Arms about some scenes we bring her,
And the fleeting years but make them fonder grow;
Though I wander far and sadly
From that dear old home, how gladly
I recall the cherished scenes of long ago!"[ [10]
William Otis Lillibridge, of Sioux Falls, whose brilliant career as a novelist was closed by death in 1909, was graduated from the College of Dentistry, State University of Iowa, in 1898. His "Ben Blair" and "Where the Trail Divides," gave abundant promise.
Randall Parish, though born in Illinois, was admitted to the bar in Iowa, and for a time was engaged in newspaper work in Sioux City. Since 1904, when he leaped into fame by his historical novel, "When Wilderness Was King," volume after volume has come from the press and every one has met with quick response from the public.
It is hard to account for Herbert Quick. Born on a farm in Grundy County, Iowa, a teacher in Mason City and elsewhere in Iowa, a lawyer in Sioux City, mayor of Sioux City for three terms, a telephone manager, editor of La Follette's Weekly, editor of Farm and Fireside, democratic politician, at present an active member of the Federal Farm Loan Board—with all this record of service, Mr. Quick has somehow found time, since 1904, to make for himself a name and fame as a magazine contributor, and, too, as a novelist who writes novels so novel that they find thousands of readers! Among his best known books are "Aladdin & Co," "Virginia of the Air Lanes," and "On Board the Good Ship Earth." Mr. Quick is preeminently a twentieth century man of affairs. Immersed as he now is in farm loans, it would not surprise his friends at any time if he were to issue another compelling novel!
Rupert Hughes, eminently successful as a novelist and dramatist, though Missouri-born, was for years a resident of Keokuk, Iowa, and his Iowa associations were so strong that he dropped everything to come halfway across the continent that he might participate in the reunion of Iowa authors in 1914. Mr. Hughes' books are among the best-selling and his plays among the best-drawing. This popular author has turned soldier. He was an officer of the New York National Guards in Mexico and again when war against Germany was declared he was among the first to respond to the call for troops.
Dr. Edward A. Steiner, of Grinnell, Iowa, a sociologist with a vision, has done more than any other man to bring together in friendly working relationship our native-born and foreign-born Americans. He has not only gone up and down the earth preaching an applied Christianity, but he has also written into nearly a dozen books, all of which have had many readers, his own experiences in the old world and the new, and his valuable observations—those of a trained sociologist bent upon righting the wrongs of ignorance and selfishness as he has found them embedded in customs and laws. The World War has opened a large field of usefulness for the Grinnell preacher of national and international righteousness.