Karen Kendall recounts her fascinating childhood in the book “Berkeley to Beijing”

Younger family members and friends were surprised when they heard stories of Karen Boutilier Kendall’s adventurous childhood.

Karen Kendall discusses her new book "Berkeley to Beijing" during an interview at the Monitor Thursday afternoon. Photo by Carol A. Clark/Monitor

“They’d tell me, ‘You really need to write these stories down, you really need to write a book,” Kendall said during an interview Thursday.

She married Greg Kendall right out of high school and in the late 1980s the couple discussed the idea of her writing down all the stories of her unusual childhood as they lay in a field staring up at a meteor shower.

The Business Operations manager for the Los Alamos Department of Public Utilities has completed the book she began writing more than a decade ago.

The stories of her childhood in “Berkeley to Beijing” are remarkable. She was a preacher’s child raised during the 1960s.

Her father was not the stereotypical minister. She grew up living in communal strike houses, walking United Farm Worker picket lines, working on political campaigns and surviving the violence of Washington, D.C. and the Poor People’s Campaign.

Kendall also writes of her experiences attending marches and protest rallies for civil rights and the anti-war movement. She made picket signs, cared for her brothers and sister and obsessively worried about the social and political problems of the day.

Cover design created by Jesse Hernandez.

“The thing I liked about the book is that in her short life, Karen was really part of some exciting parts of our country’s history marching with Cesar Chavez and traveling to China with Shirley MacLaine for the first American Women’s Friendship Delegation,” Chamber Member Services Coordinator Katy Korkos said. “I thought it was a real page turner – you can’t wait to see what happens next.”

Read more about Karen Kendall and her new book in Tuesday’s Los Alamos Monitor.