About the author
Charles F. Larimer, the great great grandson of Jacob and Emeline Ritner, was born to an American father and Canadian mother in a U.S. Army Hospital in Trieste, Italy in 1953. He was raised in Sioux City, Iowa, where he attended public schools, and graduated from the University of Iowa in 1975 with a degree in mathematics. He lived in the Chicago area during most of the period while he researched the original version of the book, which made it easy for him to travel to Mt. Pleasant, Iowa on his research expeditions. He now lives in Denver, Colorado with his wife and family.