My mother survived extreme poverty. Her coal miner father died when she was 2 years old and her mother passed away from cancer a couple of years later.  She was one of eight children, so the oldest tried to take care of the younger children.  But the war came, and the oldest boys were drafted.  Her oldest sister took the three youngest and moved to California because they heard it was a place of opportunity. But things weren’t easy, and my mother spent most of her childhood ill due to a lack of food and proper nutrition.