2022.12.08 DECEMBER 1, 1947 PLUS CLASS NEWS
THROW BACK THURSDAY - DECEMBER 1, 1947 PLUS CLASS NEWS
75 years ago last Thursday Peter Hartstein and family arrived in Little Rock and 77 years ago in 1945 Igor, Borys, Regina and Tamara
Malczcyki with parents Wasyl and Maria arrived in the United States. We take so much for granted. These were two heroic families.
Weren't we lucky that they landed in Little Rock and in Little Rock Central High School at just the right time for the Class of 1956!!!!!
The Class of ’56 is “mature” enough to have been greatly influenced by WWII. I know I was and the reason I became a professional soldier.
The Hartstein and Malczycki families endured hardships most of us have only read about and cannot possibly comprehend enduring ourselves.
While most of us were fretting over a teenage pimple, they were living with unimaginable life-threatening events in their earlier childhood in
Europe. As a professional soldier of 32 years, I never had to endure the hardships or horrors of war that the Hartstein and Malczycki children
endured and only rarely shared with us growing up in Little Rock. They deserve all the good fortune they have enjoyed since and we should
consider ourselves very fortunate to have called them friends throughout the years. Bill Harmon
From the 6 December Democrat/Gazette on pg 5b, in Mike Masterson’s column:
Savior amid fires
Peter Hartstein of Little Rock wrote: “Dear Mr. Masterson, I always read your column, which is very good. I wanted to send you an experience
that I had on July 26, 1944, in Stuttgart, Ger- many. I am a naturalized citizen and arrived in Little Rock on Dec. 1, 1947.
“On July 26, 1944, our family was in our apartment when a bombing raid occurred. We made a decision to leave and go outside, where we
discovered the entire area, for several blocks in each direction, was on fire.
“We didn’t know in which direction to go. At that moment someone with a wagon came along and loaded us on, then threw some wet blankets
over us and got us to safety, which was only one block away. But we could not have known that because all of the buildings were on fire.
“The next day my sister asked our mother, ‘Who was that man with the wagon?’ Mother answered, ‘God sent an angel!’ That was no coincidence!”
1956 CLASS NEWS
25 Classmates gathered at Mary Lou Hosack's new home for a catered Christmas lunch Monday.
It would have been 26 there, but Edwina had a fall and wasn't able to make it. (Sounds familiar to
me! Ugh!) We had a wonderful time.
On floor: Kenda Treadway ('55) and Bucky Polk
Sitting: Barbara Edwards, Carolyn Boyd Boshears (Gaylon), Mary Jo Bryant, Diann Perrier, ML, Judy Callaway, Pat Glass, Annette Hoover and Mary Lou Hosack
Standing: Joyce Moore, Charlene Grady, Gwen Shepherd, Linda Orton (Syd), Jean Rogers, Barbara May, Barbarra Welton, Kay Kerby, Midge Brown, Sharon Douglass,
Betty Chandler, Julie Anne Hamilton and Mary Fleming
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Clara Dean Stoddard has a new email address. Let me know if you would like to have it
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Just in time for Christmas! L. Kirk Tompkins book “Messerschmitt: History, with a Twist of Fiction” is available at: https://bookstore.dorrancepublishing.com/search.php?search_query=Messerschmitt
In Tompkins debut novel, Messerschmidt, History with a Twist of Fiction, Jack Kirkpatrick embarks on a mission set in 1995 to uncover the source of unidentified technology disrupting navigation of a NATO fighter jet, raising concern about disrupting guidance systems in military and commercial aircraft. Today the technology is well developed within the U.S. military, providing threat elimination unimaginable in 1995.
The mission begins in New Mexico at Sandia Laboratories. Information gathering takes Kirkpatrick to Australia, Germany, France, Switzerland, before focusing on intrigue and events leading to discovery of the source of this deadly technology in Czech Republic.
The author provides flashbacks to South America, Africa, and Finland for the reader to learn about previous mission events focusing upon characters in the book. The reader is kept guessing about how the mission ends, while providing dialogue between characters to entertain and surprise the reader.
Jack Kirkpatrick is restricted by government directives to remain under the public radar; investigate, locate, and develop a situation that brings local law enforcement into the final threat elimination, before disappearing from Czech Republic.
The reader will recognize actual global geographic locations and historic events with a twist of fiction. Tompkins uses interactions through Jack Kirkpatrick, illuminating individuals and strategic events, piecing together clues to accomplish the mission objective.
Attractive Scotland Yard covert agent Eva Fredrich interacts with surprising British brilliance. Dialogue between the book’s characters creates a sense the reader is listening in to private conversations.
Clues unfold from a haircut in Frankfurt, a wedding in Geneva, a woman in church, a bar keeper, a doctor, a historic Messerschmidt factory and members of the former cold war Czech underground radio team giving the reader a sense of knowing the characters fighting for freedom. The cast of characters provide bits and pieces of information that moves the clandestine mission along a winding path. Certain geographic locations and events are from history as portrayed by the books fictious characters.
Franci Kirkpatrick meets up with Jack in Berlin for a romantic rendezvous causing a bit of light jealousy with Scotland Yard Agent Eva Fredrich. Tompkins creates relatable personalities within the books characters as they encounter events, emotions, and interactions that could sabotage the mission. The unexpected twists end in a fitting denouement to an epic and memorable global espionage adventure.
Should the reader follow the map of global locations, one might just meet some of the personalities and feel the tension inherent in espionage.
The introductory price is $21.00 or $16.00 for eBook direct from the publisher.
ML
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