Some five decades ago, a college student named Lisa chose as a college thesis project an oral history of her grandfather, Max Leavitt. The completed project was distributed to Max's descendents and no wider.

In 2022, one of these descendants discovered this website. As Max was born and raised in Wysokie Litewskie, would we be interested in publishing Max's story in some form? Of course!

The thesis turned out to be a very complex interweaving of narrative, interview dialog, even an informal screenplay —a lightly comedic exposition of some events in Max's life. Lisa obtained source material correspondence and oral communications among the family members. The Leavitt family are dedicated and prolific communicators.

How to present the material on this website in a completely different format and for a much wider audience? Challenging!

The thesis contained only a modest amount of material about Wysokie Litewskie; Max didn't reminisce in great detail about his youth. Could Max's character after emigrating to the U.S. be informative? That was the hope.

I never knew my Wysoker ancestors, either directly or through my Wysokie-descended mother. So I asked Max's family: could I adopt Max as my Grandfather? Of course!

--Henry