Such a Life
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This light-hearted, non-self-conscious, brief autobiography takes us to a time between the Great Wars. To rubber plantations in the jungles of Sumatra and the Philippines. To crossing the Pacific Ocean in month-long voyages and then by a Clipper Flying Boat sea-plane when trans-Pacific Ocean passenger flights began. It also takes us to survival by dint of ingenuity and hard work under appalling conditions in Japanese prison camps in the Philippines. It tells of a cramped sea voyage in the hold of a Japanese Maru (freighter) when prisoners were packed in like sardines. It speaks of rescue from starvation in one of the great battles of the Second World War. Meeting life head-on, and well-read but with only a high school education she educated her children, then had to leave them in the US while she returned with her husband, the plantation’s manager, to the remoteness of the village in the Philippines for another four year tour. It paints a picture of a remarkably strong and loving woman, who simultaneously schooled her three children, managed a large household staff, and maintained a strong marriage while entertaining people from all over the world.
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About the Book
this is the story, in her own words, of an adventurous young woman. Coming from divorced grandparents and parents, she struck out from Akron, Ohio, after high school, modeling shoes in St. Louis and performing in a show on a boat on the Ohio River. She found love at twenty-one and, just after turning twenty-two, married in time to leave Ohio to venture with her husband, raised on an Ohio farm, into the jungles of Sumatra. She went around the world, raised a family in the Philippines, and succeeded against great odds in keeping her family alive in Japanese prison camps during World War II. A strong woman, she demonstrated management capability and great social skills with people at all levels. With only a high school education, she homeschooled her three children, each of whom earned two degrees from well-known universities. Near the end, she used her excellent storytelling skills to dictate her entertaining, humorous, and unselfconscious story to a young neighbor girl. Her son has added family and newspaper photos and provided a setting for her story. The book takes us back to the time of weeks-long ocean voyages on large ships across the Pacific Ocean, face-to-face socializing before social media, and when a college degree was not considered a necessity for success-a time that enchants and instructs.
About the Author
Any autobiography of a son’s mother includes much of his. He grew up on a remote Filipino rubber plantation, eighty miles from the nearest city and accessible only by water. Surrounded by servants in a huge house, he and his siblings each had their own amah (nanny) until he was six. Before he was eight, he had crossed the Pacific Ocean three times on luxury liners in month-long voyages. Then came thirty-one months of imprisonment. He was proud of his contribution to the family’s efforts during their time in Japanese prison camps when he was a young boy. After their family was saved from death by starvation in the largest rescue of allied civilians in World War II, he went back to the Philippines for an idyllic few years before returning to America for high school. Following an education in electrical engineering at MIT, he found love and helped raise a family that includes two sons, their lovely wives, and five grandsons. He and his wife have had fifty wonderful years together so far. He has traveled over much of the world on business, taking his family for months to Greece and weeks in Great Britain and elsewhere in Europe. He devoted his career to repaying America for the family’s rescue. His inventions, equipment designs, and work supported the Cold War, the war on drugs, and the war on terror. He continues to be active in his church and a number of organizations and spends his free time with his passions for history, archeology, and books.