Kansas Profile – Now That’s Rural: Barb Rathbun, Cookbook House
At a glance: When Barb Rathbun had the opportunity to purchase a nearby house, it became a place where she could display her cookbook collection and open it to visitors. Today, her collection includes more than 9,000 cookbooks and has attracted visitors from at least 13 states.
More information: Ron Wilson, rwilson@ksu.edu, 785-532-7690
Photos: Ron Wilson | Barb Rathburn
Website: Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development
July 31, 2024
By Ron Wilson, director of the Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development at Kansas State University
What’s cookin’? Let’s open a cookbook and find a recipe.
What if we had a bunch of cookbooks in which to look? What if we could look at thousands of cookbooks? Today we’ll meet a rural Kansas woman who has collected many cookbooks and other collectibles and is sharing them as an attraction for her community.
Barb Rathbun is founder of The Cookbook House in Barnard. She grew up in Tescott and lives at Barnard with her husband of 44 years, retiree Randy Rathbun.
At left: Barb Rathburn | Download this photo
Barb learned to cook by helping her grandmother in the kitchen. As a young wife, she really enjoyed looking at cookbooks. “(Cookbooks) were fascinating to me,” Rathbun said. She began to collect them.
Rathbun worked for Century Manufacturing. “I started at the top and worked my way down,” Rathbun said with a smile. She means that literally. She was first hired by Century Manufacturing to clean a building the company had purchased in Lincoln. The cleaning crew started on the top floor and worked their way down from there.
Rathbun did so well that she joined the company permanently. After 9/11, the company consolidated operations and closed the facility in Lincoln.
In 1982, Rathbun took on the role of city clerk. She has served in that capacity ever since.
Meanwhile, her cookbook collection continued to grow. Occasionally she would help a local auctioneer with auctions and find whole boxes of books selling for bargain prices. She started gathering them. “I had them in tubs in a garage and tubs in a shed,” Rathbun said.
“One day Randy’s aunt told me she was moving to Texas to be close to her son and she asked me if I would help her sell her two houses. I said, ‘Sure, I can make some posters and signs for you, just let me know what you’re asking for the houses.’”
“When she told me, I said, `Oh my gosh, you don’t need to go to all that trouble, I will buy them myself.’”
Rathbun did so. She used the aunt’s former residence as a “spillover house” when family came to visit.
“The second house was a cute little cottage, and the minute I saw it I knew exactly what I would do with it,” Rathbun said. “It was going to be my she-shed,” -- and a place where she could store her cookbook collection.
Rathbun and her grandson gutted the house, painted it, and built shelves. “When it was all done, I invited my gal pals to come over and see it. They talked me into opening it up for others to see,” Rathbun said.
That was the beginning of The Cookbook House. More than 9,000 cookbooks are now on display in the building.
Modern series of cookbooks are grouped together, such as Betty Crocker and Better Homes & Gardens. There are church cookbooks, club cookbooks, vintage cookbooks, and much more. One dates back to 1894. She has cookbooks from 85 Kansas counties
“I’m so grateful for the generous people - even strangers - who have donated books for my collection,” Rathbun said.
Rathbun also started collecting coffee cups. One year while representing Century Manufacturing at a trade show in Chicago, her booth was next to a coffee cup company.
“We traded products and I came home with 50 coffee cups,” Rathbun said. The collection grew from there. Those are now displayed on peg boards in the house.
A Diet Coke drinker, Rathbun has a collection of Coca-Cola items as well. “Once a collector, always a collector,” she said.
The Cookbook House has attracted visitors from 13 states. It’s remarkable to find in a rural community such as Barnard, population 64 people. Now, that’s rural.
The Cookbook House is open by appointment. For more information, search for The Cookbook House on Facebook, or call 785-792-6256.
What’s cookin’? Maybe lots of things, if we used the cookbooks that Barb Rathbun has collected. We commend Rathbun for making a difference by sharing her collection with others for the benefit of her community.
For rural Kansas, that is a recipe for success.
Audio and text files of Kansas Profiles are available at http://www.kansasprofile.com. For more information about the Huck Boyd Institute, interested persons can visit http://www.huckboydinstitute.org.
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