My grandfather’s shop seemed cavernous. Every room was filled with tools that a man with a strong back could use to make a living and feed his family.

My grandfather was a blacksmith. His name was Parmer.

He was a product of the Great Depression. Born in 1918, he arrived at adulthood in the midst of the worst economic period in American history. But, like many men and women of that era, he was raised in a family that survived not on ...