Advance Praise. Letters from my Grandfather: A History of Two Decades of Unconditional Love.

I love this book, which began as a collection but became a correspondence. Dr. Joanna Seibert, a distinguished Professor (and practitioner) of Pediatric Radiology at Arkansas Children’s Hospital, had treasured a fourteen-year stream of letters from her grandfather and saved them all for more than sixty years. Lately, she decided to publish them, so that her own five grandchildren, among others, might someday enjoy and profit from them. Joanna’s re-reading of the letters now prompted fresh reflections, resulting in her writing a new reply for each epistle (there were sixty-six)! Both sets ­­––his to her back then, and hers to him this year­–– are picturesque and full of detail in the lives that each of them has led.

The yield to us is two biographies, his and hers: from one side, a World War I soldier, born in 1888, a Southern Baptist who made his living repairing watches in a one-man shop; and from the other, his beloved grandchild, a distinguished Arkansan on the leading cusp of the women’s movement, who taught and practiced medicine through a time of rapid change in that­­––and, it has often felt, in everything. He knew life in 1888, she in 2022. So here they are writing forth and back across that historical divide––and breathing gratitude and love on every page. Three times, Joanna says, in three different ways, “you saved my life.” But, above it all, “you taught me how to love.” She wants to pass it on.

The Rev. Dr. Christoph Keller, III

Email joannaseibert@me.com to reserve a book. $20. All proceeds go to Camp Mitchell.