The Last of the Pioneers

This story is unusual but true--as told by eyewitnesses or by those whose lives overlapped those eyewitnesses. The story is about the lives of four generations of ancestors beginning in old Europe and then coming to America in the 1800s with a wave of other immigrants. They moved westward, lured by the promises of homesteads. They became the last of the pioneers as they reached the wilderness frontiers of Canada in the far West. They had been held back by the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression but then escaped to something better in California. These family lines were linked by a trusted belief system that informed them and gave them hope. There was an unpredictable series of good things and bad things that happened to them on a daily basis. Their Christian worldview and trust in God saw them through these many struggles. Keith E. Andersen was born in Alberta, Canada, in 1932. He graduated from high school in Kelseyville, California, in 1949. He then served four years in the United States Air Force from 1950 to 1954. He graduated from San Francisco State University with a Bachelor of Arts Degree and a Masters Degree, together with teaching and school administration credentials. He taught in the public schools for five years before serving as school principal for thirteen years. He served as Assistant Superintendent until retiring in 1990. He served for more than thirty years in public education. The author has served in his local church for over fifty years as adult Bible teacher, elder, deacon, and other roles. He is active in the distribution of bibles through Gideons International. The author and his wife of 58 years live in Napa, California and have four adult children and six grandchildren.