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.