From Kevin S. Giles: What I said about my original Jeannette Rankin biography

Photo shows author Kevin S. Giles

This is how I looked at the time I published the first edition of my Jeannette Rankin, entitled “Flight of the Dove.” The second edition is renamed “One Woman Against War: the Jeannette Rankin Story.”

These are my actual quotes that I pulled from newspaper and broadcast interviews after I published the original Flight of the Dove. I would say much the same thing today about my new edition, which I retitled, One Woman Against War, but add this: “Pacifists like Jeannette Rankin perpetually live in the shadow of war, devoting their entire lives to shining sunlight on the prospect of peace.”

¶ “Why was she so terribly lonely?”

¶ “My parents have been great, too, always being interested in the book and telling everybody about it. They thought maybe I was a little too radical in college, but never once have they criticized me for writing about a woman who was considered radical in her time.”

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How it all began: A suffragist, an inspiration and a biography about Jeannette Rankin

Photo shows Montana suffragist

Suffragist Belle Fligelman Winestine was the inspiration for Flight of the Dove, the Jeannette Rankin biography written by Kevin S. Giles. He published a new and expanded edition in October 2016, entitled One Woman Against War. This photo was taken at a book signing ceremony at the Montana Historical Society. Photo by Gene Fischer

(Today we’re going back to tell about my original biography of Jeannette Rankin, Flight of the Dove. This story, which appeared in the Missoulian many years ago, explains how I got started researching Rankin’s life and writing the first book. The roots of my new and expanded edition, One Woman Against War, can be traced to when I met Belle Fligelman Winestine, an early Montana suffragist. – Kevin S. Giles)

By Deirdre McNamer.

Life is sometimes like that. Two events come together in an uncanny way and you suddenly find yourself on a whole new tack.

For Helena newsman Kevin Giles, the coincidence took place one day in October 1976. Giles, who was editor of the Independent Record’s lifestyle section, had just interviewed Belle Fligelman Winestine, a tiny, fiery octogenarian who had been a leader in the women’s suffrage movement of the early 1900s.

Winestine had also served as administrative secretary to Montana Congresswoman Jeannette Rankin in 1917, and she convinced Giles that the really INTERESTING story would be an account of Rankin’s life and work.

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