Introduction to Lives of Quiet Inspiration:

It's been said that "History is biography." Unfortunately, the history we learn in school is limited to the biographies and actions of larger than life individuals, the people who make the headlines. They are extraordinary people with whom we mere mortals can't really identify, or even fully understand.

This book isn't about them. It's about some of the people who really made the accomplishments of the last century possible.

Roosevelt couldn't have dragged the nation out of the Great Depression without the men and women in this book - and countless others like them - who worked in the steel mills and heavy industry during the 1930s. Their names never appeared in newspaper headlines or history books.

Eisenhower and MacArthur would have failed without the anonymous men and women in their armed forces who, unlike those two generals, risked death from anti-aircraft flak, artillery, and enemy rifles while fighting their way through Europe and the South Pacific.

The political leaders of our country and its allies would have been impotent without the torpedoes, tanks, and aircraft parts manufactured in the home front assembly lines by the kind of people whose stories are told in this book.

Most of them say they haven't done anything remarkable or heroic. But each of them is an example of the most important kind of heroism: the self-sacrificing courage one needs to conquer the intimidating challenges of ordinary living, day in and day out. Together they provided the foundation for every historical achievement of the Twentieth Century.

In this book you will find stories of people who happen to live in western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio , but they represent millions of others who live throughout our country. They worked in coal mines; inspired the love of music in others; taught in schools; shared their love of God with hundreds or even thousands of others; faced the heat of industrial furnaces; endured snowstorms, floods, droughts, and tornadoes; marched with their unions on the picket lines; built homes and offices; farmed to provide themselves and our country with food; raised the leaders of the Twenty-first Century; and served their friends, families, neighbors, and even strangers in countless ways.

If that isn't heroism, I don't know what is.

Before I knew these people, I might have begrudgingly accepted Henry David Thoreau's idea that "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." Let's face it: life is difficult and painful; difficulty and pain can lead to desperation. However, desperation literally means hopelessness, and nothing of significance has ever been achieved without hope. The seeds of every historical achievement are hopes and dreams, fertilized with the struggles of everyday life, and nurtured to maturity through unrelenting hard work.

Dreams spring from within, but hope is inspired by the example of others - such as the people in this book - who have overcome the kinds of difficulties that we ourselves must face.

Their success shows us that we, too, can succeed. They have truly led lives of quiet inspiration .

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