Books

It was 1952, when Gert learns she needs a male-overseer in order to access monies due to her from an insurance policy. As a means of collecting the money she asks George, a college classmate, to marry her. Immediately upon becoming George’s wife, he purchases a pig farm in southern Minnesota against her wishes. As a “Pig Farmer’s Wife,” Gert faces many challenges, eventually finding herself abandoned at a gas station far from home. With resilience, and by utilizing skills she hadn’t previously recognized as valuable; Gert establishes a new life for herself as Miss Birdie. As such, she and five other women, unbeknownst to them at the time, become contributors to a movement referred to today as The Second Wave of Feminism.

No More Mondays—A Nautical Odyssey is a memoir of the six years LaVonne, and her husband sailed the world. They did what most people only talked about doing. As this thrilling journey unfolds, you will learn what life was like for two people who dared to forego the many amenities they once enjoyed on land for the thrill of exploring the world by water. Along the way you will encounter an intriguing string of foreign cultures and eccentric cruisers. And you will learn how they survived storms, illness, injury, broken equipment, seasickness, and cramped living space on board their 50-foot sailboat.