Joan McGuire Mohr

J. McGuire Mohr is an American historian and writer of Immigration and Military History and an author of Historical Fiction. She studied at Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic and Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia after graduating from the University of Colorado, University of San Diego, and the University of Pittsburgh.

When the Berlin Wall fell in November of 1989, the author was invited to lecture at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C., the Slovak and Russian Embassies, and to serve as consultant for the Czech and Slovak National Museum and Library in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and the Museum of Applied Arts in Budapest, Hungary. Mohr led tours to Transylvania and into the Carpathian Mountains while teaching at the University of Pittsburgh and acting as Research Fellow at the University of Pittsburgh’s Institute for Learning.

Through all those years, she continued to unravel the history of Central Europe in the 20th Century. Her research in archives and personal collections revealed hidden artifacts, texts, and photographs in attics and cellars across what used to be known as the Iron Curtain. Today, the author lives in California where she continues to research the history of Central Europe and to write historical fiction. A four-book series, The Houllette Family Saga, will debut in 2025 with The New Paris.

Mohr’s first book, The Czech and Slovak Legion in Siberia, 1917 to 1922, chronicles the story of an army fighting to found a nation during WWI. The tale of the Legion’s heartbreaking detour through Siberia made it one of the greatest human interest stories of its time, chronicled weekly in the New York Times and New York Herald. Due to political expedience the entire history of the Legion was later covered up by all nations involved.

As a result of retelling the Legion story, Joan McGuire Mohr was invited to several embassys in Washington D.C., discussed this little known incident with Madeleine Albright, and lectured at the Library of Congress.