Anna's Story: A Romance: A Saga of the Polish in America: 1919-1939 - Tapa blanda

This is Anna's Story. It begins is a small town in Eastern Massachusetts in the mid '30s and then there is a flashback to Anna in her small village in Poland circa 1919 after the war. Her meeting with the aristocrat Jan leads to a heady love affair and a deep despondency when Jan leaves for university studies. An omniscient Babka, the grandmother, fearing only the worst because of the sharp class differences between the two young people, plots to save her beloved granddaughter from impending heartbreak. A wedding to Anna to Stash, the silent one, is quickly arranged by Babka. The two, Anna and Stash, are immediately shipped to the United States to live with the Aunt, Ciotka Janina.The book continues with Anna's experience, first in Hadleigh at the aunts' farm, and then the move to Boughtonville, the mill town where we first see Anna.The book depicts the hard work in the fields and in the mills. It depicts the fight for the dream of a better life for the children born in a new place, and the repetition of history. Anna's son is extraordinarily handsome and young women are attracted to him as is one of the Boughtons, of the Boughton mill dynasty. The class struggle is repeated in America as it was in Poland where Anna's first love was Jan, a Count. Beauty is a problem for Anna and her son. Jan returns to the story: There is a reunion. Life changes drastically for Anthony and for Anna there is a new crisis to face. The story ends on the eve of the outbreak of World War II in 1939.

Esther Budgar follows the snow geese to Florida each November. There she watches spectacular sunsets and enjoys an anonymity. In the spring, she becomes a 'Townie' in Northhampton, Massachusetts where most of the residents know her by name, for once they sat in her English classes.She has 'scribbled' all her life, beginning at eleven as a regular contributor to the children's page of the Worcester evening post. Her children's plays appear in One Hundred Best Plays for Children, edited by Burack and Fifty Plays for Juniors by Sylvia Kammerman.For many years, she was a regular contributor to the daily Hampshire Gazette and Hampshire Life. Anna's Story represents the longest period of concentration, and is based on early childhood memories of row houses and factory whistles.