Given Away

About the Book

It was one of those cool October days when the California wind was slowly bringing the air a chill. October in California can be bleak and a little depressing. I was about to find out how depressing it could be. I was nine years old, on that cool October day. As I came home from school I noticed all my belongings; clothes, shoes everything I owned in a cardboard box on the front porch of the little clap board house where we lived, in bean town, just outside Clovis California. As I climbed the steps to the porch that day, my mind searching for an answer, the front door opened and my stepmother stepped out with a big smile on her face. “Why are my things out here on the porch”? I asked, “Your dad has given you away” she said. What did she mean given me away? You can’t just give someone away. But what she said was true, my dad had given me away to a man to be raised, as he saw fit. Given me away to someone I did not know, to be taken away, to some faraway place, 1500 miles from here. Is that possible? Can your parents just give you away? Can they do that? Oh! Yes, they can do that.

About the Author

Olan Hill, Jr. is a retired middle school principal of over 33 years. He is a graduate of South-Eastern University in Lakeland Florida, with a Bachelor of Arts Degree. He received his Masters degree in Administration and Supervision from Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida. He did post-graduate work at the University of South Florida, Tampa. He has been pastor of Sydney Assembly of God and Associate Pastor of Pleasant Grove Assembly of God Durant, Florida. He and his wife, the former Mary Lou Hinson, have three children: Holli Fears, Olan Doyle and Charles Philip.