by Leah Sellers

Created on: July 26, 2009

My Grandpa Avery was a soft spoken man. He stood 6-feet-2 with eyes so blue. He believed in honor and duty, too, and when he returned Home on the Battleship Texas from WWI, the family never heard a word about the War - not from Grandpa's lips. He refused to speak of it - to give Energy to it. There were other things to focus upon for the future now in the Name of Acts of Liberation.

One of the many stories told about Gra ndpa Avery Taught all of us our Work Ethic of Liberation. That's right! Liberation is Work!

During the Great Depression, when thousands were begging and scratching around for jobs and standing in endless food lines, Grandpa Avery heard about the telephone company hiring. Fortunately, he and Grandma lived out in the country and had been farming food for their large family (they wound up with eight children) as well as for all of their other family members, relatives and close friends (who lived in nearby towns) in order to help keep food on everyone's tables. The times were lean, and dire for almost everyone, particularly those who lived within the cities. However, they needed more money coming in than what the sale of their cow's milk and hen's eggs could provide.

So, like clockwork, every morning, at 4:30, Grandpa ate a quick breakfast, crammed his tall frame into their small, black 1932 Chevy and drove twenty-three miles into Little Rock, Arkansas to stand all day long in line with many other desperate and willing men thinking and hoping, "today's the day......."

He repeated that pattern uncomplainingly for almost two months. One day Grandma was surprised by the premature squeak of her front porch's screen door. She found Grandpa standing in the middle of the living room with a Cheshire Cat grin on his handsome face. "Well, Lillian, I got the job. The man in charge said that he was tired of seeing my face there every day - ha! Actually, he told me that he was impressed with my always being the first in line every morning, every day. He said he admired my persistence. My perseverance."
The Liberation of Persistence - of Perseverance!

Grandpa Avery learned the lesson of Perseverance from his Father (my Great Grandfather Avery). He was a Pastor who traveled as a Circuit preacher throughout the wild and primitive Appalachian mountains on the back of a beautiful bay gelding establishing some Missionary Baptist churches, but most importantly (to me) serving the needs of the community by preaching at all of the Churches (Methodist, Lutheran, Anabaptists,

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