Displaced But Not Lost: War Through The Eyes Of A Child
Tony Michael Taagen was born in Viljandi, Estonia, but found his muse in the Village of Belleville, Dane County, Wisconsin, as he contemplated life from the verandas of his wife’s old family home.  When they reluctantly left this picturesque village, after five creative years, he received a treasured certificate of appreciation from the Village President in recognition of his service as the Official “Pooper Scooper” of dung (dropped by Amish horses whose carriages were often parked in the alley next to the stately abode). During World War II, his family fled Estonia for Germany, eventually arriving as immigrants at a Texas farm. With resoluteness, he lost his Estonian accent within three years of arriving in America, so he could be seen as the All-American male when he entered college. He retained his fluency in Estonian and German, however, and went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Marquette University and a master’s degree in social work from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.He served in the United States Army before going on to a twenty-five year career with the Wisconsin Department of Corrections. Somewhere along the way, he and his wife raised six sons.  He now abides in Mequon, Wisconsin, along with the two large suitcases; his mother’s small red suitcase; his father’s briefcase; the grey plaid blanket woven by his grandmother at Tuule Farm--all featured in "Displaced but not Lost: War Through the Eyes of a Child"--his wife, Connie; and his Maine Coon cat, Hemingway.  To keep his sanity, he has always been an avid  reader and is now passively-aggressively writing another memoir about his army days, tentatively titled “Paid Vacation”. It will not be a sad book.