Five boxes containing the papers of Bonnie Baringer Coryell Hatch, an educator, and homemaker in Kansas and Oklahoma between the early 1920s and 2010. Papers include letters, photographs, diaries, daybooks, ephemera, oral history cassette tapes, and other items. Letters and related materials reflect life in Depression-era Kansas and Oklahoma, and touch on education, politics, farming practices and home-making activities undertaken by Bonnie, her husband, Allen, her three sons, her sister, Donis, and her parents, Sylvester and Minnie Baringer. Among the correspondence files is a large collection of Bonnie’s letters to her parents and smaller groups of letters between Bonnie and Allen, Bonnie and her second husband, Homer Hatch, and Sylvester and Minnie. Included in Sylvester’s correspondence, some dating to the late 1890s, are letters related to his activities as a Kansas Master Farmer and Kansas legislator from Coffey County from 1943-1951. Also in the collection is a printed copy and PDF file of "Letters from the Heartland," a compilation of Bonnie’s letters to her parents transcribed and edited by Janet L. Coryell.
Bonnie Clarinda Baringer was born on June 2, 1907, in Beattie, Kansas, to Sylvester Baringer and Minnie Davison Baringer. In January 1914, the family moved to a farm northeast of Burlington, Coffey County, Kansas. After leaving high school Baringer became a school teacher and later received her Bachelor of Science degree in 1962 and her Masters of Science in 1967, both from Emporia State Teachers College.
On February 16, 1929, Baringer married Allen Wendall Coryell and they lived in Madison, Kansas, until 1931, when they moved to a farm at Blaine County, Oklahoma, near the town of Hitchcock. To this union were born three children (David, Kendrick, and John). Allen Coryell died of pancreatic cancer in September 1974.
On December 29, 1975, Bonnie Coryell married Homer Dale Hatch. In 1977, the couple moved to Coffey County, Kansas, west of the town of Burlington. Bonnie Baringer Coryell Hatch regularly attended church. She was also an amateur radio operator. Coryell Hatch was a member of the Quarter Century Wireless Association, Otter Creek Grange, Ladies History Club of Burlington, Kansas, and the Coffey County Historical Society.
Bonnie Baringer Coryell Hatch died on December 2, 2010, Derby, Kansas.