The Long 26 Mile: A Crisis of Fathers & One Deacon’s Mission to Call Men Home
After losing a family business and walking 26 miles alone, Joe Grote found a new calling: urging men to reclaim the roles of husband, father, and friend.
A story about a Nazi prison cell sits at the heart of Deacon Joe Grote’s understanding of heroism.
The story centers on St. Maximilian Kolbe, the Franciscan priest who volunteered to die in another man’s place at Auschwitz. For Grote, the moment carries another layer of meaning: Kolbe holding starving prisoners together through prayer, endurance, and human dignity.
“He sat with those men and held them together,” Grote said during a conversation on the Heroic Stories podcast. “Literally, mentally and physically, for as long as humanly possible.”
The example shaped Grote’s view of courage. Heroism, he believes, rarely appears through battlefield drama or national headlines. It shows up in kitchens, parish halls, youth sports fields, and living rooms.
“We have to be heroic where we’re placed,” he said.
That idea anchors Grote’s book, “Where Have All the Fathers Gone? Daily Thoughts for Dads, Dads-to-Be, and Papas.” The book grew from decades of ministry, family experience, and one unsettling pattern he saw across American life: children growing up without fathers.
A Teacher’s Gesture That Changed Everything
The turning point arrived during a bakery tour in the mid-1990s.
Grote’s family operated a large Cincinnati bakery supplying hamburger and hot-dog buns across the region. One day a local school asked for a tour. Grote prepared a simple lesson on baking ingredients.
“I said, ‘If mom calls dad and asks him to bring home a dozen eggs…’”
A teacher standing nearby began shaking his head.
After the demonstration, Grote asked why.
“Over 50 percent of these kids don’t have a dad in their life,” the teacher told him.
The realization struck with force.
“I’d always been loved,” Grote recalled. “I came from a big family. I couldn’t understand that.”
Years later another event deepened the conviction. In 2010, eight young men between ages 18 and 21 were killed during a single week in Cincinnati. Newspaper coverage told the stories of grieving mothers, relatives, and neighbors.
Yet one detail never appeared.
“Seven articles in a row,” Grote said. “There wasn’t a grieving father mentioned in any of them.”
He wrote a letter to the editor arguing that education and job programs would never address deeper wounds without fatherhood.
The article ran on the front page of the newspaper’s editorial section. Within days a minister from Cincinnati’s inner city called him.
“This is the biggest problem in my church,” the minister said. “We need to talk.”
A Foundation Idea — and a Growing Alarm
Grote began collecting research and articles about fatherhood. The binder grew thicker each year.
One statistic still stops him cold.
“In 1960, five percent of kids in America lived without a father,” he said. “By 2000 it was fifty percent.”
During conversations with addiction counselors he heard another troubling figure: a large share of youth entering drug recovery programs came from homes without fathers.
A pattern appeared again and again.
Children craved the presence of a father. When that presence disappeared, the consequences rippled through families, schools, and communities.
The challenge pushed Grote toward writing.
A Business Collapse — and a Long Walk Home
Before the book came the collapse of a family legacy.
Grote’s father built the family bakery after serving in the U.S. Navy. By the 1990s the business employed 135 people and produced millions of hamburger buns each year.
Then consolidation swept through the grocery industry. Large chains began producing their own baked goods.
Revenue fell, bank financing evaporated, and by 2001 the company faced closure.
During the crisis Grote suffered a severe anxiety attack that landed him in a hospital. A psychiatrist offered blunt advice. “You need to close your business.”
The suggestion felt impossible: the bakery carried a half a century of family history, blood, sweat, and effort.
And then one morning the final bank rejection arrived.
Grote remembered the doctor’s guidance to stop everything and just take a walk whenever pressure became overwhelming. He stepped outside and began moving down the road.
The bakery stood 26 miles from his house.
He walked the entire distance.
“I started the rosary,” he said. “And the farther I walked away, the better I felt.”
By the time he reached home, the decision had formed.
“We had done enough. It was time to close.”
Looking back, he believes the choice saved lives.
“I’m convinced either I or one of my brothers would have died if we kept it open.”
Reinvention and a Call to Ministry
After the closure, Grote entered a string of new careers: insurance sales, nonprofit work, and eventually a one-man remodeling business.
During that period another calling began forming.
Years spent in men’s faith groups and parish ministries drew him toward pastoral work. Two separate people suggested the same idea: becoming a Catholic deacon.
Today Grote serves in Cincinnati while continuing to promote fatherhood through speaking and writing.
“I finally told the Lord, lead me where you want me,” he said. “I haven’t felt freer in a long time.”
The Book Written in Forty Days
The book that grew from these experiences came together rapidly.
On Ash Wednesday three years ago, Grote delivered a homily encouraging people to add a positive habit during Lent rather than surrendering something.
That evening he began writing.
He sorted hundreds of articles from his fatherhood research binder into categories and started drafting reflections.
Within forty days he completed 140 entries.
Some nights inspiration arrived in bursts.
“One night I wrote ten in about an hour and a half,” he said.
By July he completed 365 reflections — one for every day of the year.
Each entry ends with the same six questions:
Did you tell your wife you love her today?
Did you tell your kids you love them today?
Whose day did you make today?
Who did you pray for today?
Who did you send a message of hope to today?
Who did you thank today?
Readers often say those closing lines impress them more than anything else in the book.
Brotherhood Before Advice
Grote also credits decades spent in a fathers’ accountability group founded nearly forty years ago.
Members meet weekly, they pray, they share struggles. They break into small groups where friendships develop over decades.
“Some guys have been meeting together for thirty years,” Grote said. “They’ve watched each other’s kids grow up.”
The structure remains simple: prayer, conversation, mutual encouragement.
Yet the impact runs deep.
“I’ve had men tell me, ‘I have to be there. That’s my strength for the week.’”
Heroism Close to Home
Grote’s definition of heroism rarely involves drama. Instead he describes a steady commitment to three roles.
“Husband. Father. Friend.”
When those roles function well, he says, families flourish and communities gain resilience. When they fail, damage spreads quickly.
“Guys think they can skip a game or recital,” he said. “But years later, their kid remembers every single one you missed. And everyone you came for.”
One memory still moves him deeply.
His son once told him he attended nearly every sports game through childhood.
“I didn’t remember that,” Grote said. “But he did.”
A Goal Measured in One Family
Despite speaking invitations and media appearances, Grote measures success through a far smaller lens.
One man. One family. “One father coming back,” he said.
What is the outcome he hopes his work might spark?
“I want one young person to say, ‘I’ve always been loved because my father came back.’”
For Grote, that single story would mean the mission succeeded.