Exploring the Libraries of the U.S. PRESIDENTS

What a thrill it was to visit our first presidential library. It was the beginning of an incredible journey that resulted in visiting all of the presidential libraries, which we seek to share with you in this book. As of this date, there are thirteen presidential libraries, which belong to the National Archives and Records Administration.

We would like to take you along on this journey, giving you our impressions and underscoring some of the historic events these visits called to remembrance. The libraries are a glimpse into the lives of the men whose decisions and actions have made our nation what it is today.

What a fascinating and revealing journey this has been. To visit one or all of the presidential libraries is an extraordinary experience and has heightened not only our understanding of the presidents but also of American history.

It did something else. It gave us a destination, making it possible for us to visit some very interesting places across the country. Both of us are now retired after each of us spent fifty years in our chosen professions. Not only do we have the time to travel but the continuation of our life-long pursuit to learn.

Shortly after we began our visits, we broadened our goal to visit at least one or more historic sites associated with each of our former presidents, frequently that would be their birthplace or some major event associated with their life. Eight years later we have achieved our goal--we have visited all thirteen libraries and one or more sites related to each of our forty-three former presidents.

We hope you enjoy visiting the presidential libraries through the reading of this book.

Leonard V. Kalkwarf, known to his friends as Len, began his hobby of studying presidential history seriously when he retired. Since 2006, he and his wife, Beverly, have visited all thirteen presidential libraries and have also visited one or more historical sites associated with each of the former forty-three presidents.

Len has an in-house television program regarding the presidents in the retirement community of two thousand residents where he and Beverly live, in northern Virginia. He presents the program four times a year. He regularly gives lectures on past presidents to the community's History Forum. Since January 2010, he has been a White House volunteer in the Presidential Correspondence Department.

An ordained minister in the Reformed Church in America, Len was a parish minister and served congregations for more than fifty years in New York, Pennsylvania, and Kuwait. He was elected and served as president of the General Synod of his denomination. He earned a doctorate from Princeton and received an honorary doctorate from Central College in Pella, Iowa, his alma mater. He is listed in Who's Who in America. Beverly, his wife of sixty-one years, is a registered nurse who worked in a local hospital for forty years in specialty areas and who also served as a parish nurse. She is a quilter and a collector of ceramic pigs. Len and Beverly live in Springfield, Virginia, and spend their summers at their cottage in Readfield, Maine.