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Show YOU'VE SURVIVED TO THE END Chapter XXV If I've made Father the hero of this yarn, the reason is that he was the main well of hope for all of us during the quarter century of Nada's history- For our family and the community he was "the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land." He kept many on their homesteads until they "proved up" and gained legal ownership by his cheerful faith and his giving of jobs and credit. Private ownership of lands in the West provided a basis for later developments, in Nada and elsewhere. Some settlers may have left calling him villain instead of hero because they were angry at Father for giving faith they may have come to feel was deceptive. But I never heard anybody charge this. And although Nada's population was dwindling, what I found when I returned in the depth of the Great Depression was not utter defeat but a modest victory- I have solid basis for my feeling about Father. In the winter of 1931-32 banks were closing. Lines of unemployed were legthening. Many once-rich men were shooting themselves or leaping from 20-story office buildings. The Southern Utah bank where I'd hoarded $1100, saved from summer construction jobs, part time work when in college and with the help of my family, locked its doors. I couldn't draw a cent out of it. |