My maternal grandparents, Paul and Loretta Muller, farmed in South Dakota during the difficult years of the Dirty Thirties. They raised nine children through a time marked by drought, dust storms, crop failures, and uncertainty.

My mother shared some of their stories with me, but I wish now that I had asked more questions. So much of what they experienced disappeared with their passing. What remains are glimpses of a family that somehow kept going when life gave them plenty of reasons to give up.

There were times when there was barely enough food to put on the table. Yet there were nine children to feed, work that still had to be done, and another morning waiting when the sun came up.

I find myself thinking more about their lives as I grow older. They possessed a kind of persistence that wasn't dramatic or celebrated. They simply did what needed to be done—day after day, season after season.

I admire that tremendously.

Their story reminds me that courage doesn't always look heroic. Sometimes it looks like planting another crop after the last one failed, stretching a meal to feed nine hungry children, and getting up tomorrow to try again.

They endured. They persevered. And because they did, generations that came after them were given the opportunity to flourish.