The day he was elected mayor of Chetwynd BC was a special one in Frank Oberle's life. As a youth he had made his way across the battle-scarred landscape of Germany, the bombs of Dresden still ringing in his ears. As a teen he had crossed the Atlantic in the bowels of a derelict freighter, finally reaching the refugee barracks at Halifax. With bleak prospects on the eastern seaboard, he made his way across Canada to find work in the remote Queen Charlotte Islands. And that was the beginning of a new life that eventually saw Oberle rise from self-educated immigrant to politician. The first volume of Frank's autobiography, Finding Home, recounts his youth and his journey to British Columbia. The second volume continues his remarkable story, tracing his path from mayor of Chetwynd to member of Parliament for Prince George-Peace River. He was elected to the House of Commons in 1972 and re-elected for six consecutive terms. He was appointed to Cabinet in 1985 as Prime Minister Brian Mulroney's minister of state for science and technology, and four years later, as minister of forestry, his determination led him to confront the industry's clear-cutting practices and demand sustainable forest management. Now, more than a decade removed from that heady time and place, Frank Oberle combines reflection and the perspective of retirement to shed light on what is right and what is wrong in our political world.

On the night of 27 January 1726, Anna-Maria Anstett, the wife of Johann Oberle of Dagsburg in Lotharingia, took shelter in the Mauri Monastery while traveling in Alsace. With the help of a midwife, Anna-Maria delivered her fifth child, also named Johann, who is believed to be a younger brother of Balthassar Oberle, who was born in about 1711. More than a century later, on 17 July 1855, Balthassar's great-great-grandson Seraphin was born in the town of Engenthal-le-Bas in Alsace. The Oberle family had already lived through the climatic disasters of the middle eighteenth century, the French Revolution with its bizarre calendar and politics, and had seen the Napoleonic era come and go. After an almost eighty year period of stability, however, Seraphin was to experience the Prussian invasion of France, and he himself was to end up "drafted" into the Prussian military. Before too long, he encountered a young figure skater at his posting in Emden, a bustling shipping town on the Ems River in the northern reaches of the Prussian Empire. He and Sarah eventually made their way to the port of Baltimore, where they stepped off the ship and began a new life. With historical context provided as background, this book traces the history of Seraphin's family from Balthassar's birth in 1711 to brief discussions of the lives of his son Joseph's four children and the death of their mother in 1975. The book includes copies of many original records - the first of which is from the Mauri Monastery mentioned above, as well as photographs (including a few from the mid-nineteenth century) and examples of U.S. currency signed by Joseph Oberle during his banking career. A number of appendices are included - including tips on reading and interpreting early records, suggestions for those wishing to undertake further research or visit the areas of Alsace and Lorraine mentioned in the book, and well as a list of seven generations of Balthassar Oberle's family.

Data Management is one of the few responsibilities of Information Technology for which a solid logical and mathematical foundation exists - a proven foundation of organization, categorization, and data validation techniques with a long history that has formed the underpinning for virtually all of the "hard sciences" over the last few millennia. Inexplicably, IT groups generally seem to be unaware of, or at least to largely ignore, this scientific foundation. When typical business database designs are contrasted with minimal scientific standards of data organization, it is difficult not to draw the conclusion that the caliber of these designs is rather amateurish - coming uncomfortably close to what might be considered professional negligence in some other fields. Such design deficiencies represent a significant business risk, the author contends, since commonly used database structures result in far more difficulties for many companies than is generally recognized. These deficiencies severely limit the flexibility and extensibility of business software, impede enhancement efforts, and generally lead to what the author calls "System Constipation." In short, the author argues, we need to take the word "Science" in "Computer Science" more seriously when it comes to our database designs. This book introduces Business Managers as well as Database Designers to "Database Triage" - the process of recognizing and classifying the often hidden symptoms and ills of business databases, and shows how to take the first steps toward mitigating them. Using an overview of IT's history, the author also explains how and why business databases came to be as poorly designed and illogically constructed as he contends they are. Unlike the skills required for database construction - which include data modeling, proficiency in SQL, DBMS tuning, etc., those needed for logical database design - such as predicate logic, taxonomic placement, attribute categorization, etc., are noticeably absent from the repertoires of most IT shops. An introduction to these core database design skills is presented in the book, since these are critically important - often more important, the author argues, than application programming skills. Addressing these long-standing failings will require management understanding, involvement and support as well as some additional technical expertise. To support these objectives, real-world examples are provided to illustrate how commonly occurring database designs impede the smooth conduct and expansion of business, unnecessarily complicate the efforts of application programmers, and often lead to data contamination. The author explains precisely why each of the examples is poorly designed and, to some extent, shows how to correct them - in several cases providing detailed approaches to solutions - while attempting to strike an appropriate balance between the needs of both Business Managers and Database Designers without too much oversimplification of either group's needs.

In about 1759, a ship carrying Justice Gonce and his family sailed up the Delaware River toward Philadelphia. When the ship (likely British) made its normal stop at the Fort in Newcastle (modern day Delaware), the family disembarked and soon traveled overland to Cecil County, Maryland. Within fifty years, descendants of Justice and Magdalen Gonce and their three sons Rudolph, Abraham and Daniel had not only settled in both Maryland and Delaware, but had spread as far south as the frontier areas of Tennessee and Alabama. Justice, Magdalen and their sons are the ancestors of virtually all the Gonces now living in the U.S. This book discusses the family's early days before and during the American Revolution, and traces the line from Justice Gonce's youngest son Daniel to his descendants in mid-twentieth century Baltimore, Maryland. Details about the early migration of the Southern Branch of the family to Tennessee and Alabama are documented, and Gonce family members (including a female POW) known to have taken part in both sides of the American Civil War are introduced. Various publications or postings have suggested at least twenty-one different countries as possible origins of the original Gonce settlers; an appendix debunks many of these theories, while providing commentaries on and references for the other proposals in the hopes of aiding those who wish to undertake further research into the Gonce family.

Franz (Frank) Oberle was nine years old when his family was relocated from Forchheim, Germany to Poland. There, he was taken from his parents to an isolated school where adolescents were being prepared for indoctrination into Hitler's Youth Movement. As the tide of war changed, he became a refugee fleeing the Russian advance only to arrive in Dresden as the city became the target of the most horrific Allied bombing raid of the war. Surviving on grass and stolen eggs, Franz and a friend walked 800 kilometres to his ancestral village on the edge of the Black Forest -- only to find that his parents had not returned and to be rejected by his remaining family. The indomitable Franz not only survived amid a disillusioned populace of the Fatherland, but, with Joan, his youthful sweetheart at his side, he also dreamed of a new life in a new land. With her blessings, he set off for Canada, promising to send for her when he was able to provide for her. Their subsequent life together in BC has encompassed tragedy and pure joy, hard work and hard times, failure and triumph as Frank Oberle rose from self-educated immigrant to acclaimed federal politician. 'Finding Home', the first volume of Oberle's memoirs, is set against backdrops of World War II and the raw British Columbia frontier. It covers Oberle's fascinating life story up until the time he, as a successful business person, returned to Germany after little more than a decade in the promised land, knowing that in Canada, he, Joan and their children had found their true home. Rich in detail, drama, and humour, this is a love story, an inspirational saga, and a book that sings the song of the Canadian immigrant.