MSI Press Blog

  Sharon Cole's book, Hazel and Olaf reached #4 among hot new releases in the category of Great Depression and #24 in depression history (Amazon general category). Book Description: They sold the farm, packed up seven children, and chased a promise called California. Based on Hazel’s journal, this true story follows a family that leaves Wisconsin hoping for relief from brutal winters—only to run out of money with hundreds of miles still to go. Stranded and desperate, they enter a world of labor camps, endless fieldwork, hunger, and exhaustion, where families are worked hard, paid little, and treated as disposable. Once respected and secure, they find themselves suddenly labeled vagrants. Pride becomes a liability. Dignity must be defended daily. And survival depends on grit, faith, and refusing to give up—especially for Hazel, who will not allow poverty to erase who she is or break her family apart. This is a raw, gripping true story of endurance, injustice, and a woman who stood ...

Los Baños in the 1930s was a town balanced between endurance and enterprise — a place where the rhythm of trains, dairies, and harvests shaped daily life against the backdrop of the Great Depression. The valley was fertile, but survival was never easy. Families worked the land, followed the crops, and built communities out of necessity rather than choice. The Work of Survival The Southern Pacific Railroad still thundered through town, hauling gravel from the Los Baños Creek pit to build tracks and roads across California. A telegraph car at the pit coordinated four to six trains a day, and a small camp restaurant fed dozens of workers for thirty‑three cents a meal. The air smelled of dust and diesel, and the sound of shovels striking gravel was the heartbeat of the town. Beyond the rail line, dairies and farms defined the landscape. The Los Baños Dairy Company’s new brick creamery, built in 1939, symbolized progress — pasteurizers humming, compressors cooling, workers proud to be part ...

  Today, October 17, is a day that brings back memories. Every year.  On October 17, 1989, at 5:04 p.m., the earth beneath Northern California gave a violent shudder. The Loma Prieta earthquake , registering a magnitude of 6.9, struck the Santa Cruz Mountains and rippled outward with devastating force. It collapsed sections of the Bay Bridge, pancaked a freeway in Oakland, and silenced the World Series mid-game. Sixty-three lives were lost, thousands injured, and entire neighborhoods reshaped in seconds. For many, it was a day of tragedy. For my family, it was also our first real “hello” from California. We had just moved west from Arlington, Virginia, where I’d been working for the U.S. Department of State. Our family was scattered across the Monterey Peninsula that afternoon—each of us about to learn what it meant to live on fault lines. I was at the Presidio of Monterey, mid-conversation with a calm, collected Army officer. He would later retire and become a lawyer, but...

  Bob McGee, author of best-selling A View through the Fog , penned a delightful and insightful article on California's Central Coast for BiCoastal Digest : California's Central Coast . For more posts about Bob and his book, click HERE . Sign up for the MSI Press LLC newsletter Follow MSI Press on  Twitter ,  Face Book , and  Instagram .   Interested in publishing with MSI Press LLC? Check out information on  how to submit a proposal . Interested in receiving a free copy of this or any MSI Press LLC book  in exchange for  reviewing  a current or forthcoming MSI Press LLC book? Contact editor@msipress.com. Want an  author-signed copy  of this book? Purchase the book at 25% discount (use coupon code FF25) and concurrently send a written request to orders@msipress.com.  Want to communicate with one of our authors? You can!  Find their contact information on our  Authors' Pages .