Bob Dotson - American Story: A Lifetime Search for Ordinary People Doing Extraordinary Things

The American Story Continues

Since it was first published in 2013, American Story has been embraced by most readers like a friend they didnt want to leave.

Timothy Weeks yearned for more stories about people who without glory dig deep and do the right thing, even if no one is watching.

A. B. Gardner wrote that he wanted to read about people who are ruled by courage, love, endurance, and are driven to work hard no matter what may befall them. When we feel we are not particularly important, these stories tell us the very opposite.

Crisscrossing the country on a book tour, I saw clearly that a lot of readers craved books that offered light and not just heat. Natalie Sundberg found on these pages a world that is more than crime, murder, and mayhem. This is where the real news is, Margaret, a reader in Florida, commented. Bob Dotson has painted a picture of who we are as a nation, another remarked. The words and stories, Rick Goldstein wrote, are what the world would have had if the good Lord never gave a paint brush to Norman Rockwell and only blessed him with a pen! Thats heady stuff for an author who spent many months typing to himself.

Some heard a rallying cry. These stories challenge you to be a better person, not in the fashion of self-improvement, but in that honored fashion of forgetting yourself and doing something for others. Ray Floyd noticed: There are many in the book that dont recognize they are heroes, who just consider what they have done as simply being necessary. It is unfortunate that more people dont recognize what is necessary is far different than me.

But many Americans I have met in the past year do. Mary Sauter saw the need in her own hometownchildren with little more than wishes and empty dreams. The retired schoolteacher from Albia, Iowa, was rich in good intentions but had little in the way of funds, so started recycling cans to buy things for those kids. Mary had never had children of her own, and had never married. But each year she filled a seven-thousand-square-foot warehouse with gifts that lit up little faces. It cost her about thirty thousand dollars: ten thousand from her savings, plus another twenty thousand she earned working concession stands at Albia athletic events and tutoring students after school.

Is that all? No, she also looked after her one-hundred-year-old father. She brought Herb Sauter into her home after he started going blind. Herb pondered that a moment, staring out the window of the modest house they shared. He shook his head slowly and said, I had no idea what might have become of me. I think shes wonderful.

Mary took him in as he had once done for her, when she was just four years old, left in an Italian orphanage by a mother who could no longer take care of her. Herb was forty-four at the time. He had already adopted two boys but decided he had love enough for one more child.

He brought something to put the little girl at ease. I just held it out, and she didnt understand English, of course. But she understood teddy bear!

Mary wouldnt put it down for fear it might be stolen. Fifty-six years later, the well-loved old bear is still by her side.

In fact, childhood toys surround Mary, only now theyre for other children. As she shopped for gifts for Albias kids, she recalled still being a kid herself when she came to the realization that we had things because Mom and Dad didnt. They never took trips. Seldom ate out.

But they did teach her to hunt for bargains. Thats only thirty percent off, Mary said, checking a price tag. We dont want that. Ninety percent off lets her clothe five hundred kids.

One of them, four-year-old Abbey Smith, twirled in the new coat Mary brought for her and happily stamped her feet. Im going to tell my mommy that Mary gave these boots to me.

I used to buy mostly toys, Mary said. But since the recession, a lot of kids are asking for clothes.

Others in Abbeys class at Albias Head Start eye the pile of jackets. I always leave on the price tags, because some of them may not get many new clothes, Mary confided.

Behind every sweet face Mary sees parents struggling to survive. Theyre working very hard. Very hard, but theyre barely making ends meet because theyre making just above minimum wage.

Thats why Mary was as constant as their need. Shes been quietly helping others for nearly a quarter of a century.

Did I put those on the wrong feet? Mary laughed, slipping a boot on Katelyn Castillo. You can tell Im no mother! Raymond Ostermyer flapped his arms to show off the fit of his new camouflage hunting jacket. Now I can make a snow angel. He grinned.

Friends said Albia already had an angel: Mary, whose magnetic personality pulled the best from people. She enlisted former students and their parents to link each gift to just the right child.

Katie Della Vedova grew up to be a teacher, too. Watching Mary churning around the warehouse, she turned to say: Shes made her place in heaven. She really has.

Despite a small army of friends who help out, much of what Mary did remained a secret. She rarely talked about it. Linda Miholovich never knew who had left gifts at her door after her husband died in a car wreck, leaving her with three kids under the age of eight.

Two decades later Mary hired Linda to help take care of Herb. One day, when Mary mentioned that she used to wrap gifts in newspaper comics, Linda turned and looked at her, wide-eyed, and asked, That was you? The daughter of the man she was nursing had secretly sent her children gifts during the darkest time of their lives.

Oh, my God, I need more carts! Mary laughed as she whirled away, pushing two of them piled high with purchases. An army of friends lined up behind her, shoving their own carts toward the checkout stand. Please take it! Mary prayed as she swiped her credit card.

A lot of us buy gifts for the less fortunate during holidays. Mary Sauter shopped sales year-round, practically nonstop.

Theres no such thing as seasons, she said with a smile. Its all one huge season.

We dont need money to do good things. It just takes determination. The 422 people who live in Bussey, Iowa, have a lot of that. Their neighbor Todd Spaur was in a terrible accident. After his car flipped off a highway, he lay trapped for more than sixteen hours, hidden by the underbrush. He could not call for help or crawl away because hed broken his back, his neck, and most of the bones in his face. I just wanted to die, he said.