Penny Rogers got a long overdue gift on her 95th birthday this year, the first published copies of a book she’ d written almost 60 years before.
story by KATE NAJACHT
Amystery
60 years in the making
Penny Rogers got a long overdue gift on her 95th birthday this year, the first published copies of a book she’ d written almost 60 years before.
Penny proudly displays her book, The Castle Connection, that was more than 60 years in the making. The first copies arrived on her 95th birthday giving her the present of a lifetime.
Photos courtesy of Tamara Rogers
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It’ s a long story, you see, to how she even arrived at writing the book and then why it sat dormant for so many decades before coming to life.
“ It taught me I am quite lazy,” Penny said with a laugh,“ but I guess I already knew that.”
But listening to her tales of foreign countries and a life lived to the full to this day, Penny strikes me as anything but lazy.
Born in 1931 in Rockford, Ill., on a dairy farm, she remembers learning to drink skim milk at an early age.
“ My father milked 60 head of Holsteins daily and my mother would bring the fresh milk into the house in tall jars,” she said.“ The cream would rise to the top and we would skim it off so it could be shipped via train to a dairy in Chicago.” But that was just the beginning of her interesting stories. Penny attended Wheaton College, which is where she met her soon-to-be husband. They married after she graduated when he was already enlisted in the Army language school to learn Russian in Monterey, California. She moved there to be with him and shortly after followed him, via a freighter, to Japan where he was stationed. Their first child was born in Japan, and that was the first country abroad she called home. There were many to follow.
After her husband obtained his PhD, he was hired in South Dakota. On a sabbatical, the couple traveled to South Africa and Switzerland, and later when her husband became a Fulbright professor, his career would take them to Ghana.
After their divorce, Penny moved to Wisconsin so she could be closer to her parents who were still in Illinois.
She obtained her Master’ s degree in teaching ESL and moved to Spain for three years.
With years lived in France and traveling around the world— and to all 50 states— Penny needed a place to call home for a while.
She moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she ended up living for more than 30 years. It was there she joined South- West Writers, an organization filled with professional writers who would lovingly critique what you’ d written.
“ We would read passages of what we had written aloud,” Penny said,“ and then the writers would let you know what they liked and didn’ t like about your writing.”
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