[0:02] I’m Kevin and I’m Stephanie and during our marriage we have dealt with an electrocution, a brain tumor, brain surgery, then doctors telling us that children were not in our future, followed by miscarriage, and then Kevin’s cancer diagnosis. However today we live a life completely healed and restored with three healthy children who doctors said were not possible and we’re here to tell stories that inspire, give hope, and brighten your day. Welcome to Tell Us a a good story.

[0:31] Okay, friends, before we get to this episode, just a friendly reminder to please hit the subscribe button on YouTube and Apple podcast or give us a review. Five stars, please. In our world, this is super, super important because it will help with the algorithm to make it easier for people to find us. And thank you for sharing our posts across your social media. That really helps with engagement and with us getting guests. Yes. So hey, if you want us to to keep working our way up to talking to chip and Joanna, please share us with your friends. But regardless, thank you for listening to tell us a good story.

[1:03] All right, Steph, we’ve been looking forward to this. She’s from my home area. I’m so excited. Well, friends, our next guest has been writing stories since she was 10 years old, a graduate of Bowling Green State University with a bachelor’s degree in news editorial journalism, which is hard to say. She has worked in newspapers, magazines, and television, and she’s the author of the new book titled Never Say Never, a TV producer and pig farmer’s love story of faith, resilience, and business success. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to Tell Us Good Story, Mrs. Lisa Kraler. Lisa! Yay! So good to be here. Thank you for having me. We’re so excited about this. Lisa, thank you for saying yes to us. And of course, I always like to vet who we’re potentially going to have on as guests of tell us good stories And so I called you we had a conversation about 10 minutes and then later that day staff I said, hey, I had a really good conversation with potential guests. Lisa Craylor and she’s like, where’s you know, where’s she from? I said a light at Ohio. Yes immediately Lisa stuff’s like, okay I don’t care what she does. I don’t care what you know what she’s done. No. Yes. I want to talk to her You have no idea who she is. Like, I don’t care. She’s good people. She’s from God’s country. Let’s talk to her. God’s country. Yes, she is.

[2:20] Northwestern Ohio. You can’t beat it. You can’t. It was literally the best place to grow up. I just loved it so much. Okay. Okay. Wait, for those not aware, Alida, Ohio is how far from where you grew up? Maybe 40 minutes, a half hour? Maybe 30 to 40. Yeah. So Lisa, you sent us, you were kind enough to send us your book, which is wonderful. And I have it, I have it right here. Okay. So when I looked at this book, immediately, you had me on the first line of the book. Okay. On the back of the book that says a television producer and a pig farmer meet on a cruise.

[2:56] You had my attention with that first line right there, but going back, can you share what you were doing back then before you met your husband? Well, you know, I started out as a newspaper writer, which is almost a dinosaur anymore, but that’s what I was doing first. And then they started this TV station here and I got involved. I always wanted to be on TV, but I never went to college for that. So then I got into television and I started being on the air and producing shows and all of that and a band from philadelphia came to our station for a telethon and they said they were sponsoring a singles cruise and wanted me and my roommate to go we were both on tv and we’re like oh it’d be awesome but we were both like we’re broke we had to pay for it even though we were part of the media and we both contacted our parents and just told them about it did not not ask for money. Both of our mothers said, we are going to loan you money. And I think they were desperate for their daughters to meet someone on a cruise. And I was hoping I would meet somebody on a cruise.

[3:58] So we go on this cruise in 1985, 39 years ago. Now things have changed a little bit. They were a little bobbing boats in the ocean back then. Oh, okay. 500 people on the ship. And I meet this tall, dark and handsome guy in the lobby. On the second night, and my heart was thumping. The second night. That’s right. And I was just going to say, he knew I was a TV producer because I introduced the media the night before. But I didn’t know who he was or anything about him. I just knew he was handsome and he was talking to me. So this sounds a little bit like The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, okay? Where, Lisa, when I’ve watched that show with Steph, I’m like, Steph, this is so not good for these couples, right? Because they are, they are meeting each other at a beautiful destination. It is going to be very easy in that scenario to fall in love, right? And then when they get back home to reality and they meet their in-laws or like,

[5:01] oh my gosh, this person is a complete mess, right? And then you see them in a completely different light. It’s like, oh, okay. Maybe I don’t like this person anymore.

[5:11] I would love to hear how it turns when you get back. Right. Our first date was in Jamaica. So where do you go from there? Right. You’re in Jamaica. But the thing was right away, he said, I’m a pig farmer from Minnesota.

[5:26] Oh, you know, I was in a whole nother world. Right. And I was like, wow, he doesn’t look like the pig farmers I knew back home. You know, not in a bad way. He looked like he was, you know, could be a movie star to me. So that was the i guess the realization to me is when i actually went to the pig farm and visited him how different our lives were i bet you do smell pig farms right right from miles away oh yeah and he was such a hard worker and everything i everything i guess for me you know they say love is blind there is a lot of truth to that that it overcomes a lot of things that you’re feeling and seeing, you’re like, oh, we can overcome everything.

[6:12] And it’s not really till you’re married that you realize it’s going to be a

[6:16] little tougher than you thought. Right. So back on the cruise, how hard was it, Lisa, to say goodbye to him after you spent, I mean, probably six amazing days, right? With your Prince Charming there. How hard was it to leave? And you didn’t have cell phones back then either. You had no internet. No way to keep in contact. contact, and we live 700 miles apart, and so you weren’t going to be just jet-setting all the time saying goodbye to him. In the book, I described it was like being a black and white movie. We’re sitting in a diner. We have our suitcases. The bus came sooner than what we thought was coming for him, and he grabbed me, and he kissed me goodbye, and I didn’t know if I would see this guy again. You know he even forgot my contact information on the table he forgot oh no and you know there’s no internet and so he takes off and i’m like i don’t know if i’ll ever see this guy again.

[7:11] And we did reconnect and we ended up having 12 official dates in 14 months before we got married. 12. Yeah. So it’s fairly rapid. And I went through a lot trying to decide, is this really right for me? I was giving up my career, I was leaving my family and I was moving to a pig farm. And that is not something I ever thought that I would do. That was not in my life plan. Let’s put it that way. Okay. OK, I have I have a question and you’re probably going to be like, Stephanie, that is so insignificant. But I want to know how he found you again. I wrote him a letter because we had to write letters back then. Uh huh. And then he responded. And of course, in the letter, I put my phone number and that’s how.

[7:55] Correct me if I’m wrong, Lisa. The only thing you had was his mailing address. Right. That was it. You didn’t have a phone number and he obviously didn’t have your information. Yeah. So everything was harder back then. And, you know, it’s hard to explain that to even your kids today. You can tell them that, but they don’t really know what it was like. Everything was more difficult. You know, you didn’t go on the internet and Google something. I mean, everything took a lot more work and everything that we did in our lives took a lot more work because we had to initiate everything. There was no playbooks that you went by or even starting a business. You know, you didn’t have somewhere to go and figure it all out. You just learned by mistakes.

[8:31] So from the time you met, you guys got married 14 months later. Yeah. Yes, we did. And then I moved to the farm and man, it was a lot different. And one thing I didn’t know was how long farmers work. They work like 40 hours a day. And I got pretty lonely.

[8:52] Well, that was my question for you, Lisa. Like, what was the culture shock like for you when you moved to Minnesota? I mean, completely different than how you grew up. Well, I would say especially because I was on television back here and a lot of people knew me and they’d stop you wherever you were. Nobody knew me at all. And I moved to town. We were in the country outside of a town of 700 people. And they knew me as Keith’s wife. And that was my only claim to fame. And then just getting used to the pig farm. You know, I didn’t go out and work in the pig farm, you know, or do anything like that. But I was trying to figure out my life. I had to start over and I didn’t really know anybody. He had some family around there. I got to know him a little bit, but you’re not like right next door to everybody. So it was challenging. For sure. Another challenge, I believe, Lisa, was not only was your husband single, his father was single as well, right? They were both bachelors living in that farmhouse, correct? Yeah, they were. And he eventually remarried. Keith’s mom had died when she was in her 50s. But yeah, there was a lot there. And I think in the book, one of the big things I talked about was when we lost the pigs, we had feeder pigs delivered to our farm. And he comes running in the house crying. And he said, they’re dead. They’re dead. They’re all dead.

[10:14] And we had just had 159 feeder pigs delivered. It cost thousands of dollars. And here the methane gases in the middle of the night had rose up through the floor. And all of these little pigs died.

[10:27] We were already almost a million dollars in debt on our farm. And we were wondering what’s going to happen. We’re not going to be able to make money. We have to pay this man for the pigs that have nothing in return for it. It was a pretty emotional time for both of us. But, you know, we are people of faith. We really believed that God was going to walk with us through whatever it is we went through, because He already had. It was just like, you’ve got to trust in God. He will go before you and walk with you. And that was important to us. And so what happened the very next day after all those pigs died, the farmer came to us and said, Yeah. I am not going to make you pay for these pigs. Wow. I am basically, he’s basically forgave our debt. And he said, I’m not going to make you responsible for it. And for me personally, that was such a spiritual insight into the fact that he didn’t owe us doing that. He didn’t have to pay for that debt for us, but he did. And it was a spiritual implication to me about what Jesus did on the cross was that he paid a debt he didn’t know. And we owed the debt. we could not pay. And that was kind of that significance of that time in our lives, that everything was going to be okay, regardless of the outcome, because it doesn’t always go the way you want it to, but you’re not going to be alone.

[11:47] Steph, what is one of the most asked questions we get about tell us a good story? Do I really get that excited? Besides that one? Oh, how do we get all these incredible guests? Correct. And some of our best conversations have been with guests who are listeners have reached out to us and said, you should talk to this person. To name just a few, Nick Vujicic, Coach Tom Ryan, Carol Matico were all recommendations from our listeners. So if there’s someone you would like us to interview and think they might be a great fit for Tell Us a Good Story, please let us know at kevinandsteph.com. You don’t even have to personally know them. True, but do me a favor before you submit their names, please make sure they are still alive. That has actually happened and it is super hard for me to find their contact information. But regardless, thank you for listening to Tell Us a Good Story.

[12:34] So, Lisa, at what point… Did you find out that your husband in the farming business had about a million dollars in debt? And I guess that goes back to what I said earlier, where you get back to reality and you’re like, oh my gosh, hey, by the way, I’ve got a little bit of debt related to this farm. You had no clue. So at what point does he inform you of that? Well, I remember on the cruise ship that he, I don’t think he said any specific number, but he said, we’re in a lot of debt, but that went over my head you know yes but as we were dating you know I mean he I’m sure he mentioned it he never hid anything but once you’re in that situation life is very different for you you realize that this could affect you for the rest of your lives and we came up against so many.

[13:23] Challenges during that time period and we end up losing our farm business we didn’t lose the buildings or whatever, but it ended up being a bad situation. But in the end, it ended up turning into good. So one thing that got my attention, Lisa, was looking at your book, you said once the farming business collapsed, you and your husband did multiple things, including becoming traveling carnies. Can you please share any good story from that? Because you talk about people watching and probably some amazing experiences at the carnival. Can you please share something good from back then? Someone gave him the idea of us selling 1919 draft root beer at state fairs and festivals. We were trying to pay off some short-term debt.

[14:12] And he was always thinking outside the box, unusual things. I said, oh, we only have one kid. You know, she’s two. We could probably do this. And for some reason, we took off and went to Beaumont, Texas, which is 24 hours from Minnesota, with an old beat-up truck and a camper top on the back. And then I found out I was pregnant with my second kid. I had morning sickness the whole trip.

[14:36] And we were in the back end of that camper top. And we’re pulling all of these kegs of root beer each keg was 16 gallons and we had all this root beer we had this refrigerated trailer and we were going to be officially carnies we went to the state fair in texas and it was a really disastrous first trip i didn’t need any money and i lost my My daughter at the fair, and she was picked up by a bunch of gypsies who actually were very kind. They found her and brought her back to us. And so we just started off really rough on this venture of being carnies. So we learned a lot through that time, but it was not a financial success. We ended up getting more debt accrued. And my husband went on by himself to Florida for a couple of months. And we ended up going back up north to my family’s just because it was all such a bad, it was a bad decision. But you know what, when you’re trying to turn your lives around, sometimes it doesn’t work on the first time around. You’ve got to try new things, especially people that are entrepreneurs.

[15:49] You’re trying things, and that does not mean it’s going to be an overnight success. And we’ve learned that you’ve got to keep getting up and keep persevering and moving ahead and learning from your mistakes. And that’s how we got into window cleaning eventually. So it wasn’t the first trip around the world that was successful. It took us a while. So how long did you travel around then to state fairs, carnivals? How long was that? What was that time period? I would say it was just a few months. I was with them a little less than that because I was pretty sick and being pregnant at that time. But it was enough. I’m glad it wasn’t longer than that.

[16:29] So when you’re traveling to these different venues, any funny stories, I guess, from the people you met, the people you’re working with, from, gosh, the Texas State Fair? I mean, you talk about people watching, right? Any fun stories from those trips, Lisa? Well, the thing I remember the most, and I think it was because I was pregnant and so nauseous, was the smells from the fair. Oh, right. Crawfish, fried alligator. Oh, my gosh. Cajun food. And Steph, you can probably relate that it just makes you nauseous when they trigger And I just remember these were such unusual smells for me. I was used to, you know, up here in Ohio was totally different than what I smelled down there in South Texas. Steph, that doesn’t sound like the Van Wert County Fair. It doesn’t. No, it does not. Best fair round. No alligator there. No alligator. Or crawfish. There’s no crawfish being served. Okay. So eventually you moved back to Northwest Ohio. You started the cleaning business. How did you, I guess, climb out of the hole with this mountain of debt?

[17:36] Good question. You know, I remember we were sending, now, mind you, this is years and years ago, we were sending $1,000 a month back to go towards the farm debt. Which may not sound like it, and it’s probably three times that now, but when you don’t have hardly any income, that is mountains of money. You know, we were going to pay our obligations. but fast forward to we got a phone call from our banker in minnesota and he said if you give us the farm back i am willing to completely erase your debt as an even thing so then we can turn around and try to sell that farm because we hadn’t been there in a while we were trying to keep up with it but he knew we were never going to catch up with that debt yeah and so basically that’s how that But the whole thing ended with that. We didn’t pay a lot of money back. We were committed to doing it no matter how tough the times were. Wow. So what was it like in your marriage during this time? Because I think so many listeners can relate to being in so much debt, having two little babies. You’re not feeling good. Your husband’s away. But how did that relate to you guys as a married couple? Well, as you can imagine, it’s a challenge, and we were both in our 30s. So we were completely starting over, and fresh starts don’t always go well overnight. It takes a long time.

[19:04] Again, as I said before, I don’t know how people make it if they don’t have some type of faith that pulls them through, because we, in ourselves, are just so fragile, and we’re human, and we’re going to mess up, and we messed up plenty in our lives.

[19:19] But we kept going another day because we had hope and we had faith. And then that helped bind us together because otherwise I could see how families split up. My husband has said more than once, I can’t believe you never divorced me through all of this. But that was never on my lips, on my mind. I believe in traditional marriage. And I said I would never even let my mind go there because we were in this together.

[19:47] Together. If you like what you hear, please tell someone about us. As soon as this episode is over, go tell your spouse, your closest friend, a parent, a coworker, or share one of our posts on social media. However, if you don’t like what you’re hearing, please do not. Don’t tell anyone. Don’t tell anyone. Don’t tell anybody. Just disregard this message. Don’t worry about it. Forget about us. Yep. Go on with your merry day. And to get more information about us or our entire catalog of episodes, be sure to check us out at kevinandsteph.com. Thank you for listening to tell us a good story.

[20:17] If I were Lisa, it would be so tempting for me to beat up on my spouse at every moment, given the debt, right? Because he could say, hey, you know what? I don’t think that’s a good idea. And then I would say, you know what’s not a good idea? How about taking on over a million dollars of debt, right? For a farm, right? And taking me to Texas for the Texas State Fair, right? That’s not a good idea. It would be very challenging not to just bring that up. Nonstop yeah so kudos to you lisa yes well when he when i wrote this book it was painful for him to read this book i bet yeah because of all of these these scenarios he’s like i do not know why i did this what i was going there i said hey this is our journey in life yeah and we we walked through it and we overcame it and we get to inspire other people now that never give up And that’s the theme of it.

[21:11] You can be inspired and never give up and you don’t have to walk alone. Stand with your faith and stand with your spouse.

[21:19] 32 years, you’ve done a widow washing business with your husband, and it’s still open today. So what led you then, Lisa, to write this book? Well, a couple of things that were pretty serious. 2017, I had a widow maker, a heart attack. Oh my gosh. Yeah, and I almost died. I had emergency triple heart bypass. I got stuck in an airport. There were storms. I had just had the heart attack. Didn’t know it was a heart attack but knew I was something was really wrong and I still remember the cardiologist telling me you should have died in the hotel room where you had the heart attack or on in the airport but you shouldn’t have made it and wow that was one thing that kind of turned your head and you start thinking about your life and then in 2021 both my husband and I got COVID pretty bad, but I was really bad. Ended up in the hospital and my oxygen numbers were tanking, my kidney failure. It was a bad situation and I survived, but I was on oxygen for many months. The last I was on oxygen was October of 22. So after that I said, I am going to write this book.

[22:33] Because I don’t know how long I have. I’m turning 64. You’re never guaranteed another day. And I haven’t had a great track record. And I wanted to pass this legacy story on to my children and grandchildren so that they could be inspired that it’s not always a bed of roses. You can get back up again. You can start over completely, even in your 30s. You can start over from scratch. And you can overcome whatever obstacle and challenge you have. Have and you can make a difference than in other people’s lives. And that’s what made me write this book. And I didn’t know if I was going to be able to do this and it took me almost a year, but I did it. Oh, that’s amazing.

[23:14] Well, listeners quote on the back of this book, this book is geared toward those who appreciate stories of overcoming obstacles. This book inspires readers to believe that everything is possible with God and no one should ever walk alone. And listeners for For more information about Lisa, you can go to her website, lisacraylor.com. Her email, the email is actually in this book, lisacraylor at gmail.com. If I could just say one last thing. Please. To encourage people, nothing in your life is ever wasted. The reason this book is called Never Say Never is that you may go down paths and journeys that you never thought you would go through, but never say never. There’s hope there’s promise in all the things that you do and if you let it your life can be better shaped by all the things that you go through in your life nothing that you do is wasted you never know what you’re going to have to do to make it work but take whatever you learn from that and it can change your life that’s good so good thank you lisa so much for saying yes to us and coming here on tell us a good story thank you thanks lisa thank you for having me.

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