Brief Author Bio:

I am the first child of a WWII veteran, and a young widow from Detroit, who gathered her two fatherless children, a girl and a boy, and leaving behind a big German family, boarded a train to start a new life on the North Dakota prairie.

I think my mother was beautiful and smart.. My older brother was always proud when his friends gawked at her. Straight out of high school she was hired to run a lawyer's office in Detroit. She and her closest friend would take the bus downtown to watch the big bands. She was a bit out of place in rural North Dakota.

The man my mother married was shaped by years of hardships. When he was six his mother, after a long period of quarantine and frightening medical procedures, died from tuberculosis of the bone. His father tried to farm his in-law's land but failed. My father watched as their possessions were auctioned for almost nothing. They moved back to Pennsylvania where the boys lived with grandparents while his father went to work in another town. When he was sixteen my father left home for good.

As different as my parents were, they found enough common ground to make a successful home. After the war my father worked for the railroad and lived in a trailer saving his money. When my mother moved to Devils Lake my father built her a three-bedroom ranch house for their blended family. It was a few miles out of town on route 20, ten miles from Fort Totten Indian Reservation.

When the railroad closed the roundhouse in Devils Lake we moved to Grand Forks. My parents bought a large house on University avenue which I liked very much, but in some ways I was floundering. During the summer between ninth and tenth grade I was invited to a Christian outing, a weekend bike and camping trip. Something there was different, the people more accepting and they got me looking for something more. The faith I found as a result of that search has been the best thing that has ever happened to me and the most solid foundation I have had in life.

When I was sixteen I met a man at a Christian Coffeehouse - three years my elder. Two weeks shy of my 20th birthday I married him and we moved to his home town in Ohio. We attended Ohio State University together. By the time we graduated there was trouble in the air. Let's skip the part of the story where I am dissatisfied - and demanding too much.

I now live in North Carolina, single again. My life is not filled with spouse and children as I imagined it would be, but I am consoled by the fact that I have been there for my parents. When my mother was fighting cancer I took care of her and she was able to die at home. Now my father who is in good health at 90 has the benefit of my companionship and good cooking. Not everything I wanted, but such is life.