When I Was A Child: Based on a true story of love, death, and survival on the Kansas prairie

T.L. Needham
Outskirts Press (2011)
ISBN 9781432771362
Reviewed by Joseph Yurt for Reader Views (7/11)

 

As a writer, T.L. Needham has spent most of his career laboring in the business and family matters fields. But, his newest book, “When I Was a Child,” is a dramatically different undertaking for Needham. “When I Was a Child,” based on the true story of his mother’s family, paints a thought-provoking portrait of the harsh life that was endured by many American, mid-western farm families during the 1920s to the late 1930s. The tragedy and struggles endured by one family, and the power and depth of their love, was extraordinary. Some will find it stunning and hard to imagine.
 
The family member that Needham uses as the focal point of the book is his Uncle Louis, a World War II paratrooper who spent considerable time as a prisoner of war. He was also the beloved brother to the author’s mother, Geraldine. Louis and Geraldine were only a year apart in age and grew up sharing a special bond. Needham and his uncle shared a similar bond. The book fairly explodes in the first two chapters, first in the riveting account of Louis’ night parachute drop deep in German occupied France as part of the allies D-Day invasion, then a powerful and poignant chronicle of the family’s loss of their mother to a blizzard.

Needham’s passion for his story is readily apparent. His compilation of the family’s history, and both significant, as well as, mundane occurrences, is meticulous. He relied primarily on his own recollections, and oral history provided by Louis and other family members, in fulfilling his self-appointed role as family story chronicler. But, for this reviewer, what follows the opening chapters of “When I Was A Child” was neither as powerfully written nor as compelling a story. To be sure, there are passages throughout the book which are exceptional, but they are not enough to overcome other passages that do not share their vitality. As a result, the remainder of the book seemed plodding from time to time, and my interest ebbed and flowed.

Yet, despite my disappointment, “When I Was A Child” does tell an extraordinary story. And, T.L Needham is an effective storyteller who is at his best when recollecting through a child’s eyes. The book also is an important chronicle of how very different and difficult life was for many American families less than one-hundred years ago. And, as such, “When I Was A Child” is an especially timely read today.

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