Sun City resident you should know: Joe Persaud

SUN CITY — Every other Friday afternoon at the National City Bank building in their Community Room you will find Joe Persaud sitting around a table along with several other Del Webb residents participating in the writing group called, “Write-On”. Joe and his wife of 50 years reside in Neighborhood #21 and have been residents for the past five years.

Joe retired in l997 at the age of 75 and with nothing to do, went to Elgin Community College and took a Creative Writing course. To his credit, Joe has self-published three novels, starting in 2002. He said it took him “five years to publish the first book as I went back home to research the material.” The author is working on his fourth book and would like to have it published through educational publications.

On this particular day, Joe had prepared a reading “My Lost Years” in which he explains his first experiences in America having arrived from British Guiana in September of 1944.

Joe’s grandparents were indentured servants working in the sugar cane plantations in India.

Back home and up to this point he had taught grade school. Joe believes that he received the best training there is under the British Guiana educational system which made his first year studying Pre-med at Wheaton College relatively easy for him. His father had wanted him to become a Doctor so in the middle of his second year of a semester, he was called into the Dean’s office where an immigration agent was waiting for him. “I had checked the yes part that asked if I were a Christian.” When the Canadian Presbyterian Mission School in my homeland had appointed me to teach at one of their schools, one of their qualifying requirements called for me to be baptized. “I needed a job so I went through the ritual”. Joe went on, “I didn’t plan on being a practicing Christian, just as I had never been a practicing Hindu.” After some paper shuffling, the dean look up and said, “Mr. Persaud, I am expelling you from Wheaton College.

Perhaps you can go back home and continue your teaching career.“ Word got around and the immigration agent gave him 10 days to find a job or move back to his homeland.” I was expelled for conduct unbecoming a Christian.

Joe enrolled in DePaul and was soon working for the college newspaper. They were “happy to have him” He had previously worked on the Wheaton College newspaper. DePaul also gave him the opportunity to speak at women’s groups on his homeland, British Guiana. However, the stings of rejection “preyed on my mind so much that my schoolwork suffered and I quit school.

“In the end, I did not become the doctor I aspired to be.”

His father ordered him back home but he couldn’t see himself returning in disgrace. And then he married someone other than the one his father had arranged for him and he “disowned me”. “All of these incidents affected my life tremendously…”

Despite these adversities, Joe later became a successful businessman becoming an Executive Vice President for Design Packing Company for 20 years. It was the early 50’s, and the plastic industry was just getting on the ground floor.

“In 1992, Inc. 500 rated our company the fastest growing company.” Joe also served as a Board Member of the Floral and Horticultural Packaging. He also started his own company, Palm Tree Packaging, located in Florida where his oldest son still works. His other son works and lives in Georgia.

Joe informed me that his first book is still selling well, Across Three Continents. He has also participated in the Elgin Community College Writer’s Center and was invited to speak at the Center last year.

Joe’s second and third novels are entitled, Florence and Adam, a romance novel and Bequiled Again, it’s sequel. The first book sold 300 copies at each of the two printings. Near the back of his third novel, Joe includes a lovely piece entitled, “Sonnet” that he wrote for his wife as an exercise from Elgin Community College course.

Joe and his wife are the proud grandparents of six children.

If anyone is interested in purchasing any of his books, his e-mail address is: www.firstpublish.com. His phone number is 847-515-2376.

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