True stories of everyday people

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Beverly Hale

Beverly describes days of simple pleasures visiting her grandmother and cousins in rural Mississippi in the late 1970’s. There were early morning chores, tending animals, and best of all, horseback riding.

Letha &Tisha Pletcher

Letha Pletcher tells her granddaughter Tisha about living near the railroad in Pierceton, Indiana during the 1930’s; playing in grain elevators, air that smelled of peppermint, and feeding the hungry.

Michael O’Brien

Michael Obrien talks about training to go to India with the Peace Corps in 1973, how growing up in a large family on a Wisconsin dairy farm helped prepare him for that work and how stories and language affect our world view.

Martha Annexton Karatz

After graduating from Northwestern with a teaching degree and working in England for a while Martha Karatz moved to Paris. There she landed a luxurious job as a private teacher for a wealthy family in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. But how long could this last…?

Barbara Ann Steinmetz

Pets were an important part of Barbara Ann’s idealistic childhood in Brown County, Indiana. Little did she know that wild foxes would take someone dear from her and lead to a career in the medical field.

Lou Ann Homan

All that her three little boys wished for Christmas was a pony. But in order to raise the $75 dollars to pay for it their homesteading mother would have to bake THIRTY PUMPKIN PIES for Thanksgiving … with no electricity, no running water and a wood burning stove! This...