WRITING FOR POSTERITY

"Amity Hills Farm" is one of the books written by Nona Chapman.

Nona Chapman writes books but has no aspirations of becoming a well-known author. Her books are intended only for members of her family, especially for grandchildren bound to love them more the older they get.

Chapman is the author, photographer, editor, publisher and binder of a series of books that chronicle events in her family's life.

The first book was created after her 3-year-old granddaughter Mimi's summertime visit from Kansas City. As grandparents do, Chapman took many pictures of their adventures.

"The photos became so important, but what do you do with them?" Chapman said. "Sometimes you forget what the story is."

Thus she created "Mimi Fisher's Visit to Cape Girardeau," telling the story behind the pictures.

Another book is titled "Emily Anne Albertina: Your First Six Months." The Chapmans have four grandchildren, so there's plenty of material for new books.

"Grandpa's Tree House" was written at her grandchildren's request. The deck at the Ste. Genevieve County cabin they go to sometimes is built around a tree. There her husband, artist and retired allergist Dr. Jean Chapman, has carved the ends of the cabin's logs to look like gargoyles. The book includes pictures taken at the Dew Drop Inn in Bloomsdale, which is where the family goes to eat out when they stay at the cabin.

Another book is "Mikey the Museum Cat" for the Arts Council, a tale about the cat that used to hang out in the galleries.

She wrote "Amity Hill Farm" about Dr. Edwin Smith's menagerie of exotic animals outside Cape Girardeau. She's working on a book about Smith's donkey, Buford.

"Allegra the Allergic Bee" is a collaboration with her husband. He contributed drawings.

There are seven books in all. All the stories rhyme.

"I like rhyming," Chapman says. "This is my music background. I always had a horrible time remembering words."

Chapman is better known for her singing -- she will perform April 27 in a benefit for the Arts Council of Southeast Missouri -- and her work in the medical field, especially as a medical technician working with her husband. As president of the Missouri State Medical Association Alliance, a Medical Society support group, she wrote the newsletter herself, so she has experience in desktop publishing.

All the equipment she uses to make her books is available at office supply stores. A desktop publishing program and a binding machine are the major expenses. "It's not hard at all," Chapman says.

A camera, a computer with desktop publishing software, a Zip drive, a color printer, laminating equipment and a comb binding system are the essentials.

She enjoys the freedom being able to make your own books without needing a publisher affords her.

"You don't have anybody telling you what to do," she says. "I'm not trying to please anyone except the person I'm doing the book for."

Each book is on a disk, so she can go back and add more later if she wants.

She says her books are "another way of putting things in some sort of order. It makes a statement, this existed. Someone was here."

An anthropologist discovering Chapman's books centuries from now probably would learn more about people at the beginning of the 21st century than from books found in a library. But Chapman is writing only for a limited posterity -- her family's.

"I hope I bring them joy," she says. "I don't do it for any other reason."