoon – a few drops in Lawrence. When we got to Burlington, I found they too had had a good rain. Mother and Tom²¹ waiting for us. Mother much better than she was in July. Almost unpleasantly cool as we drove out to their place [the O’Leary farm on lower Wolf Creek].

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Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway Company Depot, Lawrence, Kansas, between 1910 and 1920. Held at Kansas Historical