Jean McKay was the one signing books, but Kathleen Whitmer was just as busy as she was.
Just about every person who came into Town Crier on Thursday morning to get McKay’s autograph on her book, “Chronicles of the Farm Woman,” was also there for a reunion with Whitmer, who gave out hugs and chatted up guest after guest.
There’s a good reason that Whitmer, who now lives in Zenda, knows plenty of people in and around town: she’s the daughter of longtime Emporia Gazette columnist Mary Frances McKinney, the subject of “Chronicles of the Farm Woman.” McKinney’s column, The Farm Woman, ran from 1932 to 1962, revealing her perspective on a wide range of topics during turbulent times in America.
“Chronicles of the Farm Woman” is part biography, part collection of McKinney’s best writings. Whitmer provided her mother’s story, along with pictures and copies of her columns, and McKay put it all together.
“Jean picked my brain,” Whitmer said. “She’d send me a list of questions that I had to answer, and then I had to go back through all the family pictures and find pictures that I thought were appropriate and that were printable. Because of their age, a lot of them weren’t printing.
“Jean is the one who decided what articles we would use, because I said she would have an objective viewpoint.”
Whitmer and McKay were already friends when McKay’s first book, “Tillie’s Bridge,” was published. Whitmer asked McKay whether she would be interested in doing a book on her mother.
McKay, a San Diego native before moving to an area north of Medicine Lodge, was unfamiliar with McKinney’s writings before work began on the book 2 1/2 years ago. She said that when she began reading McKinney’s columns, she knew immediately they had historical value.
“It was a different time,” McKay said. “I mean, going through her war years, going through the Depression, going through the New Deal and the restructuring of the country — pretty hard times.
“She really gave it a perspective that I hadn’t had before. So she taught me. So I think she could teach anyone.”
McKay was struck by how intelligent, educated and involved McKinney was.
“And yet she lived on a farm, and I think the connotation of farm women in her day was probably that they were just all kind of subservient,” McKay said. “She had a brain, and she used it.”
Whitmer started thinking about the idea of a book on her mother after McKinney died in 1990. She said she wanted her grandchildren to be able to appreciate their great-grandmother’s work. McKay dedicated the book to Whitmer, her husband, Mac, and all the generations of their family following them.
“She did the hard work,” Whitmer said. “She’s the one who put it together. She got me with the publisher, and I’m really pleased with the way it’s turned out.”
F “Chronicles of the Farm Woman” costs $20. It’s available at Town Crier or can be purchased by mailing checks for $20 to the Whitmer Ranch, 12174 S.W. 90th Ave., Zenda, KS 67159.