Happy Wanderers

About the Book

Happy Wanderers is the outgrowth of the melding of travelogues by John and Gen Whalen and their daughter Mary T. Whalen, Ed. D. The articles were written for John and Gen’s newspapers upon the completion of trips to exotic lands. John served as managing editor and editorial page editor of the Mitchell, South Dakota, Daily Republic for sixteen years. His editorials won a variety of awards, including the National Conference of Christians and Jews Brotherhood Award. He is the author of Maverick Among the Magnolias: the Hazel Brannon Smith Story, and Jawin’, a collection of his newspaper columns. Gen joined her husband in the publishing of weekly newspapers in l960 with their purchase of the Tyndall Tribune and Register and neighboring Springfield Times in South Dakota. Between then and l992, they successively owned and operated the Nora Springs Advertiser in Iowa, the Poplar Bluff Ozark Beacon in Missouri, and the weekly Madelia Times-Messenger and monthly SENIOR Newsmagazine in Minnesota. Gen died in 1999 and John lives in Dubuque, Iowa, with daughter Mary. He has four children, eleven grandchildren and twelve great grandchildren. Mary enjoyed a fruitful career of teaching mathematics to students from elementary up through the university level, the latter as professor in the mathematics- computer department at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. She retired and moved to Dubuque in 2004.

About the Author