Chasing Restless Roots: The Dreams that Lured Us Across America (Oceans of Darkness, Oceans of Light Volume II)

They were the children of pioneers. Their people came from "back East" or directly from Europe. They were the Baby Boomers' (grand-)parents, (great-)aunts and uncles. They were our clergy, teachers, gym coaches and bus drivers; they served us malts over soda-fountain counters and lunch at school; they paid us to mow their lawns in summer and bought lemonade at our makeshift stands. They had fought hot wars against the Germans and a cold one against the Russians. They were the people who raised us; a "Greatest Generation" whose own (grand-)parents had come to the Midwest to build a new Canaan.
"Chasing Restless The Dreams that Lured Us Across America" follows the routes of those who people an earlier Midwest, the core of the United States that still exists but in so many ways hardly resembles the American Heartland of as little as 35 years ago. Sweeping, long-term changes in the region's agriculture, economy, technology, politics and its ethnic or other demographics have indelibly altered the ways we live. In the process, we have lost old treasures even as we gained new possibilities.
"Chasing Restless Roots" groans with the voices of scores of ghosts--such as those of the famine-fleeing Irishman John Moorehead and his English-born, thatch-roof-raised wife, Ann Kew; of their handsome yet death-beleaguered son, George; and of his once-petite wife, Lottie, a gigantic woman lumbering about, gasping for breath; and of their youngest daughter, Della, who was too clever for her own good--or that of her numerous victims. Just one of several families featured in volume two, they toiled so hard, so long and endured so much to build their American Dream.
Leaving hungry, war-torn, class-entrenched Europe, our family had thrown forth all its worldly goods in order to plant a new life in the rich soil of the New World. Problem was, we brought with us age-old weaknesses, foibles and foolishness--and our unheeded shadows too often continue to sabotage us.