Kathleen Brady, noted biographer of Lucille Ball and Ida Tarbell was featured as part of the Turner Winter Series at the Robert H. Jackson Center last week.

Kathleen Brady, an author and biographer, discussed her work on Lucille Ball and Ida Tarbell as part of the Turner Winter Series at the Robert H. Jackson Center.

Brady credits St. Bonaventure University for her skills in journalism. She is a former reporter for Time magazine and has contributed various works to Newsday and other publications.

“It was the basics — the who, what, where, why, how — and to stick at it,” she said. “I also think, strangely enough, that the training that I got there about being … a polite human being also helped me because I think it helped me get interviews, and get through interviews, and have people say yes.”

Brady said she is very proud of St. Bonaventure and also appreciates the work of Jamestown Community College, where she also recently spoke.

She said each book she writes is different. The last book she wrote, “Francis and Clare: The Struggles of the Saints of Assisi,” was particularly difficult as no one was alive to be a source. Instead, she worked with texts written soon after the lives of those she writes about.

“I gave a special weight to little human stories — things that didn’t necessarily speak of sanctity, but spoke about normality, like Clare when she was sick and in the dormitory by herself while others did the work of the community,” she said. “She was talking to her cat, and I thought, ‘Isn’t that wonderful?’ And don’t we all talk to our pets?”

Brady said she felt a special connection with Tarbell when she worked on her book, “Ida Tarbell: Portrait of a Muckraker.” Tarbell was a journalist noted for writing the history of the Standard Oil Company, and locally, was connected to Chautauqua Institution as an editor for the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle. Her writing about the Standard Oil Company led to the breakup of the company.

“I felt an inspiration from Ida, and it meant a great deal to me as a girl — I’m talking fourth grade — when I saw a woman’s name in our history book,” she said. “It really meant a lot to me because I wanted to be a journalist, and here was a writer and a woman who made her way into our history book.”

Brady said she carried that importance over the years until a friend suggested she write a biography on Tarbell. She said having such a role model in history made an impact on her life.

“I am living proof of the importance of the diversity of voices in our American history,” she said. “A diversity of people, everybody, all people of all kinds have contributed to the greatness of America. I am so glad that we are learning to include everybody; it wasn’t just the great white men who, like all of us, had characteristics we aren’t always proud of.”

Brady said Tarbell was also a biographer, especially of President Abraham Lincoln. She said there have been hundreds of biographies of Lincoln since Tarbell’s book; however, “the Lincoln that she discovered is the Lincoln that we know.”

Brady also wrote a biography on Ball, titled “Lucille, The Life of Lucille Ball.” She has been to Jamestown many times, and has had the opportunity to meet school friends of Ball.

“They were friends of Lucille Ball until the day she died,” she said. “She was a very loyal woman — anyone who ever helped her, she never forgot. She had a hard time here. It was tough, and those were tough times. The depression and what have you.”

Brady said she “feels the vibes” of both Ball and Tarbell when she visits Chautauqua County.