Becker’s Farm

For Helmut Sommerfield, life began the day he died. Sommerfield is a German prisoner of war during WWII interned at a small POW camp in Nebraska. At this point, his dreams of freedom, a wife and family, as well as working with his mechanical skills seem as dead as his family in his native land ...until the day he is 'killed' in a barn fire and returns as Adam Becker, a reclusive dairy farmer in rural Nebraska. But his new life and love, Laurelie Schmidt, are about to be dashed by an escaping POW who knows Helmut, true identity. Becker's Farm is populated with well-developed, colorful characters who struggle with love and hate, prejudice and acceptance, patriotism and compassion, hubris and humility in the charming, yet challenging setting of rural American in the 1940's.

WILLIAM TIMMONS has spent 27 years living and traveling in 50 countries, collecting experiences and stories. He’s taught English to the president of a West African country, served as a missionary in the Philippines, and worked with child welfare programs in slums, prisons, and orphanages in Thailand for which he received a Royal Decoration from that country’s king. He has also dined with presidents, prime ministers, and an occasional drug lord. He spent three years collecting stories and information about the 300,000 German POWs incarcerated in the United States. Many of the book’s stories come from his wife’s family farm in western Nebraska. Bill and his wife, Dr. Rachel Timmons, are professors at California Baptist University in Riverside, California.