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Acknowledgments The biblical Wisdom-tradition writer Ecclesiastes says that of making books there is no end, and this is true in part because there’s no end to the number of people through whose hands the text of a book passes before it’s published, hands that help weave the strands that fashion the final text. Text, through its etymology, points to the metaphor of weaving on which I’m relying here to describe how a text, a book, is composed. What’s true in general of all books is true a fortiori of this particular book, which has been years in the making, and which draws on the concerted and patient research (and generous sharing) of individuals too numerous to mention , without whom the book would not ever have come to publication.The book publishes the work of an Arkansas country doctor-philosopher of the nineteenth century, after all, who labored for years to tend to the medical needs of his community in the upper Arkansas RiverValley while farming.And then, as his diary published here for the first time notes, he spent many lonely nights in his study reading and writing, perhaps never dreaming that a day might come when his private thoughts in the diary would be published along with a collection of the occasional pieces he routinely sent to his local newspaper in his “retirement” years. And in preparingWilson Bachelor’s diary, occasional pieces, and letters for publication in this volume in collaboration with Bill Russell, I’m painfully aware—and humbly and gratefully so—that my primary role in this book has been that of amanuensis. Literally so: throughout the composition of the text, I had the strong impression that in putting pen to paper, I was merely lending my hands to this impressive and wide-ranging nineteenth-century Arkansas thinker, whose work first came to my attention due to family connections that led to more family connections.And more documents, pictures, stories, artifacts : many hands, all of them acting as amanuenses for the man who is the primary author of this book,Wilson R. Bachelor. That network of cousin-researchers includes a number of wonderful, thoughtful, intelligent, altruistic human beings who, unfortunately, didn’t remain to see the book to completion, though several of these cousins envisioned this volume and worked toward its production. These include Bachelor’s granddaughter Ruby Jefferson of Riverside, California, who safeguarded his diary, shared photocopies of it with interested relatives, and then ix handed it on to the safe-keeping of her daughter Paula, who has shared this valuable historical document with remarkable generosity and, as this book was being prepared for publication, donated the diary to the archives of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) Library. Another granddaughter of Bachelor, Maude Russell Morris, compiled and shared with family members information and stories she heard as a girl growing up next door to her grandparents Wilson and Sarah Tankersley Bachelor. Her nephew Clayton Russell continued this process, as did Clayton’s brother William Leon Russell, a multi-decorated army officer who received eight Purple Hearts for bravery during his years of military service, and who helped (along with a number of other cousins living and now dead) obtain a new tombstone marking the grave of his grandparents Wilson and Sarah Bachelor several years before his own death. A step-grandson of Wilson Bachelor,Wendell Bumpers of Cecil,Arkansas, also shared generously with other relatives information and stories he heard as a child growing up in the household of Bachelor’s sonVictor H. Bachelor, who was the son who remained at home farming his father’s land into Wilson and Sarah Bachelor’s old age and following their deaths. Most of the letters published in this book would not have been found and preserved without the diligence of Elsie McBurnett Hodges of Pine Bluff, Arkansas, whose mother, Janie Byrd McBurnett, was a great-niece of Bachelor and the recipient of one of the letters published in this book. Elsie also found and shared the letters of Bachelor to his niece Melissa Byrd Robinson published here, and Elsie’s son Norman Hodges of Little Rock, who inherited these letters and the photograph of Janie’s great-uncle of which his letter to Janie speaks, has generously made these materials available for publication. Another cousin whose work on behalf of this book spanned many years and is also valuable beyond measure was Flora Rondeau, who for many years played a...

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