LAURA RUSSELL
Book Notes
Choose You This Day: The Legacy of
the Hanbys. By Dacia Custer Shoe-
maker. Edited by Harold B. Hancock and
Millard J. Miller. (Westerville,
Ohio: The Westerville Historical
Society, 1983. xv + 137p.; illustrations,
notes, appendix, selected bibliography,
index.) The publication of this
book represents the final realization of Dacia Custer
Shoemaker's dream to
rescue the Hanbys from obscurity by
preserving and recording many hereto-
fore unknown facts about the famous father and son. A
Westerville native
and a graduate of Otterbein College,
Shoemaker stumbled upon the Hanby
history when preparing a pageant for
Otterbein's 75th anniversary in 1922
and would dedicate the rest of her life
to searching through family docu-
ments and mementoes, seeking out Hanby
family and friends and rescuing
the Hanby House in Westerville from
destruction in order to establish it as a
museum. Her manuscript, however, was
lost after her death in 1973 and only
now recovered, edited, amended, and
published through the efforts of the
Westerville Historical Society. This
story of Bishop William Hanby, a tireless
crusader against social injustice, and
his son Benjamin Hanby, the composer
of such songs as "Darling Nelly
Gray" and "Up on the Housetop," is well-
researched and well-written. Dacia
Custer Shoemaker, the editors Hancock
and Miller, and the Westerville
Historical Society deserve plaudits for their
perserverance and vision.
Government and Politics in Ohio. Edited by Carl Lieberman. (Lanham,
Maryland: University Press of America,
Inc., 1984. x + 320p.; tables, notes.)
Government and Politics in Ohio provides a useful collection of both original
and previously published articles
dealing with governmental institutions, po-
litical history, elections, and politics
in Ohio. Focusing, in three sections, on
environmental factors, state government,
and local politics in Ohio, the book
includes articles by Laurence Baum, Carl
Lieberman, Norman Blume, Kath-
leen L. Barber, and Frank J. Kindrick. Government
and Politics in Ohio
could best be used as a supplemental
reader in political and history courses
of Ohio.
Soul Mates: The Oberlin
Correspondence of Lucy Stone and Antoinette
Brown, 1846-1850. Edited by Carol Lasser and Marlene Merrill. (Oberlin:
Oberlin College, 1983. viii + 100p.;
biographical notes.) An interesting col-
lection of letters exchanged by two
extraordinary women, Soul Mates ex-
plores the public lives and private
thoughts of these pioneering feminists. Set
against the academic atmosphere of the
Oberlin community, these voices
from the nineteenth century discuss such
issues as abolition, education, and
theology, and speak with a startling
clarity to the twentieth century woman,
serving to illustrate the differences
and similarities of her conditions. Availa-
ble through the Stone-Blackwell Project,
this publication was sponsored as
part of the Sesquicentennial Year
celebrations at Oberlin College.