Love your story.
How fruitless is the egotistical desire for fame and fortune...and so many people attaining it have watched their lives destroyed from under them. Recently I’ve been doing a lot of geneology work (my family is from Europe)—and by far the vast majority of my ancestors have been peasants. Born, married, had children, died. Most in the town they grew up in.
There’s a maturity and beauty in the simple life that I wish more people knew.
Thanks.
Your family genealogy is similar to my wife’s. She is from the midwest, and most of her large extended family were born in the town or at the nearest hospital. They worked in the same area where they grew up. Even the guys, who served in the military, for the most part went back to live and work in the area. The local graveyard has 3-5+ generations buried in a family plot. Easy genealogy just visit the graveyard.
On one of my wife’s visits with her mother in their hometown, She and her mother played bridge with two retired teachers. Who had taught her parents, her uncles, aunts, her cousins and her brothers, her and a couple of her nieces and nephews.