Preface

This book was written in order to keep a small era of the past alive. With each generation our yesteryears fade further into the mists of forgotten time. As Alex Haley said, "When an old person dies it is like the burning of a small library."

All the events recorded in this history happened and are written as nearly as possible in exact content. There may be some cases where the words used in conversation are those of the author, but they are included only to convey the feeling of an event as it thappened.

No matter how close we are to another person, writing about them always presents a problem.

W. Somerset Maughan made the following observation in his book The Razor's Edge: "It is very difficult to know people. For men and women are not only themselves, they are also the region in which they were born, the city, apartment, or farm in which they learned to walk, the games they played as children, the old wives tales they overheard, the food they ate, the schools they attended, the sports they followed, the poets they read, and the God they believed in. You can know them only if you are them."

In as much as possible this work was written to give coming generations a knowledge of the past in order that they might have a greater understanding and appreciation of the heritage to which they were endowed.

Lillian Froerer