For homework, my middle son had to select a story and prepare to tell it to his school class. A few students from each class are chosen to tell their story in front of judges, and the school’s winners get to participate in the Timpanogos Story Telling Festival. (If I understand the whole thing correctly. Last year was a blur, I still consider myself new to Utah, so I hope that’s accurate information.)

As I helped my son with his story, I couldn’t help but give him a few pointers on how to tell it. (Sometimes I just can’t hold the PR&Advertising-trained part of me back. One of the few things I can do is give a presentation!) He wasn’t buying much of what I suggested he do, I think he was too cool for most of it. So on the off chance his story ends with his 5th grade class, I have to pass it on here. Because it’s a true one. From the life of my great-grandfather, Jerome Bradley Henrie and his mother, my great-great grandmother, Amanda Bradley Henrie.

When I first heard it as a little girl, it inspired me. It helped me stand strong. And as a woman, when I needed courage during tough times, it helped me do what I needed to with my head held high. Especially when I entered my unexpected life.

Here’s the story as my son will share it with his class today:

“Jerome Henrie grew up in a dugout on the side of the temple hill in Manti, Utah, more than a century ago.

Winters were cold. Summers were hot, and the heat was especially challenging because rattlesnakes infested the cool, darkness of the family’s dugout to escape the heat of summer days–which made home life VERY interesting, not to mention just a little bit dangerous!

But rattlesnakes weren’t the only danger.

There were Indians!

One day Jerome’s mother Amanda, finished her week’s baking. She took the freshly baked loaves of bread from the fire and laid them on a table to cool. As she stood back to admire her work, a huge Indian brave barged into her home! He gestured for the bread.

Amanda gave him one loaf, but he wasn’t satisfied. The Indian again demanded bread.

All of it.

Amanda was a tiny woman. She was terrified of the tall, fierce Indian standing in her home, demanding all of her bread. But she knew if she gave him her bread, her children would have nothing to eat.

So she grabbed a poker from the fire and gestured her own invitation of departure! She chased that Indian out of her little dugout home and he never came back! It must have been quite a site to see a big brave running from a tiny pioneer woman! Yet Amanda’s courage to stand strong even in the face of what she feared, is an example to me.

Ovid said, ‘Happy is he who dares courageously to defend what he loves.’”

I’m not advocating we run around in the 21st century brandishing pokers, but I do believe we have to stand for what we believe is right (regardless of how we’re judged by others), we need to move forward even when we’re terrified and we need to see our challenge through to “the end” (without giving up) until we conquer it!

“The triumph cannot be had without the struggle.” (Wilma Rudolph)

Neither can the unexpected life.