Dedication

Rita Leary, my wife,who provides constant support to my writing effort.

Donna Leary Mentzos, my daughter, who assisted with the editing.

June M. Leary, my daughter who provided the encouragement, support and editing without which this book would not have been written.

As I sit back in my rocking chair, sometimes with a glass of wine, many of the places, people and circumstances of my past go through my mind. I daydream of what was and wonder at what might have been.
I was born at the onset of the Great depression and raised on a stony 200 –acre dairy farm in central Wisconsin. Instilled with the belief that hard work and determination were the keys to success, I left home at seventeen and went to work with a construction company erecting silos.
When the construction season was over I signed on as a station helper for the Soo Line Railroad. Over the course of the next four decades I worked my up through the ranks to Vice-President of Transportation at Minneapolis, MN
I also married and raised a family of five children
After my retirement, I returned to the place of my origin, now sharing time with my 104 year old mother and enjoying the closeness of my brothers and sisters.
Life was …show more content…
He and his father Will had just finished a fine lunch of fresh blue gills they had caught that morning. A slight zephyr out of the west moved the tops of the tall pines at the south end of the small clearing surrounding the cabin. Bob watched as a deer moved quietly through the undergrowth then stopped and eyed him suspiciously with its’ ears open full forward so the slightest sound could be heard. Bob’s thoughts were of the many wonderful days he had enjoyed there. The fresh air and the serenity were captivating. In less than a week, Bob would be returning to join the Class of 1971 as senior at Highview High School in New Brighton,