I hope you’re following along as we countdown the final 100 days of 2022 - you can join us anytime. Learn more about the program HERE.

My maternal grandmother (Harriet) was a wonderful storyteller.  She would tell me about life growing up in Chicago in the early 1910s, life during the Great Depression, and what it was like to raise a small child (my mom) during World War ll.  One story in particular, which took place during the holidays, always brought me so much joy and hope.  

Harriet’s family were generational furniture builders – nothing ever mass-produced, everything created by hand.  They were often consigned to build furniture for the most influential families in Chicago.  As such, their furniture was not cheap in quality or cost.  Not surprisingly, their once thriving business took a real downturn when the Depression hit.  

With 9 children to feed, stretching food became an art form for Harriet’s mother, leaving little to nothing left over each night.  As one of the older children, Harriet left school in her teens to get a job in a downtown Chicago coat factory in order to help out.  

During the fall of 1930, her father had spent months making an incredible dining table, chairs, and hutch for an affluent family.  Unfortunately, right after it was completed the family canceled the order.  All of the materials were paid for out-of-pocket by her father and without the sale, it would be a very long and difficult winter to take care of a large family.  

Christmas Eve that year was bitter cold and the snow in Chicago had virtually closed down the city, including the soup kitchens set up to help feed those displaced by the economy.  While cleaning up from their meager Christmas Eve dinner, there was a knock on the kitchen door of their walk-up, brownstone home.  A grey-haired man, dressed in very little warm clothing, torn coat, tattered hat and gloves, stood on the stoop and asked if he could please come in for a few moments to just warm up.  Harriet’s mother, without hesitation, took the man in.  She set him up a chair next to the pot belly stove that heated the kitchen.  While Harriet warmed up the remainder of their leftover soup and a slice of bread, her mother took the man’s coat and gloves and darned the holes the best she could.  Insisting that he only wanted to get warm, he graciously accepted the food, care, and companionship.  Grandma recounted that he dozed for a short time in the chair next to the fire, clearly exhausted from dealing with the blizzard conditions and sub-zero temperatures.  

A short while later the snow finally let up allowing the LaSalle Street shelter to reopen.  Without discussion, the man layered on his thin but darned coat, gloves, and hat.  Expressing his sincerest gratitude for their kindness, the man accepted a small bag of food Harriet prepared.  While they couldn’t really afford to give food away, they would not let him leave without something to eat later.  As he walked out the door, the man turned and wished Harriet and her mother a Merry Christmas and a heartfelt “God Bless you both.”  They knew that while the times were so difficult for their family, it was even harder on so many others.  They did what they knew they had to.  

The day after Christmas, Harriet’s father came in from his workshop with the news that he just sold the dining room table, chairs, and hutch.  Another family had heard about the incredible furniture that was available and came immediately to purchase it.  

My wonderful Grandma Harriet did not believe for a moment that the sale of the furniture was merely a coincidence.  She wholeheartedly believed that their good fortune was truly because they unselfishly cared for and gave to a man who needed their help, even when they had so little to give.  Their actions were not with the expectation that they would be rewarded.  It was just something you did for someone in need.  Maybe he was an angel, she would tell me.  Was he sent to challenge them, to see if they would truly care for another person less fortunate?  That experience never left her, and she lived her life as a kind, loving, and gracious woman.  While some people who heard the story had thought it was a fairy tale she’d spun, I knew she hadn’t.  It was real.  

I believe kindness, caring, and compassion for others resides in all of us.  We control when to let it out and when to not bother ourselves with the challenges others face.  If presented with the same situation today, would you open your home to a stranger and offer them haven from a storm?  If Grandma Harriet was still with us, I know she would!