Alias Pegge Parker - Paperback

by Pegge Parker Hlavacek (Author)

During World War II, Margaret Lyons, a small-town Pennsylvania girl, had a taste for adventure. She began her career as an advice columnist, adopting the pen name Pegge Parker. She set out to literally write her way around the world. Before long, she was headed for China where she met and married Douglas Mackiernan, an undercover CIA agent. The couple became the proud parents of twins, Mike and Mary. Agent Mackiernan was killed by border guards near Tibet, leaving Pegge a single mother. Pegge would soon meet John Hlavacek, the United Press Bureau Chief she would remain married to for the rest of her life. Pegge's life and career were nothing if not spontaneous, seemingly weaved by fate's colorful loom. Her prose style of writing is unmistakable, and transports the reader back in time, allowing them to understand and experience life as she knew it more than half a century ago. Alias Pegge Parker also includes four original chapters from Pegge's next book, Diapers on a Dateline. John discovered the chapters in Pegge's belongings after Diapers was published, and after she had developed Alzheimer's disease.

Author Biography

John and Pegge spent their lives traveling the world reporting as foreign press correspondents. John first taught English in China during the 1930s, after graduating from Carleton College. He then joined the United Press in 1944 as a war correspondent. He met Pegge Parker, a beautiful widowed journalist with an eye toward writing her way around the world. They married, living and working in India during the first years of their marriage. The Hlavaceks were then off to New York and next Jamaica, where John and Pegge supported the family by covering news events across the globe. In 1961, the family moved to Florida when John began work as staff correspondent for NBC in Havana. John and Pegge meticulously chronicled their lives before and after they met-and the stories they brought to us from afar. Today, John resides in Omaha, Nebraska. Pegge passed away in November 2008.