Harry Kapeikis

Beyond All Dreams: Coming of Age in Post-war America Harry Kapeikis

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.