Long Road Home

Walt Williams has lived in Galion, Ohio all his life, save for 16 months working in Chicago and living in Park ridge, Illinois, where he met Lucy, his wife of 65 years. Walt has a daughter, Carolyn, who lives in Redmond, Washington and with her husband Frank, their daughter Lauren is in her first year of college. Walt, now retired, has had several jobs through the years including lumberyard management and salesman for a local printing company. Walt’s avocation at one time was magic. He and Carolyn performed magic shows throughout the state. In 1976-77 he serves as International President of the International Brotherhood of Magicians. Walt has published two editions of his book “For You the War is Over,” stories of his experiences during WWII including being shot down over Germany and spending 16 months as a POW. Other books he has written are “I Recall,” about his life in magic; “A Chronicle of Curiosity,” a collection of short stories; and “Final Judgment,” an investigation into a 1880s lynching. Besides writing, Walt enjoys gardening, hunting and fishing. The journal of George Gray and the journey of Frank Hill are fictitious, but from Walt’s studies of that period of time in our country these travels and adventures could have been possible. This novel is part history, part an enigma of how Frank survived his time as a slave, and his later travels during the Civil War and post war period.