Eli A Shepherd Boy From Boyhood To Manhood

Eli Macpherson’s grandparents traveled with an 1858 wagon train caravan over the Santa Fe Trail to the New Mexico Territory. The settlers established a settlement called Friendly Valley located in the shadow of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Eli, born in 1862, completed eighth grade at the Friendly Valley school. His early years are documented in books 1 and 2 in the Preface. Eli, a Shepherd Boy, from Boyhood to Manhood is a continuation of the Eli story. In 1876 he began working at his grandfather’s General Store while completing high school. On train travels east to attend college, Eli crossed the Mississippi River at St. Louis over the historic 1,524-foot steel arch bridge—an engineering marvel completed in 1874. Eli obtained a 160-acre homestead permit for land located north of Friendly Valley. During summer vacations from college, Eli, with the help of Jake, a mountain man who left the mountains after losing his wife to a grizzly bear, constructed buildings, built fences, and stocked the homestead with farm animals. When Eli graduated from college in 1885, he married Eleanor Lewis, an eastern girl, and the young couple traveled West to the New Mexico Territory. The story continues as the couple raise three children while living on Eli’s homestead ranch. Books 1, 2, and 3 include math–history topics interwoven into a human interest story of the American frontier to provide an interesting read for elementary and high school students. Author Ronald B. McPherson is a structural engineer and retired university professor.

The stories of Eli and Abigail appear at first glance, to be simple Christmas stories, but to those who read with an open heart, these are stories for all seasons, and are appropriate for all ages. Both are filled with information about the lives and circumstances of those who lived 2000 year ago. Skeptics may say there was no Eli, who tended sheep on the Judean hillside, but those who walk with him through the pages of his story will come to know him and the loneliness and hardships that were part of his life of obedience. From the first Christmas to the end of his life, Eli's years were spent learning that faith requires commitment. Some will say that the innkeeper had no wife, but Abigail's life speaks for her-and it speaks to every mother who has wept over a wayward child, or ached because arms longing to hold an infant were empty. Life's lessons for her were patience and endurance.

From the author of Tasa’s Song, an extraordinary narrative about one young immigrant’s triumph in America, inspired by true events. 1938. Eli Stoff and his parents, Austrian Jews, escape to America just after Germany takes over their homeland. Within five years, Eli enlists in the US Army and, thanks to his understanding of the German language and culture, joins thousands of others like him who become known as Ritchie boys, young men who work undercover in Intelligence on the European front to help the Allies win World War II. In A Ritchie Boy, different characters tell interrelated stories that, together, form a cohesive narrative about the circumstances and people Eli encounters from Vienna to New York, from Ohio to Maryland to war-torn Europe, before he returns to the heartland of his new country to set down his roots. Set during the dawn of World War II and the disruptive decade to follow, A Ritchie Boy is the poignant, compelling tale of one young immigrant's triumph over adversity as he journeys from Europe to America, and from boyhood to manhood.

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