The Simple Lives We Live
Some of the most extraordinary stories don't come from celebrities or history books. They come from everyday people - your neighbor, your grandmother, the man who runs the corner store, or the woman sitting next to you at church.
On The Simple Lives We Live, we sit down with ordinary people to uncover the beautiful, hard, faithful, and fleeting moments that shaped their lives. Stories of love and loss. Of grit and grace. Of family, faith, and the simple days we didn't know we'd one day miss.
So please join me each week as we capture voices and memories that deserve to be heard and remembered. Because the truth is, ordinary people live the most extraordinary lives.
The Simple Lives We Live
Tammy Simnioniw
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In this conversation with my mother-in-law, Tammy - alongside my son Josiah - we reflect on the kind of life that's built in the little moments. Tammy shares memories of growing up on a farm, her time at boarding school, and singing around the piano and in church. From raising her family to returning to school later in life, her story is a reminder that the moments spent together matter far more than a perfectly kept home.
Welcome to The Simple Lives We Live, where we open the old family photo albums and dust off the stories that made us who we are. I'm your host, Kylie Simiano, and each week I sit down with everyday people to capture their extraordinary life experiences, the moments of love, loss, laughter, and resilience that echo through time. These are the stories that remind us of our roots, connect us to generations past, and show us that the simple lives we live are anything but ordinary. So settle in and let's listen back together. All right, welcome back, everybody, to the podcast. Our quote today is there is a large measure of joy in ordinary moments, and that is Susan Gail Wicks. So my guest today, I actually have my mother-in-law, Tammy Simiano. So thank you, Tammy, for doing this. Um, and then we have another special guest who's gonna kind of help me, and that's my son Josiah. So, first off, Tammy, I want you to start by telling me when and where were you born?
SPEAKER_00I was born in Dickinson, North Dakota at St. Joseph's Hospital. It was St. Joseph's Hospital at the time. We lived in Bellfield. My parents had lived in Bellfield at the time.
SPEAKER_01And then how okay, so how old are you right now?
SPEAKER_0067.
SPEAKER_01You just had a birthday.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I had to think about that.
SPEAKER_0167. And how many siblings do you have? I want you to go through the siblings and where you kind of fall in line.
SPEAKER_00So there's nine of us in the family. Um, Arlinda, oh Fuger O'Brien, Michelle, Fuger Burian, Roxanne, Fuger Inman, Kevin Fuger. Then I'm in the middle, and then um, let's see, Amy Joe Berland, um, Blaine Fuger, Tracy Fuger Kessel, and Lori Fuger Shipkowski. So I have three sisters and one brother older, and three sisters and one brother younger. I am a true middle child.
SPEAKER_01I never actually figured that out, so that's interesting. No, you said you were you lived in Belfield. Was it a farm? Was it a ranch? Did you live in town?
SPEAKER_00My parents had just bought the farm from my my mom's parents, right before I was born. And um, we had just moved there. They had moved so many times prior to that. They had moved around a lot, but then once they full bought the farm, then we were there for the rest of my childhood. And then my brother eventually took over that farm. But um, and my grandfather was very sick um with um Lou Gehrig's disease, and so he had passed away shortly after I was born. I never knew him.
SPEAKER_01You said that was your grandpa?
SPEAKER_00My grandpa, my mom's dad, yeah. So my grandma Darillo, she only she had just two children. There, her one her son had died uh years before when he was a teenager, um, when they were moving, and he rolled the vehicle and got um killed then. So then they had my mom was already born then, and then shortly after my my mom's brother died, my grandma got pregnant again and had my aunt Judy. So um she was kind of like an afterthought later. So she's 11 years younger than my mom, and she's nine years older than my oldest sister. So she almost was like a sister to us, my Aunt Judy Ramsey.
SPEAKER_01And you said your uncle was that like a motor vehicle accident?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, they were moving from one farmstead to another at that time and to where you know my parents now live, but he was must have been driving a vehicle on country roads and it rolled and and it killed him at that time.
SPEAKER_02What was his name?
SPEAKER_00That was Fabian.
SPEAKER_02Fabian?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's what I was thinking of. Fabian Dorillo. So my grandma then, my aunt Judy, um, then her husband was in the service, so they moved around a lot. You know, they were out of the country a lot, even, or around or different stationed different areas. So my grandma never remarried, and she pretty much helped, she was out a lot with us. We got very close to my grandma dorillo because she was with us a lot. Yeah, she baked for us, and yeah, she we would go stay with her in Dickinson, or she would come out. We'd come home from school, and the whole counter would be full of long johns or donuts that she had made. And yeah, she was we were very close to my grandma dorillo.
SPEAKER_01You talking about the long johns and stuff. I remember you mentioning one time that you growing up, you guys always had dessert.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah. Every my dad had a big sweet tooth, so we inherited our sweet tooth from dad. And he so we had a dessert after every lunch, I think, for sure after every supper.
SPEAKER_01We always had desserts.
SPEAKER_00Oh, different things. Um, we would have he liked we we had chocolate cake and he would put sugar and cream on that in addition to it being frosted. He had a big sweet sweet tooth. You know, we worked it off, but if we didn't, if mom didn't have time to bake something, then we would have canned peaches with some coal whip or something like that, or cream and sugar. So we always had something, yeah. Wow, yeah, but we worked it off. None of us were overweight back then, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Especially if you were on a farm helping out like that. When you said they moved around a lot before that, was it within Bellfield or was it in different towns?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, they lived in New England, I know, for a time. And then they then they they lived in Bellfield. So probably between Bellfield and New England, I think they moved around a bit.
SPEAKER_01So somewhat within the area.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_01So if we go all the way back to your childhood, what what are some of your first memories?
SPEAKER_00Probably just the farm life. I mean, I do remember my very earliest, I think I remember when I had my tonsils out and I was only two. I remember I have a vague image of being in a crib and a person in a white uniform lifting me out. Yeah. And so that probably was my very first memory. But um, other than that, you know, just being a kid out on the farm. Oh, we had, you know, we'd we had a lot of fun. We'd hike the hills. We'd go, we had a uh one of the pastures had um uh we called it Rocky Hill. It had these big, gigantic boulders. And we'd we have like go out, we you know, we'd just go out and hike. I remember I was in young grade school, and um, we'd pretend that one was a couch and one was a stove, and they were huge boulders. They've they took them out later. My dad sold them and they lined, I think, the little Missouri River with it. They they had to use them somewhere, so they contracted them, they're not there anymore, and they were just such neat things, huge boulders.
SPEAKER_01So, who were your parents? First off, let's start. Who were your parents?
SPEAKER_00Um, Dorman Fuger and then he Frances Jarillo Fuger.
SPEAKER_01And what were your parents like when you were a child? Were they strict? Were they um really loving, lots of seeing, things like that?
SPEAKER_00Mom was probably the disciplinarian mostly of the family. I mean, dad would step in like once in a while, but it was mostly mom was the one that really kind of managed us the most, especially the girls. And then um, but you know, and then my dad would at times, but my dad had this little sparkle gleam in his eye. He was, they were so busy though, so busy trying to make a living and um make ends meet and with nine kids and on a farm. It was really, you know, it was tough. And so um, but they would, I know um they would, my mom was a great musician, great pianist. So was my aunt Judy. My grandma had made sure they had piano lessons, and so we would sing a lot. We sang a lot with mom. We would, we would, there would be if we heard a song on the radio that we really liked, um, we would, I remember us leaning over, playing it as every time it would come on and write, because we didn't have like where we could record it. So writing down the words every time it came on until we had all the words, and mom could play by ear. So yeah, after we'd write down the the all the words to the songs, mom could play by ear. And so she she could sit at the piano and play the song, and then we'd all sing to the to the songs. And uh a lot of times we'd get together with relatives, they'd come out, and we'd I think most Sunday afternoons we'd be standing around the piano, mom would be playing, and we'd all be singing. And Kevin even sang, Blaine never wanted to sing. He can sing, but he never wanted to sing. It wasn't his thing. But Kevin could sing, and mom mom had this one song that when the relatives would come, she'd have him sing it. And it was, I've got a wife at home, and it and she's the apple of my eye. And it was just a funny, and he would sing it, just stand there and sing probably grade school, yeah. So, yeah, he would um so so we did we sang a lot, we really did enjoy singing. Did your dad do any of the singing? No, dad would sit in his recliner and just listen to us. Yeah, did you all learn how to play the piano, then?
SPEAKER_01Did your mom teach you bass how to learn?
SPEAKER_00Mom taught us. Um, Roxy probably played it the best of any of us. It was hard. I think she it was hard for her to teach us, you know, a mom teaching us kid. And I tried doing that with my kids too, and it just doesn't work real well. Um, and so I played a little, only a little. And uh, but Roxy probably played the most of any of us, but we didn't have formal lessons, and and mom was so busy to try to be teaching us all. So yeah, no, none of us really played guitar. Michelle played guitar. I played guitar a little bit, but Michelle played guitar quite a bit. Um, I think she was the only one that played guitar too.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, we didn't really and your mom didn't teach lessons or anything.
SPEAKER_00No, oh yeah, she did. Actually, she did teach some of the neighbors, the Pollocks. I don't know if you know uh the Pollock David sounds familiar. Yeah, I remember them coming over and uh she would give piano lessons to those boys. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, where I want you to talk about school, where was that at for you? Because it's a little bit different. Did you because you did boarding school? Yes, was that right when you started school? Yes, you did do like kindergarten and then go.
SPEAKER_00They didn't have kindergarten back then, at least not in our school district. They didn't have it, and so my siblings, my older siblings, had been going to the country school that was just a mile from our a mile and a half from our place. And um, but my mom said I never I at the time when they sent us to boarding school, I didn't understand why they did it. But I was told later that, well, the teacher, her husband had had a stroke, and he they had a trailer house in the schoolyard. So she was trying to teach all eight grades, and there were quite a few students at that country school, plus taking care of her husband. And mom didn't feel like we could get a decent education that way, and so sh they decided to send us to boarding school. I was first grade, Kevin was second grade, and then Roxy was sixth, Michelle was seventh, and Arlinda was eighth. So as a first grader, they'd drive us, you know, they'd drive dad would drive us there Monday morning, and then we'd stay until Friday after school and go home. And that was my sister's my, you know, and Kevin even didn't seem to mind it, which was strange because, you know, coming a farm boy to go, you know, he seemed to, I don't, I don't ever remember him saying he minded it. It was very hard for me. It was at to start with, you know, at first. I remember crying in the middle of the schoolyard after school. The older girls would have to go help the nuns in the kitchen. And I would and and they didn't they didn't let me go just sit there. They just, I guess, let me stand in the middle of the schoolyard crying my eyes out. It took a while for me to get adjusted, and then Roxy, I I shared a bed with Roxy. They had some full-size beds, and then most of the cots were just single, but they did have start me off sleeping in the same bed with Roxy, and my sisters say they remember me crying at night.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah, I can't imagine having my kids do that. Like you go from your kids being at home all day to all of a sudden they're gone for the whole week. Yeah, we expect that in college, yeah, you know, and then see it up on the weekends or whatever, and that yeah, it's great.
SPEAKER_00And Amy Joe is two years younger than I am, and then Blaine's two years younger than her. And so Amy Joe just loved it, you know, having mom to herself. When I'd come home on the weekends, she would tell me all about what they had done together, sang at the piano. Family Affair was a new program that was on that. It was a bachelor raising his um his orphaned um kids. And um, she would tell me all about that program and how she'd watched it. And at boarding school, at in the evening, they would um we could play games or the but the big boys got there was a TV, but the big boys always got to decide what we watched. So the rest of us would play games and stuff. So that was kind of fun, you know. Kevin and I were in the same class, it was a combined first and second grade class. And um, but and so, you know, he was he and I were very close growing up, and uh, but he um but they wouldn't let the boys be around the girls, so he couldn't play with me in, you know, he couldn't come to me. I remember him galloping up with a friend, and he was um, you know, he would try to come and talk to me, but the nuns didn't want us talking to, you know, they were not cruel, but they weren't nurturing, you know, they just didn't have that, you know, with so so it was really difficult at first. Um, I got so that once I adjusted, I actually didn't mind it a lot. I actually kind of did like it. I had a best friend. And how many years did you do that? Just two years, first and second. And then when I was a third grader, they had opened St. Bernard's in Bellfield. That was the first year it was open, and so then they had busing and everything. So then we we lived at home after that.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so for those years, yeah. Was your class or at the school, um, the boarding school, did they have a lot of people from Bellfield or was it from surrounding areas? Yeah, like where did most of the students come from?
SPEAKER_00The Odermans were there. Okay. Um, like um, so like um it would be it would be like um Jim Oderman's he didn't he was a little older, so he didn't actually go like Jacob and John's dad, his younger brother went, and his younger sisters all went to um there. And then like um Deb Obergewich, her family went. Deb, yeah, her family was there. Um, and so there were some of the Kessels from the Balfield area were there. This would be the boarding school in New Radic, right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah, New Radic.
SPEAKER_00Oh, and some of the I had told I had shown Josiah and uh Emerson and Trenton came one time and I showed them where it was.
SPEAKER_01Oh, is the school still there? It is still there. It is like the building.
SPEAKER_00The building, it's pretty decrepit, but yeah. And then I showed them the cemetery. What did we do? We had mass every day, and we I showed them the cemetery where there was a path. So we would say the rosary in good weather, we could say the rosary outside. So we'd go walk through the path through the cemetery saying the rosary, or sometimes what was the big treat was getting to walk around the blocks of town saying the rosary. Okay, wow. But I remember I have to tell you this one that church, it's so special to me, that neurodict church, because I think that's where I felt the closest to God I've ever felt in my life, was I suppose because I was it was such a trying time for me. I remember sitting in church because we'd have daily mass and feeling God's presence. It was very powerful.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, Kevin come to give you comfort. You know, we were I know, I know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. So so that was really, you know, I I really hold that church special in my mind.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I remember one other memory I have to tell you about is okay, if you got sick, if you got real sick, you your parents had to come get you and take you home. But if you were just kind of sick enough to just be in bed, I remember being sick like that and laying there with this dormitory, had like, I suppose there were two rows of cots on one on one side of the wall and one on the other wall. So you could, I don't know if there were like 15, 20 cots on each wall, just rows of cots. And I remember being sick, and I had and it was dark, and they had me in bed laying there all day, sick and by myself, and there's no TV. I remember a nun peeking her head in at to see Peter. Okay, so she had to then go teach.
SPEAKER_01The like boring is drawn on me.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I know. I can't imagine. Hopefully, I slept a lot that day, but I do remember that. That's a memory that's like really seared in my mind. Did they give you a book or anything? No, I'm no, I just I just remember just it was dark in the room. They had the shades all pulled, it was dark, and I just was laying there. I must have felt, I must have slept a bit of it. I don't know.
SPEAKER_01If you weren't gonna sleep because you were sick, you were probably sleeping because of boredom.
SPEAKER_00I know. I can't imagine when I think of that now. I'm like, oh, that must have been the longest day of my life.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So you were probably like, I gotta really get well because I don't want to do this anymore. Yeah, that would be awful. Um, what were your favorite subjects in school?
SPEAKER_00I always lean toward the languages, English languages. Yeah, that was and writing. I mean I remember in high school creative writing, and my teacher would even send some of my stories off to, you know, and so yeah, I liked languages.
SPEAKER_01That's always been a strength for you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Who were some of your favorite teachers?
SPEAKER_00Well, Miss Friend was my teacher in high school that that the creative writing one in that R-I-E-N-D. Yeah, something like that. Yeah, it was I can't remember if it was spelled like friend, it was Miss Friend, and then in grade school, my first year back at St. Bernard, sister Beata was just the sweetest, kindest nun. Yeah.
unknownAwesome.
SPEAKER_01Um what were some of the chores that you had growing up?
SPEAKER_00We had to do a lot of chores. We dishes. Um, we did a lot of, you know, the dishes and the evening. My mom, you know, was mainly we would help prepare meals as we got older, but then our job was always to wash the dishes afterwards, you know, and mom and would be able to go relax and watch TV with dad in the living room, and we'd do the dishes. Um, we did we had chickens, so we had to clean the chicken coop. We had to give the chickens food and water, and um we hauled bales when we got older. I remember square bales, really heavy square bales that we'd haul and stack up. And I had to drive the truck sometimes. We had at one point we got this thing that you if you lined it up, it would lift the bale up into the truck bed. Well, sometimes Kevin and I would go out and we would be the team, but he would get so mad at me. This was an old truck, and I was just learning how to drive stick shift, just learning, and it would jerk, and he'd as those bales would I'd almost be knocking him off the He'd get so mad at me. He'd just be yelling and screaming. Well, then instead of just going in a straight line, he wanted me to go around like a like a course, like a what do you call it? One of those courses where you go around and around. He'd have me take two rows at a time because they were spaced pretty distance apart. So then he thought it would be more efficient to do that. Well, I was just learning how to drive the stick shift. He was not a happy camper with me out there. Uh so yeah. And we would we would break, he would break horses later on. He would get the worst of them out. Oh my gosh, I remember seeing him on horses that were just screaming and bucking, and we would be afraid he was gonna get killed. He would get some. I the one that I remember that was really bad. I never did get on, but he would a lot of them he'd break to the point where I could ride them. They'd still I'd still get bucked off once in a while, but they weren't like crazy wild. Um, they just act out once in a while. So then, you know, I would help him.
SPEAKER_01Does he support any of that?
SPEAKER_00No, and then well, he was younger then. I mean, I I don't think he could do it. Not like that, not those kind of words. No, he didn't.
SPEAKER_01No, he we had to work so much on the farm, he had to work a lot, so no, didn't what did you other than the music and singing, what did you do for entertainment, your family?
SPEAKER_00My family, my dad's sisters, three of them lived in Dickinson and one in Fargo, and they had big families, and they would come out a lot. We we would go to their in and visit them, and they'd come out a lot. We were very close to our cousins, they were almost like siblings, and so um they did that a lot. They would play cards, pinnacle, have pinnacle parties, pinnacle, they'd go to other places, um, a lot of gatherings. I remember a lot, even neighborhood gatherings a lot. They did they really socialized a lot.
SPEAKER_01Did you always have like some special community events within Bellfield that you would go to?
SPEAKER_00I out at Gaylord, which is south of Bellfield, that Gaylord Church, um, that's a French community. My dad was French. Um, and so they had a lot of gatherings out there. They had a church and they had a hall, and so we'd get together there, and then um the memorial hall in Bellfield had a lot of events. They had we used to get roller skate, they had roller skating in at Memorial Hall, and they'd have big roller skating things for the kids, and so we'd get to roller skate and stuff.
SPEAKER_01Did you roll? Was it just like uh what's what I'm trying to think of for the floor? Was it a certain type of floor or was it just a wooden?
SPEAKER_00It was a wooden floor and we'd get to roller skate on it. Yeah, no, it was uh no, that was kind of neat. I remember doing that. We'd go to the movies, not a lot. I think our family couldn't afford to go to the movies a lot, but we did go once in a great while. We'd go if there was a movie that mom thought we, you know, really would enjoy. I'm trying to remember. I might have seen Bambi. It might have been Bambi, one of them. Um, I remember it. I don't, I think it was at home when it came on TV. Mom was so excited. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. Oh my gosh, she just loved that movie. And I remember us all watching that one and really liking that. Um, so we did that a little bit. Um, just a lot of weddings, dances, lots of stuff like that.
SPEAKER_01So you always had running water and electricity. You don't remember a time.
SPEAKER_00No, I don't remember a time that we didn't, but we did use an outhouse because I remember having to go clean the outhouse, but we did have a bait a bathroom in our basement. Later, when I was already in high school, I think, um, and my brother-in-law Dennis O'Brien was a carpenter and a general contractor. He sh they had him convert the baby's nursery room on our the main floor. There were only two bedrooms on the main floor. They converted that to a bathroom. So then we had a bathroom upstairs and a the one in the basement was not a fun one. Uh it was pretty yeah, no, it but we did, but it was not fun. So it was not till high school that we had a nicer bathroom, you know, and uh that my brother-in-law had converted, and uh so yeah, but I we must have had to use the outhouse too, because I remember having to go out and clean it.
SPEAKER_01That's probably one of the worst chores that you had.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I was probably.
SPEAKER_01What were your ambitions or dreams when you were younger?
SPEAKER_00You know, I don't think we really thought about that a lot. We really didn't even, it wasn't something that they weren't that. It wasn't that no, and even in high school, it was still that era where they just assumed you were gonna get married and have kids, and that was gonna be your life. Because I mean, I I was salutatorian of my class, and I never remember a teacher or a guidance counselor talking to me about going to college. My parents didn't talk to me about going to college, it just it just wasn't. So did you go to college at all? I went one year right out of high school. Yeah. Where did you go? I went to DSU and I stayed in the dorm, and that was fun. We had, you know, that was really I'm glad I had that experience. Yeah. But I only went one year because then I got married. I should have, you know, really I should have stayed because we I was with our family being, you know, poorer, I was on a full grant. I had my college paid for my books were paid for. I I'm it was so foolish of me. But that just goes back to that nobody ever really talked to you about the importance of having that education.
SPEAKER_03What'd you go to school for?
SPEAKER_00I went into accounting or business. It was well, it was secretarial, a lot of secretarial, but I also did a lot of business classes.
SPEAKER_01So I had accounting and I had um like business law and um so with you in that era, your freshman year being more in a business, because when I think back to like my mom, and I know she's a little bit older, but it was very much kind of the options for females. I feel like were more a teacher or a nurse. Yeah. So did you have many females in your class?
SPEAKER_00Well, I was mostly it was secretarial, though. I was in typing, I was in shorthand.
SPEAKER_01Those ones have a lot mostly females than I would gather.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I now I guess I didn't think about it until you just said that, but yeah, probably because I feel like the options were not no, like she remembered she was like it was teaching or nursing for the most part.
SPEAKER_01So she chose nursing, you know. Um so I was curious as to how many like males or females.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, at that time, no, it wasn't really, and I wasn't really focusing on accounting. I did like bookkeeping in high school. I so I did take, I think I only had one or two accounting classes then.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00So then I went back. So then once I entered the well, later after my kids were a little older, I went back into the workforce and I thought, you know, I thought I could, I thought I didn't need the education. But I as I was working, I realized that the jobs I wanted I couldn't have because I didn't have a formal education. I didn't have that degree. And so it was later in life. I think I was in my in my late 40s before I got my bachelor's. And I went back. Um, and so again, it was Marty Odermann, Gardner. She was at DSU and she had done, she was at a some kind of um event and where she had a booth, and she talked me into going back. And I was able to use a lot of, I was able to challenge, I think two or three classes. I was able to use some of that to challenge them to get the degree. They had a fast track, they had a, they had a for older than average students on campus, they had a uh just a program and actually a division for us. And so then they had night classes. So that was where they started introducing night classes for those of us who were working, so I was working and then taking classes, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And was that before they had online classes? Do you had to physically go?
SPEAKER_00You had to physically go. There was one class that was probably later because I would only take a couple classes a semester then, because I was working full-time, plus I had kids. And so that I remember it somewhere along the line, they had a hybrid online, so you had to go maybe one day a week in person, but then the you could do the rest online. The so he would pose questions, and then we would have to answer, and then we would have to respond to somebody's answer. Okay, he did a really good job. This that that teacher was excellent at how it how it went. And then participating. And the introverts were responding, and then we would respond to them sometimes, you know. So they did a real he did such, I just always have thought what an excellent job he did with an online class.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And bringing out the introverts.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Especially because then you don't have to do it in front of people.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. Which is usually the problem. But then later, you know, it was interesting to go as an older than average student. Um, I loved it. I really did love being there with all the younger people. At first, they wouldn't, you know, you'd be in the classroom and they wouldn't even talk to you because they were like, pretty soon, we had especially one teacher, he was so good about getting us all talking to each other. And um, pretty soon they'd be telling me stuff like, oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_01We really want to know from an experienced person who had a little life experience.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but I remember one class that was just heartbreaking for me was my speech class. And and our speech teacher was excellent, and she'd give us topics. And oh, I remember some of the some of the speeches, some of these young people that were just out of high school saying, and like one guy was talking about how he was back in college now, but he had gotten kicked out, and um, he had never studied, and his he was his parents were sending him money for books and whatnot, and he was buying beer. And I think Josiah had kind of you had kind of said, you know, you had kind of the experience with somebody in your fraternity that kind of had was having a hard time with school too. And yeah, there's quite a few. Yeah. Yeah. But anyway, it was so sad because um, you know, then he was back and he was, you know, really gonna he was really gonna try try this time. But what the saddest thing was there was a girl in there that she was talking about how she had wanted to, she wanted to go into theater and and so she was studying that. Well, she ended up getting pregnant. And so now she was going to, she was gonna quit that because she didn't think she could support her child that way. And so she was gonna go into, I think she decided she would have take up, have to quit school and go into hairdressing after the baby was born, because that was the way she thought she could um support herself, you know, and stuff. So it was, you know, some of them, it was just heartbreaking because I was beyond, you know, I was now in, you know, I had my less was working in a good job and I was, you know, we were we were doing fine. And just to see the struggle of young people and how I knew how hard that was going to be for her. I don't think she realized how hard it was gonna be yet, you know. And of course I wouldn't say that to her, but it was it was sad to me just you know, see some, you know, how they were struggling, starting to find themselves. And yeah, some of them really were having a hard time.
SPEAKER_01It'd be interesting to see where they are. Some of those no, like maybe they would have if they could go back and do it again.
SPEAKER_00I know, you know.
SPEAKER_01So um, going back a little bit, uh back to your childhood, what was what were Christmases like for you guys growing up?
SPEAKER_00Well, Christmas was we didn't get a lot. We were we didn't, you know, maybe one gift is probably all, and maybe one from a grand from our grandparents. And like I remember getting a book, Alice in Wonderland book from my my dad's mom, from my grandma Fuger, and um just some, you know, maybe clothes, probably most of the time, something we needed. Um, but what was really special about Christmas, we always had a Christmas tree and we always decorated it. And but we of course, um, mom was the church organist, so we would have, and we were her choir. And so we would we would do the midnight mass and we would be, you know, sing and have the she had beautiful music. My mom was known for having beautiful music at especially at Christmas. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Did you have to do all that for Easter at the Easter visual and all of those two?
SPEAKER_00We we lived in church. Mom also would play. There was a novena on Tuesday nights um to the Blessed Mary. There was a novena service, they still have it at St. Bernard's, but you we so we'd have to go in and do the music for novena, every funeral, every wedding, pretty much, and so we pretty much just lived in church, yeah, because we were the choir.
SPEAKER_01So at the time though, when because when you're young, church isn't always fun. No, so did you guys resent that a little bit at times? Oh, yeah, and I think it was well, maybe even with friends because you had a wedding or not being able to go to do some of those things because there was so much, yeah. I would imagine too. Belfild was probably bigger back then. No, I mean, I guess I'm just gonna be bigger. So you had a bigger parish, and therefore you have more weddings, more feudables, more of everything. So yeah, probably was a little crazy.
SPEAKER_00It was. We we mom really it she lived in church a lot. I mean, you know, she was so busy with raising us, but she really did do a lot for the you know, with the music for the church, and so yeah, we were yeah, we would get kind of annoyed. I remember at one point they moved the choir to the front of the church. Poor mom, though, which because you know, we were teenagers and younger, and we'd that was when mini skirts were in. Well, we were we'd have to leave home with our skirts down, but we'd roll them up, and then we'd be at the front of church with our skirts rolled up. Mom would get anonymous letters about her daughters wearing mini skirts in church. And I mean, it was so mean, and then, or else we'd end up getting the giggles in the front of church where we were singing, and somebody would hit a wrong note and get the elbow, and then we'd all start giggling, and mom would just keep playing and hope we'd get it together.
SPEAKER_01Well, it kind of seems interesting, I'm sure, for the people who were in the in at math at the time. Um, any well, that was probably a huge tradition in the church stuff for Christmas. Yeah. Any other traditions that you guys had for Christmas? Was there places you would go, people that would come to your house, maybe, or anything like the relatives.
SPEAKER_00I mean, every holiday it was about all the relatives getting together, and so we'd have great big groups. I mean, because like I said, the our cousins would all come.
SPEAKER_01Um, I remember having these big meals, and I don't know where we all sat because they had lot I don't know even when you guys were really wanted to have kids and we go, and I'm like, there's so many, it was always fun, but I get why that developed, and it was a traditional time even for you guys when I started dating Cole, it was still a huge thing. Is so big now, but it is hard to those, but yeah, you know, I mean it still stems probably from oh yeah, because that's just how it was.
SPEAKER_00And um, so yeah, and I remember then the the the adults would go in the living room or go to visit, and we'd have stacks of dishes, you didn't use paper plates, and so us kids would be in charge of washing all those dishes, you know. But the cousins would help, and you know, but yeah, but that's just so much of the the conversation and stuff happening, there's so much visiting connection and stuff.
SPEAKER_01Um, how about birthdays? How were birthdays celebrated for you guys? Was it a big deal?
SPEAKER_00There always was a birthday cake and a gift, I'm sure. I you know, I don't remember the gifts, but I always remember we always had a birthday cake, and so it was simple. Just simple, but yeah, but it was celebrated. It was definitely celebrated, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Do you have any specific gifts that you remember from Christmas or birthdays that stick with you at all?
SPEAKER_00Well, like I said, my grand when my grandma gave me the book, the Alice on Wonderland book, that one remember I remember that one. And then my mom tried when I was in high school, she tried to get me to learn to sew because she sewed our clothes, and she just thought it was a really important thing we all know how to sew. And so one birthday, I think, she got and I hated to sew. And she got me a pattern and material for a dress, and it was so bad because I did not want to sew. So she tried.
SPEAKER_01Did you ever enjoy it like years later, or is that sewing's just never been something?
SPEAKER_00No, it's never, I never liked sewing. I never had the patience to get it just right. And no, I never liked sewing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well for you when you were little, did you guys have to? Such a random question. Did you guys have to iron sheets and pillowcases and stuff?
SPEAKER_00Or ironed, we ironed a lot. Yeah, I can't remember if we ironed the sheets. We ironed the dish talls, we ironed probably pillowcases, we ironed clothes that was cotton. We ironed a lot of clothes, we ironed a lot, that was a big job. Roxy did more Roxy's four years older than I am, and and she did a lot of ironing, I remember. And when she left home, she did a lot of work, she was a hard worker. When she left home, Amy Joe and I split her jobs, and I remember it was a lot, and I couldn't remember. I just I always think of that how much work she had because we inherited her jobs when she left and between two of us, and it was a lot. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um what were summers like as a kid? Was it a lot of chores on the farm, or were you able to go into town, do some swimming? What were the summers like?
SPEAKER_00We we had a lot of chores, so we did work on the farm a lot, but we had a lot of free time. I remember riding bike. We just rode bike, or we like I said, we hiked into the hills, we hiked the pastures, um, had a lot of free time. Um to, you know, so but we did have chores. We would go stay with our town cousins, and they kind of taught us how to swim a little bit. They took swimming lessons, so we would stay with them, they'd come stay with us. Um, did that. I had a I had a pet pig. Well, I'll tell you this too. We had this the sows when they would have sometimes they'd go crazy when they'd have their their piglets and they'd start eating them. They'd and so you'd have to save. So we saved three of them from that was and we I remember bringing them in, they brought them in the house. I was just grade school, and we bottle fed. Well, we lost two of them, didn't survive, but Arnold did survive. Arnold, she was a she, but I that was when uh Green Acres was really popular, so I named her Arnold. But anyway, she um I bottle fed her. I was just grade school, and she would, she would like, she was this little white pig, and and she would follow me around. I could take her for walks, but I remember taking her for long walks, and dad would say, telling me, You're gonna give her scours. You shouldn't let her walk so far, you know. And then she would, she was a real, she would come to me and everything. When she got big enough where we had to put her in the pen with the other pigs. If I would come outside, we could see her pen from the house. If I'd come outside, she'd stand by the fence and squeal. So I'd go and pet her. And then, but pretty soon she forgot about me as she was with the other pigs. So then when I'd go visit her, she wouldn't come to me and she'd run away. And so then, you know, they they gave her to the church, donated her to the church bazaar, right? She was kind of a runty pig. They and I they didn't tell me they were going to do it. And afterwards, they I said, Well, where's Arnold? Because I'd go visit her once in a while. And mom's got this look on her face. And she said, Oh God, we didn't know that you still, you know. I mean, watched, looked out. We donated her to the church bazaar. And I said, What do you think that do you what do you think they're gonna do? Well, they butcher, and mom just got this look. She goes, I don't know. So at least we didn't eat her. Yeah. But oh gosh, I was so sad. But yeah, we'd have, you know, we'd have pets, we had kittens, we had we had a a collie that we just loved, her and we named her Lassie. She was a wonderful dog. You know, we did we had kittens, we rode horse, rode horse a lot. Um, so yeah, I mean, it was it was fun. We night at night, I remember us playing outside at night, Annie Annie over over our house. You know, some people would be on one side and one on the other, and you'd have to throw the ball. And if they caught it, they could run around and tag you. I guess it was we had to, it was on the honor system, yeah, right? And we totally lie in the yeah, I know. We wouldn't even know. So, I mean, we and or playing, you know, we'd hide and seek out in the dark, especially when the cousins came in the dark, we'd play hide and seek. That was really fun. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, we had really a lot of fun.
SPEAKER_01How big was the farm? Well, I should ask how big was like the homestead on the farm that you guys had to kind of run around with sure a barn.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, there was a big barn, yeah, and then the house was two-story, so there was just like it's the two bedrooms on the bottom until they made it into a bathroom, and two bedrooms on the second floor, and then the basement, they made a bedroom in the basement for the boys, the boys that had that, but we would sleep three to a bed upstairs sometimes, and there wasn't heat, you had to, you know, it was piled on the covers. They had a vent, but it was still pretty cold. Um, and then so then there was the big barn, and then there was a granary, a pretty good sized building that was a granary, and then a chicken coop, and another little shed. So lots of different yeah, and then a shelter belt. Okay, some did you have a lot of trees? We did, we had to hold them. We they had planted them when we were, and so growing up, we hold trees until they got bigger, you know, and stuff. So yeah, and then we had the a garden and uh did you do a lot of canning? Yes, we did. We did a lot of canning, yeah.
SPEAKER_01So those peaches were probably canned peaches, or were they from the store?
SPEAKER_00No, they were from the store. Okay, yeah, from the store. Those were from the store, I remember. I don't think she'd get the big batches of peaches and canned. She did mostly vegetables. I remember her canning meat, like in a pressure cooker, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, chicken and a root cellar, yeah, right.
SPEAKER_00We had a root cellar, yeah. And oh, and then we'd have to butcher chickens. That was not fun, but we butcher chickens, yeah. Gather in the channel.
SPEAKER_01It's so interesting the canning of meat because I thought that was so weird when I thought about that. They did that. And the only reason I when I was younger, I was like, what is that jar up there down at our basement at our farm? I'm sure there was 50 years old and then it got left. My dad was like, Yeah, that's that's how we used to preserve meat.
SPEAKER_00You can it, and I'm like, he's like, I don't know that I but the canned chicken, I remember that being really good. We really because mom would cream it then. Oh, it was delicious, it was really good.
SPEAKER_01Interesting. Interesting. Did you did any you or any of your siblings play sports growing up?
SPEAKER_00Kevin played basketball, and Lori did. Lori was a good, she had a good basketball team. Um, Kevin played, but there were they had a really good team when we were in high school, and he didn't, you know, he didn't have time to really work at it. He was working hard on the farm. And so he was, you know, a benched player. And then they ended up cutting him later. They had really the town kids, they had a very, very good team. As a matter of fact, the year after I graduated, they went to state and took second at state. My when I was a senior, we took second in regionals, um lost like at the buzzer. Really good teams. Yeah. Oh, that's awesome.
SPEAKER_01From such a small town. Yeah, they were really not as back when Bellfield was just Bellfield and South Hurricane.
SPEAKER_00But yeah, so many more teams are and way more kids too, because my graduating class was 48. Um, I think there were more in the grade ahead of me. So they were still pretty sizable, you know. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And you had a lot of people probably that went out for sports. Yeah. I feel like bigger kids, that was your option. Yeah. To get out of maybe some work for some kids. Um, but now there's so many, like you can do so many different sports. So each sport, say just basketball, you have less people going out. Right. There's so many more options.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, because we didn't even have volleyball then. She the Fayette teacher would put together a volleyball team, like an informal kind of to go, um, but I didn't get picked. And I was a cheerleader. And um, so um, but we had basketball and we had track, but I didn't go out. I worked, um, I did work in high school. I uh worked, I was a waitress.
SPEAKER_01So I was gonna ask, when was your when did you start working outside of say helping out at the farm? And so what age and what what what were the jobs that you had?
SPEAKER_00Well, when we were in grade school, we would babysit for the neighbors, and um, boy, that you didn't get paid very well back then. Uh it and then um, or you'd go help clean, like do deep cleaning. I know there were um I there was a neighbor that who would come hire us to come and do deep cleaning. And um, so that was before we were old enough to really have a good uh job where we could drive to. So then when I was probably 16, I got I was waitressing. And um, it was where it was where the super pumper is now on the east side of Highway 85 there. Yeah, that was a it was an all-night restaurant, 24 hour, and then uh there was a gas station attached. Okay, and so we could, I mean, in the summer sometimes I'd have the 10 till six shift. Yeah, six till two. Yeah, yeah. And so yeah, you but I had such a good um boss because I was I oh, I was really active in a lot of clubs in in school too, plus cheerleading. So she would just work around my schedules, but I'd get pretty darn tired. So I remember being really tired sometimes from all of that. And when I was at home, I'd probably go to bed at eight and go to bed early because it was hard to keep up with all this. So we bought our own clothes and you know, sometimes even paid some of our fees at the school. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, were you able to take any vacations when you were growing up? Do you remember any specific?
SPEAKER_00We didn't. Well, we'd go. I remember going to Fargo to see the Fargo cousins, and then I remember one vacation that one that was just so exciting for us because we got to stay in a motel, which we never did. We went to Canada, so we just drove across the border and it looked like North Dakota, yeah. But that was really a big deal to us to go up into Canada and see Canada. Um, other than that, no, we we we would once Roxy moved to Montana. I do rem well, but I was already grown. We we'd go see her, but no, not really. We didn't really take trips, no. It was summer was really busy on the farm.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, most farmers don't especially not in the summer, right?
SPEAKER_00You're always yeah, and then winter was with the cattle, so no, we didn't. So you guys did have cattle.
SPEAKER_01Well, you said you had pigs and stuff too, so you did a lot of livestock and yeah, okay, little horses, yeah. That's really hard to take time off. Did you ever have anybody like uh neighbor that would come and help out when you had if you had to go somewhere? Or did that you guys had enough kids that yeah, we did, yeah, we did.
SPEAKER_00Because I do remember mom and dad went to Hawaii when um my aunt Judy and Uncle Jim were stationed there, but our Linda and Dennis were newly married, and so then they came out and stayed with us, and uh well, mom and dad went there, and uh, so it yeah, they got a you know, once in a great while, especially as we got older, I think they were able to take a little bit, and then we'd take care of things.
SPEAKER_01When did you meet Les?
SPEAKER_00How old were you? I was 16 when I met Les, and he dated my best friend. Oh, really? Yes.
SPEAKER_02Did you know this?
SPEAKER_00No, no, I so I'd be I'd once in a while I'd you know hang out with them, and um and then that didn't work out for them, and then so then after they had broken up, then he had uh we had Bellfield was hopping back then. It was great, it was so great. They had a rec center where we hung out there a lot, and so they had bowling and they had pool and they had foosball and a restaurant, and you could just sit there and hang out, yeah. And so Les would play foosball a lot, and I suppose, well, he had kind of gotten to know me from dating my best friend Carol, and um, so then um eventually he asked me out, I guess.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, what's the age difference?
SPEAKER_00Three years, so you were 16 and he was yeah, he was already out of c high school. He didn't have he was a senior when I was a freshman, and he was too cool for me then.
SPEAKER_01So he yeah, so then you got married. Well, you said you did a year of college and then you got married. So you were 19 or 20.
SPEAKER_0019.
SPEAKER_01You were 19 and you got married, and so then he would have had to bend 22.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I guess, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Did he did he go to school at all?
SPEAKER_00No, he didn't. He was offered a football scholarship at Williston, um, and maybe DSU. I I can't remember. His his college, his high school coaches were so mad because he didn't go play um college football, but it was so rough then, and then and he had been so poor, and he was the oil field was booming and good jobs, and so in all Williston offered, probably was diesel mechanic, and he um he just decided, you know, it was too hard on his body for one thing, his ankle was already had been sprained a bunch of times, and um he had had concussions, and so he just decided he'd just go to the oil fields because the jobs were so good, so yeah.
SPEAKER_01Uh, do you remember when were you married? Like what day? Obviously.
SPEAKER_00August 18th.
SPEAKER_01August 18th. Do you remember much about the wedding today? Did it go as planned or it did?
SPEAKER_00It was it was um it actually it was in August, so I was worried about it being really hot because there wasn't air conditioning in the church or the or the memorial hall where we had the stuff, but it ended up being a cooler day that day, so it wasn't horrible.
SPEAKER_02Okay, yeah.
SPEAKER_00So I just remember that was good. And no, other than that, the everything went smoothly, nothing, yeah. Wasn't any no trouble. No, no, uh-uh, no. Somebody put like peppers in your side. Um, the best man, we had this old black car, and the best man, what do you know what kind of bought it from a priest, right?
SPEAKER_03I don't know. I think that's what grandpa said.
SPEAKER_00Is that what grandpa said that it was from a pipe? Maybe it was his car. Yeah, he bought it from a priest. Yeah, it was a a priest car looking car. So, anyway, he's the best man had put pepper in the vents, and he must have forgot because then he got in the front seat after the wedding ceremony to drive us around town. That was the thing you didn't drive around town honking your horn and everything after you got married before you went to the reception. And he must have forgot he had that in the in the heater, and he had it the this fan turned on high, and so pepper was spraying out. We had to bail out of the car because pepper was spraying all over inside the car. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Where have you guys all lived? Have you only lived in Balfield since you got married, or were there other places that you lived?
SPEAKER_00Um right when we got married, we were living in a trailer court in Dickinson. Okay, and so um Les had been he had bought that trailer house, I think shortly before we got married. I lived with Grandma Dorillo in Dickinson until we got married, and um then um, so we lived there. Corey was born there because so we were married three years before Corey was born, so we must have lived there about three years. And then after right after Corey was born, they were raising the lot rent, I think, and it we were we we weren't real happy there. It was you're right on top of people, and Les was working out of town a lot, and he had a company vehicle so you could tell whether he was home or not. And I started getting prank calls when he was gone, and it was real scary. I was really scared to be there. Um, and uh so um we then we decided to move the trailer house to a lot in Southheart. So then we lived in Southheart until we built our house, and then when Cole was a baby, we were building the house. It wasn't quite done when he was born. I went into labor when we were moving the day we moved into the apartment, and then um we lived there for a few months before our house was finished, and so then where we live now is between Baffield and South Art is where we live then the rest of the time.
SPEAKER_01And you've got three kids. So we've got Corey, Cole, and Kira. What is what was the best part about being, or is the best part about being a parent?
SPEAKER_00Well, it was really it, it there's there's known love like a parent's love. I mean, and you don't realize that until you have a child. And um, you know, I had Corey first, a boy, and then when I got pregnant with the second one, I really wanted a little girl. But I didn't, I didn't, I didn't want to find out ahead. You then you could already by then you could find out ahead of time, you know what they were. I didn't want to know because I knew like when that baby's born and you have that instant love and whatnot, I thought, you know what, I don't even, I don't want to have any disappointment. I know when that baby's born, I'm gonna have this instant love for this baby. And so I just don't even want to have like before it's born, be disappointed if I finding out it's not a girl. Yeah, you know, and the same with Kira. I didn't want to find out with her either because I thought, you know, I know that no matter what it is, when they're born, you just have this strong love for this baby.
SPEAKER_01No, you said you were married for three years before Corey was born. So in now, three years, did you work? Yeah, you did work. Okay.
SPEAKER_00I was working at a bank in Dickinson.
SPEAKER_01Oh, okay. Okay. So then when Corey was born, did you decide to stay home or did you continue to work? How did that work?
SPEAKER_00No, I always kind of knew, I always that was one thing I really felt like I wanted to be. Well, Les was working in the oil field, and that was so he he was gone so much. I just felt like I'd be a better parent, not trying to juggle. I just knew about myself because you know, I I have a type A present. I was afraid I wouldn't be a good, I was afraid I would it would take away from being a mom, you know, that I wouldn't be able to juggle it. And I knew I'd have to do it pretty much on myself, myself, you know. I had the financial support, but he was gone a lot.
SPEAKER_01Which is still how it is for most that whose spouses are in the oil field for a lot of them. They are gone. You don't know how they're gonna be gone a lot of times, you just assume they're probably gonna be gone. Um so yeah, a lot of them stay home still. Yeah, just I don't want to say easier, but it's not them having to stay home from their job because a kid is sick, right?
SPEAKER_00You know, and uh especially back then it it was unheard of for uh a man to stay at home to caretake if right, you know, that was unheard of, that was just not acceptable. He would his he would have never been allowed to do that. I remember having strep throat really bad, and I was so had a must have had a really high fever. I remember just Corey and Cole were born at that time, or you know, they were little, putting them in the car, and I'm trying to stay awake, driving myself to the doctor, you know.
SPEAKER_01So it was not to take time off to make sure that you could get to right.
SPEAKER_00No.
SPEAKER_01Um, how about what's the best part of being a grandma?
SPEAKER_00Being a grandma is better even than being a parent, actually. Because you have, I mean, you have this, you have these kids that you love and you don't have all the responsibility. I mean, you know, you worry over them still, but you don't have the you don't have to worry. It's not your it's not your job to make sure that they're raised correctly or keeping track of I know it's just like you tell me when they're playing their sports or you they're having their music, and I you know, I just have to show up. I don't have to make sure that they're ready. I don't have to be right, right. I'll juggle, juggle mills, and you know, and then it's just yeah, it's just really fun. It's just so fun.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you always say responsibility, but it's not your responsibility to make sure you grow up into the human things.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you can still do that. Right.
SPEAKER_01We always say Josiah, one of the best things when Emerson did the travel sports, one of the best things was that we could have you go up to the lake, yeah, grandma grandpa and stuff, and that's why you have such a close bond, you know, especially grandpa.
SPEAKER_00I know it is really nice because you know it gets a little quiet now, so it's always nice to have you know stop by or yellow and come stay.
SPEAKER_03You have to fill them up with sugar and then sit them down, and then send them out.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, just I do remember getting a video after you stayed when you were just throwing a major foot and your dad sends me the video. This is what happens when you feed them too much there.
SPEAKER_01It wasn't just grandma, it's a lot of grandpa's home with peppermint milkshake.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah, the uh the favorite recipe.
SPEAKER_03It's um peppermints and a rip beer float, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's peppermint was like a candy cane.
SPEAKER_03Candy cane, candy cane or just regular peppermints. Oh my god. Break it up with a spoon.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Grandpa's special recipe.
SPEAKER_03I haven't I haven't forgotten it.
SPEAKER_01No, Tammy, how old were you when your dad passed away?
SPEAKER_00Um Corey and Cole were two and four. So Kira had not been so Kira wasn't born yet. Okay, no, she never knew him. She they would, and so they do kind of remember him because I helped mom caretake. He had pancreatic cancer, and so I went out because I was I wasn't working outside the home yet. And so I would go out and help her caretake a lot with him. He wasn't totally bedridden, but he was very weak and very, you know, he was getting pretty, he was very sick. And so, um, and it's so hard on the caretaker, it really is. And I saw that with mom because they'd get a lot of company, a lot of people come to visit, which is really nice, but it's then it's just more, you know, and you know, you're making sure. And of course, they always made sure they had big stuff or something, you know, they had for if people came. And so I did spend a lot of time there with those two little boys. And uh I but I do remember dad sitting and reading. Dad he only had an eighth grade education but he didn't read real well. But he would still sit and have them on his lap and they remember Corey remembers. I don't know if Cole remembers Corey remembers him reading to them. And he would struggle to read. He would but he would read to them. And uh so Corey kind of remembers him I don't know a little bit too does he he doesn't remember his funeral oh does he yeah yeah and I remember them talking to Kira after she was a little older talking about him about grandpa fuger grandpa Dorman and um and she I remember her crying and saying I wish I would have known oh my gosh that is so sweet. Oh yeah um how long after he had passed away how long before your mom started dating was Kenny the only one that she did okay so how long before she started dating and then marrying Kenny it was probably about a year or after dad passed away I think it was only about a year. Okay well trying to think of in terms of how old Kira maybe it was a couple years no I was pregnant with Kira when they got married.
SPEAKER_01So yeah it was probably only about a year or so how did you feel about I mean because obviously you're older you're out of the house so it's not like you're in the house and having to look with them or anything but how was that was there a different dynamic where it was anybody upset when it was weird.
SPEAKER_00Yeah because yeah um it was weird but I tell you from my perspective after my dad died mom mom was always a take charge everything she hand you know handled a lot after my dad died she she couldn't she she used to read she didn't read anymore she didn't she was like she couldn't focus and I remember when she was moving off the farm I mean we had little kids all of us had little kids at the same time Michelle and our Linda and I and Roxy was in Montana but we those of us that were close we had little kids and um we and it was she was going to be moving and we came out then moving day she hadn't packed a thing not a single thing. Oh my gosh and so we're like okay feeling behind already that yeah for you guys like we're just taking boxes and moving out or you know yeah box it all up and everything we she hadn't even started and that was just so unlike her so she was so unfocused so lost so so anyway part I guess from my perspective it was weird but from my perspective it was like well you know she she needed something and he was good to her you know he was he was different with he's a different character but um wasn't probably who we would have picked but you know he was good to her and she loved the guy and so you know it was it was I think that to us was more of a comfort that yeah she was got somebody to do it and and she was happy again you know and she was yeah um off topic we kind of jumped around a little bit but after you got your degree where have you all worked now like what old job titles have you had because you went back you said in your 40s you went back to school so with that degree what job titles have you all been able to well before I went back I I was working um for a nonprofit um Dakota West Resource Conservation and development and it had strong ties it it was a nonprofit but it was strongly affiliated with NRCS a federal so I didn't have a federal position but I worked alongside people who did have who were federal employees and so like Brian Gerbick worked with him quite a bit um but so but I was the executive director of the nonprofit so I was responsible for you know doing all the nonprofit work like we would get grants I wrote big grants got big grants there for um for education natural resource conservation education type grants and we had we did so part of that where it was a really huge grant we did um um egg waste to to um egg waste systems and so we hired an engineer to design these egg waste systems so this nonprofit you know had really some good work um that was doing but then it was strongly supported by the federal a federal program and so um they contracted for my position well when they discontinued that I knew that that was happening there were there was lots of talk about it being discontinued and I knew because I did have a business mind I knew that down the road it wasn't really setting me up for a good retirement I loved that job I had the that was the best job ever I had an eight county area I worked with different people helping them write grants um was that the one where you did work with the enchanted highway then yep that's when I worked at that's where I met Gary Graf and uh so I really loved that the people I worked with the groups that I worked with Bowman was my favorite city they could they could do a a project and they'd involve the whole town the the garden club the high school um egg department or um FFA or the yeah oh I mean they they were just fun to work with because they could just pull a project together by involving everybody. So I I met a lot of people from the eight county I love that job and Les would always tell me you're never going to have another job like this that's this enjoyable. But it was I saw the writing on the wall they were going to be discontinuing it and it wasn't setting me up for a good retirement. And so um I don't know that I yeah I think I had started back at college at that point because they wouldn't hire me um NRCS or the feds wouldn't hire me because I didn't have a degree so I couldn't get the job that the feds had in that field anyway. So I kind of saw that without a degree it did hold me back. So then I ended up um applying for um Badlands Human Service Center and that was a really good job. I had state pension and um that work I loved the people I worked with there best they they had the biggest hearts they worked with the needy they've worked with you know people that were really struggling kindest people I've ever worked with in my life and um just so I they were teaching me then my boss was wonderful he was teaching me the fiscal management of a of a human service center. So he taught me how to do the budgeting he taught me how to um just a lot of the of the management of the fiscal part of it in which I really loved that work. The job I had I was having to run reports that they had just converted to a a program that they were um where the clinicians had to go on the computer to do their notes and stuff and a lot of them were not computer literate so they were very angry when I came into this job they were very angry they they had to do all of that they had to do their own scheduling on on this computer platform. So I had to run reports and find errors that they had made with when they had entered their coding with their scheduling and stuff. So this was so I'd have to go tell people what they did wrong and help them fix it. One of the best classes I ever took was I had in the summer I had taken a class that teachers usually take is different kinds of learning that people have like auditory um kinesthetic or visual. So I remember going with this one particular he was um at an addiction counselor an older guy and I remember going up there with all these pictures of how what it should look like when he went on this and he wouldn't even look at my pictures if I wouldn't have known he was auditory if I hadn't taken that class when working with all these different people I would have just been so upset but I realized he probably kinesthetic or auditory had to do it. He couldn't look at what I was showing him. You're really trying to be disrespectful he was just because he was not being mean to me or anything he just wasn't looking at my stuff so that was really that so that part I liked because I mean they were most of them were just gracious with me coming and telling them how to fix their stuff and that they did it wrong and I had to show them how to fix it. So I didn't, you know that was just not my favorite thing to do but I loved the fiscal management part of it. But then when my boss retired they decided to combine it with Bismarck so that fiscal manager from Bismarck took over both. He let me do a lot of that I did the budget for Badlands most of it he did he did the um the income part but I did all of the all of the expenditure side and he just looked it over but I couldn't have that job because I would have you know and even when he retired I would have had to move to Bismarck. They wanted it out of there so then from that point that was so I had worked there for six years. I worked at Dakota West for 12 and I worked at Badens for six. And then it kind of realized there I had reached you know the point I could so then that job so then I started job searching and um and so then the school district um job came open Billings County and that I loved that I loved the work I did there because it was like they didn't have a superintendent at the time so I was doing like like the um facility management and all of that. I had I think I was managing 11 people at the time nine or 11 I didn't like you know that wasn't so fun but um but facility management I loved it I'd work with the you know with the architects or the contract engineers Dan Schaff I worked started working with him and loved working with him. He was just great that we had hired for roofing projects and whatnot I really liked that. But then eventually they decided that really the school boards association really pressured them that they needed to get um a superintendent that it was kind of the law I guess to have so then they did and so then they they reassigned a lot of work and then I took on stuff that our secretary was doing that was business manager work. And then so you know but I really did like the diversity of the kind of work there. Plus it was it was the state retirement plan as well. So the retirement um that I was earning at Badlands just continued then the same yeah and so it was better pay and it was a you know good benefits and everything. So I knew it would set me up for a good retirement.
SPEAKER_01Yeah so you know yeah you just retired in I got in January of 2024.
SPEAKER_00January of 2024 from there from there and I was retired for a year because then my mom was really sick and then so I retired for a year and then I'm working part-time for what's called CREA Central Regional Education Association. They started a program where we teach new business managers. We train new business managers from schools across the state it's all remote so I don't have to drive it mostly I don't drive anymore in bad weather and um we train them or we'll like if they haven't been trained and there's kind of a mess we'll go in and try to figure out how they you know and train them how to do it the right way and so and now you get to work kind of how many hours? I I have to stay under 20 hours because I am drawing my pension so I can't work more than 20 hours a week. Yeah no I didn't want full time no and I'm actually thinking of actually retiring again. Although they're talking me into staying with the one school I'm with till we're they're really good comfortable with where they're at because I'm so familiar now with and get that get that transitioned well and so I'll probably um not take on anything else but that and that'll probably be pretty minimal for a while. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um let me one second I got a question for you uh with your free time now that you're retired what else do you do besides work part-time?
SPEAKER_00Well two mornings a week I'm going in and playing pickleball now with a really fun group of ladies I didn't know at all before and I was terrified because I'm not real athletic and I was terrified Roxy my sister Roxy is a diehard pickleball player she goes to Arizona in the winter and so she plays all year round now and so she comes back here in the she uh in the summers and so she got me going playing but I wouldn't play with anybody but her and a couple of our closer friends because I was embarrassed I didn't play very well at all. Well she talked me into going now with this group that always meets on Tuesday and Thursday mornings and she had already gone to Arizona by the time I last December I decided to a year ago December decided I I was so terrified to go in there because I was so not good. And so I went and these are the most gracious sweetest ladies they are they've been playing longer than I have and they're some of them are pretty darn good they are the sweetest kindest people and I just so it's just been as much a social thing for me as anything. And other than well and I was caretaking a lot then because then after mom passed away then my stepdad Kenny got sick so then I was doing a lot of caretaking with him too so and now I'm administrator of mom's estate we're still trying to get that squared away we almost have that one settled plus his so I'm doing taxes this year for two for um two of mom's she had a trust and an estate plus Kenny's personal till he passed away in June plus his estate taxes. So yeah so there's there's been still a lot of that I am worried about now next winter because I'll just have pickleball and so I don't know you know if the if the winters will get long for me you know that that concerns me summers where you know I'm my flower beds or the lake you know so yeah well that's why it's nice to have grandkids yes by that are in sports and it gives you something to do real oh yeah because there is that yeah yes which is nice I had and I started a a group of ladies that are local in Bellfield homemakers group but I've had to miss the last two months because I've had basketball games so and it is so different to go there than to watch it online.
SPEAKER_01Yeah oh yeah there yeah person is different. I want you to talk about first because it just happened first talk about the circumstances around Dwight's death so Dwight would be Roxy's son.
SPEAKER_00Dwight was her oldest child um he was two and they they live they lived in Montana um Darby Montana they lived by they have a lot of irrigation in that it's like at the foothills of the mountains is where it is and they had a lot of irrigation so they have a lot of irrigation ditches around the whole area and so it was spring it was May and um they had friends over and they had the friends had like grade school children and so they were all playing outside and they thought that the grade school children were kind of watching over Dwight and they lost track of him and he ended up drowning in one of those irrigation irrigation ditches and Roxy's first husband at the time um he was Cliff he had had just had back surgery but he was walking and walking trying to find him and it took a while it took I think till the next day till they found him and um so that was really hard Michelle was pregnant with Jared her second oldest child at the time and she went into labor.
SPEAKER_01He was due she wasn't real early he she went into labor and had him the next day she it was just such a traumatic time for all of us for for that to happen and well especially you guys being all so close and get together so often I mean that's yeah I can't even imagine everybody yeah so he was he would have been an a year older than Corey okay and two years older than Cole or three years older than Cole. Yeah and so um yeah it was it was really sad did you guys was there somebody that went and stayed with them was there how how do you go through that kind of brief I would imagine there's gotta be people around you to try and help you through that they always say that's the most traumatic thing is to lose a child.
SPEAKER_00So I'm just trying to think how did the family well they went dad and Dennis I think went because they brought his him and his casket back and he was buried in in Belf in St. Bernard's okay his funeral was here so they went and they brought him back and then you know I don't know how long they stayed here before they went back she did not have Tessa yet or was Tessa no she wouldn't have had Tessa yet I don't know if she was even pregnant with her yet she had her shortly after like within the year after I think no because Tessa's a year younger then Tessa's in between Corey and Cole so she might I don't I don't think she had Tessa yet or was Tessa a baby no she didn't have Tessa yet but all shortly after that she did. Yeah and so I don't even really remember how long they stayed here I mean nobody went back and stayed um with them but I know Tracy and Lori would go stay Tracy went and stayed with her one summer no that was before Dwight died though I think that was before so you know they were in they were in high school and so I know we'd go visit her but yeah I don't I don't know do you feel like did that ever affect how she then raised the other two like was she more I just saw my own self I'd be more I let's call it a helicopter parent after that like not wanting it on my side you know I I don't think so I don't I don't think so yeah yeah yeah I don't I don't I didn't you know she lived away so much that we didn't see a lot but I don't think so because she okay so you had Dwight uh pass away at two you said he was two and then Jared passed away when he was how old was Jared he was in his 20s still young oh yeah real young had yeah a couple that have passed away really really early and you know not I mean very unexpected it you know les really took Jared's heart because he had Jared he had an accident working at his job as a noxious weed sprayer for the county of Golden Valley and Les had had knew of this job opening and he told him the day before it closed he called Jared and told Jared about that because Jared had worked for him in the summers spraying so he had called Jared and told him about that job. And so Jared went and he got the job and he did a really good job with That he he had really done a really good job at that program. He had only worked there, I think, a year before this accident happened. He was spraying, um, he had a four-wheeler and a spray tank on the back of the four-wheeler, and it probably shifted as he was going down a hill and it it rolled. And so Les felt so like I went to call them and told him about that job, you know, and you always say, What if?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. When your your mom just passed away in October of 2024.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, 2024. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Can you talk to me a little bit about her? Well, and your just that journey of dementia and you being one of the primary caretakers of her. How was that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01When did it start? How was that decline and stuff?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we did it. It was slow for mom because some people it goes really fast. So it was slow where we just start noticing things. But I remember this one Christmas. This is where it really started, really kind of for me, like, oh, it's getting, you know, it's getting difficult for her. One Christmas, I was I was still working full time, and so I had decided that the Ukrainian ladies have this cookie walk and they make great cookies. So I decided I'm not going to do Christmas baking. I'm going to go buy all my cookies. My do that's how I'm going to do my baking this year, save myself some time. So I went into Bellfield to this cookie walk, and I um bought my Christmas cookies, and then I stopped in down the street. My mom lives, so then I stopped in to see her. I come in and there's cookie batter sprayed across the whole kitchen. She was trying to bake her cookies, and she had she didn't, she was just beside herself. She just, you know, just in a frenzy. I she somehow the mixer got away from her or whatever, and she just she didn't even know how to cope with it. She didn't know how to cope with the mass with what to do. So, you know, I helped her clean up the mass and then helped her bake her cookies. So I ended up doing Christmas baking. But it I think that was just like she just she couldn't, she didn't know what to do.
SPEAKER_01She didn't open herself in that.
SPEAKER_00No, she just she really didn't know how to move forward with cleaning it up or what to do or what how to, you know, proceed. And so I think that's kind of I think I remember that in my mind that's kind of seared in my mind with that. Was like, oh, it's she's really starting to struggle with some of the more routine things that she used to do. And so then, you know, it it progressed slowly, like I said, but you know, more and more like Arlinda and I were probably the main ones, you know, Lori would stop and help two with things, but Arlinda and I mainly did like we were sorting her pills for her then. She took a lot of pills, so we put it on the pill sorter. Well, then pretty soon she wasn't keeping that straight. So we found um an alarm, a system that had an alarm clock and a daily slot that you'd, you know, um you'd she'd pull out her daily slot and there was for each part of the day, and we set the alarm to go off. So then she would and she managed that for gosh, a year or more, a couple years maybe. Well, then pretty soon that wasn't working anymore because she was turning the alarm off and not taking her pill, or shit different things. Yeah, so it just kind of progressed where or she was like it she overdosed a couple times, you know, because she wasn't managing them right. And so just really started noticing that a lot. Um she was then she got to where at one point it was about two or three years before we actually put her into a nursing home, she was starting to fall, and she had hit her head, and then she had hurt her knee, and her knee hurt so bad if she moved her leg. And so I started talking to the sibling that I'm like, she's gonna hurt herself really bad, and you know, won't I think we have to move her into a home because I said, won't it be worse if she hits her head and is laying somewhere, you know, it just has to lay. And so we thought, okay, yeah, we will. Well, then Kenny talked to her because we always Kenny was always the factor in that, you know, that we couldn't make decisions for mom without his approval or without because he was her husband, and and you know, he had his own ideas. And I think we always talked about it. We think he didn't realize how bad she was, or how that she couldn't, that her mind didn't work. Like he would say, Well, I told her she didn't remember, you know, and it it he'd be like, Well, I told her she can't remember, she just can't, you know. So there were things like that that were so that was kind of a little bit of a mind filled sometimes too, working around. He was her husband, he was the final say, but um she um he talked to her, he said, Well, I'll talk to your mother, and so of course she didn't want to go in. So then bless her heart, Amy Joe came from Montana and stayed for two weeks and got mom on an exercise regiment and trained Kenny with mom's exercise regiment. And you know, she got stronger and she wasn't falling anymore, so that allowed her to stay home for another couple years. And Kenny did keep up with the exercising and made her exercise. And one time I went there and he said, Okay, you've got to see this, what it takes to have her exercise. He said, She's gonna find an excuse all along. So first he'd start out. Well, she'd be, oh, I'm too hot. I have to change my shirt, or it was, oh, I have to go to the bathroom, or she would have all these and it would go, it would go like, yeah, okay. So it wasn't easy for him, you know, either to, but it really did help her to stay at home longer. But then she started, well, what and Amy Joe would come about once a year and stay, once or twice a year and stay for a week or so. And she would then notice that she wasn't able to shower herself. She wasn't able to know what was hot and cold or what was shampoo and what wasn't. And and so we were trying to get in-home care for her to come in and you know, shower at least that. Yeah, Kenny didn't want anybody coming in to the house. He so then he said, Okay, I'll I'll help her, you know. So then, but it wasn't, you know, like she we would like, and he would go for a day, so he would take off for a good part of the day and stuff, and just leave her food for her out. Yeah, and so then we had cameras. He did agree to let us put cameras in the house. So we had a camera in the kitchen and a camera in the living room and a camera in the laundry room, and that would look down. She didn't try to go down the stairs anymore at that point. So, I mean, we monitored her that way for a while. Ideally, it would have been best to have somebody coming in, at least during the day. But like I said, we had, you know, we had to we had to another factor, another factor to deal with. So yeah, so that was a challenge, really a challenge. And it was hard when we put her into the nursing home. Um, she she never understood why she was there or what at the end, like the last months, couple months, I had to take her for um weekly appointments. Like she'd have to have blood draws, or they were monitoring her weekly. I was taking her weekly, and every time we went back to Country House, she'd say, Well, what's going on? What are we doing here? And then so I'd have to explain every time that this, you know, this is where you're staying now, and you know, your room is here, and and she's go, Well, what's going on? What you know, she wouldn't remember every time, but she'd never got her directions mixed up when we'd be coming from the clinic. And if I turned to go east, she knew Bellfield was west. She'd say, Well, where are we going? Are we going home? She always knew which direction was home.
SPEAKER_01That's interesting.
SPEAKER_00I know, yeah, yeah. So it was really hard, you know, to she just she never was comfortable there. If we could have kept her at home with caretakers, it would have been because she was content, but we'd see her on the cameras trying to watch TV. She might be taking the blood pressure medicine or machine trying to turn the TV on with that. So you'd call her and say, tell her to walk, you walk her through, you know, what buttons to press. And I had taken pictures of her remote control so I could say, look, pull it up and say, you know, what to do. And but you know, we weren't watching it constantly. I mean, you know, because we were job, I had a job and stuff, and but there were all of us sisters had it, so you know, we try to, you know, between us all pop in and check on her every once in a while.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's a lot when you're taking care of your parents and you're also helping take care of like grandkids are getting up to and whatnot.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, what is that important life lesson that you have learned?
SPEAKER_00You know, to really appreciate the present. Because, you know, when I was a stay-at-home mom, and I didn't realize how lucky I was to have that opportunity that financially we could afford that, and just that it goes so fast, those kids grow up so fast. And I I wish I could go through that again. Like Kira loved picnics, she'd beg for picnics, and I remember just being so busy, you know, and I'd be like, we'd once in a while go on one, but not as often as we should have, you know, or the boys going down to the fishing home, or you know, just just really, I didn't have to have the house that clean, you know, really. And so yeah, just that it goes by so fast. And it was hard to be like a single mom a lot of the time and how frustrated I'd get, but gown, so I wish I could go back again and realize how fast it goes. Yeah, even for the grandkids. Oh my gosh, they're growing so fast.
SPEAKER_01What's a moment from your childhood that you didn't realize was important until later in life?
SPEAKER_00I think how much the cousins meant to us. You know, and we had kids in every, you know, like in college, we knew we could just call, like in Fargo, we knew we could just call a cousin if when they were in that somebody would take care of them. Um when Kira was in Jamestown, Arnie and Deanne Rommel would, you know, she had a lot of health things. I knew they were a phone call away if someone needed to be with her till we could get there, you know. So that was one of the things that I think was really or just maybe appreciating our siblings a little more, you know, we irritated each other, maybe just like like how you know, to enjoy the moment.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. What's something you always wished you did, but never got around to doing. Is there anything?
SPEAKER_00Not really. You know, I think I'll travel a little bit more now, but no, I just feel like, you know, I've I really the college thing was a big deal to me. Getting that degree was a big deal to me. And so I guess that was that was probably the biggest thing on my bucket list. I did take correspondence. I started correspondence when Kira was a so you'd have to take it by learn yourself out of a book. So, you know, so it must have been really important to me all along. You know, I started realizing early on how important it was. Yeah. So I think that that I'm really happy that I did it for myself, you know.
SPEAKER_03I know uh a couple of years ago we went on that road trip just through like southwest North Dakota, went on that enchanted highway. You talked a lot about exploring, like traveling to Europe and doing something like that. Is that still something you want to do? I would.
SPEAKER_00It it just scares me with the the world, the the disruption. And even to get through a major airport like in London or to get to the Netherlands, say, or to Switzerland or some of those places. I would love to travel abroad, but I am a little afraid now. I'm more afraid to travel now like that. You know, we are going to go on a cruise. That was on my bucket list. Um, my sisters and I are in next uh early October, we're going on a cruise up the east coastline. We'll start in Boston and we're gonna go up into Canada. So that was a so I do like to travel, and I and so I do want to, but I might kind of more travel in the United States more. There's a lot of places I still want to see. So you're gonna go skydiving? No, I'm not gonna skydive, not on the bike anymore. No, I'm not so brave anymore. Like, I don't know if I ever was.
SPEAKER_01What's what's one thing you want people to remember about you when you're gone?
SPEAKER_00I don't know. Um I hope they remember me fondly. Like I remember my grandmother. I mean, I mean, I'm hoping that when I make peta hat, my grandma she taught me how to make those three corners pierogies. And she stood at the counter, and I was an adult already, and she would stand at the counter and say, You have to need it a hundred times. And I remember her counting while I needed every time I make them, I think a grandma. So I'm hoping that there's just things that stay positive things that stay with spark a memory, spark a memory, just you know, because I just think that I can't wait to go to heaven and see her.
SPEAKER_01Um, do you have any major regrets when you look back?
SPEAKER_00Well, not finishing college for high school was probably the biggest. Although I I have to say it was I did, I loved going to school with as an older than average with the younger generation. I mean, it was really fun. I really missed that. I had when after I got my bachelor's, my first bachelor's degree, I actually wasn't didn't go back for my accounting degree till probably a year or so later than I started working for toward it. I really missed those students being in class with the younger people.
SPEAKER_01But don't you think too? Do you ever think, well, if you had gotten it right away, you could have felt the pressure to then utilize it and not stay home.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And like pay back those whatever, or you have but but you may have felt that pressure of like, well, I have this four-year degree or whatever type of degree I I should use it. Yeah. Because that's a big thing for women now. We are told to go to college, then they go, oh, this isn't really all that much fun once you have kids and it's eight years, and you're like, I don't even know that that's even affordable in a sense. So I know you know, like there could have been that that came out of it too.
SPEAKER_00I know. So, you know, it all worked out okay. So I mean, I don't, I just think I think I think my biggest regrets in life are just like not appreciating the people, like my siblings more when I was growing up, my classmates more, you know, just how special people are, you know, and that you move on and you think, God, I wonder if they know how much I really did enjoy them.
SPEAKER_01And, you know, so they added to that experience of you growing up in every situation. Yeah. You're saying, yeah, Belfield was a really boomy town or whatever you happen and whatnot. And now you go in and you didn't appreciate it at the time. Of how lively it was and what a community it was. And I still love way back home, but you're like, oh, there were so many things that we had that you look forward to. And yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Any other memories or anything else that you want to share?
SPEAKER_00I don't I think I told you a lot.
SPEAKER_01If there's any specific memories of any of the siblings or whatnot, you can share whatever you want. No, I don't think so.
SPEAKER_00I think I've pretty much covered everything.
SPEAKER_01Just it always comes to people after. I mean, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03If you could go back and give yourself a piece of advice, what would it be? I mean, you touched on like appreciating the present and the people you're with more. Do you have any more advice for yourself back then?
SPEAKER_00Well, you know, I just I'm very type A. And I think just like chill a little more. Just not, I did not have to have my house so spotlessly clean. I um, you know, I just I think just really live in the moment a little bit more and do, you know, just let something slide. Find that some things are more important than a clean house. I really was a fanatic about a clean house.
SPEAKER_01But sometimes it's stressful to see if the work.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but no, it and if my house gets messy, it is stressful to me. But it was like, oh my gosh, I think I took it to a level, I could have backed off a little bit. Yeah, I think.
SPEAKER_03Do you wax your floors in college?
SPEAKER_00Yes, I waxed my dorm floor in college. That's a regret. Like, oh dang it.
SPEAKER_02Why didn't I just my poor roommate?
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_03I don't doubt that little bit right now for you, but I guess to add on to that last question, do you have any advice to younger people now, somebody who's my age or even my mother's age? What would do you have any advice for somebody then?
SPEAKER_00Well, and I do think like for you, Josiah, I think it is important to enjoy college and enjoy college life safely, but you can do it safely and have a lot of fun. And that those are memories that are gonna stick with you forever. I mean, I have I I only went with that one year and lived in the dorm. And I have images of us sitting, you know, around our dorm room just having fun. Or I mean, it was sitting in the stairwell visiting with people, you know, it was just really bonding with the different kinds of people, different, you know, expose yourself to different types of people because there's I remember in high school there was like the popular people and then the ones that weren't. And I mean, I remember in class thinking, God, these are these people are really fun to know, and and whether they were popular or not, you know. So that part, I guess there's there's just so much, every person has something that's really fun and and enjoy your college. I mean, that's your that's that's your golden you don't you don't have all the responsibility of work right now. So, you know, just really appreciate it. You do need, you know, you need to study, yeah. You gotta get through that.
SPEAKER_01But not it doesn't always have to be straight A either.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and then and in and just it's okay to have in have fun and enjoy your, you know, it that's okay too. And I'm glad, you know, you're working, but you just don't want to like work so much that it's just work and school, you know, you want to have time for fun. So that I guess at your point in your life, that's what uh I kind of my one of my regrets is not staying longer to enjoy college life a little more because that was really fun. Um for your mom's age, I don't know. I I guess I'm very proud of my kids. I think that they're such good parents and they've married well and they've got good families. And I think to me, the biggest success in your life is that you can, you know, say that. And and I know sometimes it's out of people's control what you know with what happens with their kids, and but it's it's so rewarding and so comforting to know that my grandkids are taken care of very well, and um.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. That's like a true sign of success. If your kids want to come back and hang out with you, yeah.
SPEAKER_00I know because that's oh I mean that's just the greatest is when you don't even hang out with our family. So yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well thank you so much. I really appreciate it. It was awesome. Thanks, Josh. Yeah, thanks, Josai. Thank you for listening to today's episode of The Simple Lives We Live. I hope this story reminded you that everyday life holds beauty, meaning, and lessons worth sharing. If you enjoyed this conversation, please take a moment to follow the podcast and leave a review. It helps more people discover these stories. Do you know someone with a story worth telling? Reach out and let me know. I'd love to hear from you. You can connect with me on Instagram at the Simple Lives We Live. Until next time, may you find joy in the ordinary moments and gratitude in the simple lives we live.