POUND RIDGE, N.Y., May 19, 2008 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- Peek into the memoirs of ordinary people who lived during extraordinary times in Pappa's Papers, a new book by Dutch author Josina M. van der Maas. In this work, a poignant true story vividly unfolds through the eyes of a child, and through the writings left behind by her father. Join the author as she walks down memory lane, relives happier times, and rediscovers the rich heritage she left behind.
Pappa's Papers is a story about ordinary people who led ordinary lives and who wrote ordinary letters. Yet they lived in extraordinary and tumultuous times. During their lifetime, they lived through World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II. Throughout all this, they had to support and protect their growing families, as well as care for their parents. Most of them survived the war. They managed to hold their lives together during the difficult postwar recovery period, which lasted much longer than the war itself.
The author began writing her memoirs, first, as a legacy to her children and as a way for them to know their Dutch origins. However, when she began writing, it became an outlet for her to realize how much the past had affected her. She describes her family life in the Netherlands during the first half of the twentieth century, where her earliest childhood memories were idyllic. Then came the European mobilization, the Second World War, the dangers and deprivations, and the difficult post-war economic recovery period. Faced with limited options for her future, the author left her family and country for the United States in 1953, when she was barely eighteen. Her story ends there, not because there isn't more to tell, but because it would be a different kind of story, set in a different part of the world.
About the Author
Josina van der Maas was born in the Netherlands in 1935, moved to the United States in 1953 to study, and had a long career in scientific research and computer software. After getting a PhD in the physical sciences and doing postgraduate studies, she worked for, among others, Bell Telephone Laboratories and the IBM Corporation. Now retired, she lives with three lazy cats in an old house in a small town not far from New York City. She spends her time enjoying her large family, including her three children and their spouses, her five lively granddaughters, and her many friends.
Pappa's Papers * by Josina M. van der Maas
Publication Date: October 18, 2007
Trade Paperback; $18.69; 216 pages; 978-1-4257-3378-0
Cloth Hardback; $28.79; 216 pages; 978-1-4257-3379-7
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