About the Author
By the end of WW II, I was only five years old, but I have have many puzzling memories and images of that time. For example, why did my father drag us up the tower to watch tiny men jump out of planes in the far distance? My five-year-old mind found it rather boring.
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After my parents’ death, my archivist husband sifted through the extensive collection of documents left behind. He found a surprising variety of WWII-related items. That information and any other relevant WWII information found, whether printed, archived, or remembered were put together in this book. Because of our young age, many of our memories were of scenes rather than stories. The research done for the book 'One Thousand Fears' helped me understand my memories.
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I now know that the tiny men jumping out of planes were the paratroopers of Operation Market Garden. . . .
Wow, did I really see that?
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In 1953, our family immigrated to Canada and I completed my education. Eventually, I became a research scientist with Health Canada, where my publications were research articles in chronic disease and drug use epidemiology or research ethics.
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Throughout my life, I’ve been an avid reader, with historical fiction being my favourite genre. I especially like stories with an element of mystery to be solved. But above all, I wanted to know how people lived in that era, in that country, under those circumstances.
After I finished the nonfiction book, I thought about the many details of life in those days I would still like to convey to readers. I began to realize it is easier to portray many of my memories of the war, the environment, and the culture of the time in historical fiction novels. So far, I have written two historical fiction novels and am starting a third. In this series, the van Beeks, a fictional family, lives through the authentic time of war and early postwar years, as I remember, or as I learned in my research.
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All three of the houses I lived in the Netherlands and the churches beside them, have given way to more modern structures. My uncles and aunts have passed on years ago. Despite this, the Netherlands still beckons to me, not only for remaining, more distant, relatives, but also for its rich history, picturesque landscapes, and vibrant culture.