Peter August Hoetjes

Peter August Hoetjes previously authored The Palladino Family in America (2004), and its 2nd edition in 2014, both chronicles of his wife’s colorful Italian ancestors' lives. What on the surface amounts to a story of our bold courageous ancestors in the old country immigrating to America does not preclude it from being about who we are, and from where we came. This is a wonderful living history story that will give you a greater understanding and appreciation of your ancestors many trials and tribulations.

His childhood memoir, Skyscrapers to Windmills, a Captivating Journey to a Bygone Era by a Diplomat’s Child published in 2014 recalls his early childhood years in Holland immediately after World War II. His father distributed the first C.A.R.E. food relief package in Holland and in the summer of 1947 then administered the Marshall Plan headquartered in The Hague.

General Custer’s Red Neckties is his first novel, a fictional historical book, a story grounded in historical fact that follows the general outline of his maternal great-grandfather’s life, a former slave, as a cavalryman in the Civil War, the Reconstruction, and life thereafter as a free man. I learn everything I had been told about my mother’s family's history was a lie, and discover hidden secrets so explosive that my own ancestors wanted to keep them buried forever. Thus began my quest for truth that had led my mother into a web of lies spun for more than one hundred sixty years. Nevertheless, finding out what is in the family skeleton-in-the-closet proved spellbinding, jaw-opening and awe-inspiring.

He was born in Yonkers, New York, the only son of a Dutch immigrant, international banker, and American diplomat.

Peter, proud father of five grown children and eleven grandchildren is a retired sales marketing executive and entrepreneur.

He and his wife make their home in Bridgewater, a small quaint pastoral community in northwestern Connecticut, nestled in the foothills of the Berkshires, located about 60 miles north of New York City.