LAD:
Life in the Sand Hills took a turn at about age fourteen. His parents sold the ranch for a good price and made a 100 year lease deal with the State of Nebraska to buy a house and four cabins on Merriman Lake. Though he still worked in the summer hay fields, he went from the adventures with his brothers on the ranch to the ideal place to fish and swim, hunt rabbits and other wild game across the hills.
His brothers went off to the Army and he built himself a car from parts of two others. It was a most unusual car that no one but him could drive and he always won any race.
High school was easy – take the principal with you on a morning hunt and you wouldn’t get called tardy if you got back to class late. Six man football, lots of basketball and track was also on the agenda. The entire town was always there to cheer the team on. He played half a football game with a broken collarbone and didn’t realize it until the next morning. After all there were only six guys on the team. But basketball was his love and they had a very good team.
With only twelve students in his class, he easily became the senior class salutatorian and won a four-year scholarship to Chadron State Teachers College where he decided to major in mathematics. It was the last week-end at home for his sophomore year there that started the change of everything for him. That Sunday, he went to an antenna raising at Everett Leeper”s house.
JOAN:
At age fourteen, her Dad took her across Wyoming from Guernsey, to the foot of the Ramshorn Mountains west of Dubois to work for Grace Cross on the Cross Ranch for the summer. She spent the first morning ironing stiffly starched western shirts, dozens of them,
All inspected by Grace; none passed and were wadded up again and dropped back in the basket. Sorry Joan, too late to quit, Dad left this morning.
She learned to keep the sourdough starter going for the breakfast pancakes for the twelve man hay crew. Don saved the day by showing her what needed to be done the night before. Grace assumed every Wyoming Ranch girl knew how to keep the starter going and didn’t give instructions.
Another day Grace went to town leaving her to watch the boys (Abby and Jock) and fix supper for the crew. She said, “Here’s a chicken, make your mom’s chicken and noodles.” Wow! What to do? Mom’s clear across Wyoming and no phone. “Well, I’ve watched her and she let me roll out the dough, so I guess I can fake it.” Humm a dozen eggs, flour, water and salt, looks about right. The boys helped roll out the dough to dry while the chicken was boiling.
The noodles were a little tough but the crew was hungry, nobody complained except Grace who said, “These are not a good as your Mom’s”
At the end of the summer she had learned to dance in Dubois on Saturday nights, but only with partners chosen by Don and his friends. So with money she earned she had a bus ticket and a couple of new outfits (chosen by Grace) that were totally inappropriate for the new high school. Yes, it really happened. While she was gone, her parents moved to Mitchell, Nebraska.
So she began her junior year in a new school with several challenges ahead. She knew no one, and all her new classmates were two years older than she. But she found her niche; No one looked at her record and said “You shouldn’t take advanced algebra, and chemistry, really?” Her new best friend would be the class valedictorian. She became part of the “studious group” and made them laugh. Their study group got her through chemistry and she made a deal with her second best friend (a cheerleader) to exchange knowledge of history for help with algebra. The history teacher and the English teacher helped her to see her own love for learning and the gift of encouraging others. Those two years set in motion the plan her mother had set in motion for her many years earlier. There really was a possibility for a country girl to become a teacher.
When she graduated from Mitchell High, Don sold a horse and gave her the money to go to summer school at Scottsbluff Junior College and get a teaching job in a country school outside of Kimball, Nebraska. She was sixteen years old when she was greeted by the mothers of kindergarten through third grade students, with shot records and birth certificates with absolutely no idea what to do next.
Fireside Stories 