Tucked away in a Displaced Person's camp in Germany at the end of WWII, thirteen year old Harry never dreamed of living in America. The family had lost everything- but their dream beyond all dreams came true when the U.S. President Harry Truman welcomed immigrants from the Baltic states, and the Kapeikis family set foot on American soil at New York Harbor in March, 1949. When the family arrived by train into the unfamiliar Taco-ma, they found a clean, furnished apartment and new job waiting for them. Young Harry applied himself at school and learned that he could achieve anything in the land of opportunity: to drive, own a car and a home, graduate from university, and find the girl of his dreams. Beyond All Dreams is both a moving coming of age tale about a young boy's tenacity and a pictograph of life in post-war America in the 1950s.
About the Author: Harry G. Kapeikis (a.k.a. Harij in the memoir) was born July 22, 1935 in beautiful, peaceful Riga, Latvia. But at a young, impressionable age Harry witnessed atrocities under Stalin's communistic regime from June 1940 to June 1941. In the fall of 1944, Harry and his parents fled the returning Soviets in a south-west direction towards the advancing U.S. and British forces. In May of 1945 the family came under the protection of the U.S. and eventually found temporary refuge in a Displaced Person's camp in Haunstetten, near Augsburg, Germany. In March of 1949 the Kapeikis family took the opportunity to immigrate to the United States, settling in Tacoma, Washington where Harry finished his secondary education. Harry earned a Bachelor of Architecture degree form University of Washington in 1959, and was commissioned in the U.S. Army reserve serving 12 years as an officer. In 1957 Harry married JoAnn Doubek and after completing his studies the couple owned and operated a design and construction business in Seattle. In 1968 Harry earned a M. Div. degree from Pacific Lutheran Seminary, was ordained, and the couple moved to Alberta, Canada. Harry, a retired minister, and JoAnn now live in Penticton, British Columbia and are the parents of a married son Paul, (Louise) with two daughters and a son; and a widowed daughter Cheryl Hofman, with three daughters. Throughout his life, especially in his younger years, Harry enjoyed a variety of sports; softball, a champion of table tennis, track, and later cross country skiing in winter and water-skiing, hiking and motor-cycling in summer. With JoAnn he continues to enjoy camping, RV-ing, traveling, reading, writing and his computerized electric bar-be-cue, all year long. The two were also known among friends for their ballroom dance artistry. Harry has written a number of skits, one Christmas play, "The Fourth Gift", and an Easter play, "In the Spirit of Easter". His first major work was the memoir depicting his experiences during WWII, "Exile from Latvia" published in 2007 to which "Beyond All Dreams", is a sequel.