Family Lamm.
I am flying on a plane now. Internet working. Amazing.
My Grandma Lamm – Leona Lamm to be precise – told me back in 2002 at her 100th birthday that she was most amazed by:
1) her family and friends and the love she shared + gave
2) the incredible jaw-dropping technological advances her eyes had seen
Leona was a school teacher in Nebraska before the big old depression gave everyone fits for a bit. She married Charles, a farmer, and they lived in wedded hard working bliss until the Great Depression hit and just like that the old family farm that had been passed down, was gone.
Not to be discouraged to pause, they kept moving. After all, they had four young boys and a lot of love. They were hungry sometimes, but they never starved.
Headed west on a train they stepped off in Boise, Idaho and settled just outside Boise in a Quaker community called Greenleaf. They lived in a tent for more than a year, put apple box wooden slats on the dirt “floor” to make it less about sleeping on the ground.
Amazing.
No telephones, no wifi, no emailing while you fly right across the country just like that!
In tough times she was always resilient, and sweet really. She’d tell you she wasn’t always sweet, but I would. She was strong as an ox and pretty as a lady could be. She raised four boys just fine, and they all lived to tell about it their hide still on’em.
What I remember most about my Grandma Lamm was that she was kind and brimming with love. She made the best of tough times, and kept moving, knowing that an unkind word wouldn’t do anybody a bit of good, and that forward action would yield results. Maybe not always the best results, but soon that apple cart box floor gave way to an apartment and then their own home. Change back then was achingly slow sometimes, but make it through they did.
One minute at a time sometimes.
Here’s to Leona. A good woman, and fine lady, and the woman who shaped me as much as anybody, into the man I am today through her practice of resilience and love.
- Brad