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DR. EDWIN M. SWENGEL
Dr. Edwin M. Swengel was born in Neoga, Illinois, in 1917. After he graduated from high school, his parents moved to Urbana, Illinois, so that he could attend the University of Illinois while livin...view moreDr. Edwin M. Swengel was born in Neoga, Illinois, in 1917. After he graduated from high school, his parents moved to Urbana, Illinois, so that he could attend the University of Illinois while living at home. Money was tight during those Depression years. After earning his bachelor’s degree, he married Elizabeth Loeffler, also an Illinois graduate, and they began a life together that included three daughters: Jane, Marcia, and Lockie, now deceased. For the next twenty-five years, Dr. Swengel, known as Mac by most, taught school, farmed, and remodeled a one-room school house to become the family home. He founded a community orchestra known as the Fithian Farmhouse Filharmonic and was active in a local church. When working on his master’s degree in the early 60s, he became interested in Montessori education—believing it to be the right beginning for schools using what he would eventually name Mutual Instruction. In 1963, he went to California to pursue more Montessori training. The following year, he, Elizabeth, and their youngest daughter, Lockie, moved to Los Angeles where he earned a Ph.D. from UCLA and developed YAK Phonics. In 1969, he and his wife moved to San Diego where he became a professor at the United States International University, both teaching classes and supervising student teachers at the high school and elementary levels. After retirement, he continued to study and read about education, which led to his writing The Plainston Chronicles, 1919-1951 and finally Conspiracy.
Jane Swengel Creason was born in Urbana, Illinois, in 1942. She has lived in the same house since she was four, a remodeled one-room school house located on a small farm her mother inherited. She and her husband, Don, raised two children there, now both married. Their grandchildren, the fourth generation, know the old house well. Jane, who always wanted to be a teacher, earned bachelor and master’s degrees from the University of Illinois. Then she began what became a forty-plus year teaching career at the grade school, middle school, high school, and community college levels. She began writing her two young adult novels, When the War Came to Hannah and The Heron Stayed, while teaching middle school. Having lived in the same house with the same husband and having taught English in the same county for much of her life, Jane describes herself as a contented Midwesterner who has put down serious roots.
Sarah Creason, the cover artist, became interested in painting as a relaxing hobby while working for the Department of Agriculture in Columbia City, Indiana. Within a few years, she was studying and painting during every spare minute. After retirement, she also began to teach painting. Currently, her work is displayed at the Orchard Gallery in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where she works part-time. Sarah and Jane, who are married to brothers Cliff and Don Creason, have been sisters-in-law for many years.view less