I first remember when I was five,(1943) our family moved from Kansas to Colorado. It was the post-depression era, and Dad couldn’t find work. Offered a partnership with his brother, we traveled to my Uncle’s ranch (five children and two adults in one old car) located near Vernon, a dinky little community about 30 miles from Wray, out in the sand-hills.

We lived in a neglected old farmhouse. I remember cleaning oil lamps and seeing rattlers in the yard, and the windmill pumping water into a stone house to keep milk & meat cool. My brothers and I walked, or sometimes rode a horse to a country school. After a couple of years, we moved into Wray where Dad got another job. I never asked why the partnership didn’t work out, but we remained close to my uncle and family, our only relatives in Colorado.

I was very shy. Sandwiched in between two older brothers and two younger brothers I played by myself most of the time. I spent hours with my paper dolls and dress-up fantasies. There wasn’t much money, so a ten cent book of paper dolls was a big treat. My years in Wray were happy even though we were extremely poor. Dad’s job relocated to Sterling when I was fifteen. Like most teens, I hated to leave my high school friends, but Sterling did sound pretty exciting.

That summer I got a job and the first taste of having my spending money. I wasted a lot of it and later decided I better teach my kids, at a young age, what it was to have a little money so they would know how to budget when they became adults.

Then I met John. His hobby was racing stock cars, so I spent the weekends at the track. When summer ended, Mom told me it was time to quit my job because the school would be starting. I told her I was not going back to school and I didn’t. Mom knew she had a stubborn daughter.

I turned sixteen on January 1st and married John on January 15th, 1954, with my parent’s reluctant blessings. John came from a family of 14 siblings, so imagine how a shy backward girl felt with 14 boisterous brothers & sisters-in-law. I loved being with the huge family, but it was tough. In September, we lost a son born prematurely. He weighed three pounds, but I am sure with today’s technologies he would have lived.

We purchased a house for a whopping three thousand dollars and did it need help! We would buy two or three sheets of sheetrock a week at eighty-eight cents each. Remodeling became part of our lives and during the next 60 years, we remodeled our four homes plus countless rentals and our kids & grandkids homes.

In the next three years, we had three more children, all girls. I had four babies before I was twenty-one. After Sharon was born in 1959, I read an article in the newspaper about a revolutionary new birth control pill. The “old” Dr. Clark, a devout Catholic, would not help me…so I took matters into my hands and made an appointment for us to see Dr. Beebe to talk about something permanent. Dr. Beebe had a reputation, but I found him to be warm and caring.

During the girl’s diaper stage I had a wringer washer with hot water heated on the stove and no dryer. Only a woman my age knows what it was like to hang wet diapers on the clothesline in sub-zero weather. I potty trained each one by eighteen months because I was expecting again and not going to have two in diapers.

John was totally against my working outside the home, but when the girls were all in school, I was so lonely I felt I needed to find something to do. I had no education or experience, but through a friend, I found a job with school food service. The job was perfect for me as I was home when the kids were home. After two years I became manager of a cafeteria and continued for ten years. This job was the most educational job I could ever have. It prepared me with the basic skills I would need in all my future jobs: time management, responsibility, reliability, people management, besides nutrition and budgeting.

I wanted to have a GED before my girls graduated from high school. The classes to study for the tests kept canceling, so I decided just to take the tests. I passed … even the Algebra.

Wanting a change in occupation, I evaluated what I thought I would like to do. I knew I liked to work with Seniors and was hired at the Senior Nutrition Program as the site supervisor. After a short time, I was promoted to the office management and then to Director of twelve meal sites in NE Colorado. My office was in the old Sterling Library.

The Nutrition Program position involved a lot of travel, so when NJC (Northeastern Junior College) advertised for a one-year, part-time assistant of Community Education, I applied and began in 1981. Working my way up the ladder again, I became permanent and full-time within one year, and then on to the position of Assistant Coordinator, and then Coordinator until my retirement in 1998. That was as far as I could go with the education I had. Not having a college degree didn’t hurt me in the place in life I wanted to be, and I felt blessed I had always been able to move ahead.

One of the most defining and sad parts of our lives was the loss of our daughter, Sharon, in 1992. She was a beautiful soul, and it devastated our family to lose her. We learned that our family could survive the hardest loss possible, but we had to make a choice. As a family, we would survive. It is not easy being strong when you want to fold up and die.

So many small things in life determined who I am. Little bits and pieces of life all molded into one slightly worn and tattered lady of seventy–eight years. It’s been a great trip, and I am so blessed to be where I am, and to see what happens during the rest of my life.

Dr J’s Comments

A beautiful story from a beautiful woman. At seventy-eight, she shares her life as daughter, wife, and mother. She is honest about her struggles, her strengths, and her losses. A must read.