I earned a B.A. from the University of Illinois with a Creative Writing major. I next obtained a Ph.D. in History from the University of Toronto; while there I sold a few short stories to the CBC which was then read on the air in a series devoted to young authors. During an over 30 - year career as a historian, I published a dozen books in social history, some authored, and some edited. My biography of a World War One figure, FROM PRAIRIE TO PRISON: THE LIFE OF SOCIAL ACTIVIST KATE RICHARDS O'HARE, won the Missouri Book Award as the best book of the year from the Missouri State Historical Society in 1994.

On the basis of my publications, I was honored with two Fulbright awards, to New Zealand in 1986, and to Finland in 1998. I edited the John Muir Newsletter at the University of the Pacific for several years until my retirement in 2000.