When Serendipity Happened: A Memoir

"When Serendipity Happened" begins with the frugal lives of a family on a farm in the Kansas Flint Hills where they intensely suppress disclosing the secret of why Aunt Emmy was forced from their home into an asylum at the far side of the state.

As childhood challenges become too great, the author>s life also leads to confinement in a state institution, followed by decades of gradual, inconsistent, but resilient recovery. He confronts life as a parole officer in Kansas City, as a teacher of blind students in the Bronx, an orientation and mobility graduate student in Kakamazoo, a court schools teacher in California, and an itinerant specialist in Kansas.

After 48 serendipitous years with a Filipino lady, including their sons> professional baseball and music careers, and travels to 50 states and six continents, Wells Township is no longer his world.

The author began life in a doctor>s home in Frankfort, Kansas. After being one of three students in a rural public school, he survived high school and a year in Topeka State Hospital. After graduation from Washburn University, he had social work positions in Kansas and Indiana before teaching in New York City. His graduation from Western Michigan University lead to Vinton, Iowa, where he met his wife the first day. They moved to California where he was an itinerant teacher in seven counties, followed by teaching in 16 Kansas counties. There he cherished times with friends and family left behind before he and his wife, Ligaya, retired to suburban Sacramento. Late life travels included trips to Cochabamba, Bolivia, Capetown, South African, and to a Sydney, Australia university where he presented his writing. He enjoys life in a care home, and during a recent trip to The Philippines.