My maternal grandfather grew up in a large family of hardworking farmers who struggled to eke out a living from the rocky infertile soil of central Minnesota. Though never talked about, the tenuous life his family lived then was remembered later in life when sitting down to dinner often inspired the light-hearted but perhaps meaningful comment: ‘if you don’t like taters dinner’s over.’
The skills and knowledge required to sustain a farming existence led the brothers to develop an iron casting business that produced iron tools for cutting and polishing the granite quarried from the local mines. My grandfather served as foreman to the men who earned their pay as heavy laborers, casting the molten iron into earthen molds. These men required the intense no-nonsense leader that my grandfather became, moving as he did about the days’ activities, a cigar in his cheek providing a visual exclamation to his hard-working persona.
In stark contrast at home G was quiet and subservient to his small soft-spoken wife whose deep evangelical belief drew grandfather into the Baptist church although I wonder about the depth of his faith.
It’s hard for me not to appreciate the boot-strap-lifting, the will it took to succeed that produced the comfortable existence his family realized. Born to relative comfort myself I wonder if I would have had the will to succeed as my grandfather did.