ABOUT - Betty Brandt Passick

A few ramblings about my journey…

Since retiring a decade ago, I have written and published four (4) books–all historical, three set in my hometown of Fairbank, Iowa. Who would have ever guessed I had such a passion for writing history? Certainly not me, though I knew I loved to write poetry and stories from a very early age.

In our family’s book of history, We Are Eight, a Memoriam (2015), I wrote about an awakening experience one day while walking home from the country school to our farm with two older brothers. I learned that I had an inquisitive mind and recorded what I saw in the world around me in ‘stories’:

"Sometimes we raced part of the way home, our books and papers and lunch cans banging against our sides with each stride. Other times we walked gingerly, without a care in the world, kicking pebbles down the road,  watching the brief shower of dust evaporate before our eyes. There were pronounced periods of silence, too, when our brains pondered learnings and contemplated profound thoughts. Perhaps it was a on such a day when I experienced what I would later say was tantamount to a tremendous shifting of the earth’s core beneath my feet. On this day a door opened ever so slightly and let in the slightest sliver of light. Suddenly I had questions that I had never considered before: Where did the water in the stream come from? From where did it flow? And the sky? The trees? The cows? Us? From that day forward, I began to look at and listen to adults much more intently (they knew a lot more than did us kids). I wondered if they had also wondered about these things, and if so, had they found answers to their questions? I was still a shy girl who thought about a lot of things without saying much myself. But after that day, I intentionally eavesdropped on all adult conversations. And I would begin to ask a lot more questions."