Hard Road to Heaven - Paperback

by Jeanne Ann Vanderhoef (Author)

In the gracious era between the Russian Revolution and WWII, fifteen year old American Carole Pierson, through a twist of luck and talent, studies ballet and becomes Poland's Prima Ballerina. Her schoolgirl crush turns into love and she marries the handsome Kurt von Pawel. By the time Carole realizes what kind of man her husband really is, she's in danger. Her struggle to escape, compounded by the discovery that she's pregnant, leads her into hiding. With the aid of the Polish Underground, the goal is the island of Hel in the Baltic Sea. Once her son is born, Carole is forced to send the baby away with her former maid Anna rather than have Kurt find out he has a son. The wagon carrying Anna and the baby rolls away, perhaps forever. Captured and sent to a concentration camp, Carole's future becomes more uncertain. A tale of unflinching courage and determination.

Author Biography

Jeanne Ann Vanderhoef is the 92 year-old daughter of an American U.S. Horse/Armored Cavalry Officer and a mother who wrote 54 best-selling novels for teen-agers from 1940 to 1973, Janet Lambert. When her father was sent to Poland in 1930 to share methods of equitation with the Polish Cavalry, Jeanne Ann was fortunate enough to be able to spend a great deal of time on lovely estate called Ostaczewo (Friedenau in her book) with a wonderful, German family and to study ballet in the elegant ballroom. She did not remain to further a career, but came back to the U.S. A. with her parents in 1932. She had her schooling in many places. Grade school was mostly in Lexington, Virginia. She skipped the 7th and 8th grade while living in the city of Grudziadz in the Polish Corridor. Having become bi-lingual in German, she and her mother spent six months in France where she attended a French school, though barely proficient in French. Two years of college at the University of Missouri taught her about living in a sorority and having a good time, but she resisted cluttering her brain with academics. When her father was posted to Governor's Island in New York, she became one of the early John Power models. While dating at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, she met a First (Senior) Classman, Dean T. Vanderhoef. It was 'love at first date.' A year later when he graduated, they were married in July 1940. Their first child, Craig was born in 1942 while Vandy (Dean) was overseas for three years during WWII. Their second child, a daughter Lee arrived in 1946 and a second daughter Christa in 1948. After the war they spent most of Van's 20 years of service in the Washington, D.C. area with three years in Garmisch Partenkirchen, Germany, '47 to '50 and two years in Bangkok, Thailand, '56 to '58. Her first book, Gibbons in the Family Tree, is an outgrowth of acquiring two baby Gibbons monkeys while they were in Thailand. She maintains that one cannot live in a small town in Virginia with three children and two apes (Gibbons) without having a funny or touching tale to tell. After 63 wonderful years of marriage, Van passed away in 2003. Jeanne Ann lives in Charlottesville, Virginia where Hot Toddy, a Shih Tsu, and Fritzi, the cat, allow her to share their apartment and to grant their every whim. Craig and Lee live near-by. Christy is in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.