Son of Leroy Freeman Bailey and Laura Imogen Sloan, Married to Gretchen Rugh on 25 Jun 1925 in Abilene, Dickinson Co, KS.
***********************
William Bailey, Emporia-born chemist, writer of scientific stories for Scientific American, Brass World, Metal's & Alloys, and the Washington Star, is a man of seemingly endless interests and abilities who likes to make people laugh as well as to make them think. He does both in JAYHAWKER BOY, which was a lifetime in the vintaging.
Mr. Bailey's side lines sound like the index of a do-it-yourself book: astronomy, brick work, clock repairing, concrete work, electrical repairing, fire-place repairing, plumbing, radio and TV repairing, woodworking . . . and, on the official side, electroplating locusts.
Now retired, Mr. Bailey belongs to the American Institute of Chemists and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and is a Fellow of both. He is also a member of the American Dialect Society, which he joined at the urging of H. L. Mencken, and has done "a substantial amount of work" for its new dialect dictionary.
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"JAYHAWKER BOY," by William Bailey, 1962, Vintage Press
To be a boy among the sights and sounds and smells of William Allen White's turn-of-the-century Emporia! To know the Sage of Emporia himself, and to attain the estate of being one of "Mr. White's boys," carrying the Gazette up and down the farm lanes, soaking up the local color and lively tales, tucking it all away inside!
This was the happy fate of William Bailey, "the middle one of Mrs. Bailey's seven devils," and this is the story of his years through the middle teens, beginning in the early 1890's. A tale replete with amusing and revelatory details of life in Kansas in that now-vanished era, it is also an account of how naive and funny a boy can be.
William Bailey remembers Mr. and Mrs. White in their carriage behind Old Tom; recalls helping his brother Roy drive the cows through Emporia streets--"Nobody thought of the operation as a traffic hazard," though it was true that some citizens had acquired gas buggies, and a Dr. Northington owned a one-cylinder Cadillac whose engine he could, on occasion, get started.
He remembers finding love, at six, when an angel, floating over the floor in long, long skirts, materialized into a blue-eyed, soft-voiced school teacher. He recalls family prayers, delivered by a father who practiced Christianity in his own terrifying way; acquiring THE dog, named Rover, naturally; seeing sinners "saved" at revival meetings; owning a marvelous collection of buttons which bore legends like "LANE'S PILLS ARE BEST FOR YOUR LIVER"; and glimpsing an enraged female reader of the Gazette who was lying in wait for William Allen White--with a horse-whip.
Schooldays, jobs, pranks and peccadilloes, adventures and misadventures--all are described with a wealth of nostalgic humor that brings "Mr. White's Emporia" directly to us. And there was the matter of nine-year-old Willie Bailey's discovery of the challenge of a lifetime--chemistry, and setting up in the barn his first laboratory, a magic world of weird odors emanating from tin cans and pieces of crockery.
JAYHAWKER BOY was a very real boy, indeed, and young and old alike with delight in this story.
***********************
William Bailey, Emporia-born chemist, writer of scientific stories for Scientific American, Brass World, Metal's & Alloys, and the Washington Star, is a man of seemingly endless interests and abilities who likes to make people laugh as well as to make them think. He does both in JAYHAWKER BOY, which was a lifetime in the vintaging.
Mr. Bailey's side lines sound like the index of a do-it-yourself book: astronomy, brick work, clock repairing, concrete work, electrical repairing, fire-place repairing, plumbing, radio and TV repairing, woodworking . . . and, on the official side, electroplating locusts.
Now retired, Mr. Bailey belongs to the American Institute of Chemists and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and is a Fellow of both. He is also a member of the American Dialect Society, which he joined at the urging of H. L. Mencken, and has done "a substantial amount of work" for its new dialect dictionary.
**********************
"JAYHAWKER BOY," by William Bailey, 1962, Vintage Press
To be a boy among the sights and sounds and smells of William Allen White's turn-of-the-century Emporia! To know the Sage of Emporia himself, and to attain the estate of being one of "Mr. White's boys," carrying the Gazette up and down the farm lanes, soaking up the local color and lively tales, tucking it all away inside!
This was the happy fate of William Bailey, "the middle one of Mrs. Bailey's seven devils," and this is the story of his years through the middle teens, beginning in the early 1890's. A tale replete with amusing and revelatory details of life in Kansas in that now-vanished era, it is also an account of how naive and funny a boy can be.
William Bailey remembers Mr. and Mrs. White in their carriage behind Old Tom; recalls helping his brother Roy drive the cows through Emporia streets--"Nobody thought of the operation as a traffic hazard," though it was true that some citizens had acquired gas buggies, and a Dr. Northington owned a one-cylinder Cadillac whose engine he could, on occasion, get started.
He remembers finding love, at six, when an angel, floating over the floor in long, long skirts, materialized into a blue-eyed, soft-voiced school teacher. He recalls family prayers, delivered by a father who practiced Christianity in his own terrifying way; acquiring THE dog, named Rover, naturally; seeing sinners "saved" at revival meetings; owning a marvelous collection of buttons which bore legends like "LANE'S PILLS ARE BEST FOR YOUR LIVER"; and glimpsing an enraged female reader of the Gazette who was lying in wait for William Allen White--with a horse-whip.
Schooldays, jobs, pranks and peccadilloes, adventures and misadventures--all are described with a wealth of nostalgic humor that brings "Mr. White's Emporia" directly to us. And there was the matter of nine-year-old Willie Bailey's discovery of the challenge of a lifetime--chemistry, and setting up in the barn his first laboratory, a magic world of weird odors emanating from tin cans and pieces of crockery.
JAYHAWKER BOY was a very real boy, indeed, and young and old alike with delight in this story.
Son of Leroy Freeman Bailey and Laura Imogen Sloan, Married to Gretchen Rugh on 25 Jun 1925 in Abilene, Dickinson Co, KS.
***********************
William Bailey, Emporia-born chemist, writer of scientific stories for Scientific American, Brass World, Metal's & Alloys, and the Washington Star, is a man of seemingly endless interests and abilities who likes to make people laugh as well as to make them think. He does both in JAYHAWKER BOY, which was a lifetime in the vintaging.
Mr. Bailey's side lines sound like the index of a do-it-yourself book: astronomy, brick work, clock repairing, concrete work, electrical repairing, fire-place repairing, plumbing, radio and TV repairing, woodworking . . . and, on the official side, electroplating locusts.
Now retired, Mr. Bailey belongs to the American Institute of Chemists and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and is a Fellow of both. He is also a member of the American Dialect Society, which he joined at the urging of H. L. Mencken, and has done "a substantial amount of work" for its new dialect dictionary.
**********************
"JAYHAWKER BOY," by William Bailey, 1962, Vintage Press
To be a boy among the sights and sounds and smells of William Allen White's turn-of-the-century Emporia! To know the Sage of Emporia himself, and to attain the estate of being one of "Mr. White's boys," carrying the Gazette up and down the farm lanes, soaking up the local color and lively tales, tucking it all away inside!
This was the happy fate of William Bailey, "the middle one of Mrs. Bailey's seven devils," and this is the story of his years through the middle teens, beginning in the early 1890's. A tale replete with amusing and revelatory details of life in Kansas in that now-vanished era, it is also an account of how naive and funny a boy can be.
William Bailey remembers Mr. and Mrs. White in their carriage behind Old Tom; recalls helping his brother Roy drive the cows through Emporia streets--"Nobody thought of the operation as a traffic hazard," though it was true that some citizens had acquired gas buggies, and a Dr. Northington owned a one-cylinder Cadillac whose engine he could, on occasion, get started.
He remembers finding love, at six, when an angel, floating over the floor in long, long skirts, materialized into a blue-eyed, soft-voiced school teacher. He recalls family prayers, delivered by a father who practiced Christianity in his own terrifying way; acquiring THE dog, named Rover, naturally; seeing sinners "saved" at revival meetings; owning a marvelous collection of buttons which bore legends like "LANE'S PILLS ARE BEST FOR YOUR LIVER"; and glimpsing an enraged female reader of the Gazette who was lying in wait for William Allen White--with a horse-whip.
Schooldays, jobs, pranks and peccadilloes, adventures and misadventures--all are described with a wealth of nostalgic humor that brings "Mr. White's Emporia" directly to us. And there was the matter of nine-year-old Willie Bailey's discovery of the challenge of a lifetime--chemistry, and setting up in the barn his first laboratory, a magic world of weird odors emanating from tin cans and pieces of crockery.
JAYHAWKER BOY was a very real boy, indeed, and young and old alike with delight in this story.
***********************
William Bailey, Emporia-born chemist, writer of scientific stories for Scientific American, Brass World, Metal's & Alloys, and the Washington Star, is a man of seemingly endless interests and abilities who likes to make people laugh as well as to make them think. He does both in JAYHAWKER BOY, which was a lifetime in the vintaging.
Mr. Bailey's side lines sound like the index of a do-it-yourself book: astronomy, brick work, clock repairing, concrete work, electrical repairing, fire-place repairing, plumbing, radio and TV repairing, woodworking . . . and, on the official side, electroplating locusts.
Now retired, Mr. Bailey belongs to the American Institute of Chemists and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and is a Fellow of both. He is also a member of the American Dialect Society, which he joined at the urging of H. L. Mencken, and has done "a substantial amount of work" for its new dialect dictionary.
**********************
"JAYHAWKER BOY," by William Bailey, 1962, Vintage Press
To be a boy among the sights and sounds and smells of William Allen White's turn-of-the-century Emporia! To know the Sage of Emporia himself, and to attain the estate of being one of "Mr. White's boys," carrying the Gazette up and down the farm lanes, soaking up the local color and lively tales, tucking it all away inside!
This was the happy fate of William Bailey, "the middle one of Mrs. Bailey's seven devils," and this is the story of his years through the middle teens, beginning in the early 1890's. A tale replete with amusing and revelatory details of life in Kansas in that now-vanished era, it is also an account of how naive and funny a boy can be.
William Bailey remembers Mr. and Mrs. White in their carriage behind Old Tom; recalls helping his brother Roy drive the cows through Emporia streets--"Nobody thought of the operation as a traffic hazard," though it was true that some citizens had acquired gas buggies, and a Dr. Northington owned a one-cylinder Cadillac whose engine he could, on occasion, get started.
He remembers finding love, at six, when an angel, floating over the floor in long, long skirts, materialized into a blue-eyed, soft-voiced school teacher. He recalls family prayers, delivered by a father who practiced Christianity in his own terrifying way; acquiring THE dog, named Rover, naturally; seeing sinners "saved" at revival meetings; owning a marvelous collection of buttons which bore legends like "LANE'S PILLS ARE BEST FOR YOUR LIVER"; and glimpsing an enraged female reader of the Gazette who was lying in wait for William Allen White--with a horse-whip.
Schooldays, jobs, pranks and peccadilloes, adventures and misadventures--all are described with a wealth of nostalgic humor that brings "Mr. White's Emporia" directly to us. And there was the matter of nine-year-old Willie Bailey's discovery of the challenge of a lifetime--chemistry, and setting up in the barn his first laboratory, a magic world of weird odors emanating from tin cans and pieces of crockery.
JAYHAWKER BOY was a very real boy, indeed, and young and old alike with delight in this story.
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