Stories From The Round Barn

Using stories, anecdotes, history, and even veterinary science, Jackson braids together a series of dramatic fragments and episodes to vividly recreate life on the Dougan dairy farm. Founded in 1911 by W.J. Dougan near Beloit, Wisconsin, the Dougan farm, with its unusual round barn, is symbolic of a vanishing era. A renowned farm which was among the first to introduce many aspects of modern dairying to its operation, the Dougan farm eventually became a victim of agribusiness-style dairying and was closed. As Jackson recreates the texture and tone of life on the farm, larger themes emerge: the constant balancing between material life and spirit, the quest for humane values within a hard world of business and labor, the difficult lessons fundamental to childhood.

In this much anticipated companion volume to Stories from the Round Barn, Jacqueline Dougan Jackson continues her loving tribute to life on her family's Wisconsin dairy farm with the unusual round barn. Readers acquainted with Jackson's first collection will find the familiar cast of family members -- Grampa, Grama, Daddy, Mother, Jackie and her siblings, and Daddy's brother Trever and foster sister, Esther -- joined by others who have a part in the workings of the farm and the surrounding community. You will meet Miss Egan, who creates a stir as a woman barn hand; Charlie, a one-armed milkman who mysteriously vanishes; and Aunt Lillian, who almost single-handedly keeps the farm going through the 1918 flu epidemic.

An extraordinarily accomplished first novel of desires postponed, thwarted, and sometimes fulfilled.

The third installment in a warmly amusing and historically detailed account of a Wisconsin farm family.

"One hundred years ago, in 1911, Wesson J. Dougan finished building an innovative round barn on his dairy near Beloit, Wisconsin."-- Volume 1, page [4] of cover.

Includes catalog of 160 round barns in Iowa.

Of the 226 round barns that are known to have existed in Indiana, more than 100 have vanished from the landscape, thus depriving the state of beautiful landmarks and testimonials to the ingenuity of turn-of-the-century agriculture and architecture. The author's admiration for the round barn's grace and his concern for its survival is evident on every page as he traces its history from George Washington's 1793 sixteen-sided barn to the development of the Ideal Circular Barn and associated patents to the demise of the structures in the second half of the twentieth century. By combing through family letters, agricultural journals of the time, advertisements, and other often-forgotten documents, Hanou offers fascinating glimpses of the individual farmers, builders, and architects who championed the innovative construction techniques. Through imagination and hard work, these men created their own market for round barns; in the year of peak construction, fifteen barns were built.