New Book added to Genealogy Holdings

In her fourth memoir, Sundays with TJ, author Janis F. Kearney attempts to answer the one question most asked of 107-year-old Thomas James "TJ" Kearney:  What was the magical recipe to his longevity, his continued health and his passion for life?  The author and daughter answers the question the only way she knows how: by telling TJ Kearney's life story.  The writer deftly takes readers on an unforgettable journey as she chronicles the life and times of the centenarian whose life began just 40 years after slavery, in the atypically southern town of Lake Village, Arkansas.  TJ's early childhood, she writes, was shaped by his early losses, and his fascination with steamboats, trains and the Mississippi River.  Janis F. Kearney offers her readers glimpses of the many facets of an adoring son, a wanderer and roustabout, a cotton sharecropper, and a loving husband and father of 19 children.  After all is said and done, Kearney asserts; the wise and witty centenarian lived an amazing life, and left with few regrets.  The regrets, he said at 107; were the people he didn't meet, the places he never visited . . . if only he had more time. 


President William J. Clinton stated, "I was always fascinated to hear how TJ and Ethel managed to feed, clothe and shelter their kids, and even more; how they were able to find the right mix of love and discipline to allow them all to become their own persons, different in fascinating ways yet bound together as a family."