by Bridget Connelly (2003)
"In 1880, at the height of Ireland's second famine, a ship of paupers was sent from Galway to take up land granted them by a Catholic bishop in Minnesota. There they encountered the worst winter in the state's history and nearly froze to death in unshingled shanties on the prairie. National and international newspapers featured their plight as the welfare scandal of the year, and priests and politicians traded accusations as to who was responsible. The immigrants were at last removed from the colony; their name became the town's shorthand for lying, drunken failures.". "By chance more than a century later, Bridget Connelly, who grew up in Graceville, discovers her Connemara past. As Connelly uncovers the deliberately suppressed history of her grandmother's emigration, she exposes an old scandal that surrounded the settling of the land around Graceville, one that pitted Masons, Protestants, Germans, and Yankees against Irish Catholics - and one that set lace-curtain Irish against the Connemara paupers. She also learns of an archbishop who was, according to farmer lore, "worse than Jesse James."" "In this compelling combination of history and memoir, Connelly tells stories of an epochal blizzard, a famous Irish bard, an infamous Irish woman pirate, feuding frontier communities, and an archbishop's questionable legacy. She also learns why her family tried so hard to forget Ireland."--BOOK JACKET.
Dale Eunson
True story about the author's father. At the tender age of 12 and newly orphaned, Robbie Eunson sets about to finds good homes for his younger brothers and sisters. Amazing story made into a film starring Cameron Mitchell and Glynis Johns. The film is titled "All Mine To Give".
Donald F. Hones, Cher Shou Cha
Educating New Americans examines what it means to be an American through the history of a refugee from Laos. Shou Cha is a community liaison for an elementary school, an evangelical preacher, a community leader, a husband, and a father. His lifetime of learning, presented mostly in his own voice, is framed by various historical and sociological contexts that have shaped his life, the lives of other Hmong refugees, and the lives of other Americans, old and new. These contexts include the history of immigrant education policies in the United States, as seen through the lives of immigrant children; the historical and sociological impact of warfare as well as missionary work on the lives of the Hmong people; and the sociology of generational conflict, especially as it is felt among immigrant groups. Finally, this book suggests that immigrant parents such as Shou Cha can contribute to the process of teaching peace to children, and making peace among diverse groups in America, the land of e pluribus unum.
Catherine Marshall
This is the luminous personal story of a great man of God, written by his wife -- a moving record of an inspired ministry and a warm, truly happy marriage. - Jacket. Reliving and recording parts of the life that Peter and I shared has been a joyous task. The presence of Christ has shed glory on even the hard-to-bear parts of it. I hope that you will enjoy it, and that by the time you have come to the last page, you will know that if God can do so much for a man called Peter, He can do as much for you. - Preface.
Naama Sabar
"Under what circumstance would kibbutz-born young people leave a society which symbolizes, more than anything else, the Zionist dream? Naama Sabar explores this question by examining the lives of a group of Israeli emigrants living in Los Angeles in the 1980s and early 1990s. Through extensive interviews in which these "kibbutzniks" share their life stories, she uncovers what pushed them to leave the kibbutz and what pulls them to remain in L.A. The underlying leitmotif is the search for identity under changing conditions."--BOOK JACKET.