The Next Generation

Nebraska, late 1920’s, pre dust bowl. This is my mother’s family. My grandfather, grandmother, aunts and uncles. My mother is the youngest girl on the left. You can tell a lot from this photo. Even though it’s before the Great Depression, these are folks who don’t have much. A barn in the background, a stark, blank sky, and a single chair. It looks like they put on their Sunday best for the family picture, which probably consisted of patched up hand me downs, since my mother told me she never had her own clothes until her late teens.

Their expressions speak volumes too. My grandmother with her proud, dotting face. My mother, too young to know much other than to hold still. My uncle Ben in his mother’s lap, looking like a curious 4-year-old, and my aunt Ruth in the right corner, looking coy with her semi smile.

The two older siblings look more serious. Nini in the back corner looking like she is 13 going on 40, and Jim, in his overalls, with a reflective look that foretold his burden a few years later when he became the “man” of the family after my grandfather left them to fend for themselves, with nothing but $20 and the support of each other.

My mother grew up in between World Wars, during the depression, in the middle of the dust bowl, living hand to mouth in a broken family. Through grit, determination, family support and her faith, she finished high school and moved to California when she was 18, never to look back. She married, raised 3 children, and worked for Lockheed Corporation until she retired in 1985. She passed away in 2004 at 80 years old, part of the greatest generation that became the middle-class backbone of this country.

When I reflect on my mother’s hardscrabble childhood and humble upbringing, it isn’t lost on me that I never experienced those hardships. I grew up in a solidly middle-class family in Los Angeles, California. As children, my sisters and I had all we needed: good schools, a bicycle, pets, 3 meals a day, and an awesome home on an acre lot that required a lot of upkeep but taught us our work ethic. I graduated from college (which wasn’t a possibility for my mother and her siblings), made my mark in the business world, got married and started the cycle all over.

I often think of how much greater my opportunities were than my mother ever had. I have been so fortunate, from education to earning potential to travel to technology. In just one generation, in this grand experiment that is the United States, I have accomplished things, traveled to places, and experienced a standard of living that my mother never could have imagined growing up. It’s probably a mixture of good luck, good genes, hard work, and opportunity. But the two things I will never lose sight of are my parent’s humble beginnings, and the opportunities afforded to us in the great land we call America.

Thanks Mom, Thanks Dad, and God Bless America.