Charles City native’s book recounts tumultuous 1960s

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com 

A former Charles City woman has published her first book, thanks to the encouragement of family, friends and teachers.

Beverly Johnson Biehr was born and raised in Charles City and graduated from Charles City High School in the class of 1957. She was in town recently with some of her classmates for their 60th class reunion and to visit her brother, Erwin Johnson.

Biehr has published a book recounting her experiences in Chicago in the 1960s, a time of unrest, protest and empowerment.

“Casualties of Peacemaking” came about over a 10-year period that started with a writing course she took for fun.

“Our instructor helped prompt us, asking ‘What is the wildest thing that has ever happened to you?’” Biehr said.

She wrote about the time she was a young teacher and peace activist in Chicago, working in a program that was designed to help keep inner-city kids off the streets.

One day she was with a group and somebody asked who had a car. She said she did, and was told she needed to go to the airport to pick up Black Panther leader and co-founder Bobby Seale.

“It was him and two who I think were his bodyguards, and I took them to a Lincoln Park rally,” she said. Later she drove them to other locations.

There were people in the writing class who suggested she stretch the tale to include more memories of that volatile time in American history.

“The memories really came back,” she said, and she expanded the story.

Biehr and her husband, Harry, now live near Valparaiso, Indiana, but the “snowbirds” spend the winter in Ocala, Florida.

One winter while in Ocala, Biehr joined the Florida Writers’ Association and shared some of her stories with the association’s local group. They expressed interest and urged her to continue expanding her memories of the 60s.

“They really dragged it out of me,” she said. She dealt with issues of war and peace and protest — “it seems so current again, now, doesn’t it?” she said.

The story, which was becoming book-length by that time, went through several rewrites. Family and friends offered encouragement

“Each one gets better, until you stop,” Biehr laughed about the rewriting process.

She submitted the manuscript to the Royal Palm Literary Awards of the Florida Writers Association in 2015,  and although it didn’t win, “the judges gave me very good advice.”

She took that advice to heart, reworked the manuscript again and resubmitted it to the contest, where it won a 2016 Royal Palm Literary Award.

“One judge said all students in high school should read it — it’s living history,” Biehr said.

One group that the book particularly seems to touch is Vietnam veterans, she said. “It has created a lot of conversations.”

Here is an except, from the book’s back cover:

“Something important was about to happen. You could feel it in the air and I was right in the middle of the 1968 political bonfire. I taught summer school to Latino and Black youth. Mayor Daley’s Peace Corps program was intended to provide the tools of empowerment to this group of inner-city kids through learning about the political system and the way to effect peaceful change.

“Chicago would host the Democratic National Convention and summer became politically heated. It was the Corp’s young teachers and pastors’ turn for learning about empowerment and political discontent. Trying to make peace and justice work in tandem was adventurous and risky and many of the careful strategies never worked out as planned.

“The business of the sixties is still unfinished, but our legacy, “How to protest war” and “How to do peace,” remains a good foundation for the co-existence of peace and justice. We were just regular young people, but we heralded change by creating new paths toward equality in race relationships and doing peacemaking throughout the world.”

After graduating from Charles City High School, Biehr received a degree from Iowa State University, then lived and worked in Mexico with a Methodist Church group before moving to Chicago where she married Harry. They adopted two boys from Santiago, Chile — Luis and Juan.

Biehr has three master’s degrees, including a Master of Divinity degree.

Asked if she has another book in her or if this it is, Biehr laughed.

“I have an idea,” she said. “This one won’t take 10 years.”

“Casualties of Peacemaking” is published by Peppertree Press and is available through most online book sellers.