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Hope Laws papers

 Collection
Call Number: RH MS 347

Overview

The papers of Overbrook, Kansas resident Hope Laws include her handwritten genealogical records of her father's Laws family members and her mother's Sellers family who emigrated to the Willow Springs Township of Douglas County, Kansas in the 1870s. Included are Laws family business papers and letters from out-of-state family members, as well as official records relating to her grandmother Laws' first husband who served in Illinois' 113th Infantry Regiment and died in the Civil War's Vicksburg campaign.

Dates

  • Creation: 1863 - 1953

Creator

Conditions Governing Access

No access restrictions.

Conditions Governing Use

Spencer Library staff may determine use restrictions dependent on the physical condition of manuscript materials.

Biography of Hope Laws

Hope Laws was born February 6, 1905 in the Worden community of Douglas County, Kansas. Hope's father, Henry Laws, was born in Illinois in 1869 to John and Evaline Hendricks Hicks Laws. In 1871, the family emigrated to Kansas, where they settled as farmers in the Willow Springs Township of Douglas County. Siblings of Hope's father included his younger brother, William, and his half-brother, John Franklin "Frank" Hicks, from Evaline Laws' first marriage to Joseph Hicks, who died in the Civil War. Hope's mother, Frances A. Sellers Laws, daughter of John and Mary Sellers, was born in Indiana. She emigrated with her parents to Douglas County's Willow Springs Township in 1878.

Hope's parents married at Centropolis, Kansas in 1904, lived for seven years on a farm near the Worden community, and in 1911 moved to Overbrook in Osage County, Kansas. Hope graduated from the Overbrook Rural High School in 1923, and in that year also earned a Kansas teaching certificate in elementary education. Her father died at Overbrook in 1929, her mother in 1947. Hope died at Overbrook on February 18, 1965.

Extent

.5 Linear Feet (1 document case)

Language of Materials

English

Physical Location

RH MS 347

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Gift, Baker University, Baldwin City, Kansas, 1982

Title
Guide to the Hope Laws Collection
Subtitle
Hope Laws papers
Author
Finding aid prepared by mh, 2008; Finding aid encoded by mh, 2008
Date
2008
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description
Finding aid written in <language encodinganalog="language">English.</language>
Finding aid permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/10407/5255972728
Preferred citation
Laws, Hope, 1905-1965, Papers, Kansas Collection, RH MS 347, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas Libraries

Repository Details

Part of the University of Kansas. Kenneth Spencer Research Library Repository

Contact:
1450 Poplar Lane
Lawrence KS 66045-7616 United States
785-864-4334