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Elaine Makas PhD
Elaine I. Makas, Ph.D. is excited to share her father's powerful story! Reading and writing have been her passion since she can remember. After finally retiring from the world of education, she has...view moreElaine I. Makas, Ph.D. is excited to share her father's powerful story! Reading and writing have been her passion since she can remember. After finally retiring from the world of education, she has devoted her time to tell the wonderful, important, and heartwarming story of her dad's battlefield journey during the Southern Invasion of Germany in 1944 during World War II. Dr. Makas has based her life values of those her dad taught her throughout all the wonderful years together. The two also shared a deep love and respect for history.
Dr. Makas enjoyed a career in education that spanned more than 40 years and included being a University of Michigan-Flint professor, a public school teacher, an administrator, and a consultant for failing schools in the areas of curriculum and accreditation through her company Curriculum Connections, LLC.
Dr. Makas earned degrees from Western Michigan University, Central Michigan University, and Saginaw Valley State University. She obtained her doctorate in educational leadership from Oakland University.
Dr. Makas wrote A Young Man on the Front Line: Lessons of War from her late father's perspective by compiling the stories he told while she was growing up, along with his battlefield journal entries that chronicled both the tragic and amusing stories of his World War II experience.
U.S. Army Sergeant Chris Makas fought on the front line of the Southern Invasion of Germany in 1944 as part of Company B, 255th Regiment, 1st Battalion, 63rd Infantry Division. After helping to liberate Germany and the concentration camp at Landsberg from the Nazis, he returned to Detroit in 1946 to marry and raise three children.
She authored two educational books: From Mandate to Achievement (Corwin, 2010) and Career Pathways: Preparing Students for Life co-authored with Pam Ill (Corwin, 2004).
Elaine is very proud of her four sons: Mark (Rochelle), Benjamin, Jacob, and Samuel; and her three grandchildren: Sarah, Ethan, and Joshua. She enjoys life with Fred List and engaging in writing, oil painting, nature, horseback riding, and traveling.
"I wrote this book to pay tribute to my dad's life and story," says Dr. Makas, who lives in Frankenmuth, Michigan. "I think young people, millennials and Baby Boomers alike, will enjoy becoming fellow travelers with my father on his journey of war, trauma, adaptation, and self-acceptance while contemplating universal lessons of war."
Writing his story during her battle with cancer strengthened her to endure grueling treatments that resulted in remission.
Dr. Makas hopes that middle and high school social studies and English teachers will use the book to help young people understand how World War II helped shape our world today.view less