Preserving Jewish history has been an ingrained part of Mara Cohen Ioannides’ work for nearly 25 years. The Springfield author is now celebrating the release of her third novel, which explores Jewish life in the Ozarks over 140 years ago.
Self-published, Yellow Jack and Turpentine is the first historical novel to explore the intertwining of Jewish and Ozarks histories. Set in the 1880s, the 156-page book follows three Jewish families from Odessa, Russia, who find their way to Newport, Arkansas. Once in the Ozarks, the families attempt to establish a farming commune, but with little to no experience in farming and choosing to settle on a flood plain, the families are doomed to failure.
“Yellow Jack and Turpentine” is available online at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Walmart for $14.99. Ioannides said the novel will also soon be available at Pagination Bookshop and Pearl’s Books in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
“Memories of yesterday”
Ioannides’ novel is based on the memoir “Memories of Yesterday” by Kate Herder, who was seven years old in 1882 when her family made the journey from Russia to the United States. The memoir is told from Herder’s perspective as a senior citizen reflecting on her childhood in rural Arkansas. Herder recounts her family’s travels from Russia to New York and then from New York to Arkansas. She also recalls the Ozarks hills and babbling brook near their new home, the illness that plagued many around her, and her father’s ultimate decision to leave Arkansas when times became too hard.
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Ioannides became acquainted with Herder’s memoirs when she began working on a special issue of OzarksWatch, a magazine published by Missouri State University, in 1999. The issue, titled “Documenting Jews of the Ozarks,” contains more than 15 articles on the history of Jewish culture in the Ozarks region. “Memories of Yesterday” was provided to Ioannides and OzarksWatch by Ellen Eisenberg, a fellow professor and published author.
The “Memories of Yesterday” issue of OzarksWatch magazine is available free of charge on the Missouri State Digital Collections website.
A lifelong interest in historical fiction
Ioannides is president of the Midwest Jewish Studies Association and the Ozarks Studies Association, and is faculty emerita at Missouri State, where she taught in the English department for 28 years. She holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science, a master’s degree in professional writing, and a doctorate in Jewish studies. But long before she began college, Ioannides discovered her love of reading.
A native of New Jersey, Ioannides grew up with her mother, who was a literature professor. She remembers reading thick, lengthy Russian novels from a young age as she worked through her own stack of books. In the early 1990s, she moved to Springfield, where she began teaching at Missouri State.
Yellow Jack and Turpentine is Ioannides’ third novel. Ioannides’ first two books focus on Jewish life in Greece. Her first book, A Shout in the Sunshine, was published in 2007 and her second, We Are in Exile Estamos En Galut: A Novel, was published in 2016.
About eight to ten years ago, Ioannides’ daughter encouraged her to write another novel, this time about Jewish life in her homeland, the Ozarks.
As published in OzarksWatch, “Memories of Yesterday” is only about five pages long, which didn’t give Ioannides much to work with. Although “Yellow Jack and Turpentine” is fiction, Ioannides was interested in creating the most accurate historical basis possible.
One of the biggest hurdles was finding information about the farming commune the three families had moved to near Newport, Arkansas, Herder reports. Ioannides said there is almost no information about that commune, neither its exact location nor its name, if it even has an official name.
“There is a news report about it (the commune) where the journalist says they interviewed some survivors who told him the story. That’s all we have,” Ioannides said. “There are a lot of ‘I don’t know’ questions. There are not many good primary sources or even secondary sources on this.”
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Another focus of Ioannides’ work was researching the United States railroad system in the 1880s. She said she spent hours looking at railroad maps to figure out which trains Herder’s family and the others would have taken from New York to Arkansas. To give readers a better picture, Ioannides included a railroad map from the 1880s in the book.
In the epilogue of the novel, Ioannides added further historical information about the three Jewish families that served as the basis for her characters.
A sad but important true story
Herder ends Memories of Yesterday with a depiction of her family climbing into a covered wagon to leave their Arkansas farm. But what happens next, which Herder doesn’t document, is also important.
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“What was left of the community ended up with someone, we don’t know who, giving money to the survivors, and there weren’t many, so they could go to St. Louis to be treated because they were malnourished and sick. And then the hospital wouldn’t take them because it was overwhelmed with its own poor,” Ioannides said. “The Jewish community had to raise money, but they didn’t want to do that because they had their own poor in St. Louis. It became a very public, national political issue.”
Although “Yellow Jack and Turpentine” has a dark tone, Ioannides believes it is important to tell this story.
“It’s a sad story, but I think it’s an important story,” she said.
Greta Cross is the Springfield News-Leader’s trending reporter. She has more than five years of journalism experience covering everything from the history of the Ozarks to the LGBTQIA+ community in Springfield. Follow her on X and Instagram @gretalcross. Have a story idea? Email her at [email protected].
