Gifts From Decorah Laurah

A gold coin found in the time capsule of East Side School was a real coin. Gus Klemetson, editor of the Decorah Docket and amateur coin collector, knew that, but he couldn't find any reference to it. The name of the donor, Decorah Laurah, also had no history. With persistence, luck, and help, he uncovered a most amazing story. Abraham Lincoln had commissioned a secret mint in 1861, the coins destined to buy Sioux Indian peacefulness during the impending Civil War. Stolen before delivery, Gus tracked their circuitous journey to the person of Decorah Laurah. Unfortunately, his quest soon struck very close to home, almost costing Gus his life and everything dear to him.

Retired Illinois State University professor, Dr. G. Louis Heath, takes a humorous look at ISU through his poems. Dr. Heath is the author of two other books covering his ISU career: REDBIRD PROF and LEAVES OF MAPLE, AN ILLINOIS STATE UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR'S MEMOIRS OF 7 SUMMERS' TEACHING IN CANADIAN UNIVERSITIES, 1972-1978. This chapbook completes Dr. Heath's REDBIRD TRILOGY on his years at Illinois State University.

This sequel to Viola's Hammer finds Ben Tucker working for the Fayette County Sheriff's Department, being sued by the family of a drug dealer he accidentally killed, living in a chickenhouse with a messed up Viet Nam veteran because his wife kicked him out of his own house, and grooming a problem with alcohol that is pushing him closer to suicide every day. He sees his life falling apart with no way out. To the rescue--a high priced lawyer, his old 'nudist' friend Twila Liten, and the same messed up Viet Nam vet he lives with. With more twists and turns than an Iowa corn maze, Ben discovers he really isn't the failure he thought he was. Along the way he helps find an underground meth lab, thwarts a terrorist attack, and finds love again.

"Giants in the Earth" is a novel by Norwegian-American author Ole Edvard Rølvaag, telling a story of a Norwegian family who struggles to make a new life as pioneers in the Dakota territory. The novel follows the grim realities of pioneering and the gloomy fatalism of the Norse mind among the depictions of snow storms, locusts, poverty, hunger, loneliness, homesickness, the difficulty of fitting into a new culture, and the estrangement of immigrant children who grow up in a new land.

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