Foreword & Prologue

31 December 1999

Dear Reader,

In the spring of 1988 our mother, Barbara Grace Seaman, nearing the end of her long struggle with breast cancer, gave me the manuscript for that which follows, and the commission to "Try to put this into some order". Now, nearing the end of this century, I have done so - very late - but as well as I was able. The work is neither a retelling of adventures nor accomplishments, nor even does it include many events from the major portion of her years with us.  It is not an autobiography per-se, but is autobiographical in nature. I believe that the work would have continued, but for her increasingly poor health. 

In the telling presented here, she mentions older diaries that she reports having destroyed herself and her subsequent regret at that destruction. This work encompasses her formative years through early adulthood and into marriage, it illustrates what she learned about life, herself, and others from that period, as well as why and how she learned  it. It therefore may provide cogent guidance for those who have the responsibility and good fortune to be in any way involved with the bringing to maturation of young people, from the standpoint of an intelligent layperson. Further, it has the interesting effect of illustrating the impact that the times and their events have had on her philosophy of life. 

Though obviously intended by her as a monologue, I have been enticed by her rare omissions of fact to make this something of a fascinating dialogue for me. I have made my few comments, with no change to her opinion or observation, as if in conversation with her and  hope that they are not seen by the reader as intrusive. My comments are generally taken from discoveries I made in other portions of the work and, in very few cases, from my own memory or observation. I present them in italics in order for them to be distinguishable from her words. It seems to me now that while she often comprehended things as they happened, many of the things she came to understand of this period of her life were clarified by subsequent environments and experiences.

Age and observation surely do bring wisdom.

John H. Judd 

1940-2018

Prologue

3 January 1983

The time has come for me to do a thing that I've been thinking about for years. I'm 71 years old and I just want to set down what things have happened to me, unimportant though they may be, and what little of the world I saw in the 20th century. Each time I've been tempted to start I've thought how small a contribution it is and desisted: it seems very vain and self centered to write autobiographically unless some lesson can be taught or something of value revealed.