Looking Back

About the Book

After retiring from the faculty of Central Michigan University, DeWayne Kyser wrote a monthly column for the Isabella County Senior News. These essays were written for and about his own generation, those whose lives spanned nearly all of the amazing twentieth century. They grew up with horses and unpaved streets, saw the automobile change the world, and then airplanes, television and space travel change it still more. They lived through a world war, a great depression, another world war and a cold war. These are the stories of how some of them lived in a time some of us can almost remember.

About the Author

Forrest DeWayne Kyser (1913-1993) was a janitor at Central Michigan University in his 40s and a professor there in his 60s. Born on a farm in Lincoln Township, Michigan, he attended Central State Teachers College. After trying rural school teaching, he went to the University of Michigan for a Master’s Degree in geography. Then he returned to his father’s farm. Forced to find other income, he also worked in real estate, a lumber yard in Shepherd, and as a custodian at Central. At 50, he got a Ph.D. in geography at Michigan State, joined the CMU faculty.