I just finished reading Annie Wilder's Spirits Out of Time

and found these wonderful family quotes....

"To the outside world we all grow old. But not to brothers and sisters. We know each other as we always were...We remember family feuds and secrets; family griefs and joys. We live outside the touch of time.". Clara Ortega

"Of course that is not the whole story, but that is the way with stories, we make them what we will. It's a way of explaining the universe while leaving the universe unexplained, it's a way of keeping it all alive, not boxing it into time.". Jeanette Winterson

There will never be another generation of people quite like my grandparents and great-grandparents. Thankfully, it is likely that none of us will have to endure the kinds of heartbreaking losses and hardships they endured.

just today I was posting that picture of Evie that I found. her parents had their oldest struck with polio, and the next 2 die from diptheria in the same week. The odds were likely back then that all your children wouldn't reach school age, let alone adulthood. childbirth was scary. disease unchecked. you may give birth to those children, and pray on your deathbed that your husband found someone good to take your place and raise those babies. and your substitute and her substitute might do the same. the families that crossed the prairies looking for a better life. the families who sent their loved ones off to war. the men who went looking for gold. no social security. no medicaid. no insurance. no welfare. no WIC or commodities. you had to get thru the best way you could. the only backup system was family or good neighbors. it's amazing any of us are here. farm accidents. my great grandma Shafer was widowed, her husband was a tenant farmer on a yearly lease. she had to leave. how could she do it by herself? she sent 3 boys off to war. only 2 came back.

I loved this book. her writing style. her belief system. that her entire extended family believed and respected each others beliefs. so, of course I ordered her first book.....