Our debt to her as a family can't be measured.

It may be that our mythology about the Depression has outgrown its reality. But the Depression shaped everything about her view of the world. Savings and security were first, and first always.

That, and pride. She told the story that in elementary school all her family could afford was a peach sandwich, with two peach halves in bread. So, she would go behind the cafeteria and eat her lunch in private. That fierce defiance of her circumstances continued through her poverty, her lifelong marriage to an alcoholic, philandering husband and her commitment to instill a powerful sense of pride and self-worth in her children.

Carrying a family of alcoholics, high school dropouts and criminals up out of poverty, into college, and across the middle class threshold is no mean feat. Doing that all as a woman, in mid-20th century America, with little more than a high school education is nothing short of remarkable.