Horace “Hod” Hakes Rich attended the University of Kansas and Washburn University Law School, going into partnership with his father, Dick Rich, in Coldwater, Comanche County, Kansas, where they also farmed and invested in land. His education was interrupted by U.S. Army service in World War I, which was cut short by the Armistice; he went no further than Camp Sherman in Chillicothe, Ohio. There, his Ambulance Company was hard-hit by the influenza, delaying training and killing many recruits. Hod himself never caught it.

Hod married a fellow KU student, Charlotte Scruton, just before leaving for boot camp at Fort Riley, Kansas, in August of 1918. From Arkansas City, Kansas, Charlotte had played center for the 1914 High School State Champion Girls Basketball team. Charlotte’s ancestors include both a Union soldier named Snyder and Confederates named Scruton. Some Civil War papers in the collection reflect her family background.

Hod and Charlotte's only child was Margaret “Midge” Zoe Rich, born in Lawrence, Kansas in 1920. Midge married Harold Shields Herd after a long high school and college courtship. She was the chief chronicler of the family’s history and fortunes, and most of the credit for the great depth and breadth of the materials in this collection goes to her.

Midge and Harold Herd had six children: Pamela Sue [born 1945], Harold Rich “Hal” [1948-2005], Malcolm Dick “Mac” [1950], James Horace “Skip” [1952], Margaret Zoe “Margie” [1956], and Michael Douglas [1957]. Midge was educated at Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri and remained a lifelong loyal alumna. Midge joined and led a wide variety of local civic groups including the Research Club, Kensington Club, P.E.O., Order of the Eastern Star, and others. Both she and her husband were active in the Democratic Party. Her husband and sons were active Masons.

Harold Shields Herd, like his father-in-law, graduated from the Washburn University School of Law, though was exempted from taking the Kansas Bar Exam by his military service in the U.S. Navy in World War II. After Midshipman training at Columbia University in New York City, he was assigned to a series of fleet service vessels in the Pacific. By 1946, he had risen to command the U.S.S. Cache, an oil tanker on which he had survived in January 1944 being torpedoed by a Japanese submarine. The U.S.S. Cache earned 8 Battle Stars and was part of the fleet to enter Tokyo harbor in September, 1945, to receive the formal surrender. The collection includes letters from Japan, Japanese currency, and photographs of Tokyo.

After the war, Harold went into partnership with his father-in-law in Coldwater. In politics, he was elected Mayor of Coldwater, a Kansas State Senator as a Democrat in a largely Republican district, and made a failed attempt to run for the U.S. Senate in 1966. Appointed by Governor John Carlin, he served as a Kansas State Supreme Court Justice from 1979 to 1993, and taught law classes at Washburn, including Constitutional Law. He also wrote on gun control.

Hod Rich, Midge’s father, created Rich Rose Ranch and Lake Pamela, near Coldwater. Hod’s thousands of rose varieties were known widely, and his annual Open House was a major tourist attraction. His “Green Thumb” essays featured regularly in The Western Star, the local newspaper. Stan Herd, the internationally known crop artist, is a cousin and grew up near Coldwater, in Protection, Kansas. He appears in this collection in a few newspaper articles and in photographs with Bernice Shields Herd, Harold’s mother, who lived to be 106 years old.