"The outhouse in back, guarded by a turkey gobbler who loved to peck at my heels, was infested with bed bugs, who tried to hitch a ride on my clothing and shoes and go home with me."
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Four Score and More:
My Memoir, History and Family Legacy by LaVera Edick Trafford Publishing
book review by Karyn Saemann
Flanked by the colorful stories of several generations before and after her, Edick shares her life journey through the often turbulent, historically and personally, 20th Century. We follow her from Nebraska farm girl to divorced working mother to Arizona snowbird and great-grandmother of twenty. Drawing from her journals, genealogical research, and memory, Edick traverses from the sod house her mother lived in as a baby in 1897, to her Depression-era childhood, financial struggles and wartime rationing, her multiple marriages, five children, a longtime career selling Stanley Home Products, her marriage to a wealthy insurance executive, and, late in life, her return to school to study art.
The book's heart is not its genealogy. The many birth, death and marriage dates are of interest primarily to the author's family, and the frequently noted dates in history, such as the 1937 opening of the San Francisco Bridge and the 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor, are for the most part already known to readers, although they do often tie into Edick's personal stories. Rather, its gems are the family lore. With wit and poignancy and with a talent for writing, Edick tells of roasting potatoes on her rural school's coal furnace; Sunday dinners with extended family; travelling on Route 66 to California, in her parents' short-lived effort to escape the 1930s Nebraska Dust Bowl; the ingenuity required to make ends meet as a teenage wife and mother; pride in her career accomplishments and the accomplishments of her children; and treasured relationships nurtured over generations with friends and family. These are universal stories in which readers will see their own family history. A genuine, heartfelt memoir.