The townspeople rallied around him, pooling their nickels and dimes for his treatment. Russell was a speck on the flat Kansas prairie, but in the Dole biography it took on mythic significance. In his political campaigns, Russell was cast as the shaper of noble, small-town virtues and Mr. Dole as their personification. After the war, during his recuperation, he met Phyllis Holden, an occupational therapist, and married her three months later, in 1948. With Ms. Holden’s help, he earned a dual bachelor’s and law degree in 1952 at Washburn Municipal University (now Washburn University) in Topeka, Kan.
