Our Father's Journey: A Path Out of Poverty

Harry Joseph Deitz was born into a life that had little hope and offered few opportunities. He was the youngest of six children in a family that was struggling to survive on a coal miner's income in the late 1920s. Then the Great Depression arrived, and they sank deeper into poverty. When it seemed things couldn't get worse, his father was seriously injured in a mine accident, leaving his mother to support the family by scrubbing floors and doing laundry and other domestic work.One by one, Harry's brothers and sisters quit school to help support the family. He did also, twice, but both times he went back and would become the only member of his family to graduate from high school.On April 6, 1946, he met a young beauty, and it was love at first sight. But because of his embarrassment over his shabby clothes, lack of spending money, and limited prospects in life, he quit school for the second time and joined the Army, where he learned a photography skill that would set him on a path to a successful newspaper career.Life would never be easy for him, but he refused to fail. His unforgettable childhood struggles instilled in him a determination to climb out of poverty, and he has worked passionately and tirelessly to make sure his own family would never experience the life he knew as a child.At 93, he is going strong as a successful and prominent member of his community.…