Earning the Right to do Fancywork: An Informal Biography of Ida Eisenhower

Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press (1st Edition, 1957). Hardcover with gray boards and dust jacket, 38 pages. Former museum copy; only sign of that is a small shelving sticker on front cover. Dust jacket is scuffed and has several small closed and open tears and chipping. Book is clean and unmarked, with a square, tight binding.

ABOUT THE BOOK: Since this simple account is based upon what Mrs. Ida Eisenhower, President Dwight Eisenhower's mother, told Kunigunde Duncan concerning her life, it does not follow the usual pattern of biography. It seeks to capture the flavor and warmth of her personality; and, upon the best of authority, that of Ida Eisenhower herself, the essence of her life is here: its satisfactions, its disappointments and delights, its hopes and griefs, its tests and triumphs.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Author and poet Flora Kunigunde Duncan Isely (1886 - 1971) wrote and published a great deal of poetry during the early 1900s and later wrote a number of books under the pseudonym, Kunigunde Duncan. She graduated from Wichita High School, Wichita, Kansas in 1904 where she later taught three years. In 1911 she married author Bliss Isely, and during most of their marriage lived in Wichita, before buying a farm south of El Dorado, Kansas where they retired. They had three sons, Malcolm, Kenneth and David, the latter who died in childhood. In 1938 she published the book "Blue Star", a book based on the life of Corabelle Fellows Campbell Tillman, and during the 1940s she co-authored a book with D. F. Nichols on Mentor Graham. She wrote a number of articles dealing with the Dust Bowl and Wichita history for local and national newspapers. Her books include a book of poems, "The Land of the Little Boys", and "Mentor Graham: The Man Who Taught Lincoln" (1944).