Title:: [[Old Jules]] Authors:: [[Marie Sandoz]] Tags:: #biography Read:: [[2023-10-11]] Instagram :: https://www.instagram.com/jeronimo_ficus/p/CyRO-WSPJq0/ ## Editions - Edition:: University of Nebraska Press, 1962 - Original Copyright:: 1935 - Pages:: 424 ## Annotations Reading Old Jules made me think a lot about the romanticization of the America Frontier.  On the one hand, it feels like it’s too romanticized — this biography of Sandoz’s father, Jules, clearly epitomizes the Hobbesian state of nature that was the Old West. It wasn’t fun, it was harder than hell, and too often deadly.  And yet on the other hand, it feels like the American Frontier isn’t romanticized enough. Like these people picked up and left and did the damn thing and here we are today because of them. It’s all such an incredibly fascinating story and seemingly taken for granted at the same time.  Jules Sandoz’s trajectory is similar to a lot of immigrants’. A Swiss doctor, he picked up and left Europe, charged to the Nebraska panhandle in search of a new beginning, while only packing an I’ll-be-damned-to-fail attitude. But he was also an abusive asshole, to his many wives and children, as well as anyone who seemed to get in his way. To say he was a complicated character would be an understatement.