Montgomery Ward's Mail-Order Homes; A History and Field Guide to Wardway Homes
Rose Thornton is the author of five books, includingThe Houses That Sears Built, Finding the Houses That Sears BuiltandCalifornia s Kit Homes.Rose has traveled to 24 states to give 200 lectures on Sears Homes, from Bungalow Heaven in Los Angeles to The Smithsonian in Washington, DC. She has addressed a wide variety of audiences from architectural preservationists in Boston, St. Louis and Chicago to kit home enthusiasts in small towns across America. She s appeared on PBS (History Detectives), A&E; (Biography), CBS (Sunday Morning News), MSNBC, and in 2004, her book was featured in its own category on Jeopardy.Her work has been featured in theWall Street Journal, New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, Washington Post, L. A. Times, Dallas Morning News, Old House Journal, American Bungalow, Blue Ridge Countryand about 100 other publications. Twice in the last five years, the story of her unique career was picked up by the AP and in May 2009, she was interviewed for BBC Radio.Dale Wolicki is a volunteer with the Bay County Historical Society (Bay City, Michigan), promoting the preservation of regional pre-cut housing companies such as Aladdin, Lewis-Liberty, and Sterling. He is also an authority on the mail-order homes of Gordon-Van Tine and other smaller housing manufacturers.Wolicki has contributed to numerous books, newspapers and magazine articles and he is the author ofThe Historic Architecture of Bay City, Michigan, and co-author ofThe Sears Book of Barns, a Reprint of the 1919 CatalogandCalifornia s Kit Homes. His collection of mail-order housing catalogs is a favorite reference source for researchers, scholars and reporters.Although he designs the occasional house, Wolicki spends much of his time site planning, project managing and obtaining zoning approvals for client projects, and restoring his 1928 bungalow in Oxford, Michigan. He has a Masters in Architecture from Lawrence Technological University in Southfield, Michigan.