Glorious Fourth of July

"Gibson's lively stories and whimsical water-colors will appeal to both school-aged children and adults. Researches will be able to mine valuable details from both written and visual retellings."— Cynthia Culver Prescott , Great Plains Quarterly

“Readers of all ages will delight in the stories of young Catherine growing up in an era in which automobiles were a rare and exciting mode of transportation and the heating of water on a wood-burning stove was the norm. Equally appropriate as a coffee-table book and as a read-aloud for classroom reading, this timeless book spans reading audiences of nearly any age as it captures the heart and kindles the imagination. Recommended for home and school audiences, Glorious Fourth of July is highly recommended."— Literary Classics Seal of Approval committee

"A unique, extraordinary, and informatively entertaining picture book for children ages 6 to 8, "Glorious Fourth Of July And Other Stories From The Plains" is especially and unreservedly recommended for family, elementary school, and community library collections."— Midwest Book Review

Glorious Fourth of July "shows us pure joy, expressed in beguiling color and imaginative scenes, [and] rendered in sophisticated compositions.” — Jack and Anne Heinz

Living through everyday childhood exploits with a large spark of imagination, a young girl grows up on the American plains. Catherine survives a cyclone and a small pox epidemic. She plans and takes part in a circus, listens to stories told by her grandparents, and dances wildly to the mazurka in her living room in Watertown, South Dakota. Her youth is filled with new sights as her world expands to the Montana frontier and the metropolis of Saint Paul, Minnesota. As the storyteller, Catherine gives insight into a bygone era with child-like enthusiasm and a reflective nature brought on by the passing years.

In recounting these episodes from Catherine Rademacher Gibson’s childhood, her daughter Mary Gibson Sprague shares a narrative common to many plains families that migrated throughout the United States at the beginning of the twentieth century. The tales take on new life as they are paired with paintings created by Catherine in her adult years. These “memory paintings,” as she named them, call readers back to a time when birthday parties were new celebrations and children relied on their own ingenuity to occupy themselves.

A testament to the creative spirit, Catherine’s adventures should be read aloud and shared with every generation.

"Cyclone," Catherine Rademacher Gibson, 1987

Mary Gibson Sprague (b. 1934) was born in Detroit, Michigan, and grew up in Marblehead, Massachusetts. She graduated from Queen Anne High School in Seattle and received two fine arts degrees from Stanford University in California. Mary is the mother of Michael Vern, Robert Wendell, Peter Hans, and Nell Jean. She currently lives in Saint Louis, Missouri, where she retired after teaching drawing and art history for thirty years at Meramec Community College. A second generation working-artist, Mary’s artwork can be found online at marysprague.com.

Catherine Rademacher Gibson (1907–1996) was born in Austin, Minnesota, the second child of Francis Aloysius Rademacher and Minnie Cotter Rademacher. She grew up with her brothers Clyde and Raymond in Watertown, South Dakota, and in 1923 her family moved to Minneapolis. She graduated with an art degree from the University of Minnesota in 1929 and taught art in the Detroit Public Schools until her marriage to Captain Verne Cyril Gibson (1904–1989), an engineer for the United States Lighthouse Service. After the birth of Patricia Jean Gibson and Mary Karen Gibson, Verne and Catherine relocated to Marblehead, Massachusetts, where Catherine began painting watercolors as the family continued to move around the country, finally settling in San Francisco. Catherine created her “memory paintings” series as a way to tell her childhood stories and cheer up her husband during the last years of his life.