“Newly Planted Orchard” Oil on canvas by Paul Buxman   “Winter is the rainy season in the San Joaquin Valley. Massive clouds heavy with moisture picked up over the Pacific Ocean bump into the massive wall of the Sierra Nevada and dump their load of snow and rain. Then, when the clouds clear and the sun … Continue reading Winter Rain

The Gift of Laughter is now available in Canada at the following URL: http://www.amazon.ca/dp/1542487609. In the States the URL: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1542487609 A click on a link will take you to a page with a description of the book as well as a "look inside" feature that allows you to leaf-through and read quite a few pages.

Well friends, the book is finally done and can be ordered in the States by clicking on the following link: https://www.createspace.com/6854113 The book will not be available in Canada until March 6. It has a separate URL, which I'll post when it is operative. Here is the description of the book that is on the … Continue reading The Book is Available

UPDATE: February 15 is the new target date for the book to be available on Amazon. It is actually almost ready to be put online, but the person who is doing the technical work needs to set my book aside for a while in order to meet other, long-standing commitments. The Gift of Laughter is a … Continue reading

The Gift of Laughter is a family history memoir, the story of my father’s family. My dad was the fifth of the fifteen children born to Jacob C. and Helena Zimmerman Willems. In 1919, the family moved from a Mennonite community in Saskatchewan, Canada to the raisin country southeast of Fresno in California’s great Central … Continue reading Family

Dear Friends, The book is written, edited and in the process of becoming a print-on-demand book. Friends are putting on a pre-publication book launch next Sunday evening at the Reedley First Mennonite Church in Reedley, California, and I will also be presenting the book to a group at Fresno Pacific University, a Mennonite Brethren school, … Continue reading Update

There is not much of a post this month. I am closing in on the end of the editing of my book, and my brain is unwilling to really think about anything else. I hate this part of writing, the going over and over the text. I went through this with my MA thesis; I … Continue reading Update

This post marks a transition point in this web-book. I am not going to put the rest of the chapters online. What has been posted thus far are things I want to be freely available to anyone who happens upon them through online search. It is my contribution to the larger project of Mennonite history … Continue reading Jacob & Agnes