Larry Calkins Libri

Travis provides a short geneology of his ancestors. The book continues focusing on his parents' successes through the roaring 20's and the struggle through the Depression. Their fight to regain their dignity they previously held. His father, a talented engineer and artist, decided to make his living as a stockbroker. He lost everything during the Depression including h\is family. Seemingly unfair events tore the family apart. Travis enters World War Two as a pilot. His parent's journey lead them to a renewed love. Larry compiled Travis' stories retelling them in an interesting way. As the family struggles through it all not everything is right even after the war is over..

Memories and Forgetfulness is inspired by Calkins family and their struggles with dementia. It is a difficult story told in two books; "Letters to Sarah" and "Failing Memory." "Letters to Sarah" provides and account of the family before the dementia of my Grandmother and when she passes chronicles my fathers perception of his "forgetfulness". The second book "Failing Memory" describes my learning of my father's dementia and his progression of the disease. Both books provide a touching account of the impact of the disease on love ones, with emotional highs and lows of family involvement and the gut wrenching finality of the disease.