| From the son of Michigan farmers comes ‘one of the most artistically sketched and moving memoirs of our time’ |
| “Ed Demerly opens a window on the past, showing in vivid detail what life was like in the 40s, 50s and 60s. Viewing his life on a farm, in a small Michigan town, in a family of seven, we see the constant work, the family dynamics, and communitarian practices.” —Rick Bailey, Get Thee to a Bakery, a memoir in essays |
| TRAVERSE CITY, MICHIGAN – In his debut release – a reflection upon his life beginning as a boy on a small-town Michigan farm — author Ed Demerly shares a world many have never experienced nor can relate to, but one that offers glimpses for all into a simpler time and place. Perhaps such a story can shine a light on ways to exist within our own unique experiences and offer insight for using these experiences to explore and expand our own world beyond the view of our immediate horizon. As for the author, his reason for writing First Years – A Farm Boy Faces the Future: A Memoir, didn’t feel quite so lofty. “I was prompted to begin writing pieces of my past for my brothers and sisters; not that they asked me to — more a desire to share with them experiences we had in common from my point of view. I hadn’t intended to write something I would call a memoir.” And yet, Demerly recognized the benefit that telling an ages-old story may offer to someone much younger. “I hope that my granddaughters’ generation and ones beyond might get a glimpse of what I consider a rather common rural childhood in the post-World War II years, its challenges, its isolation, its joys, its hardships, and perhaps the unusual effort it took to fit into a wider world as an adult.” First Years is the memoir of the early years of the second son of Michigan farmers in a family of five siblings. His father had an eighth-grade education; his mother completed high school. He was born three weeks before Pearl Harbor was attacked, and until the 1950s, when post-war America began to prosper, he lived in near poverty in an uninsulated, two-room-plus-attic house that had been a granary. He lived on the farm until he entered the army at age twenty-one. When somewhat by coincidental circumstance, he was admitted to Michigan State University, and although he was the class salutatorian, he was very poorly prepared both academically and socially. Within his extended family, he was first to attend college. According to Demerly, “taking on the larger world was somewhat accidental, but once I was in it, I was terrified of failure. Perhaps it was my father’s insistence that ‘the job always had to be finished’ that motivated me to keep at it.” This memoir — which covers the author’s life through college and two and a half years in the military — is a story of transition and gradual growth. It attempts to emphasize how early life on a farm instilled personality and character that worked in both positive and negative ways as he matured. First Years is published by Mission Point Press of Traverse City, Michigan, and is available in stores and online. The paperback’s retail price is $14.95. To arrange for book signings and presentations or for more information, contact the author at edemerly@aol.com . Early praise for First Years “Ed Demerly opens a window on the past, showing in vivid detail what life was like in the 40s, 50s and 60s. Viewing his life on a farm, in a small Michigan town, in a family of seven, we see the constant work, the family dynamics, and communitarian practices. He writes of the garret bedroom he shared with his brothers: ‘We boys used to practice writing out alphabet letters with our fingernails in the frost on the roof boards.’ Demerly remembers ‘the chickens singing and sunning themselves and cackling their deliveries in the winter coop.’ The values and discipline he learns on the farm support him at each stage of life—at the university, in the military and Army Ranger training, in the Peace Corps, and through his adult and professional life. This compelling American story will be of interest to anyone who contemplates writing their life.” —Rick Bailey, Get Thee to a Bakery, a memoir in essays “First Years is one of the most artistically sketched and moving memoirs of our time. All the narrative situations carry reflective weight, description, and passion. His story begins with the true dynamics of his past life as a shy, obedient American farm boy who later joins the Army, Peace Corps, and higher ed where he worked for over forty years. It ends with understanding and acceptance.” —Mary Saad Assel, PhD, Henry Ford College, retired educator and author. About the author Ed Demerly retired after forty-six years of teaching —everything from fourth, fifth, and sixth grades, middle school, high school, and thirty-six years at Henry Ford College in Dearborn, Michigan, where he co-founded the English Language Institute and received the Faculty Lectureship Award for his 1992 lecture on the parallels between Gangsta Rap and Walt Whitman’s poetry. He taught for a year in Australia and for two years in Malaysia as a Peace Corps volunteer. Ed served in the army as an airborne ranger in the Medical Service Corps and is a past president of the National College English Association and a member of The Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature. He and his wife, Martha, live in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, where in his retirement he is occupied with volunteer work that includes organizing public forums focused on justice and peace and counting frogs for the Rouge River Conservancy. He’s a gardener of okra, cherries, asparagus, rhubarb, raspberries, peas, apples, flowers, and so much more — still a farm boy. |