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In Their Words: Stories of Minnesota's Greatest Generation

Growing up during 1920s and the Great Depression.

Living through World War II, the worst conflict in human history.

Sharing in unprecedented prosperity in the post-war Boom.

Every generation faces its own set of challenges. No generation is perfect, but each in their own way is a "great" generation. Few generations, however, have lived through such tumultuous times, or seen such dramatic technological and social changes, as the World War II generation.

Men, who as small children learned of Lucky Lindy's record-breaking trans-Atlantic flight, became pilots, navigators and bombardiers in World War II, and went on to careers as commercial airline pilots and scientists involved in the space race. Couples, whose first television set was a box with a tiny screen displaying grainy black-and-white images from a handful of channels, witnessed the progression to color television, cable TV, dish network television, and now big-screen digital TV with a multitude of channels and programs. Women who shared party line telephone service with their neighbors, and painstakingly sent handwritten letters to sons, husbands and sweethearts during the war now carry portable cell phones and email their grandchildren regularly on home computers.

African Americans who faced blatant racial discrimination in the military during the war blazed the trail for Civil Rights and opened the door for their children and grandchildren for better education and career opportunities. Women who were pulled out of traditional roles during the war to assume jobs that would free men to fight and got a taste of independence and accomplishment outside the home constituted the first wave of the Women's Rights movement, widening their daughters' expectations and breaking the glass ceiling in business and other career fields.

What were the lessons learned by Minnesota's Greatest Generation from these dramatic life experiences? What is their legacy to generations coming after them?

When asked for their life stories, the most consistent answer from this generation is "Oh, I don't have any stories to tell. I didn't do anything." Once they begin talking, however, they all have stories to tell. They all have made contributions.

The lessons learned during the dark days of the depression and the uncertainties of war are fundamental, and are a reflection of the lessons their pioneer and immigrant ancestors would have shared:

Frugal living - saving for a rainy day, making do, recycling and reusing wherever possible, and wearing things out completely.
Self-sufficiency - learning to rely on personal resources and ingenuity, the ability to make and mend things with available materials, to grow your own foodstuffs and "put them up" for future use by canning or drying them.
Doing your part - everyone pitching in, from the tallest to the smallest - children selling newspapers or delivering messages, older boys serving in the Civilian Conservation Corps and contributing their earnings to the family's budget.
Understanding that "everyone was in the same boat," whether in hard economic times or in a time of war, and accepting what life hands you with a gritty determination to survive. Those that received government assistance did so gratefully, not as a right, but as a blessing.

The example set for younger generations by this generation is also fundamental:

Moral courage - to face what life throws at you with grace, patience, and personal fortitude; to do "the right thing"; that persistence and patience can bring about change for the good.
Faith in a higher power.
Patriotism - to answer the call to defend the freedoms that we as Americans all enjoy, often at great personal sacrifice.
The value of education, and the desire to keep learning.
A sense of duty - to family, to community, to country, to the world - and a sense of purpose.
Giving back - a spirit of volunteerism, feeling the need to pay back a debt owed for blessings received.

What lasting legacy will Minnesota's Greatest Generation leave behind? This is not so easy to define, and is open to individual interpretation.

Perhaps, broadly speaking, it is "freedoms preserved." Perhaps it is "a prosperous Minnesota" - a better life for their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

On a personal level, some members of this generation feel that the lessons and values they had hoped to pass on to their descendents have been rejected in favor of the spoiled, "me first" attitude reflected by their children and grandchildren. "They don't know how good they've got it!"

Others look on their extended families with great pride and peace of mind, knowing that their legacy will live on.

What is your interpretation?

Citations:

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