Irene Hope Hedrick writes Z99 candor and grace about her life as a British war bride in Montana Irene Hope met her serviceman husband in WWII England and came to the United States to live on the borders of the Salish-Kootenai Indian Reservation in the 1

Throughout the twentieth century, American male soldiers returned home from wars with foreign-born wives in tow, often from allied but at times from enemy nations, resulting in a new, official category of immigrant: the “allied” war bride. These brides began to appear en masse after World War I, peaked after World War II, and persisted through the Korean and Vietnam Wars. GIs also met and married former “enemy” women under conditions of postwar occupation, although at times the US government banned such unions. In this comprehensive, complex history of war brides in 20th-century American history, Susan Zeiger uses relationships between American male soldiers and foreign women as a lens to view larger issues of sexuality, race, and gender in United States foreign relations. Entangling Alliances draws on a rich array of sources to trace how war and postwar anxieties about power and national identity have long been projected onto war brides, and how these anxieties translate into public policies, particularly immigration.

Irene Hope Hedrick has returned with Volume 2 of her memoir. A gifted writer and storyteller, she can still recite from Robert Louis Stevenson's poem From A Railway Carriage. Irene's father read William Blake to her as a child, called her by her nickname, "Our I." She learned early that "Infinity is in the here and now," and that "Eternity demands, is relentless." Her father also told her: "If you grow up with a kind heart and a sense of love, you'll live to be a hundred." Irene intends to, even as she invites you to listen to her stories from the depression, World War II in England, marriage to a Yankee soldier and immigration to the United States. If, as it is said, "Charity can be given with an empty hand, with a kind word" Irene has been charitable in the gift of these hopeful tales. She includes quotes by thinkers as diverse as Plato, Herodotus, song lyrics, and wisdom-bearing language. Read and be nourished. Ann Staley, teacher, poet & essayist, author of Primary Sources