A Collection of Short Stories and Personal Recollections

This collection of short stories, essays, and personal anecdotes explores the world as seen—and remembered—through the eyes of a nonagenarian. Irwin Sagenkahn lends a unique perspective to childhood, daily activities, and the fleeting moments we're all too inclined to let pass by.

This collection of short stories, essays, and personal anecdotes explores the world as seen—and remembered—through the eyes of a nonagenarian. Irwin Sagenkahn lends a unique perspective to childhood, daily activities, and the fleeting moments we're all too inclined to let pass by. The collection of this "potpourri of life" began in 1959, when Sagenkahn was enrolled in a correspondence writing course, and have been lovingly and painstakingly transcribed from the original handwritten or typewritten forms by Sagenkahn himself.

Born in 1923, Irwin Sagenkahn lived in the same rural Pennsylvania homestead for 90 years. He graduated from Forty Fort High School in 1941 and went on to study business at Wyoming Seminary Dean School of Business and the Pennsylvania State College, now known as Penn State University. After graduating in 1948, he joined his father at Sagenkahn's Paint and Hardware until 1966, at which point he decided to join the accounting profession. A World War II veteran who served in the Corps of Engineers in the European Theatre of Operations in France, the Pacific Theatre of Operations in the Philippine Islands, and in the Army of Occupation in Japan, Sagenkahn received a commission as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Army Air Force Reserves in 1948. Sagenkahn is an avid genealogist, and since 1990 has located cousins scattered across the globe. He's met cousins in Moscow, Russia; Riga, Latvia; South Africa and found cousins in England and Australia. He has published articles in various genealogical journals about his success in finding relatives literally all over the world. He is the author of the novel "Coal Dust is White", published in August 2012, and "Letters to Home in Forty Fort", published in January 2018. He married Sally Lee Schonfeld in March 1953. Together they had three children; Samuel J. Sagenkahn, Beth Warren and Lee Ellen Brown. He presently resides at Lions Gate, a retirement community in Voorhees, NJ.