Vonnegut wrote a Foreword in Road to Scottsdale, written by Albert J. Lieber, Vonnegut's first cousin, and released in 1999. It is dated November 16, 1997.
Summary[]
Scottsdale Grammar School, built 1909
Eighty years ago, Vonnegut's maternal uncle Peter Lieber and his family left Indianapolis and engaged in "a sort of pioneering" that is given little attention in history books. Like many people of the modern era, they ventured from their home to an unfamiliar land, with no friends or relatives there. Like Huckleberry Finn, wherever they settled, they would know no one.
At home, Peter's father and grandfather were prosperous owners of a local brewery and their family were respected members of the community. Peter might be said to have been "restless", which is often used as a "euphemism for a desperately unhappy childhood". He shared this trait with his sister, Vonnegut's mother, Edith. Pioneers are often disappointed, but the Lieber family were not, finding a home in "the still underdeveloped American West" due to their "courage, intelligence, and ingenuity".[1]