Robert C. Kriebel's sympathetic biography of the prominent nineteenth-century Lafayette family weaves the story of four fascinating individuals into the web of state and national history and culture. The family members include John A. Stein, the distinguished state politician who devoted years to the founding of Purdue University; the indomitable mother, Virginia, who pursued a career in the local library when left widowed and penniless; the talented, albeit disreputable, Orth Stein, who achieved prominence as a journalist and illustrator but was also tried for murder; and the sheltered Evaleen Stein, who achieved local fame as a poet and author of children's books.
Robert C. Kriebel was employed 40 years in a variety of writing, editing, and executive positions at the Lafayette, Indiana Journal and Courier. In retirement, he continued to contribute a Sunday column on local history, a column that ran from 1977 to 2011. Kriebel is the author of five books on Indiana biography, and one about the life and the work of American jazz bandleader, Woody Herman. From 1989 to 1991 he was an Advisory Board member and book reviewer for the Indiana Magazine of History. In 1889, Kriebel received a Certificate of Commendation from the American Association for State and Local History for his role in preserving the history of Indiana.
"Poets, Painters, Paupers, Fools is a delight. Robert C. Kriebel's lively prose carries the reader through the joys and disappointments of an unusually talented and fascinating Hoosier family. From Lafayette, Indiana to Leadville, Colorado, and from politics and journalism to poetry and murder, the Stein family comes alive in a book that will win many happy readers." --James H. Madison, Indiana University-Bloomington "From John Stein's ambitious beginnings in Lafayette . . . to Evaleen Stein's quiet but influential life as a poet and children's author, Robert Kriebel's latest slice of Indiana history is a delightful account of one family's influence upon a small Hoosier port town. Readers will enjoy the web of anecdotes that comprise several Stein generations and the colorful glimpse that work gives into the Indiana of yesterday." --Richard G. Lugar "Some readers will conclude that Kriebel is at his best tracking and presenting details of Orth's life in the west and south as journalist and criminal; others will give the nod to his treatment of angelic Evaleen, her poetry that 'all but pierced the veil, ' her platform poise, and her illustrated children's books. The story closes with four smooth gravestones in a Lafayette cemetery, but not before Kriebel proves, once more, that truth, when captured, can be stranger than fiction. --Peter T. Harstad
