Henry's Daughter: My Journeys Through the 20th Century - Tapa blanda

Nearly all cultures except ours, it seems, value the knowledge and wisdom of their elders. They recognize that the information gleaned through life experiences, when blended with an awareness and understanding of what preceded them, enhances all of existence. With Henry’s Daughter, readers are given an extraordinary opportunity to learn of the day-to-day, headline-to-headline world that laid the groundwork for the 21st century in which we live. Author Mildred Norman is not a professor of history nor is she an internationally recognized celebrity. All the better, for her autobiographical insights are those to which everyone can immediately and intimately relate.

The Great Depression, World War II, the Marshall Plan, the Berlin Airlift, and the desegregation of our country’s schools — these are not mere phrases in a history book, but rather the events which shaped the lives of Americans in the twentieth century and beyond. Mildred Norman lived through them all. With sharp wit and with philosophical insight, she brings them alive in her autobiography, Henry’s Daughter: My Journeys Through the 20th Century. “I was born and raised in Parkersburg, Iowa,” she writes, “a small town of 1,200 souls if we were all at home.” It was there that her family values were forged under the strict guidance of her father Henry who’d come to this country from Holland with little more than his Bible and an unyielding desire to work hard for all that was important. Mildred recalls, “I didn’t think so at the time, but it really was quite a sight to watch Dad push the fork in deep along a hill of potatoes, and then turn it over exposing seven or eight potatoes. We would crouch down on our hands and knees, pick up the potatoes, shake off the soft black dirt and put them in a small pile. Then we would follow Dad and crawl down to the next potato hill.” Despite his lack of formal training, she says, he most likely was the most educated person in town. Mildred’s parents raised seven children in the Depression and the lessons they learned were not forgotten.Despite the financial difficulties, she got a college education and dedicated her life to helping others. She taught elementary school, served on two school boards, worked in an Army hospital during World War II, took a job in post-War Europe that enabled her to become involved in the renewal of the German economy, founded a non-profit corporation to help young people, and has labored tirelessly on behalf of peace and equal rights for all.She witnessed and recounts in Henry’s Daughter the social upheaval of American prosperity, the devastation in Europe following World War II, and the struggles that led to integration here at home. Hers is a life is woven integrally into the rich tapestry of America. Today, Mildred lives in Paradise Valley, Arizona, where she is supposedly retired. She still dabbles in politics with son Jon, remains active in the Presbyterian Church, loves visiting her grand-children, remains addicted to watching sports with her sons-in-law, and still out-shops both of her daughters.