Elmer Kauk

Man of Many Hats (eBook, ePUB)

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

Everyone living in today's world seems to be carrying a cell phone or other high technology tool as their daily lives unfold. Only the senior citizen groups are still trying to understand all the nuances and are often seen in quiet conversation. The world was not always like this. The story that follows tells what life was like in the late 1800s for the author's grandparents; born in Russia during the reign of Catherine the Great, immigrating to America, and starting a new life as poor dirt farmers in Oklahoma. This early destination was also where his parents, the newly married offspring of those immigrants, started their family, birthing and raising eight children.
The lives of these struggling pioneers were sustained by living off the land; growing food in their gardens, raising cattle, hogs, chickens and growing crops of cotton and wheat for compensation. After a 16 year struggle, Oklahoma became a dust bowl and the family (eight kids jammed inside a 1926 Dodge sedan, replete with luggage tied on the back) headed to far off Montana to begin a new life. There were no super highways, no phones, and no motels for overnight relaxation on this two week trip; it was standard fare in the early 1900's.
The trip ended at a small frontier town called Brady, a location nestled in prairie country with the Rocky Mountains as background inhabited by 500 hardy souls. The year was 1926 and this enterprising family joined other German emigrants and settled down on a rented farm. Three years later this writer was born in the farmhouse, the ninth and last member of the family, with only his mother in attendance, and he begins his journey through life. The living was harsh by today's standards; no indoor plumbing nor treated water, no electricity, no telephones, no insulated homes, no medical facilities nearby, no grocery stores stocked with fresh produce. Fortunately, as residents of that era, they virtually didn't know any better and the living conditions were accepted and endured, although with a strong desire to succeed.
The journey of the author -- a life filled with happiness, many hardships and several brushes with death -- is followed from birth in 1929 to octogenarian age in this engaging story; a story left for his grandchildren to let them know how the world evolved from little to no technology and minimal comforts of life to today's ever-expanding world of devices and gadgets designed to entertain, feed, educate and clothe them. The world is there for them to challenge without being challenged by the world, a world left for them by those enterprising pioneers and those who preceded them.

---

Dieser Download kann aus rechtlichen Gründen nur mit Rechnungsadresse in A, B, CY, CZ, D, DK, EW, E, FIN, F, GR, H, IRL, I, LT, L, LR, M, NL, PL, P, R, S, SLO, SK ausgeliefert werden.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Elmer Kauk
• Erscheinungstermin: 22. September 2015
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781310718090
• Artikelnr.: 69964977

Autorenporträt

Elmer Kauk was born in 1929 in the family farmhouse during a snowstorm in Brady, Montana with only his Mother Anna in attendance. Anna and Leon, his Father, accompanied by Elmer's eight other siblings, had made the trek from Oklahoma to Montana just three years earlier, all packed into a 1926 Dodge sedan. An arduous trip indeed. The family settled down on a rented farm in this strange and sparsely populated place called Brady, Montana. Elmer was the last, and only Montanan born of his siblings and spent the next 18 years living the life of a farm boy to a farm hand through high school. The year was 1947 and he left the confines of home to enroll at Montana State College where he studied architecture. At the tender age of 20 he married his high school sweetheart, Frances. The college life had developed new goals in his life. He found a new interest in carpentry and building. At age 25 and now the father of 3 children, he moved his young family to California where construction work was plentiful so he could better provide for his family. He was widowed in 1966.

He and his second wife, Susan, were married in 1967 and added two more children to the family. For the next 30 or so years they raised their family of five and worked together on various building and real estate projects. It wasn't all smooth sailing. They retired to Rocklin, California, where they used their skills to create a beautiful backyard haven which includes a studio where Elmer pursues his passion for wood carving. He still pursues that passion. He took up writing to tell the story of his journey through life - from his German grandparents' migration from Russia to today's high technology world; from yesterday's carefree life to today's challenging world -- so his 5 children, 11 grandchildren and 4 great grandchildren (and counting) can compare those far apart worlds.