Dreamer in the Fields - Softcover

Hill, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0976273071 ISBN 13: 9780976273073

Publisher: Vision Pub, 2010

John Hill, the sixth of ten children born to alcoholic parents, recounts the hardships of his life as a child migrant farm worker. He tells of the back-breaking task of picking fruit, vegetables, and cotton, under the harsh California sun; living in filthy migrant shacks; losing months of schooling each term; of parents who constantly drank up all the family's earnings and engaged in violent fights; of a mother who tired of her husband's abuse and abandoned the family.

Despondent over the poor quality of his life, Hill, only 8, asks God to change his circumstances. A divine visitation does just that: his father is jailed, and he and his siblings become wards of Fresno County and are placed in what Hill regards as a wonderful foster home. Hill delights in the change. He revels in the normalcy of his new life away from the fields, finds comfort in the requirement to attend church and school, and flourishes educationally.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

About the Author:

Author John Hill was born in 1945 in Hawthorne, Nevada, but his earliest childhood memories are of working as a migrant laborer, along with his parents and eight brothers and sisters, in California's gloriously productive Central Valley, and agricultural towns all the way north through Oregon and Washington. Through his unshakable faith in God, he was able to break free of the back-breaking and demeaning migrant labor, get an education, marry well, work some of the top-flight jobs in the employee-relations field, and raise a family. Now retired, he lives with his wife, Mattie, in La Quinta, California.

"During my term as a Los Angeles County Supervisor, John Hill managed my office for ten years. He was an excellent Chief of Staff, but I had little inkling that he had lived such a hard life as a child laborer. To overcome such odds in his struggle for a normal home life and a decent education is a credit to his fortitude and his personal faith. 'Dreamer in the Fields' will inspirit both students and adults. This is recommended reading. I give it an A-plus."

--Yvonne B. Burke, former Los Angeles County Supervisor and U.S. Congresswoman

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.