SOURCE: Myers, Sally A. Review of Loris Troyer's Portage Pathways and Santmyer's Ohio Town. Northwest Ohio Quarterly (summer/autumn 1998): 167-70.

In the following review of a reissue of Ohio Town, Myers says that this book of essays is superior to Santmyer's more famous “… And Ladies of the Club.”

Loris C. Troyer's Portage Pathways and Helen Hooven Santmyer's Ohio Town reflect two very different approaches to local history, from counties at opposite ends of the state. Troyer, an editor emeritus of the Ravenna-Kent Record-Courier, chronicles important people and events in a portion of the old Western Reserve. Troyer's book is a compilation of columns on Portage County history written after his retirement in 1982. Santmyer, a former professor of English, librarian, and dean of women who published several books in her lifetime, writes a more impressionistic work, portraying the life of the Greene County town of Xenia by focusing on...