"In the twilight of my life, I've produced two memoirs of my youth. Both are set in very dramatic periods; through which I lived, and my hope is that they will speak for many others whose youth was traumatized by social upheavals that fractured their lives.

My first book, "Weather of the Heart." is about my childhood in Russia during the early days of the Bolshevik Revolution. It tells the story, through a child's eyes, of how my family's pleasant life was destroyed and how we all lived together and sustained each other through those difficult years before my parents and I were reunited in America. This book has great appeal to people whose ancestry includes immigrants from Europe, or who came here themselves in their youth.

When I found what an act of resurrection I had performed by bringing my lost extended family back to life, I felt I had to do the same for my first love, a fellow student at Columbia University who died young and never got to write the books he dreamed of making. We were both budding writers during those troubled years of the Great Depression in the 1930s, and in the years before we were able to marry we wrote hundreds of letters to bridge long absences.

These letters, which tell so much about the life of that time, form the basis for our story, Its name, "Silver Pages on the Lawn," is a line from one of his poems. People whose families lived through that period will find this account of great interest.

Now long retired, I am finally realizing my own dreams of authorship. I also tutor at the local community college, and do free lance editing. An only child myself, I enjoy numerous family of five children and eleven grandchildren.