My Daddy's Farm is a work of fiction about Clement J. Jones, a man, my great-grandfather, who committed suicide on November 19, 1924. In the early nineteen-twenties, this family man was a well respected, wealthy citizen of his county who--like one-third of his peers--had an active membership in the Indiana Ku Klux Klan. The story is narrated in part by a slightly sympathetic omniscient narrator, but mainly by Hazel Louise Jones, his daughter, who was in her teens when the Klan swept across Indiana in the nineteen-twenties; she was sixteen when her father committed suicide on November 19th, 1924.I have used three variations in this writing, based loosely on the style Gloria Naylor uses in Mama Day. These variations are characterized by the titles of their respective sections: "Our Spring," "Our Farm," "Our Family," and "Our Shame" are all narrated in first person, past tense, by Hazel Jones, Clement's sixteen year old daughter who is speaking as a representative of her family; "Clement J. Jones" and "Hazel Louise Jones" are written in third person, limited omniscient narration; and, "To Margaret," and "To Daddy" sections are present tense, with second person narration from Hazel Jones. Starting with "Our Shame," the story is punctuated by "Document" selections posted at the close of each chapter. These documents are nonfiction: they are news articles taken directly from the Indianapolis Star, the Williamsport Review-Republican, and the Williamsport Pioneer dated 1922, 1923, and 1924; and, they are papers taken out of the "United Klans of America" collection located in the Archives and Special Collections department of Bracken Library, Ball State University.Among sources listed on page 71 of this document, there are a few that were most helpful in providing details about the Indiana Klan: Anti Movements in America, edited by Gerald N. Grob, which reprints "Papers Read at the Meeting of Grand Dragons Knights of the Ku Klux Klan at their First Annual Meeting held at Asheville, North Carolina, July 1923"; and Women of the Klan, by Kathleen M. Blee. Exceptionally helpful was William Lutholtz's Grand Dragon, a well researched work of non-fiction about D.C. Stephenson's rise to power in the Indiana Klan and the development of the Indiana Klan.Three works of fiction especially provided creative direction for this thesis: Mama Day, by Gloria Naylor; Alias Grace, by Margaret Atwood; and, In the Lake of the Woods, by Tim OBrien. / Department of English
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BSU/oai:cardinalscholar.bsu.edu:handle/186057 |
| Date | January 1997 |
| Creators | Peacock, Frances Louise |
| Contributors | Dimoplon, Margaret K. |
| Source Sets | Ball State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Format | 84 leaves ; 28 cm. |
| Source | Virtual Press |
| Coverage | n-us-in |
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