Tillie Zimmerman and her parents left their native Germany for The United States just as the stock market crash of 1929 threw thousands of people out of work. Free farmland in Oklahoma was available to hardy souls who would homestead the land. They scraped the grass off of the prairie and built a sod house and labored to till the soil without much more than a plow, a mule and seed financed by the local bank. By 1935 they and thousands of "Okies" abandoned their farms as howling winds blew away in the great dust storms of the "Dirty Thirties." The Okies headed for California and were turned away at the border by citizens, sheriffs and militia guards. Tillie's family worked their way up the west coast as farm laborers and finally settled in Washington State where the start of World War II broke the back of the Great Depression. Tillie hired on at Boeing and riveted B-17 and B-29 skins on aircraft that helped win the peace. Eventually she retired and built her own cabin in her 40 acres of forest on Stuart Island Washington. There on a cold wintery night she fought against all odds to save the life of a young Chinese woman named Jia Hui whose owner won her in a poker game. Jia Hui was attracted to job opportunities in the Western United States and Canada with promises of good wages and benefits. She hoped to find work in childcare or as a domestic servant. Her recruiter in Shanghai told her of other women who earned a good living in Vancouver, British Columbia and Seattle. Some had gone to college and became executives, business owners, social workers. Other opportunities in industry included work in the fashion industry. Each male and female who signed up for the program would travel to the United States or Canada and enjoy a great range of opportunities, the recruiters spun stories of a new life in the exciting life in the beautiful Northwest. Jia Hui and all of her fellow recruits dared to dream of the unattainable.
About the Author: Jerry Pipes Jerry Pipes was born in 1937 to Lloyd and Charlotte Pipes in Indianapolis, Indiana. He graduated from Broad Ripple High School, enrolled at Butler University and served a tour in the United States Army as a computer analyst, before graduating with a BS from Anderson University (IN). He earned his MA at Chapman University 1971 and his doctoral degree in education, higher education, curriculum and administration from Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana in 1974. He taught English, history, psychology and Driver Training in Indiana and California. He was also an assistant High School Principal. After completion of his doctorate he was appointed Director of Personnel and Student Services at Lacrosse, WI and was Superintendent of Schools at San Juan Island School District at Friday Harbor, WA. Later he was president of Human Resource Associates in Seattle, Tacoma, Belleview, Washington and San Jose California). In 1989 he was employed as a Proposal Specialist and Book and Proposal Manager at Boeing Defense and Space Co 1989 - 2000 and a book manager at Steven Myers and Associates Newport Beach (CA) 2000-2005. In retirement, he developed an interest in travel and mystery writing. After many false starts he completed his first mysteries Tillie Zimmerman and The Spy Who Came to Deer Harbor. He learned about spies and spying from a retired MI5 agent who taught a comprehensive seminar on Espionage. He was fascinated by KGB assassination stories and visitation to spy haunts in London, England.