THIS ACCOUNT of how one large family emerged from a hard-working, virtually penniless childhood to prosperous maturity began with a family reunion in 1965. Seven siblings of the Raper family assembled as adults to talk of how that childhood shaped their values and how each, despite poverty, achieved success through parental guidance and education.
The siblings themselves are the principal authors. Their recorded words comprise the essence of An American Harvest. This book would not have come about had my husband, John Raper, and I not organized that reunion to include a reminiscing session and provided a recorder to tape it. Nor would it have happened without transcription of the recording by Muriel Williams, John’s secretary at Harvard University at the time. I am thankful also to daughter-in-law, Susannah Chang, for her copy edits of the scanned transcript.
While I sorted and reorganized the siblings’ discussion and added some comments of my own, the final product benefited greatly from editing by Linda Bland of Cahoots Writing Services and from the additional editorial comments of Pat Gouday Obrien. I am especially grateful for the critical reading and valuable input of my nieces, Emma Jean Bowman (Blanche’s daughter), Margaret Raper (Arthur’s daughter), Donna Stallings (Howard’s daughter), and John’s and my daughter, Linda Carlene Raper. Linda, Emma Jean and her husband Barry also provided the scanned photographs from Blanche’s scrapbook. The final copy edits were skillfully done by Rose Alexandre-Leach, (with assistance from Kaiya Lewis-Marlow) and graphically designed by Dede Cummings and Emy Blohm of GreenWriters Press.
I also thank authors Howard F. Mosher and Professor Clifford M. Kuhn for their thoughtful reviews of this document.