> SS American Farmer On September 24, 1937, my grandmother, mother, and aunt traveled to Europe aboard the SS American Farmer. My grandmother, Elsie, kept a detailed account in her diary. In this excerpt, Pol, fifteen years old, is my aunt and Bar, seventeen years old, will be my mother ten years later. “Third day …
Chickenhouse Chronicles: WWII Letter about my Grandfather’s Ship sinking
I discovered this terribly water-stained letter in a packet I am currently reading. The tone of the letter seems fatalistic. Frederick Pierce, the author, has a son on a coastal patrol craft in the Mediterranean—perhaps one of WWII’s famed PT Boats. Fred Pierce is my great uncle, an elusive link to our past. The Pierce family …
Chickenhouse Chronicles—World War II Memories
Tomorrow I’m invited to speak to residents at a local nursing home. As I reflected on how to present a Vietnam War memoir to a group of World War II era citizens, I decided that I should focus on a formative event from their past. I will mention Muddy Jungle Rivers but then I will read a …