Anchored: A Grandfather's Legacy

Do you know your grandparents’ story?

Shanna Strackbein didn’t always know hers, but that all changed when her Papaw, Dewey Holden, pulled out an old box of slides that brought his adventures to life and gave a window into his past she’d only glimpsed before. Spurred on by this discovery, she asked him to tell more as she leafed through dusty albums in an earnest search to learn the rest of the story. Anchored follows her quest, tracing God’s faithfulness in one family’s life over five generations.

The true story Shanna unearths reveals hope in the midst of hardship. When Dewey was a boy, his family lost close loved ones, and struggled to make ends meet during the depths of the Great Depression. Yet, time and again, they experienced God’s mighty hand of salvation. Early on, his family was dramatically rescued from the fury of the 1919 Storm. And while serving in the Coast Guard after the Pearl Harbor attack, Dewey was spared from an ominous waterspout, as well as from German U-Boats lurking in the shipping lanes near New Orleans. These gripping episodes—along with Dewey’s love story with Dorothy Smith, his wife of more than fifty years—are captured in this engaging documentary.

In researching Dewey’s eventful life, Shanna comes to realize that her grandfather’s story is far more than a list of dates and names, but that it offers important lessons that must be preserved and passed on.