A Kansas Memory Podcast

Samuel Reader's Diary

The document used in the Reader Diary podcast is available on

• Samuel Reader's diary, volume 5, January 25, 1860-May 1, 1864
  Samuel began keeping a daily record of his life at the age of thirteen, after reading the journals of the Lewis and Clark expedition, and continued faithfully until he died in 1914 at the age of 78. In 1855, when he was just 19, he moved from Illinois to Indianola--a town just north of Topeka in Kansas Territory. These passages are from Samuel’s diary of 1861, when the war between the North and South is just beginning. Samuel's extended family includes: Samuel's sister, Elisa, and her husband, Mathias Campdoras, a French physician, who live with their children in a neighboring cabin; and Samuel's widowed aunt, Elisa Cole and her children, Francis and Eugene, who have an adjoining claim. Mrs. Cole raised Samuel and his sister and he calls her "La." "Fox" is their horse's name.
  
  Samuel taught himself French and often uses French and English interchangeably as he writes. He always begins by recording the current temperature and wind direction. Most of Samuel’s narration is about their every day struggle to raise livestock and produce enough crops to survive in the harsh Kansas climate. He includes copies of his letters home to his family in Illinois.