Author Visit: Veda Rogers, "A Grand Day"

WPL is pleased to host Veda Rogers to share about her book, A Grand Day:  The Forgotten Voice of a Farm Woman Through Dust, Depression, and War, a rare and moving collection that captures the daily life, labor, and resilience of a Kansas farm woman during some of the most difficult decades of the twentieth century.

A Grand Day presents the diaries of Louisa "Lulu" Ehrichs Schwanbeck, who chronicled her life on a western Kansas farm during the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, and World War II. Beginning in 1935, Lulu records not only the relentless demands of farm work but also extraordinary personal trials, including severe burns, a cancer diagnosis, and the loss of her husband.

By 1940 Lulu was a widowed woman in her early sixties, managing the business and labor of a large, fully mortgaged family farm. Her entries reveal a hardworking, capable, and determined farmer who met hardship with resolve, humor, and a deep sense of community. Despite exhaustion and uncertainty, she consistently found moments of satisfaction and joy, often closing her diary with the same simple phrase: "A grand day."

Veda Rogers enjoyed a varied career as housewife, mother, singer, voice instructor, actress, and bank officer. She and her husband, Bruce Rogers, lived in Winfield in the 1960s and 70s.