Ronald M. Gifford

Mr. Ronald M. Gifford was born in the town of Rockford, a small farming town in north central Iowa on November 28, 1923. While still an infant his family moved to Chicago, Illinois. He grew up there and spent the next sixty two years in the area. During World War II he served three years in the United States Navy. In 1948 he hired on with the Railroad in Chicago and worked there for thirty seven years. Thirty of those years as a Locomotive Engineer. Two years after retiring from the railroad he and his wife moved to Silver City, New Mexico, a small western town of about twelve thousand, elevation fifty nine hundred feet. Silver City was the home town of Billy the Kid, two astronauts and a United States Senator. It is an ideal location for writers and artists with its slower pace, quiet times and beautiful western scenery. Mr. Gifford was a member of the International Society of Poets for many years and received three Editors Choice Awards and was named three times as one of the featured writers in their books. He was named among the Fifty Best Poets in America in 2013. He has had over one hundred poems published in newspapers and books including his own book, Take Time For A Stroll. This book is a book of short stories. It gives the reader some glimpses of what life was like during the Great Depression of the 1920s, 30s and right up to World War II as seen through the eyes of a boy that grew up in that era of American History. During the war to free Iraq Mr. Gifford sent many small poetry books to the service members in Iraq and had warm replies from them. They said that they carried the poetry book with them and it made them feel good to have a piece of home in their pocketGOOD READING