Finding Josie

With a focus squarely on the Midwest, Wendy Bilen pieces together the history of her grandmother, Josie Broadhead, born in 1911 and raised on the North Dakota prairie. Josie married a Wisconsin farmer and moved to a large dairy farm outside La Crosse; along the way she began taking in people in need of a home: ". . . beggars and drunks and children of drunks, mentally ill children and children with mentally ill parents. Brothers and cousins and sisters and in-laws and strangers." By taking on these challenges that no one else wanted, Josie left an almost mythical legacy. Years after Josie's death, Bilen embarks on a journey to unearth Josie's story and quickly realizes that the search is about her, too. As she discovers her grandmother's complicated nature ("a woman proud and humble, loving and unaffectionate, strict and visionary, joyful and troubled, a woman held together by contradictions like an arch and its capstone"), she learns much about herself and her own choices. And as she breathes life into Josie and her family, friends, and neighbors, the author evokes a powerful sense of place of small towns and farms, of prairie, of Josie's home, all of which feel both fresh and satisfyingly familiar. Much more than mere memoir or family history, this dual story about Bilen's journey illuminates the surprising ways our lives intersect with our ancestors'. An extraordinary story about a seemingly ordinary woman, Finding Josie will inspire readers to explore their own family history in their own way. In the 'Author's Note' of Finding Josie, Wendy Bilen explains that "in the interest of privacy, I have used the following pseudonyms...". What compelled Ms. Bilen to extend this courtesy of pseudonyms to some but not to others in her book? Do pseudonyms allow for greater creative license in detailing family history? And what of those whose stories are told without pseudonyms in this book? Are their stories told with a generous application of creative license? As my family is featured prominently in the chapter titled 'The Babies', there are distortions, inaccuracies and hurtful speculation regarding my father, brothers and mother, all which go beyond the pale of 'creative license'. Suffice to say that my father Daren did not die a miserable old man as suggested by the book -- he died knowing the love of his children, his grandchildren, and his wife of over thirty years (a person conveniently not mentioned in this chapter). The author gallingly suggests that my father may have died believing there was no redemption available to him because of the death of his son, his loved ones and the failure of his marriage, and that the lack of the possibility of redemption might have played a role in his desire not to speak with her further about his life. As someone who spent countless hours in conversation with my father for the purpose of documenting his life from childhood to his wartime experiences, I have to disagree. I remember talking to my father about his phone conversation with the author, and how he explained that he wasn't interested in rehashing events that happened more than thirty years ago. He was at peace, and saw no need to open up old wounds with someone he felt seemed solely interested in the painful aspects of his life. To suggest as the author does that the lack of a desire to speak with her further was rooted in my dying father's sense of hopelessness is sadly misinformed. As the author might have learned had she interviewed other family members, my father had a wonderful birthday party on his 80th birthday, some 7 months before he died, a party which was attended by his three sons, one of his daughters, and five grandchildren. The same people came to say goodbye at his funeral. In this book their are also distortions and inaccuracies about the military records of my father, my brothers, and the circumstances that led my parents to leave their four oldest children with relatives for a year and a half. The life of my brother Daren and his marriage to Cynthia Evans is also presented in an unfairly one-sided manner, suggesting a limited amount of research on the part of the author. The author flatly claims that no one remembers the name of their child Angel, a claim that gives my family a misanthropic aura, and is patently false. I wish that the author had given greater attention to fact-checking and researching the events in my family's history before putting it to paper. After all, these are real people she is writing about, an imperfect family to be sure, but a family with husbands and wives and with children and grandchildren that are just as deserving of respect as the people in her own immediate family. It is unfortunate that my family's privacy was not afforded the same protection of the pseudonyms arbitrarily provided by the author. With a focus squarely on the Midwest, Wendy Bilen pieces together the history of her grandmother, Josie Broadhead, born in 1911 and raised on the North Dakota prairie. Josie married a Wisconsin farmer and moved to a large dairy farm outside La Crosse; along the way she began taking in people in need of a home: "...beggars and drunks and children of drunks, mentally ill children and children with mentally ill parents. Brothers and cousins and sisters and in-laws and strangers."By taking on these challenges that no one else wanted, Josie left an almost mythical legacy. Years after Josie's death, Bilen embarks on a journey to unearth Josie's story and quickly realizes that the search is about her, too. As she discovers her grandmother's complicated nature ("a woman proud and humble, loving and unaffectionate, strict and visionary, joyful and troubled, a woman held together by contradictions like an arch and its capstone"), she learns much about herself and her own choices. And as she breathes life into Josie and her family, friends, and neighbors, the author evokes a powerful sense of place of small towns and farms, of prairie, of Josie's home, all of which feel both fresh and satisfyingly familiar.Much more than mere memoir or family history, this dual story about Bilen's journey illuminates the surprising ways our lives intersect with our ancestors'. An extraordinary story about a seemingly ordinary woman, __Finding Josie__ will inspire readers to explore their own family history in their own way. The author's account of her quest to find her grandmother that takes her from North Dakota (where her grandmother Josie Broadhead was born) to small towns in Minnesota and finally to the farm in LaCrosse, Wisconsin, where Bilen remembers her best. Growing up in suburban Chicago, Bilen knew her grandmother only through occasional visits and letters. But even as a young girl, before she understood the reasons, Bilen knew that she wanted to be like Josie