PREFACE BY EDITOR

 

The editor of this 2002 edition of the Autobiography of J. Landis Weaver is Jay D. Weaver, his oldest son. Dad wrote this work shortly after the death of his wife Ada S. Horst Weaver. He used it partly as a way of dealing with his grief and partly to assuage his thirst for recognition.

 

The original manuscript was handwritten on yellow legal paper. He had my sister Arvilla (Weaver) Langsdale read it and offer suggestions for change. Later he decided to type it, so he stopped at a yard sale and bought an old typewriter, and typed it on good bond typing paper, typing on both sides. Then he went to the public library in Ephrata, PA and found a book that explained the method for binding books. He bound the book and put on a fabric covered hard cover. He must have done a good job. The binding has survived reading by dozens of people, and the process of scanning each page into my computer. It is still very firm.

 

He included a number of pictures taken throughout his life. Some are black and white, while others are in color. Some of the color pictures had faded, but I was able to return the colors to almost original tones with the aid of graphics programs. I included all he had in the original book, except for a few of the pictures at Orange Walk Town, British Honduras. There just was not enough room in Chapter 31 to include them all.

 

While putting this computer copy together, I did edit much of his writing. In particular, I tried to change the punctuation to make it correct. I also corrected some spelling errors. I left the grammar almost intact. I wanted to preserve his style of writing, which is unique to him. He does use a number of colloquialisms. I did alter a few phrases where I thought that his audience might not understand what he meant.

 

I scanned the text into my computer, using the PaperPort software, and used an Optical Character Recognition program called OmniPage Pro to convert the text to editable form. The pictures were scanned by Adobe Print Shop LE and converted to JPEG format for the use on the Internet.

 

This project is my way of helping to preserve the memory of J. Landis Weaver for future generations. The original copy may sometime be lost, and perhaps with a number of copies in the family, and in libraries, it may be preserved. I hope you find this work meaningful.

 

JDW