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Dr. Larry James Ford was born September 1, 1951, in Albany, Georgia. In 1956 at the age of four, his family moved to Aberdeen, Maryland, and later to have a Havre de Grace, Maryland, where he grew up and attended the Havre de Grace Consolidated School, C1, a legally, racially segregated school, from 1957 to 1964. He attended Havre de Grace High School, an integrated school, from 1964 to 1969, graduating as vice president of his class, a lettering member of the football team, and an officer in the National Honor Society. He has four siblings, an older sister, Patricia, and three younger, Wayne, Pamela, and Pelbea. Continuing his education, he attended Syracuse University for one year, and then transferred to the Johns Hopkins University, where he graduated in 1973. He then attended the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, in New York City, graduating in 1977. Afterwords, he did an internal medicine residency at the University of California- San Francisco. He began his practice in Georgia in the US Public Health Service and has also practiced in Alaska and California before retiring in 2011. Dr. Ford's retirement from medicine came after being diagnosed with systemic mastocytosis, a rare clonal disorder, which affects a white blood cell important to the immune system, affecting multiple organ systems. There is no specific treatment, and the disease has an incidence of 1 in 10,000 people, or a total of 30,000 individuals diagnosed in the U.S. with it. One of the most memorable experiences he has had, related to the book, was sitting down with one of his teachers from the Consolidated School, Mrs. Mabel Hart, before starting to write. At the time of the release of the book, she was 104, and had recently published a book of her own. Throughout his professional life and journey, he was able to repeatedly call upon the commonsense knowledge and wisdom imparted by his teachers, which was needed to handle the many challenging situations he would face. In 2020, he returned to his hometown, where he completed "C is for Colored," and continues to enjoy his passion for playing music, spending lots of time with his guitars (playing anything slow), reading and honing his photographic skills. He has twin daughters, Lauren and Leslie, and he tries to hang out with his grandchildren, Isabel, Eli, and Karina, whenever possible. They call him "Lolo," and all remember and laugh about him, as being moderately obsessed with anything having to do with mathematics, and the related game of craps.

" The underground railroad—with its mysterious signals, secret depots, abolitionist heroes, and slave-hunting villains—has become part of American mythology. But legend has distorted much of this history. Larry Gara shows how pre-Civil War partisan propanda, postwar remininscences by fame-hungry abolitionists, and oral tradition helped foster the popular belief that a powerful secret organization spirited floods of slaves away from the South. In contrast to much popular belief, however, the slaves themselves had active roles in their own escape. They carried out their runs, receiving aid only after they had reached territory where they still faced return. The Liberty Line puts slaves in their rightful position: the center of their struggle for freedom.

Pioneers traveling in the former Shoshonean lands that became the city of Downey in eastern Los Angeles County were drawn to the water sources of the San Gabriel River and Rio Hondo. In 1837, historian Hugo Reid described a village called Carpenters Farm along the banks of the Rio Hondo. Don Carpenter's Rancho Santa Gertrudes occupied a portion of the original 300,000-acre Nieto land grant of prime ranch and farmlands, a fertile "garden spot." In 1859, a year before becoming California's youngest governor at age 32, John Gately Downey and druggist James McFarland effectively closed the era of missions and ranchos by buying 17,600 acres of Rancho Santa Gertrudes at a sheriff's auction for $60,000. Downey offered land at $10 an acre with a low interest rate, claiming it "the best land for homesteads and vineyards in this section of the state." The community of Downey began shaping up in 1873 as the Southern Pacific Railroad connected the early settlements of Gallatin and College.

Take a tour of the lost mansions of the Twin Cities

Moses Shuck (1784/1785-1857) lived in Greenbrier County, Virginia (later West Virginia), and married Mary Ann Fleshman. Descendants and relatives lived in Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Idaho and elsewhere.

A collection of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s remarks on his craft, taken from his works and letters to friends and colleagues—an essential trove of advice for aspiring writers. As F. Scott Fitzgerald famously decreed, “An author ought to write for the youth of his own generation, the critics of the next, and the schoolmasters of ever after.” Fitzgerald's own work has gone on to be reviewed and discussed for over one hundred years. His masterpiece The Great Gatsby brims with the passion and opulence that characterized the Jazz Age—a term Fitzgerald himself coined. These themes also characterized his life: Fitzgerald enlisted in the US army during World War I, leading him to meet his future wife, Zelda, while stationed in Alabama. Later, along with Ernest Hemingway and other American artist expats, he became part of the “Lost Generation” in Europe. Fitzgerald wrote books “to satisfy [his] own craving for a certain type of novel,” leading to modern American classics including Tender Is the Night, This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and Damned. In this collection of excerpts from his books, articles, and personal letters to friends and peers, Fitzgerald illustrates the life of the writer in a timeless way.

Retailing pioneer Fred Meijer comes alive in the pages of this intimate biography, told in part by the people in Fred's life from store cashiers to American presidents. Astute businessman, visionary arts patron, homespun philosopher Fred is a man of many parts. His story weaves a chronicle of how to succeed in business, how to shape one's life, how to leave the world a better place, and how to have fun along the way. / "Fred, in his unpretentious way, has always been a leader. . . . He is able, he is dedicated, and he's fun." Gerald R. Ford / "I have always admired Fred Meijer as the great visionary who first recognized the potential of the supercenter in the United States. As we developed our Wal-Mart model, we learned a great deal by watching what he did." Don Soderquist - former Vice Chairman and Chief Operating Officer of Wal-Mart / "Fred Meijer's life story is a supersize grocery cart, full to the brim with values that we should live by honesty, fairness, and respect for others." Mike Lloyd - Grand Rapids Press

For the past three decades, many history professors have allowed their biases to distort the way America’s past is taught. These intellectuals have searched for instances of racism, sexism, and bigotry in our history while downplaying the greatness of America’s patriots and the achievements of “dead white men.” As a result, more emphasis is placed on Harriet Tubman than on George Washington; more about the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II than about D-Day or Iwo Jima; more on the dangers we faced from Joseph McCarthy than those we faced from Josef Stalin. A Patriot’s History of the United States corrects those doctrinaire biases. In this groundbreaking book, America’s discovery, founding, and development are reexamined with an appreciation for the elements of public virtue, personal liberty, and private property that make this nation uniquely successful. This book offers a long-overdue acknowledgment of America’s true and proud history.

A timely look at the atmosphere of political hostility surrounding the Civil War, and the venom faced by America’s sixteenth president. Today, Abraham Lincoln is a beloved American icon, widely considered to be our best president. It was not always so. This book takes a look at what Lincoln’s contemporaries actually thought and said about him during his lifetime, when political hostilities, and ultimately civil war, raged. The era in which our sixteenth president lived and governed was the most rough-and-tumble in the history of American politics. The hostility behind the criticism aimed at Lincoln by the great men of his time, on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line, is startling, the spectacular prejudice against him often shocking for its cruelty, intensity, and unrelenting vigor. The plain truth is that Lincoln was deeply reviled by many in his time. This book is both an entertaining read and a well-researched, serious look at the political context that begat the president’s predicament. Lincoln’s humanity has been unintentionally trivialized by some historians and writers who have hidden away the real man in a patina of bronze. This book helps us better understand the man he was, and how history is better and more clearly viewed through a long-distance lens. “Not the warm and fuzzy portrait we’re used to seeing . . . An eye-opening study, the first of its kind to focus on what Lincoln’s contemporaries really thought of him. On the other hand, this is not mean-spirited Lincoln-bashing . . . Tagg assesses his presidency through the social and political context of mid-19th century America. It was a time, for example, when ‘the rabid press routinely destroyed the reputations of public men,’ when the stature of the presidency, ‘stained by feeble performances from a string of the poorest presidents in the nation’s history,’ had plunged over decades.” —Civil War Times Magazine

Treutlen County, Georgia, lies between the Oconee River on its western boundary and the Ohoopee River on the northeast. Stately southern pines and majestic oaks grow on the gently rolling hills of this picturesque county, located on the coastal plains of southern Georgia. Fertile farmlands, dense pine forests, and major transportation routes provide an economic vibrance, which fosters the countys development. Images of America: Treutlen County is an intriguing collection of vintage images that portray the countys people, places, and significant events, including early pioneers, their modes of transportation, life at work and at home, places of worship, and their sources for entertainment. Historic scenes of the bustling Treutlen County community, including the villages of Lothair, Orland, Orianna, Zaidee, and Blackville, and the town of Soperton, which serves as Treutlens county seat, are found throughout these pages. The countys beautiful fields and forests, and its mineral springs and rivers have tied together the exuberance and vitality of the county down through the years.