L

illian Mae Downs Cole was born in the 1890s. Raised in a tiny town in rural northern Maine, she lost sisters, a brother, her parents and her husband … all by the time she’d reached her 50s. Natalie Estelle Bartlett Greer was born in 1917. She never drove a car, never owned a home, and was widowed with six young children in her early 40s. She worked as a waitress, walking the two miles to and from her job every day for more than 27 years. The legacies these women left were void of wealth — at least the kind equated today with inheritances. Instead they bequeathed legacies richly embedded with respect for diligence and perseverance, strength and grace.

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