After an active childhood of vivid and humorous adventures, at age fifteen, James (JB) was forced to face a significant crossroads when, at the hasty request of his father, he had to leave home in Newton, Kansas rather than to continue the schooling he so coveted. His father, who learned only in the "school of hard knocks," did not consider a formal education necessary.

Read of daunting challenges beginning "on the streets" of Wichita, Kansas, his elopement with his first love, Maxine, at the age of eighteen, his struggles to provide for a growing family, Maxine's death at the age of...