It was a warm day in 1941 or 1942, and Wes Jackson, who was 5 or 6, climbed into the family's Lafayette sedan with assorted cousins. They drove from their farm near Topeka over to Abilene, Kans., for a family reunion at his great- aunt Ida Eisenhower's white frame house on Fourth Street, south of the tracks. Her son Dwight was either in Washington or Europe, even then on the edge of his great fame.
Wes dutifully greeted the elders present, wandered over the few acres and through the barn out back, then lounged under an old hackberry tree. At noon...
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