Dreams

When RD and I first started planning a life together we had dreams, big dreams. At the time we were in our twenties, worked at the same lumber supply and home manufacturing company, and I had a two-year-old son. We had no money. I was making $1.90 per hour and RD $650 per month. We both were getting divorces and paying off the bills we had incurred in our first marriages, but we didn't let that dampen our dreams.

 

 

 

 

In the spring of 1971 RD's thoughts were still very much caught up in the Vietnam War and his recent stint with the U.S. Navy's Underwater Demolition Team 11. Although not a corpsman, his experiences treating trauma victims, teammates needing penicillin, and even a pregnant Vietnamese woman inspired him to seek a career in medicine. He talked with our family doctor, Maynard "Mike" DeYoung about the path to Physician's Assistant, with his goal to work on an Indian Reservation in the West. That PA path was long, expensive, and ultimately abandoned as not practical, not do-able. But the dream was important, fueling his and my imaginations for many months as we planned our futures together.

That same year, 1971, RD's father, Doyle Russell, helped us find a place out in the country, a small acreage with an old house, dairy barn, granary, silo, and chicken house. We fell in love with the place and pursued our dream of building our own home and living a rural life where we could raise our son and a few chickens too. 

 

 

 

 

That dream came true! With much hard work, bartering with tradesmen and finding bargains on building materials, we moved into our dome home in 1978.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There was another dream we shared, inspired by a magazine article we read about an artists' retreat. As I recall it featured a rural property with a main house surrounded by small cottages, each easily accessible by walkways but cleverly landscaped to give each cottage a feel of isolation and privacy. Artists of many persuasion, musicians, writers, painters, and poets, were welcome to stay in the cabins and create their works without interruption. Their meals were delivered in baskets and left on doorsteps like room service at a hotel. RD and I liked to imagine building those cabins on our place, and all the meals he would cook and deliver, for cooking was one of his own expressions of creativity and love. And I liked to dream of landscaping and growing flowers with strong scents that would drift in through the open windows. 

Although we didn't build those cottages nor host those artists I believe our dreams and intentions were at play when we opened our home to our musician friends Charlie and Moose, Starla, Steve, Dave, and more, fed them big meals, and made lots of music!

 

 

 

And there was a retirement dream, early in our relationship, and it, too, was inspired by something we read. In 1976 James Michener published his book "Centennial" which we both dearly loved. And we read the companion book "In Search of Centennial" A Journey With James A. Michener by John Kings which told of Michener's time in Weld County, Colorado, the area where RD was born and lived the first eleven years of his life. 

 

 

 

 

 

We also read a terrific article in Colorado Heritage, The Journal of the Colorado Historical Society, 1982 Issue 1, where we learned that James Michener as a young man had come to Greeley, Colorado in 1936 to teach history at Colorado State College of Education, now University of Northern Colorado. While there he spent three years, dusty days of the Depression, traveling the plains, meeting the people, learning the problems of this semi-arid land. 

When James Michener finished his book "Centennial" he dedicated it to three men:

Floyd Merrill of Greeley, who showed me the rivers; Otto Unfug of Sterling, who taught me about cattle;Clyde Stanley of Keota, who introduced me to the prairies.

A favorite story is the first time he met Clyde Stanley in December of 1972, "On a trip to the ghost town of Keota, abandoned but for the still-functioning post office, Michener opened the door and a wispy old man stepped forward to greet us, unusually bright of eye and witty of speech. He told us that the rest of the town had pretty well blown away, but there he was, ready to sell us stamps if we needed any."

I could go on and on about Clyde Stanley, his sister Faye, their developing friendship with James Michener, even appearing in the story of Centennial as the character Walter Bellamy, but this is about our dream of retiring to Weld County, specifically to the town of Grover.  You see, we made that drive to Keota, read all we could find about the town in its heyday, the abandoned railroad there, and the cause of its demise. But Keota is and was a ghost town. Nearby Grover, only fourteen miles away as the crow flies across the Pawnee National Grassland, had, in the 1970s, a grocery store, a gas station, and even a cafe. What more could retirees want? Ha! 

As retirees, now in our late 70s and early 80s, I can tell you that we want nearby doctors, grocery stores, and Krispie Kremes! Grover no longer appeals to us, but that dream of retiring there kept us going during years of working 9 to 5 at jobs we didn't like. And another thing about that retiring-to-Grover dream I have realized is that although I was drawn to Colorado for her majestic Rocky Mountains, thanks to RD's love of the high, dry plains of Eastern Colorado and James Michener's book Centennial, I too, am a fan of Eastern Colorado, its flat plains, the antelope, the sand lilies, and the wind, yes, even the wind.

As for dreams, we still have them. While our friends are downsizing, moving to places where lawn mowing doesn't dominate their summers, giving away their collections, being practical about their lifestyles, RD and I are still surrounded by all the things we love, like cats and books, and leaves and trees. But that's who we are, dreamers. And I thank God for that and for our shared interests and experiences, and for this year's dreams we dare to share only with one another.

 

Great Horned Owl Visitor

In March of 2015 we had a small furry-feathered visitor who arrived early one morning on our sidewalk which runs along the south side of our attached-to-the-house greenhouse. 

I would never have known it was out there had it not been for the agitated cawing of Croakie the Crow who resided in our greenhouse. Those who study crows know they make different bird calls depending on what they want to convey. This was an alarm cry and it woke me from a sound sleep. As I looked into the greenhouse to see what was troubling Croakie I saw a small creature walking along our sidewalk in the early morning light. I did not recognize its size, shape or walk. Sorta looked like what I would guess an alien from outer space would look like with its over-sized eyes and old man walk. 

I took a couple of photos with my phone then hurried back to the bedroom to awaken Bob. By the time we opened the front door and peered out, the critter was gone! I was so disappointed. Bob went back to bed and I continued to look through the windows awhile then got dressed and walked outside.

There, on a tree branch right above our front porch perched a baby owl. I suppose the branch was ten feet or so above me so the owl was out of reach but close by. I got out our camcorder and set it up to record the movements of the owl. 

We called our favorite birder, Bill West, and he and Carol came over to look at what we had. Bill identified it as a Great Horned Owl and I promptly named him Little Horny. We surmised he/she had flown over to our place from the older cottonwoods to the south of us across Highway One, and ran out of energy before reaching our trees. This story has a happy ending. Horny's mother fed him a week or so before he flew to a more remote location in another Cottonwood north of our place. It took me awhile to find his new home but I did. Now it is mid February 2025, time for Great Horned owls to mate and lay eggs. I am hoping we have a nest nearby that I can watch.

Happy 70th Birthday, Kate

 

Today, January 7, 2024, marks my sister Kate’s 70^th birthday, her Heavenly birthday, as she has been gone for many years. I like to think back to the time of her birth and want to share those memories with my family.

The year was 1955 and we were living in Tuscola, Douglas County, Illinois, in a small trailer court, in a small trailer, but not as small as the one we would be living in later that year. By “we” I mean our mother, Mildred, and her first three children, Pam, Mike, and Fran. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our dad, Joe, was out in Colorado that winter of 1954-1955, working for a mining exploration company, searching for evidence of uranium in Grand County, Colorado, near Hot Sulphur Springs. 

 

 

 

 

Before Christmas of 1954 our sixty-one-year-old grandmother, Verla L. Smith, came up from her home in southern Illinois to stay with us and help mom with us kids while she was hospitalized. Since Grandma never did learn to drive a car I know one of her other children drove her those 200 miles to our place in Tuscola.

 

Mom told us that when Kate was born she had a shock of dark red hair, a coppery color, on top of her head and the nurses tied a ribbon in her hair when they first brought her to mom to nurse. Mom named her Kathy Sue, and most of the time she called her Kathy while the rest of us called her Kate. I suppose that was dad’s doings as his mother’s family was big on nicknames.

When they came home from the hospital Mom showed me the white cloth belly band tied around Kate's tummy that held her belly button flat against her stomach, with the remnant of umbilical cord still attached. Each time she changed Kate’s diaper she removed the belly band and cleaned that area with rubbing alcohol. 

Soon Grandma went back home and Mom cared for the four of us by herself. We had a small black and white television and watched Howdy-Doody, Topper, and The Loretta Young Show among others, a good baby-sitter when there is a newborn in the home.

Dad came home in the spring and made plans to move us all out west as soon as school was out in May. He had a mining job lined up in Wellpinit, Stevens County, Washington, at a new uranium mine on an Indian Reservation. His buddy Joe Geiser, who had spent the previous winter with him in Colorado was also taking his family back out west and they made plans to drive together, Dad driving our car and Joe driving his. (This photo is out of order, taken as we entered Colorado).

 

 

 

 

Within walking distance of the Tuscola trailer court there was a small park and in May of 1955 there were apple trees in full bloom. That’s where we had a small end-of-school party, or maybe it was to celebrate my eighth birthday. It is a happy memory for me and magical with those apple blossoms dropping their pink petals on the green grass. You see, when you grow up in a trailer court there is no grass, no flowers, at least not in ours.

 

Shortly after that Dad packed all of our belongings into a green canvas car-pack perched atop his 1953 Kaiser car, held in place with straps and clips. There was a big zipper along one side giving access to clothing and such during our trip.

 

 

In the front seat of our car Mom held four-month old Kathy on her lap and on the floor boards in front of her she had the makings of baloney sandwiches in one bag and baby supplies in another. There were no disposable diapers in those days and I have no idea how Mom dealt with washing and drying those cloth diapers Kathy wore. In the back seat sat my six-year-old brother, four-year-old sister, and me – no seat belts to confine us so lots of room for rough-housing, pinching, crowding, and whining.

 

 

 

Dad drove us from central Illinois, across Missouri and Kansas, waiting for nightfall to drive through Kansas in our car with no air-conditioning. Then into Colorado, through Denver to Idaho Springs where we first saw the Rocky Mountains and marveled at their steep slopes covered in pine trees. Somewhere in Colorado we met up with guys from the mining company driving a jeep, pulling a small trailer house. I don’t know how many days it took for the entire cross-country trip but it was several, before we settled in our new home in Washington State.

 

 

 

During Kate’s first year of life we lived near Wellpinit in small bowl-shaped clearing that had once been a CCC camp. It was close to the uranium mine and had few amenities. Mom carried water from a nearby spring for us to drink and for her to boil her family’s clothing and those daily diapers, in a tub over an open fire. We lived in a ten foot long trailer (see it in the back of this photo) and soon there were two or three other families there near us, including the mine boss and his wife with two children, a family from Canada, a woman named Pat Faye and her husband, and a couple of bachelor engineers. 

 

 

Someone set up an out-house and a generator for lights. By Thanksgiving, and before the first snow, we left Wellpinit for Salmon, Idaho, crossing into Idaho near Coeur dAlene.

 

That winter of 1955-1956 in Salmon, Idaho, was rough. We were living in a motel room on the outskirts of town while Dad drove over a treacherous mountain pass in that low-slung Kaiser to Cobalt, Idaho, where he worked in a Cobalt mine. I don’t know how often he made that drive, probably once a week. Dad had to have his tonsils removed that winter at the small hospital in Salmon, a risky operation for someone his age. And Kate was sick that winter, too, possibly with the same bacterial infection that was in Dad’s throat, for her ears and throat were infected and she became feverish and listless. I remember that because early on Christmas morning we wanted Kate to join us in celebrating the holiday, opening gifts together, but Mom said she was too sick.

 

As soon as school was out in May 1956, Dad drove us up to Cobalt where we moved into company housing in that small community, our home for the next two years. For us three older kids this was a childhood dream come true with mountains to climb, a fast flowing stream nearby, and the freedom to roam and explore. 

Kate was only sixteen months old when we arrived in Cobalt and a little over three years old when we moved back to Illinois the summer of 1958. As adults us four kids often reminisced about those years out west and Kate felt a little left out because she had no memories to share of that time in our lives.

 

 

 

We returned to Illinois in our 1956 Pontiac stationwagon, to southern Illinois where we lived with my mother’s parents for a few months until Dad rented a house in that tiny town of Harco, Illinois. He worked in a coal mine for a short while before, once again, leaving us in Mom’s care while he looked for work, this time in Chicago Heights, Illinois, some three hundred miles north. Dad landed a good job with Ford Motor Company Stamping Plant in Chicago Heights and right before Christmas he came to Harco, loaded us up in the Pontiac, and drove us north to our latest home, an upstairs apartment, rented to him by a older Polish couple in Chicago Heights. That was a turning point in our lives for Dad started making good money as a welder repairman at the auto factory. Financial security was important to Dad and beneficial to us all.

 

Kate would spend the rest of her life in Illinois, except for a brief few months in Minnesota after she married. My sister, brother, and I all moved out west again when we were older, out of school. Even Dad moved to Arizona after retiring from Ford, but Kate didn’t yearn for mountains and streams, the dry climate and mystique of the cowboys and Indians. She did enjoy visiting us in Colorado but her heart and home was always Illinois.

Happy Birthday to my baby sister who lives in my heart and my memories forever. We had some fun adventures together over the years, many taking place in southern Illinois at family reunions with Kate's young daughters. I will always be thankful that Kate invited me to travel with them, camp out, go on road trips, and share her life. She is the person who taught me to love genealogy, my most passionate hobby today. And she trusted me with her children, Rachel and Aimee, whom I love dearly. We all miss you, Kate, and love you forever.