A real truth is all of us are different, thank goodness. Some of us see more problems than solutions. Some forge ahead, maybe causing confusion, yet feeling better for making progress. Some whine, and some find rainbows. In history, times have been demanding, and some have survived: God’s intervention, blind luck, grit and determination. My hold on to is my daddy’s life. He was born in 1894 in Zwolle, an almost town in Sabine Parish near the Texas border. Stories abound. I just want to share barebones, and you review your history or your right now and find the hand holds that today needs.
Zowelle was about as backwater as one could get. The family was four boys and three girls. The mother and two girls died in the 1904 flue epidemic and the last sister in 1912.. Sabine Parish had no high school, which began in 8th grade at that time, so Joe went to DeSoto parish taking his 8 year old brother with him. He milked cows to pay for their room and board. When he went to LSU, Horace came along and went to the lab school. Joe had a job as a waiter in the cafeteria.
The decades of the twenties and thirties were up and down – maybe more down. He served in WWI, came back, married. He managed to go back to LSU and get a Master’s Degree in Agriculture. I roamed the stacks of LSU library and found his thesis. Through the Depression, he and my mother moved four times as schools where he was principal failed. There was the flood of 1927 that wipe out belongings and a fire that was the only incident my mother would never talk about. A dear story is Horace’s illness after a botched appendectomy and how the family cared for him over distances and time until he died. Finally they came with me to Southeastern College in Hammond. We rode out WWII with rationing and no car. The salary wasn’t much, but “payment in kind ” was part of the package, so we always had meat and a vegetable garden. After his retirement at 65, he worked at a sporting good store to earn enough quarters for Social Security.
What do I distill from this life? You might as well be truthful about hard times. I know these stories because they were interspersed with tales of joyful occasions. Make a budget. Not having the money was never taken as failure. We could or could not do whatever depending on cash on hand. Keep family ties strong. Even if long distance calls cost, Sunday nights were a time to check in and family visits took precedence over all trips. Do good to others as you can. The Homer story will take a full blog. Less long are memories of meals, a place to stay, an offer of time to help. Joseph Alfred Wedgeworth took what life offered, dealt with what came as was needed, trusted God to be with him, and left a shining inheritance.
If a man dies and has no son, he shall cause his inheritance to pass to his daughter.
Numbers 27: 8
Let Me Tell Ya 