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Quentin Burdick: The Gentle Warrior is based on interviews with Burdick, his family, Senate colleagues and many North Dakotans. As the son of Congressman Usher Burdick, Quentin Burdick became the first Democrat in North Dakota to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, in 1958. Two years later, he won a surprise victory over Governor John Davis for the U.S. Senate, where he served continually until his death in September 1992. The book reveals many tragedies in Burdick’s life: the pain of his parents’ divorce, the crippling football injuries, the death of his first wife, the mental breakdown of his first son and the tragic loss of his second son in a freak accident in Fargo at age 16. Late Democratic Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield of Montana called Burdick “the quiet senator.”
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| About the Author | |
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Dan Rylance, a Fargo native, is a longtime student of North Dakota history. Trained academically as an archivist and historian, Rylance headed the Elwyn B. Robinson Department of Special Collections and taught American history at the University of North Dakota (UND) from 1967-1989. In 1973, he co-authored The Years of Despair: North Dakota in the Depression, and in 1982, wrote Ever Westward to the Far East: The Story of Chester Fritz, a biography of UND’s most celebrated benefactor. In 1989, Rylance changed careers. He became the editorial page editor for the Grand Forks Herald, serving in that capacity for four years. Since 1993, Rylance has followed the academic career of his wife, Billie Jo, who is an associate professor of special education at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. Rylance has taught American history at Idaho State University and worked as a landscaper in the humid Midwest, the desert West, and now lush, green Wisconsin. Rylance returned to education in 2003, first as an ad hoc professor at the New Bulgarian University in Sofia, Bulgaria, and second as special events coordinator at Webster Stanley Elementary School in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. In that capacity, he serves as adviser to the Webster Wave, the first elementary school newspaper in Wisconsin. |