My maternal grandmother, Mildred Schulenburg, was born in Hull in northeastern England in 1910. During World War I, her hometown was a common target for Zeppelin airships, and she recounted stories of watching neighbors perish in the attacks. When she was 18 her family immigrated to the United States. In October of that year the United States was plunged into the Great Depression. When she was 80 years old she built a new house for herself, and we have a snapshot of her hanging on a kudzu vine.

At my grandmother’s memorial, a friend of the family told a story about driving Mildred to the...