Kevin Kimle, teaching professor, and his wife, Patricia, have published a new novel, "The Only Free Road: An Underground Railroad Saga Unveiled."
High school sweethearts from Hastings, Nebraska, Kevin and Patti Kimle moved to Iowa State for grad school in 1989, he, to get his master’s degree in agricultural economics, she, a PhD in textiles and clothing.
Kevin currently serves as the Rastetter Chair of Agricultural, director of the Agricultural Entrepreneurship Initiative, and teaching professor in the Department of Economics.
Patti taught for a couple of years, then stayed home with the couple’s three children, working as an artist and designer in the craft industry, and writing several books on the subject.
A shared love of history
The couple’s passion for history inspired a family vacation in 2005 traveling through Nebraska City, Nebraska, Tabor, Lewis and West Des Moines, Iowa, tracing the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom run by the National Park Service.
Major figures of the era including abolitionists John Brown and Iowans J.B. Grinnell and James Jordan, were joined by countless others working together to prevent the territory of Kansas from becoming another slave state. Bravely, they defied the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 by helping slaves escape to freedom in the north and Canada.
Afterwards, Kevin wrote the first 10 chapters of his first work of fiction, what would become “The Only Free Road.”
“J.B. Grinnell was a Congregational pastor, a lawyer and politician, he was straight as an arrow and breaking a federal law,” says Kevin. “I wanted to help people understand that it wasn’t easy for him--it was dangerous and controversial.”
The manuscript languished for several years.
When their youngest child started her senior year in high school, Patti picked up the story and revived the project.
“Historical fiction is my favorite. After I took over, I did all the research and the writing of the drafts, and had Kevin read each day’s sections after he got home from work. I worked on it two or three months at a time. All told, it took about a year-and-a-half to finish.”
The self-published book was ready to be uploaded to Amazon Books in February 2020, just as COVID-19 hit and put things on hold.
Creative marketing
Fast forward to August 2021. The book is available for purchase online and the Kimles wanted to do more than the usual author's book readings to get the word out. So they presented the first performance of their two-person, one-act play, “Missives of the Civil War.” In it they read eight letters between several characters—some from the book—describing the events and hardships of life in Iowa during the time of the Civil War. Interest and audiences have been growing—in compliance with COVID protocols—in sponsored productions held at Actor’s Ames Community Theatre, Grinnell and other public libraries and historical societies.
“Part of the purpose of this was to get it out into the world and to honor those who were part of the Underground Railroad, and to honor the slaves who were fugitives trying to get to freedom,” says Kevin.