The View From the Folding Chairs
Raised in the North Park, Colorado, town of Walden, population 600, Miller was thousands of miles from the European or Pacific theaters. Nevertheless, the war touched her childhood daily. In this gem of a book, finely illustrated with pencil drawings by Jean Kashner, Miller recalls with dry humor, irony and exquisite detail the excitement of War Chest campaigns, victory dances, tin collections and patriotic school programs. She credits her childhood of sacrifices and shortages with molding the woman she is today. Miller sets the reader down in the folding chairs on the front porch of her family’s rented summer house, where she and her sister soak up her mother’s stories, learn to play cards and follow the progress of war campaigns on a large wall map. The View From the Folding Chairs transports the reader to a time marked by fall canning, freshly made baked goods, darned socks, borrowed and patched clothes, chickens in the yard, outhouses and evenings spent reading by the light of kerosene lamps. From collecting gum foil wrappers to “hammering the last ooze from the toothpaste tube,” Miller captures every sweet and touching detail of this era which has been made more distant by the speed of modern life. Michala Miller is the granddaughter of Irish immigrants who in 1878 settled in Leadville. She was raised and married in North Park. Today, she resides with her geologist husband in Steamboat Springs, where she recently retired from a career as a bailiff with the Routt County Court system. She spent fifteen years writing The View From the Folding Chairs. Jean Kashner has sketched since childhood. She earned an associate’s degree in commercial art from El Paso County Community College and has frequently exhibited her work in northwest Colorado. She makes her home in Hayden with her husband and four cats.
- Published
- 2001
- ISBN
- 1-890437-57-3
- Pages
- 180
- Place
- Leadville
- Publisher
- Western Reflections Pub.
- Listed at
- $12.95
Publication details from Open Library. The price shown is the last one on record and is historic, not a current offer.
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About this book
The View From the Folding Chairs is a memoir by Michala Miller. She was raised in Walden, a North Park, Colorado, town of about 600 people, and the catalogue description opens there. Walden sat thousands of miles from the European and Pacific theaters of World War II, yet the description says the war touched her life all the same.
The catalogue record lists Western Reflections Pub. as publisher and 2001 as the year. Its subject headings are American personal narratives, biography, girls, and World War, 1939 to 1945, which tells you the story is told in a girl's own voice about the home front rather than the battlefield.
Who it is for
The View From the Folding Chairs suits readers of home front memoir, people with family ties to North Park or Walden, and anyone collecting Colorado personal narratives from the Second World War years. Its subject headings point to a childhood told from a small town, so it speaks to readers who want the war as a small community lived it.
Ways to use this book
Talking with a family member about the war years
Use the rationing articles to prepare a few questions, such as which items families saved or traded. Then ask an older relative what they remember and write the answers down while you can.
Looking up a relative's service
If someone in your family served, the National Archives guide shows where draft and casualty records are described. Gather their full name and birth year first, since those details speed up any search.
Go deeper
The description places this memoir in Walden, Colorado, during World War II. A few reliable sources on North Park and on civilian life in those years offer background for a reader.
Walden and North Park, Colorado
A regional heritage page describing North Park as an isolated high mountain valley, with the area's ranching, logging and rail history.
Rationing of Non-Food Items on the World War II Home Front
A National Park Service article explaining that the Office of Price Administration ran rationing, helped by volunteer local boards.
On the Home Front During World War II
The National Women's History Museum describes rationing, Victory Gardens and scrap drives as ways civilians supported the war effort.
World War II records at the National Archives
A guide to casualty lists, draft records and other finding aids for anyone researching a service member.
Good to know
Is The View From the Folding Chairs fiction or nonfiction?
Where does the story take place?
When was it published?
How do I get a copy?
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