A Life Renewed, 1983-1998

A Life Renewed, 1983-1998 continues the personal story begun in Roderick Stackelberg's earlier autobiographical volumes, Out of Hitler's Shadow and Memory and History. The basic themes stressed in the prefaces to the first two volumes of his autobiography-the desire to honestly share his experiences in an aesthetically pleasing and enjoyable way retain their relevance for this later volume as well.

This third volume covers his happiest and most generative years, including his new marriage to Sally Winkle and his work as a professor of history at Gonzaga University. His richly illustrated personal and professional stories are interspersed with a running commentary on the extraordinary political changes in the closing years of the twentieth century.

The title of this volume, A Life Renewed, 1983-1998, refers to both his new marriage to Sally and to the birth of their son, Emmet, in 1991. The fifteen years covered in this volume are infused with the joys of a happy marriage, a gifted late-born off spring, and some limited but satisfying professional success. He also chronicles the successes of his older children as they pursue college and careers. Stackelberg considers this period to be the "high noon" of his life, before the onset of old age and ill health at the turn of the century.