Nyle Kardatzke

Leatherport, Ohio Nyle Kardatzke

Leatherport, Ohio was a tiny settlement near Elmore on the north bank of the Portage River. The town disappeared soon after 1851 when the railroad crossed the river at Elmore. Leatherport lived on in the one-room Leatherport School and in the minds of people who populated the countryside nearby. You will read of rustic practices long lost to modern methods of farming and eating. Small adventures and disasters are magnified in the book's close-up lens. A boy's outdoor adventures with turtles and snakes and other critters are here. Comic events in Elmore and the majesty of Toledo cast the stories in historical context. World War II ended just days before the author's class entered school, and he looks affectionately at the teachers he exasperated there. He graduated near the bottom of his class in 1957 but learned to type, a skill that made this book possible. Elvis Presley's show in Toledo on November 22, 1956 foreshadowed other events yet to come.