YEARS OF GRACE AND GRIT: GROWING UP ON AN ILLINOIS FARM written in collaboration with siblings, relates the story of what it was like growing up on a midwestern farm during and following the Great Depression. It describes a close-knit family led by parents whose faith, creativity, and grit enabled them to retain ownership of the farm when scores around them were losing theirs to foreclosure. Beginning with a description of the picturesque region and historic small town of Mt. Carroll, the narrative traces the family's sense of roots from German immigrants, then characterizes each of the six siblings, focusing on significance of birth order and interrelationships, along with a fascinating discussion of unique family expressions. One chapter deals with what it was like to attend a small, one-room country school with one teacher for all eight grades. Another chapter, "The Flavor of a Family" discusses how this family raised almost everything needed, buying only staples, and is filled with nearly fifty recipes, ranging from kuchen to rivel soup to cheese pie. A climactic chapter focuses on the family's legacy of faith. Narrated with tenderness and humor, this family memoir depicts a life of grace and true grit, which can be appreciated even by those who do not have country origins. Years of Grace and Grit Growing Up on an Illinois Farm By Del Kehl Trafford Publishing Copyright © 2010 Del Kehl All right reserved. ISBN: 978-1-4269-1963-3 Contents Introduction: It Takes a Family....................................................viiI. Sense of Place..................................................................1II. Kehl Family History: A Sense of Roots..........................................29III. The Kehl Siblings: We Are Six.................................................61IV. Remembrance of Things Past: A Kehl Sibling Dialogue............................101V. Kehl Talk.......................................................................159VI: Telling Tales Out of School....................................................169VII. Flavor of a Family: Proof of the Pudding Is in the Eating.....................189VIII. A Legacy of Faith............................................................215Conclusion: A Good Beginning and a Good End........................................229 Chapter One I. Sense of Place "... The sense of the place, the savor of the genie-soul of the place which every place has or else is not a place ... There it is as big as life, the genie-soul of the place which, wherever you go, you must meet and master first thing or be met and mastered.... This Midwestern sky is the nakedest, loneliest sky in America." (Walker Percy, The Moviegoer ) "The end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time." (T. S. Eliot, "Little Gidding," The Four Quartets ) The Region The Kehl place is located in the gently rolling hills of northwestern Illinois. It's situated in a region shaped roughly like a crescent or triangle (sometimes called the I-88 Corridor), bounded on the east and south by the Rock River, on the west by the Mississippi River and Iowa, on the north by Wisconsin. This region, punctuated in its northeast corner by Rockford and Beloit, its southwest tip by the Quad Cities (Rock Island, Moline, Bettendorf, Davenport), and its northwest tip by East Dubuque and Galena, is arguably one of the most historic and picturesque in the state. It boasts the homes of two U.S. presidents—Grant's home in historic Galena and Reagan's boyhood home in Dixon—as well as other historic places, such as the site of the second Lincoln-Douglas debate in Freeport, the Arsenal Prison for Confederate soldiers at Rock Island, site of the Second Battle of Black Hawk near Kent (a 56-acre battlefield where 23 were ambushed in 1832 and where Abe Lincoln, with militia from Dixon, came to help bury the dead). It includes the scenic 2550-acre Mississippi Palisades State Park north of Savanna, five other state parks, the highest point in Illinois (1,236 feet, near Scales Mound), and other attractions. It encompasses three counties (Carroll, Jo Daviess, Stephenson) and parts of four others (Winnebago, Ogle, Lee, Whiteside). Besides the mighty Mississippi River and Rock River, waterways include the Apple, Galena, Pecatonica, Sugar, and Plum rivers, along with Apple Canyon Lake, Lake Le-Aqua-Na, Spring Lake, and Lake Carroll (manmade). Towns with female names seem to abound in this region—for example, Elizabeth, Lena, Nora, Florence, Pearl City, Adeline, Shannon, Coleta. It was a wonderful place in which to grow up, but as Fred Allen said, "California's a wonderful place to live—if you happen to be an orange," so some might say that northwestern Illinois is a wonderful place to live—if you happen to be a stalk of corn. The Carroll County area itself is said to have been called "Man-I-Tumi" by the Indians, meaning "Land of God." The Town The