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If you’re moved by the story James H. Keefe III shares next Tuesday at the La Conner High School Auditorium, you can thank Patty McCormick.

The retired LaConner Schools bus driver was browsing the Mount Vernon Goodwill store with her daughter Emily when she found a framed photograph of a man in uniform, inscribed ‘great flying with you – the Tigers’.

“I always wonder how family pictures end up in secondhand stores,” she told the Weekly News. Curious, she took her purchase out of its frame and found the name James H. Keeffe, Junior.

Google led her to Fall City, Washington resident James H. Keeffe III – a bus driver like herself, and an author. Happy to be reunited with his father’s photo, he sent her a copy of his book.

“Two Gold Coins and a Prayer: The Epic Journey of a World War II Bomber Pilot, Evader and POW” tells how the elder Keeffe, an Air Force pilot, survived being shot down over Holland in 1944 and moved from one safe house to another in the Dutch underground until he was betrayed and sent to a German POW camp. He spent months in captivity and was force-marched to a second camp before being liberated in April 1945.

McCormick found the book so compelling that she lined up a day of La Conner appearances for Keeffe III. On Nov. 5, he will address a high school assembly at 1 p.m., attend a book signing and reception at Seaport Books from 3- 5 p.m. and return to the high school for a free public presentation at 6:30 p.m. Seaport Books and the high school Leadership Club are sponsoring the events.

Keeffe III hopes his teen audience finds his father’s story encouraging. “He was just 20 when he was shot down, and commanding a plane full of other 19 to 20 year-old guys,” he says. Courageous members of the Dutch resistance were the same age. “They could be betrayed and executed but in spite of the dangers they had the wherewithal to care for downed pilots like my dad. Can you imagine yourself with such awesome responsibility, just a year or two after high school?” he asks.

At Seaport Books, Keeffe III will share his literary odyssey. He and his brother captured the details of his dad’s story in audio recordings in the early 2000s. Transcribing and shaping all 35 hours of edited audio into a page turner took nine years. “It gave me a lot of wonderful time with my dad that I’ll never regret,” he says.

Keeffe III spent the first three years of his marriage upstairs writing, racing the clock to finish the book before his father died. The elder Keeffe lived for five years after the book’s publication, and Keeffe III is still married.

His multimedia evening presentation will include artifacts like a Dutch Nazi ribbon and his dad’s electric heated bomber gloves, returned by a Dutch farmer years after his B-24 crashed. It’s a presentation that Keeffe III has given many times in many places.

As World War II veterans die, the war “is becoming a footnote in a history book,” Keeffe says. He’s gratified by the people who read his book and come to his talks – especially when they share their own stories.

He particularly remembers one B-17 pilot who had participated in Keeffe Junior’s second mission, recounting, “He had never said anything to his family, but he wouldn’t shut up for an hour and a half. Tears were just streaming down his face.”

And the Goodwill purchase that set his first real visit to LaConner in motion? Keeffe III isn’t surprised at all.

A myriad of coincidences and connections have been triggered since “Two Gold Coins and a Prayer” was published. McCormick’s shopping and sleuthing skills “are just one more miracle that has popped up around this story.”