• My dad was born in 1914, one hundred years ago, in the bedroom on our farm near Dell Rapids. My grandparents had purchased the farm just three years earlier. In those days before electricity, the farmhouse was still lit at night by kerosene lamps and heated by a wood stove. In later years, Dad told me about growing up on that farm, when horsepower still meant the Belgian team that pulled our plow. He described how he would sometimes drive the wagon to Dell Rapids, and then fall asleep on the way home, because the horses knew the way back.
• In the 1950s, after my grandparents had died, Dad mortgaged the farm to buy out his brother and sister. He and my mother struggled to make the mortgage payments, even as they raised my two sisters and me. Our small farm wasn't big enough to make a living from farming alone, so Dad always had an off-farm job, too. He worked in town during the day, and farmed evenings and weekends. His work ethic was unmatched. To me, he was big, strong and invincible.
• When I was a senior in high school, our family had financial problems. The economy was weak, Dad was laid off his cabinetmaking job, and he couldn't find another job. Dad had to auction the

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