There are three fascinating true stories in Ard Eulenfeld's “Lebensraum (Living Space).” The first is about Eulenfeld, a World War II veteran, who worked 33 years in military civilian service in Florida and Georgia. He had four children with Edith, an elementary school teacher and artist for the Navy, during their 34 years of marriage. They separated when she became a devout Born Again Christian and joined a small charismatic religious group in the early 80s. Edith was 62 when she died from metastasized melanoma in 1988. Eulenfeld spent his last years in a wheelchair after a paralytic aneurysm repair operation at a VA hospital.

The second story is Eulenfeld's investigation into the 1980 shooting of his boyhood friend Louis McKee, a respected surveyor from north Florida. McKee was fatally shot in the heart with an illegal sawed-off shotgun through the door of his cottage by Carol Ruckdeschel, a well known ecologist on Georgia's Cumberland Island. Ruckdeschel claimed self defense, was never charged with any offense, and contrary to state law was allowed to inherit McKee's estate. She received $25,000 from the National Park Service for life estate interest and continues to live in one of McKee's two cottages.

The third story is Eulenfeld's concern about a possible political cover-up around the circumstances of McKee's death involving officials from all levels of government during the final years of President Jimmy Carter's presidency.

What's also interesting is what Eulenfeld left out of his book. In the chapter titled “The Beginning of the End” he talks about having an affair in the early 80s with Lucy, a woman Edith approved of and described as his “soulmate.” Ard and Lucy built a log house in the woods and lived with Lucy's children from a previous marriages in Forsyth, GA for almost decade.

I know this because I sold them the 17 acres on Rocky Creek and bought back five acres when their relationship dissolved in 1990. Eulenfeld rented the cabin from Lucy when she remarried and moved to another state. I often visited him and was amazed at his courage and independence although he was paralyzed from the waist down. When his health began to deteriorate in 1993 he moved to Florida to be with his family. He died in 1994 at age 69.

My husband and I are now proud owners of the house (Living Space) that Eulenfeld built as we bought Lucy's cabin in 1998.