The Pullman Porter

Children and adults under the age of 40 are forgetting about the Pullman Porter. They were very important figures in the history of American. This book will teach children and adults, who the porters were and why they were so important in our history. Porters worked in early train cars, they would look, listen and learn from their predominantly white passengers. They would read the newspapers passengers left behind, listen to conversations and begin to talk to one another. The porter learned how important education was for children and how important it was to take this message home to his children. He eventually landed at the forefront of the civil rights movement.

Vanita Oelschlager is a wife, mother, grandmother, philanthropist, former teacher, current caregiver, author and poet. She is a graduate of Mt. Union College in Alliance, Ohio, where she currently serves as a Trustee. Vanita is also Writer in Residence for the Literacy Program at The University of Akron. She and her husband Jim received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society in 2006. She won the Congressional ‘Angels in Adoption’ Award for the state of Ohio in 2007 and was named National Volunteer of the Year by the MS society in 2008. She was honored as 2009 Woman Philanthropist of the Year by the Summit County United Way. In May 2011, Vanita received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from University of Mount Union.
Prior to her publishing and writing career, Vanita taught school for 19 years and then helped her husband with his company, Oak Associates. Mother of two daughters, stepmother to a son and daughter, she is grandmother to seven.