Small Wonders
Stories about who we are and where we come from.
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A story of Ward Academy in Academy, South Dakota, written and read by James C. Schaap. -
It was a highly fashionable method of getting across the Atlantic, a cruise ship bigger and faster than any other. A cruise ship with its own electrical… -
A native nurse in Liege, Belgium, is called upon to attend to a native soldier who has lost his legs. Years later, the two find each other again. -
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Jim Schaap meditates upon the tree Anne Frank observed outside her window as he lays upon his hospital bed watching a maple. -
Jim Schaap, caught by the image of a falling barn, imagines the pasts that are beyond recall and remembers that pasts that are difficult to confront. -
When farmers kidnapped a judge, outside agitators like Mother Bloor were blamed. -
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When the great blizzard of 1888 swept the plains, hundreds of settlers died. No indigenous lives were reported lost.
Dr. Jim Schaap doesn’t know what on earth happens to his time these days, even though he should have plenty of it, retired as he is (from teaching literature and writing at Dordt College, Sioux Center, IA). If he’s not at a keyboard, most mornings he’s out on Siouxland’s country roads, running down stories that make him smile or leave him in awe. He is the author of several novels and a host of short stories and essays. His most recent publications include Up the Hill: Folk Tales from the Grave (stories), and Reading Mother Teresa (meditations). He lives with his wife Barbara in Alton, Iowa.