A Work of Love Completed

 

My new book  “If a Store Could Talk… The Spiegler Family Remembers” came out at the end of September.  On the first weekend in October my wife Fran and I traveled to northern Illinois to attend my fiftieth high school reunion and conduct a book signing event at the Des Plaines History Center on Sunday afternoon.  It was good to see some old close friends at the reunion and my brother Glenn, who we stayed with the last night.

Glenn, Fran, and I traveled to the History Center for the book signing and it was truly a special  event.  About forty people attended, which was more than I expected, and the  crowd was composed of family members, former employees, old customers, family friends, and a few high school buddies.  After a brief introduction by me, family members, including  two cousins of my father, and former employee and friend Roy Hansen, read interesting passages from the book. It was a very warm moment.  We ended up selling all fifty of the books we had shipped there, with the History Center buying the last ten books to sell in their gift shop. I was not expecting to return to Tucson with no books.

We are selling quite a few books on the Internet right now, and people who are buying the books are spreading the word to others.  Hopefully we will have bit of a snow ball effect.  Two people named Spiegler who I have never met have also contacted me once they saw information about the book.

Ultimately I am glad I wrote the book not just for our children and grand-children, but for the many people who have been touched by the book.  This was not what I expected, but is very gratifying and has made it all worthwhile.