Against the Wind

The story of a family forged by history, held together by love, and driven by a fierce determination to survive

Horst Freyhofer was born in 1938 in Düsseldorf, Germany, and survived the Allied bombings that reduced his city to near rubble. In 1963 he came to the Unites States in search of a better life.

Sue was born in 1944 in Bauxite, Arkansas, a small mining town still reeling from the Great Depression. An ocean away from Horst's upbringing, her life followed a different path-one filled with her own struggles, joys, and hardships as a young single mother.

When Horst and Sue met in 1973 at UCLA during a time of political upheaval and societal change, they found in each other a shared resilience and a quiet defiance of the hands they'd been dealt. Together, they determined to make a better future for themselves and build a new family: one rooted in compassion and perseverance and secured with an unshakable bond.

Against the Wind is the powerful autobiography of two determined people whose struggles span the globe from post-WWII Europe and small-town America to the tumult of Vietnam-era protests in California, to years of living in Mexico, marriage in Arkansas, and, eventually, finding a place for their family to grow and thrive in New England. This is a story of survival, ambition, change, and the enduring strength of love.