A little perspective...

"All my life I have done what had to be done."

So goes the opening line of my Great-great Grandfather Welch Nossman's life story.

I picked it up the other day after Tim told me I should be reading it to Eli and Elle as bedtime stories. So we did, and since then we have been, reading it every night.

I came across a portion that explains the prices of goods and how hard they had to work to acquire dry goods and resources for sustaining life in Pella, Iowa. They had Bee Trees and sold beeswax in town, using the money to buy what they needed.

As Welch writes he comments that The Great Depression wasn't near as bad as the period following the Civil War. He states that it took 12-14 years after the war before things turned to normal. He remembers that then he could hardly get anyone to buy an ear of corn, and that during the Depression it was still selling for $1.12 a bushel.

They worked saw mills, limestone quarries, bee trees, crops and gardens. They did what they had to do.

I called Grandma Sharp and asked her about the Depression. She told me that she never knew any different because they were always provided for and her parents were always happy. She remembers seeing a check for the sale of cattle for $600, knowing that it had to last all year, and seeing her Mom, Grandma Hazel, shed a tear over that situation - but all in all, they got through it, they did what they had to do.

Note - I have a picture of my Grandma Hazel slinging a double barrel 12 gauge while her daughters hold up a dead chicken-hawk by each wing. Seriously.

Bees, cattle, Civil War, Depression. Look, I don't mean to diminish in any way what we have all been through and will go through - but our ancestors know what it was like. They have perspective. We can get through this.

Be obedient. Do what needs to be done.

Life is Brilliant!

For more on Welch go here