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During the depression days of the early 1930s the Jordan family--Len Jordan (later governor of Idaho and a US senator), his wife Grace, and their three small children--moved to an Idaho sheep rance in the Snake River Gorge where they were short on "modern" conveniences and long on hard work and self-sufficiency. In this classic of pioneer literature, Grace Jordan tells the story of their life in the deepest chasm of North America.
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Walter Brennan (1894-1974) was one of the greatest character actors in Hollywood history. He won three Academy Awards and became a national icon starring as Grandpa in The Real McCoys. He appeared in over two hundred motion pictures and became the subject of a Norman Rockwell painting, which celebrated the actor's unique role as the voice of the American Western. His life journey from Swampscott, Massachusetts, to Hollywood, to a twelve thousand-acre cattle ranch in Joseph, Oregon, is one of the great American stories. In the first biography of this epic figure, Carl Rollyson reveals Brennan's consummate mastery of virtually every kind of role while playing against and often stealing scenes from such stars as Gary Cooper, Humphrey Bogart, and John Wayne. Rollyson fully explores Brennan's work with Hollywood's greatest directors, such as Howard Hawks, John Ford, and Fritz Lang. As a father and grandfather, Brennan instilled generations of his family with an outlook on the American Dream that remains a sustaining feature of their lives today. His conservative politics, which grew out of his New England upbringing and his devout Catholicism, receive meticulous attention and a balanced assessment in A Real American Character. Written with the full cooperation of the Brennan family and drawing on material in archives from every region of the United States, this new biography presents an artist and family man who lived and breathed an American idealism that made him the Real McCoy.
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In 1982, Jim and Holly Akenson moved to a log cabin in the back country of Idaho seeking adventure and challenge. They managed Taylor Ranch, the University of Idaho’s wilderness research station for the next 21 years. 7003 Days: 21 Years in the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness is their account of those years spent tracking wolves and cougars, packing mules and doing ranch work and introducing students to the rugged Salmon River Mountains.