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.
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The Simple Lives We Live
Angels in the Northern Lights | Jan Wales
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The barn on Jan Wales's family farm said "Harold, Rita and Sons." Jan was one of the daughters. She takes us from late-night drives home after midnight mass under the northern lights to life as a young Army wife at West Point, where Rick was the cadets' bugler and alarm clock. Her advice to her younger self might be the best we've heard yet.
Welcome to The Simple Lives We Live, where we capture the extraordinary stories hidden inside ordinary lives. I'm your host, Kylie Simiano, and each week we sit down to share memories of love, family, hardship, joy, and the moments that shaped us. If these stories mean something to you, you can help support the podcast by subscribing, leaving a review, sharing episodes with family and friends, or donating through the links in our website and social media bios. Your support helps keep these stories alive. Now let's settle in and listen back together. Hello again, everybody. We're back, um, another episode of the podcast. And as always, I like to start with a quote. The quote today is the little things mothers do every day become the little things their children remember forever. And today, my guest, I have a very special guest. I've got like my best friend's mom. So I'm super excited to interview you. We've got Jan Wales here with us today. So thank you for being here.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01Thank you for having me. I think. Jan's a little nervous, but I gave her questions earlier. So hopefully it you'll be fine. Okay. It's amazing what comes up for people that they didn't think they would remember or talk about, and you know, then they remember while we're visiting. So as always, I like to start with how old you are.
SPEAKER_0077. 77.
SPEAKER_01Seems crazy, right?
SPEAKER_00I I never know. Age needs nothing to me. I always was two years younger than my husband. So he knew always knew how old he was. So I was two years younger than that. Well, he's gone.
SPEAKER_01I don't mean you feel you don't feel 77 though.
SPEAKER_00No.
SPEAKER_01No. No. I don't.
SPEAKER_00Well, where were you born? I was born in Mad at the hospital in Madison, South Dakota.
SPEAKER_01Madison, South Dakota.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Did you oh did you live in Madison? No, we lived in Ramona, which was a little tiny town. Post office, bar, cafe, grocery store.
SPEAKER_01About one of everything?
SPEAKER_00One of everything. Yeah. Yeah. 100 kids in school.
SPEAKER_01Is it is it still about that size today, or has it really because a lot of small towns in North Dakota are kind of dwindling.
SPEAKER_00Yes. So is that the same? I remember growing up as North Dakota, all the smaller schools started consolidating.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And we never did in South Dakota while I was in school, but now they are. We are, and we starting to these, yeah. These all these small towns fight to keep their school, and yet sometimes it doesn't make sense.
SPEAKER_01No, it doesn't.
SPEAKER_00And your kids aren't getting a good education. Um, I mean, we were I was we were blessed to have our kids in a good school system. Yeah. Now, how many siblings do you have, and where do you fall in line? I have five sisters, four sisters and two brothers, and I am the second. My oldest oldest. Yeah, my brother is the oldest. Um, so let's name them because I don't know any of them. Oh my oldest brother, Jim, James, James Harold, I've named after my dad, and then there was me. And these we were born like nine months apart. Jim and then Jan, and then Greg, and then Deb. And then they waited a couple years, and then there was a Vicky and a Judy. And then when I was in college, I have a baby sister, Cheryl. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Now, what's what's the age difference between Judy and Cheryl?
SPEAKER_00Um seven years. Seven years. Seven years.
SPEAKER_01And what's the age difference between was it Deb and Vicky that because you had they had four and then they waited, you said, between Deb and Vicky, right?
SPEAKER_00Yes, there's about a year and a half or most. The other ones were like nine months. Oh, geez. Okay.
SPEAKER_01So Cheryl was a real, I don't want to say an afterthought, but kind of an afterthought for being seven years younger. Okay. Okay. Now, how about your parents? What what are their names? First, we'll start with that. What are their names?
SPEAKER_00My dad's name was Harold.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00And my mother was Jacqueline.
SPEAKER_01Harold and Jacqueline.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Now, what were they like as parents? My dad was a very hard work farmer. Um, uh, and and I just, I mean, in very quiet, um, very kind. Uh, remember how kind he was to our neighborman. Um, when you know, we there was always a farm accident or something, and he was always my mom was always kind of upset because all those kids, and he was over helping the neighbor. Yeah. And she but he was, he was, he was uh very quiet. I just really never saw him mad. Um how was your mom? Um, always pregnant. Um good mom, good mom, kind of like me. Um, like to yell. Um course when you got that many kids. And we raised then we were I when I was born, we were living in town, um, a small house in town, and then um they bought the farm that I was raised on, uh, moved out there, and it was a great big farmhouse. Mom said there were three of us walking when they bought the house, and we would run from one end of the house to the other endlessly because we just we never have any space in the town house in town. And uh and so she just said, but it took us years to fill it up with not only kids but furniture. Um my dad was a firm believer in buying a tractor before buying a new fridge because the tractor would make money, and he was uh I mean was greedy, but he just you know supporting his family was important to him.
SPEAKER_01Number one priority versus things necessarily.
SPEAKER_00Yes, yeah, yes. Um outdoor bathroom, outdoor for many years, no running water for many years. I mean, I I basically don't really remember growing up with uh we had a pump um off the sink, um, and then eventually they put in indoor plumbing and uh bathroom.
SPEAKER_01And um how old were you when they did that? The indoor plumbing. Do you remember? No, no, uh-uh. But you mostly remember like the outhouse, yes, for the most part.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that stood there a lot. I mean, that that was kind of our our bathroom when we were growing up because we were always playing outside. But you know, we had all this land, and my dad said we had a playhouse in every building on the farm.
SPEAKER_01I mean how many buildings were on that then? So you had like the farmhouse, you have the outhouse. Did you have a number of garages or concerts or things like that?
SPEAKER_00Yes. Yes, the original farmhouse was was there when we moved into the new house. And I mean, um, so we played a lot in that. Um, and whoever it was uh some relative of ours that um they would come to visit or look old, they would walk through the house and cry, um just because it's where they were raised and the memories. Yeah, and I don't remember it being why why it came, I mean I suppose age, why it was uh destroyed, but it it it did make the farmhouse beautiful. I mean the farmland beautiful, opened up the the house, and we had a big white two-story um which I never appreciated as a kid because it always needed painting or doing the windows, or right. But when you when I visit now, I come over the hill, it's uh it it's it's uh a good memory, good, good memory. And we had a barn and a silo. Um and then they must have had that, and I don't remember that being built either as a child. Um, but it had Harold Riedel and Sons and then 1955 on it. So they had that built after we moved out there. Um and I was always mad because it didn't say and daughters. And daughters.
SPEAKER_01I never even thought of that. Because it is what you would see all the time in sons.
SPEAKER_00Yes, yeah. Yeah, you never saw the daughters. The daughters, and we worked it, we worked right alongside the boys. I mean, but my dad was kind of chauvinist, male chauvinist. I mean, he he liked us, but I just kind of thought I think he would have liked five sons and two daughters, just for the work that they, you know, that he did he was more more comfortable having them in the field with him than us. But we were there. We picked rock, we hauled males, um milked cows, hated, I hated chickens, but we picked eggs.
SPEAKER_01So that's what I was gonna ask next. So it wasn't just a farm, it was a r in a sense a ranch as well. Did you or did you not have cattle?
SPEAKER_00Well, you yeah, you had milked cows, yeah. So yeah, we had we had our we milk dad, we we always had milk milk cows, so we had milk and cream, chickens for eggs, pigs, we had our, you know, we just um the treat from uh for us when we were growing up was a hot dog and bakery bread. Um, because everything else came from the farm, you know, so we just never had a hot dog. Um exactly, like you know, you know, yeah. Um uh and then we there was a hog house, um, two two grain bins we played in when they were empty. We could answer we had playhouses in there. Um uh two great big sheds, which I had coal in them. So I'm assuming that the original place burnt coal because when we would play in it, we could dig up coal. Oh, interesting. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um so what chores you mentioned um gathering the eggs from the chickens? What other chores did you have growing up?
SPEAKER_00Uh we always had a big garden, you know, uh canning, freezing, um, raised chickens, and then we butcher chickens. Uh we butcher 100 chickens.
SPEAKER_01Wow.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And then um so you had electricity then?
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01Because you had you had the a freezer.
SPEAKER_00We always had electricity.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Just not always the running water necessarily, but always the electricity, you remember. Okay.
SPEAKER_00I can remember uh one of my uh my brother was uh mom said was born very, very small, like all just over two pounds. And at that time, um that I mean to keep him alive was he was and he was always such a little one. But she said, you know, they sterilize everything, and and then during the night she'd have to get up and light the fuel or write the it was an oil burner, little, little stove and turn and heat that up to heat his milk. And she said, you know, I stick my finger in that milk. How many times does she I sterilize it all day and then at night I would just think I just we don't for us it was a microwave, you know, stick it in for 10 minutes or 10 seconds and you have it. But she had to get up and start the stove and then wait for the milk because she had to wake him every three hours to feed him because he was so he needed to gain the weight. Yes. And he was little. I can remember him being in we have Christmas programs. We went to a one-story, one room schoolhouse. Um there were probably about 20 of us in it. And uh he was one of the older boys, but he was so when Christmas we had at a program and he had to stand in the front row. I just remember the tears rolling down his cheeks because it was so small. He was so small, and then and he started high school, weighed like 90 pounds, and when he graduated, he weighed close to 200. He became an all-state football player, um, good athlete, uh, run line, but it just took him many more years to catch up.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yeah, that's a great um testament to how things do, you know, you can't judge their athletic ability by their size and stuff when they're younger, and sometimes it just takes a little while for some of them to wow. Any other chores, you said you were talking about the garden. Um, so I'm assuming weeding was a huge thing for all of you. Or was that did the boys ever help out in the garden? Was that more the girls?
SPEAKER_00They didn't do dishes, they didn't do gardening, they didn't do okay. My death was a firm believer in that I don't think men should have dish towels in their hands.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so they were really helping with the fields and the animals, yes, maybe more so than doing some of the other things. But you you daughters, the girls were kind of helping in both areas.
SPEAKER_00Yes, a little bit, it sounds like okay. Uh-huh. Um we would I I remember and I don't really remember it. I other than we we walk home, we went to a one one-room schoolhouse a mile from our farm, and we would walk home. And apparently, mom and dad weren't home one time, and my brother took the tractor and I got on with him. We went to get the cows in for milking, and he was going over the uh in a cornfield, and I bounced off and he drove over me. And apparently I was down in the the roll, so I I didn't I didn't get hurt. Like a rut almost or yes. Oh, okay. And he and we got me back, and I don't he said I don't think he put me back on the tractor. I think he carried me home, and then he wouldn't let me lay in mom's bed downstairs because it was the guest room and I I could get it dirty. Uh yeah, so that was that was the that was the story from our house that how Jim ran over me.
SPEAKER_02Um how old were you?
SPEAKER_00Well you were in school. Yeah, but you know, we started driving on the farm at you know eight and nine years old, and you know, I don't know.
SPEAKER_01I mean, when you look back at that now, when you think about what your how old your grandkids are, are you just putting Pippi on the tractor?
SPEAKER_00Or Jimmy. I mean go drive. Yeah, go get this, run get that, and yeah, and uh I I was always kind of the um accident prone one. I don't know why. I mean, I just uh I guess I wanted to I want I was a tomboy, I wanted to be outside. Remember Christmas morning, we would come down the stairs and under the tree would be two sets of guns and holsters and then dolls. And of course I knew the guns and holsters weren't for me, but that's what I wanted, you know. Yeah, and I can just remember so I I really was a tomboy. We we and we we just were outside all the time. I mean, it was our, you know, we didn't have toys. We didn't, I had a I got a bicycle from a farm sale one time that was weighed 100 pounds, but we had gravel roads, so they weren't, you know, we didn't we just played in the trees. And I remember one year we we uh knocked some bird nests out of the trees, and then the birds came after us, scared us that we stayed out of the trees for a while.
SPEAKER_01Birds are scary sometimes.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01Um no, you said you went to a one-room schoolhouse. There was about 20 of you. So one teacher. One teacher? Okay. You would walk home a lot of the time. Did you also walk to school or did your dad give you a ride? How was it in the winters? What did you do for that?
SPEAKER_00We we walked whenever possible we we walked. Um I can't imagine our car holding all of us, but we used to go on vacation and so I did. But he was a firm believer then get to school and and we walked. And you walked.
SPEAKER_01Did you have to bring um school lunch? Like you brought your own lunch? Yes. Okay, yes. And then was it one teacher for all 20 students? And was it more just these are the students that are in kindergarten, first grade, come up to the desk, you learn that. Or how did they how did she organize the learning then between the different ages?
SPEAKER_00I we were basically I she would just call up a class, you know, call them up around. She we had a little table around by her desk, and that's where we had the c actual class. Otherwise, we sat at our desks and did our work and you were given lessons. Okay. And um, and I started with four in my class, and we graduated from eighth grade, and we all went into high school together. We graduated the four of us when and then my my high school class was like like 20, 25, maybe off and on.
SPEAKER_01But um So where was high school then? Because that wasn't in the one-room schoolhouse. You went to that till eighth grade? Yes, and then where was high school from in Ramona. In Ramona, okay.
SPEAKER_00And then the high school was about a hundred kids. Okay. Um, and then we were bused. Uh then this and then the public and public school bust us when we went into high school.
SPEAKER_01How far away was your house from the high school then?
SPEAKER_00Uh we were about five miles from town.
SPEAKER_01Oh, so not far. No, that wasn't that far. We biked it.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah. When dad would say, kids say, can we go to town, you know, Sunday afternoon and make with meet up with our friends? No, well, then we would bike in. Nice.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that was convenient, far enough away, but yes.
SPEAKER_00And the roads eventually were paved, so that made it much easier.
SPEAKER_01Easier. Any particular teachers that you remember growing up or any subjects that you particularly enjoyed?
SPEAKER_00School was pretty easy for me. I mean, I didn't have to study. I should have studied. I could have been, I wish I were a better student. I wish I would have learned more. Um, especially like when when my daughters write me, they're such good writers. And and I I'm very, you know, I have a hard time writing in a card because I I just enjoyed high school rather than learn in high school. I was I'm not a very good writer. Um what did I enjoy? I enjoyed PE, which none of the girls did, but I did. Of course, I was maybe because I was such a tomboy. We had mostly men teachers, and they they just passed everybody. I mean uh if you didn't get your work done, you still got a passing grade and made us quite kind of lazy.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um did you then get to to do any sports? You saying that you were a tomboy, but you lived a little out of town and helping out at the farm and um house was a big thing. Did you get to participate in sports?
SPEAKER_00Uh a little bit. We really at that time we didn't have sports for girls. You didn't either. Okay. I mean, um, we we had we played basketball, um, you know, three on three on one side and three on the other, because women, girls can't run that far if you know they couldn't run the whole court.
SPEAKER_01So then um yeah, that is fascinating to me because I've had a couple others explain that, and I'm like, that blows my mind. It really does boggle my mind that girls did not play basketball the same way that boys played basketball.
SPEAKER_00We couldn't cross the center line. Yeah. And I'm sure it's because they thought we couldn't run as fast or run as long. Yeah, didn't want you to sweat as much. Yes, I don't know what it was. Um, you know, and then uh we would have a good and uh we always had a play day. Um and so then and and when we were in grade school, then we would uh get together with other other one room schoolhouses and then have a play day. And uh so then we then we participated, but that was once a year, maybe.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we got to be really competitive and okay. Cheerleading, did you or band or anything like that? Did you participate in? I love cheerleading.
SPEAKER_00Okay. And my daughters who are such jocks, they just they think your cheerleading is like, you know, yeah, the end of the oh, nobody would cheerlead. That's the only thing we had in high school was cheerleading.
SPEAKER_01It was a big thing because that was the only thing that you could, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I loved it. And I was in band a little bit, but just because my girlfriends were and I wasn't good and I didn't practice.
SPEAKER_01And you want to be more social.
SPEAKER_00Yes, too much, too social. Loved high school.
SPEAKER_01Would you go? Random question, would you go back and do, say, grade school and high school again? You know, some people, it's so traumatic, they would never want to go back. In a minute. But you would go in a minute. Yeah, I would too.
SPEAKER_00I would too. I just loved it. I mean, it was just it was a social thing, and I was very social then.
SPEAKER_01Now, did you have a sibling that you were closest to growing up?
SPEAKER_00Um, not really. Um, I the one I am not growing up, no. Now I'm really very close to my young the baby sister, Cheryl. Um, but growing up, um no, we were and we were just all really good, um good friends growing up, but that's all we had was each other, you know. I mean, we just um I don't remember us. I'm I might I remember at night we all the girls had one room, which was four of us at the time because Cheryl wasn't born. So we had two to a bed, and then my brothers had their room, and mother would say in the morning, Boy, your dad was close to coming in there. Last night because we would giggle and he would want to go to sleep and be tired, you know, he would be tired. And um I I think that the well, we didn't have air conditioning, so it was really hot in the summer because we were upstairs, and that's where the heat stayed. And then in the winter it was really cold. So mom said we were always um quieter in the in the winter because we would be under the covers and yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Did you each have your own bed then?
SPEAKER_00No, we had two double beds, and we and then we slept in two of us in each bed. In each bed. Yeah. It's still the girl when you still would we go visit the farm, it's still that's the girl's room, that's the boy's room, and and uh isn't that great?
SPEAKER_01You kind of had to be close, you had to figure out a way to get along. Yes, and and or it'd be miserable for everybody in the household.
SPEAKER_00It would. And and I I just don't really remember really fighting with them. I'm sure we did. Um uh by I can't remember the fights. I I remember the playhouses and and the the well, we had that we had uh some sort of bushes that had berries on them and and they were always poisonous. That was what you know, they always they weren't, but that's okay.
SPEAKER_01Did anybody try them out just to make sure?
SPEAKER_00Well, we used them for cooking in our mud pies and stuff, you know. Uh yeah, that was yeah. I'm sure if we go back to the farm, they're still there. We had one little bush in the back that had a berry that was really good, but with all of us that didn't last very long, and they never ripe got ripe because we always when we had apple trees and plum trees and chokecherry, was that big in South Dakota? Uh no, we never did. No, no chokecherry.
SPEAKER_01But you use those berries, the berries that you did have in the apples, I'm sure, for um jellies. Yes. Did your mom make a bunch of that?
SPEAKER_00She did apples. We did it, we froze a lot of apples. We did a lot of apple pie, apple crisps for the winter through the winter.
SPEAKER_01Um, you mentioned that your grandfather earlier to me, you mentioned that your grandfather was Native American and your grandmother was French. French. But you never knew how they ended up meeting or anything like that. What? Okay, so what time period would that have been?
SPEAKER_00When they were yeah, like 18. Yeah, because we celebrated their 50th, and then we celebrated their 60th, and then we celebrated their 65th wedding anniversaries. Um, and I was in high school, so uh it had to be the 1800s.
SPEAKER_01The 1800s, yeah. So tell me a little bit about them, because I know you had mentioned to your grandma did a lot. Or you spent some time with your grandma.
SPEAKER_00Yes, I I she she she just was an amazing woman. She my mom said she would they get the uh catalog, Pierce Catalog, and she would make the girls go through and pick out the clothes that they liked or a coat that they liked, and then she would cut the pattern out on a newspaper and then sew it for them.
SPEAKER_01You know, so everything was like really homemade.
SPEAKER_00Yes, absolutely. Um she just, I mean, she just did everything. She made us, I remember one time we went there and she made us root beer. She made homemade root beer, and then grandpa made ice cream, and then we had root beer floats. Um, all homemade. Um but she had this big bottle, a big jug on the top of a refrigerator with a balloon on top, which was somehow making root beer for us.
SPEAKER_01Oh, the fist or the yeah, interesting. Is it yeah? Well, a lot of us can't comprehend that anymore either. Root beer, go to the store. Yes, the convenience, but what it must have taken for her to make that, you know, even a root beer quote because to make the ice cream by hand and then the root beer by hand.
SPEAKER_00We have Google and the computer. Wonder how she, you know, what she had, how did she learn that? Yeah, yeah. I mean, and that's just that's just how she was. I mean, I and then she just had an amazing garden, grew everything. She had this big uh grape vines, and and then she had put benches in them, and then when we go to visit, we would just sit in there and eat those grapes till we got sick. Uh and and apples, she had all kinds of fruit trees. Um, she just always tried, was trying something new.
SPEAKER_01I mean, um very and she stayed home and raised kids. Yes. Your mom, having that many kids, two, three, four, seven, correct? Yes. She never worked outside of the home either. No, right? Okay. And they they were busy though. I mean, you think of that many kids and well, you had to make everything by hand. It wasn't go to the store a lot of times. Right. Back in that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00We butchered, butchered, butchered the cows, butchered the pigs, butchered the chickens. The boys didn't have to butcher chickens. The girls, that was the girls' jobs. Um, my daughters still remember when uh we we could we went down, and there's nothing better than fresh chicken, fried chicken, and we would butcher chickens all day, or if like on a Saturday, we would go and butcher a chicken, take it in the house, fry it, and eat it. And you know, just sort of seems kind of gross that you could so quickly go from this to that. Yes. But my mother would take, put the the chicken under her, the chicken's head under her foot, and then she would pull it off. And then she would flop it, you know, and and then there's then it would flop, flop around, and then my kids still remember those chickens chasing them with no heads.
SPEAKER_02No heads.
SPEAKER_00Yes. But and when we would, when we had the when we did the whole production of the hundred, when we would butcher a hundred of them, and we my dad would chop the heads with the with an axe and then scald them in boiling water and then pick them and then hair or dehair them and then cut them up. So it was a real process.
SPEAKER_01And everybody kind of had their rolls when you went down the line, almost like an assembly line.
SPEAKER_00Did the same thing when we did sweet corn. My dad would take the pickup out and or a trailer out and bring them back a load of chick uh corn, and then we'd have to husk it and then boil it and then cut it off the cob and then it we'd freeze it. Freeze it.
unknownYeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Though and and it I when you think about life on the farm, it it seems like it I hated the garden. I hated the beans and the peas and the tomatoes and um but it it wasn't every day, you know what I mean? It was when they were ripe, we did them, and then we got to play. Yeah. But everybody did their part.
SPEAKER_01Yes. We were talking before, like everybody had to have, in a sense, a role. You had to help out. That's how a family.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we I we had a couple uh aunts and uncles that were city folk, and they would come because they would they like the sweet corn, and and uh they would come out for the day and then help with the sweet corn, or the what the mom would help with the sweet corn, the kids would go run, and we always said, Well, why do they get to play? They get to take this corn home, but they were that's you know, they weren't raised that way, as far as they wouldn't even know how to do it, I'm sure.
SPEAKER_01Right. Would have taken you guys longer, probably, to teach that.
SPEAKER_00Yes, yes, but we were a little envious that they got to play all day. Um but um how about Christmases?
SPEAKER_01What were Christmases like growing up for you?
SPEAKER_00Uh I probably have a hundred first cousins. Um my my mom's side was all uh Catholic, all had big, she had seven, seven siblings. Um all had seven, eight, nine, some had one of them had ten kids. So when we did Christmas, it was uh it was at grandma's house, and um it was just chaotic. I mean, there was a hundred, there was 50 little kids in that house. Um, and her uncle Frank, her my mom, my grandpa's, my grandma's brother Frank, he would, he was a great big man, big beard, big belly, would be Santa Claus, and we'd come bursting through grandpa's door and we'd all ball. I mean, just you know, scared the heck out of us. But we have we did Christmas uh at our on the on our farm with us, and we it was always we all it was always nice. I mean, mom always was made Christmas very special, um, decorating and cooking and on then Christmas, you know, with the with the whole guns and the holsters and the dolls all lined up. One year it was a train. They got a train and I got a T-set. I was so upset.
SPEAKER_01So the T-set was not your favorite gift. No, no, was there ever a favorite gift that you did get?
SPEAKER_00I got a record player one year. How old were you? Well, I walked down to the driveway and brought and and came. So I'm not sure how old I was. I just remember how mad my mom was because she had ordered um albums for my record player. And when I carried them up the driveway, they were opened and broken. And she was so mad at me, I think, because I I then I knew what I was getting for Christmas. Well, I wasn't the smartest tack in the box. I never realized what they were. I didn't know what that, you know, I didn't know I was getting a record player. Um didn't put the two together. Not at all. Just yeah, and but oh, I just remember how mad she was at me that I had done that. And I, you know, all I did was take it out of the mailbox. Um, but I got a record player there. And then one year I wanted ice skates. Uh and I ever, you know, I go down underneath the tree and shake and try and find a package that was big enough for ice skates. I was so miserable all the way through Christmas, and then we opened our gifts and there was no skates, and then my dad had this package, and then he said, Oh, this isn't mine. Well, they were my skates because she knew that's what I wanted, and I would have guessed what they were. Kind of tricks you on that. Yes, that's all. Yeah, my the I skates and not my tea scent.
SPEAKER_01But so you said they your that your mom made it really special, did a ton of decorating the food. What particular food? Did you always have a certain meal on Christmas Eve? And did you celebrate more Christmas Eve versus Christmas Day?
SPEAKER_00We usually did midnight mass. My dad was not Catholic. So my mom and now my mom was not a person who liked to drive. My dad did every my dad did everything. I mean, he drove, you know, she just hardly left the farm without him. Um and then as we got older and got and we so then we drove when we were old enough, but um, we would drive into midnight mass with her and and uh and uh then we would have Christmas morning the next morning at our house, and then we would have to go to my dad's parents for dinner and then my mom's parents for supper. And it just killed us because we just got these new toys. We had to leave them. She wouldn't let us take them because with all those cousins, the chances that they would come back and pretty.
SPEAKER_01So you opened gifts Christmas Eve, or did you do open them early Christmas morning?
SPEAKER_00We opened up Christmas morning, yes.
SPEAKER_01Went to midnight mass, went to bed, got up early. Oh, there was no sleep happening.
SPEAKER_00Nope. No, nope, so excited. And then, you know, I mean, I just I I would just remember the drive coming back at midnight or after, you know, after midnight mass. And it just was a really good memory. And that was the one year where there was northern lights, and she convinced us it was the angels helping us get home after mass because they knew she didn't like to drive. And for I remember that. I mean, I thought that for a long time. I just couldn't believe that angels would remember my mother.
SPEAKER_01And isn't that such a sweet memory though?
SPEAKER_00Yes, that's a great one. Yes, I even know where it's on the road. I mean, I just remember just watching those angels, you know, floating around, and yeah.
SPEAKER_01How about birthdays? How were they celebrated for you?
SPEAKER_00Very simple. Um, we just the family. Mother always made a whatever cake we wanted, and then um maybe our favorite food, our favorite meal.
SPEAKER_01Um my big parties, friends over, things like that.
SPEAKER_00Never did. Uh-uh. Never did. Um grandparents? Uh no, with that many grandchildren. I don't imagine that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And and like for Christmas grandma, my mom's mom would knit us all um hats and gloves. We every Christmas we got hats and gloves, all of us, all 50 of us. I mean isn't that amazing?
SPEAKER_01Because she had to have started very early, probably get that many.
SPEAKER_00Besides, she whatever whatever else she did. I remember my she she knit a crocheted or knit a dress from one of my cousins. And I just I mean I said, how in that she just and she uh she um made beautiful doilies. Uh just everybody in fact, we all all the grandkids got a doily. Um, but of course I don't know where mine's at. But she, you know, she's hard to keep track of some of those things. Yes. I I I I it's something I wish I had. And I do have a couple, but I just know that that they're not from her. But yeah, she would make them and then roll them on a like a uh wrapping paper roll, and then she would roll them on that and then wrap them up. And and um when I when we were when I was married, she made me uh a Bible um out of like uh paper mache, and then she uh painted it and then put our wedding Rick and Jan and then our wedding date on it.
SPEAKER_02Um do you still have that?
SPEAKER_00Yes, yeah, I do have that. You know where it's yes, I do, and it does have a chip in it. Um and then uh when they when they celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary, I remember I gave them uh they loved, they like to drink. Um not that I ever saw them drunk, but I just know that when we would go there, you know, they would Christmas was highballs and and uh eggnog. But uh I gave them a decanter that said 50th wedding anniversary, and grandpa said, it didn't have anything in it. I said, I probably I don't know if I was older, whatever. But anyway, and then when uh they passed away, then mother got that, and I got that. I have that now too. So it's it's just a good memory. We just uh their anniversaries were just so fun. It was just all the aunts, my mom's sisters would get together and decorate, and and uh the one year we made uh great big white candles um with whipped wax, and uh, and then we put we put 50th on them in like gold, uh glitter, and then 10 years later we had to scrape it off and put 60th on it. We used the same candles. Um but um yeah, a lot of good memories, a lot of what did you do for fun as a kid? Played on the farm.
SPEAKER_01And you said you had almost like houses in all the buildings, always had playhouses, um mud pies playing in the corn crib.
SPEAKER_00Um just and my dad had two old iron wheels with a bar between them, and we rolled that around the farm. Weird. I mean we weren't going anywhere, yeah, right? But we did we played with that a long time. Um uh loved the spring, we were kind of up on a little bit of a hill until the driveway rolled down. So when it the snow would melt, you know, we'd race our boats and and um which were sticks, I'm sure. I'm sure we didn't have boats, but and uh, you know, like with my kit my grandkids and my kids, all the toys that we bought for them, you know, the Fisher price, and we didn't have any of that. But then again, uh I'm trying to think of where we would have kept them.
SPEAKER_01Sleds. Did you did you do a lot of sledding?
SPEAKER_00Not no, we were I was not a winter per real big winter person. My dad once had a oh had an old hood and he hooked it to the tractor. Um when the grand when when Jess is not just kids, when Jess was little, then um my dad got into snowmobiling. Oh, that wouldn't have been dad Jess though, because she didn't know my dad, did she? Um no, she didn't know my dad. But anyway, then he was into snowmobiling and he would hook an old sled to the back of it and pull him around. Okay. Um, but I I'm not a I don't like the cold.
SPEAKER_01So do what did you do in the winter then to keep yourselves occupied if you weren't going outside? Well, I mean, I guess ice skating, but what else did you do in the winter? Um do you remember?
SPEAKER_00We all hibernate and watched the black and white TV, watched Captain Eleven, um not a lot of TV. I was Sundays we would sit and watch Bonanza with Dad. Uh Sunday afternoon he would we'd want to go to town and he'd have to watch and he'd have to have to watch his twins play um one little one little TV, black and white, you know, change the channels, um, move the oh yep, the little dial finger. Yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_01Um was that new though at the time? That was a pretty big thing to get a TV, even once that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and it and it was you know the great big console.
SPEAKER_01Um and um did it also double as a radio? Do you remember? I don't remember. Maybe not at that time. Um, any favorite childhood memories of say you and your siblings?
SPEAKER_00Um, my dad took us on vacation every year. I don't know how he did it. I never saw money in our house. Um, but every year at after um the grain would be put in, uh put, you know, harvested and put away before the corn was ready, which was about the time we would start school, we would take a vacation. And um, one year we went to Minneapolis, did a twins game. Um and we I I remember enjoying I enjoyed baseball. Um, but I just I hated the traffic and everything you wanted to do, you had to drive, and it was an hour. And so I was really glad to be home um from that one. Most of the time we always went to the hills, and every year we would kind of pick out one uh activity um to do like um reptile gardens, or we did a lot of picnicking. Um and then we and we always uh wanted dad to get a motel with a swimming pool. Why none of us could swim? I don't know why we wanted to. You guys could swim. We took swimming lessons at seven o'clock in the morning in Madison with, like my sister said, swimsuits from Rummy Sales. So there was no confidence putting on that swimsuit and and it was freezing cold. And we would, and he and he would drive us down there and we would stand by the water and shiver and never never learn to swim. Just too cold. Um, so interesting. But you wanted a pool. We wanted a pool because I think, well, you you have to remember that we were in a car, one of us sat in the front with mom and dad in the middle, and then there would be four of us around on the back seat and no air conditioning. And so even just to wave in the stuff that you could like walk in, that was a treat. I I'm sure it was the heat, yeah, you know, of driving it, you know, um to hills. It was, I don't even even know how far it was, six hours, I suppose, about. Um, and so I just always think it was yeah, that we were so hot because we're not we weren't swimmers, none of us were. Um maybe sh maybe the youngest one, maybe she did learn to swim.
SPEAKER_01But uh so now, so vacations were you always had a vacation, but they weren't these extravagant things vacations. No, pretty simple, like you said, more to the hills or Minneapolis to a twins game. Um so back in those days, you know, there wasn't the entertainment on the road trips that there is today. So, what did you all do to occupy? But was there a lot of arguing? Was there what were some of the games that you made up to pass the time?
SPEAKER_00Uh try and find a white horse. That was trying to find a white horse. A white horse, you know, in all the livestock. Hey, we we were poor. When Jess travels with her kids, everybody has a backpack and you know, and activities. We didn't have that kind of room. You know, we had to pack for all of us, and the trunk was full. And my young the sister, that was Vicky. Um, she's she's she sat in the back window. That's where she rode because there wasn't room for all of us in that car. And my mom and my mom didn't like it. I mean, the idea that she had to pack for a week for all of us, and yet it had to go in the trunk of the car. And I didn't say she didn't like it, but I just wasn't one of her it had to be a lot of work for us. Yes, it did. And and we didn't have like like the kids do now, have 25 outfits, you know. Um, we had church clothes and then we had church shoes, and um so I just I get but I remember she would set them on the bed, line them up. Okay, this is Jim's, here's shorts and a shirt and shorts, and and and I mean so yeah, I'm sure it's about like me trying to come out here, just a little bit anxious, you know, about getting us all in the car, and and uh it's so interesting, a white horse, though.
SPEAKER_01That would be the thing that you choose to let's try and find a white horse.
SPEAKER_00Or how many can you find? There were we were not horse people. I mean, there was there were not a lot of horses in our commute in our area, you know. It was because horses don't make money, you know, and they take the you know it takes a lot to and so we did have a my dad did buy us a a little pony one time, but he was pretty wild. We didn't uh enjoy him too much. Um he he bucked my sister off and she broke her collarbone. Um so I don't know.
SPEAKER_01Everybody else was like, we're good, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yes, and we and we had sheep one a couple years. We loved them, they would follow us around, the lambs. Um that was entertainment for us. Um we we spent a lot of times with the lambs, just enjoyed them, the baby calves in the winter time. Um my dad would often bring in a lamb or a calf, baby calf that wasn't, you know, it turned cold or yeah, and so then we would have him in the house. I can imagine my mother uh enjoying that. But and and he had a the the well with they had a long pipe and it would freeze up and he would haul at it, and that would sit in the in the kitchen across the kitchen table till it thawed out so he could water his cattle.
SPEAKER_01Did you fight over who would bottle feed the were so many of them we didn't have oh, there was a the lambs, yeah?
SPEAKER_00The lambs, yes, yes. I don't I remember bottle feeding the lambs, but I do not remember bottle feeding the calves.
SPEAKER_01Um nobody cared.
SPEAKER_00They were um, but I just remember them in the house, you know, and we'd have to sit and hold them down and and uh just another part of life that my kids never saw will you know ever saw. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But um so other than swimming lessons, vacations, um, things like that, what did you do in the summers for fun? You once in a while you would ride your bikes into town, you said. Did you get together with friends? Clearly, probably didn't go swimming with friends, I'm assuming.
SPEAKER_00No, we did not, we did not do much swimming. We uh Sundays, mom would fry a chicken and make potato salad. We would go out to the lake um and just play by the water. Um once in a while, uh my dad would load us up early in the morning and take us to some lake and and uh then we would come home and then he would leave and we'd have to clean those fish. Same way with the pheasant hunting. He would he would bring the pheasants home and set them by the stamp, and my mom or I would the girls would clean them and yeah.
SPEAKER_01They get to have the fun. Yes, you got to do the work.
SPEAKER_00But we did get to eat the fish, and we ate the pheasant too.
SPEAKER_01What what kind of fish did you was it were you having more, was it more walleye?
SPEAKER_00Was it not walleye?
SPEAKER_01It wasn't walleye.
SPEAKER_00It was bullhead. And and we and at that time we liked him. I mean, I just remember um that's the fish that we had. Um, and then being raised Catholic, we I we had mom would get fish sticks um on for Fridays. Um as we got older, I remember, but um a few years ago uh Rick went fishing and brought home walleye and he cleaned them and I just I just could not even stomach them. I mean really yeah I mean it's just they're such ground feed. I mean, they're just there's just nothing compared to walleye, there's nothing there's not another fish out there that you can eat. But yeah, yeah. Um that's what we ate as kids. Did a lot of free lunch. Yes, you know, and we got to spend the day with dad, which didn't happen a lot because he was just working working.
SPEAKER_01Yep. Um, what jobs did you have in high school? Did you have any? Did you work at all?
SPEAKER_00Not in high school. The year I graduated, I started waitressing at the truck stop. Okay. And then I went through the summer. Through the summer. Well, no, then when Kali started, I worked weekends at the truck stop, which was the same place I went to college. Okay. Um what what college did you go to? I went to the it's now Dakota State. It was General Beatle when I started there. General Beatle. Beetle. Interesting. And that was the grade school that my kids went to, it was General Beatle. Okay. Um, so what did you study when you went to college? PE, I was gonna be a P teacher. It was it they were so short-handed because it was just getting started for girls. You know, they started playing basketball, they started running track. I just thought, oh I my love. Yeah. But no, I met my husband, and so how many years of college did you go to? A year and a half.
SPEAKER_01A year and a half. Okay. So never got the degree, never finished that degree for for uh physical education.
SPEAKER_00Nope. Um, the only time I ever regretted it was when I was working at the CPA firm, and we put in all the hours, the same hours that they did, but I just didn't have that degree, and you know, they made three times what I did. Um but and there were some people from Mowbridge that drove 100 miles to Northern and got their degrees, but I had kids. I just thought that was more important to spend time with my kids in. That was the only time I really regretted not getting the education was putting in all those hours and not getting what you were actually worth.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yeah, yes. So a couple a couple questions, and then we're gonna talk about your husband. Who in your family do you feel like influenced you the most while you were growing up?
SPEAKER_00My mom.
SPEAKER_01And in what way?
SPEAKER_00Um, I don't know. Just she just was a hard worker. Um, and I'm I work is more important than for her, and I'm the same way. I regret that that I can't just like just say, Mom, just sit down. Well, you know, I know how happy, how much happier you are when your house is clean. So if I can clean your house and and have you spend some quality time with your kids, it's a blessing to me.
SPEAKER_01And and sometimes you wish you had that when your kids were younger. Yes. You do like somebody cleaned the house with when you got home.
SPEAKER_00Yes, that I could have enjoyed them rather than yelling at them.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. But you said your mom was the same way that she was yelling at kids. Yes. At times, yes, right?
SPEAKER_00Yes, and she was home all the time, but yes, with all of us kids, you know. I mean, there was always dishes or always dirt, or um but I feel like that I was telling you that earlier.
SPEAKER_01I feel like that's important to hear. You still felt like your mom was an amazing mom, even though she did get mad and she did yell at times. Like, I'm right there. So I just like that to me makes you feel like okay, my kids might still think I'm a good mom, even if I'm getting mad at them about everything helping to pick up or whatever. Yes. So I think it's good for some of us to hear that at times. Do you remember what your ambitions were when you were younger? What you wanted to be when you grew up?
SPEAKER_00Not really. Um I I I we going going to the one we my dad was German, very, very strict German, and my mom was Catholic. Um, and when they bought the farm, they bought it right in the middle of a German Lutheran community. We were half a mile from the Lutheran church, it was up on the hill. All our friends were Lutheran, everybody in the church in the school was Lutheran. Um, and so the big I mean it's kind of a little like being racist, only it was Catholic. You know, the kid, the good girls would say to my brothers, I can't marry you because if I marry you, my dad won't come to my wedding. And oh interesting. Yes, and so I always think it's kind of like being a blood, the black and white, a black and a negro that that you know, we were different. We didn't look any different, right? But we were different, we were Catholic, and so every Sunday morning when we would drive into town to go to go to the Catholic Church, we would run into all the Lutherans driving past our farm to go to the Lutheran church. Um, but we were good friends with. I mean, I did more in Lutheran church as a child, as far as they had Luther League and skating parties and um hay rides, things the Catholics never did. And besides that, we were on the farm, so I don't know that my dad would have driven me into to do some of those things, yes, yeah, where we could walk up to the Lutheran church. Um, and that's where like my grandparents, my dad's parents are born are are buried, uh, his brothers are buried up there. Um, but it was um I always felt my mom always felt kind of like an outsider, you know, just because all the women in our area met at the church because that's where they did ladies' aid, and they, you know, they had their knitting parties and their quilting parties, and she was never involved in any of that because that was with their church. And um the Catholics, we didn't do that. We you know, we did um Saturday morning catechism and then a Sunday Mass, and then in the summer we would do a week of Bible school. But you know, it was never part of our community as far as being that fellowship, yes, yeah, yeah. Um and so I always felt, I mean, we and and my mom's family were all we kind of stayed in the area, uh, all farmers. So um they were but with six, they all had six, seven kids, eight kids. Traveling was just not, they just didn't get together. We got together every holiday, every Fourth of July, every Mother's Day, every Father's Day, every Thanksgiving, um, as cousins. And um, so that that was but you know what is that? Seven or eight times a year. That's really not enough for a woman, I don't think, that needs community and good friendship. Yeah, yeah. Um so I I I kind of think it might have been lonely for mom. Um I know she was busy and she, you know, she liked to work. I just you know she did. I mean, and I as I do, I'm I feel much better at the end of the day when I have done something than I do when I sat around. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Now, how did who is your husband? How did you meet him?
SPEAKER_00We met in college. Um I was the PE major and had to take social dance, which was in the evening, and he happened to be one of the guys at social at the at the class, and that's how we met at class and and we started dating. I'm trying to think if I dated in high in anybody else in college. Not really, I don't think. I didn't date a lot, um but um we met at social dance and then we kept dancing.
SPEAKER_01Now, how how long did you date before you got married?
SPEAKER_00Um I met in my freshman year, I would have been 18. We were I was married like 10 days before I was 20, so about a year and a half.
SPEAKER_01And now okay, so you're about 19. How old was he? You said he's two years older. Yes. He was 21 at the time? Yes. 21. Okay. First off, tell me about him.
SPEAKER_00Uh man, I love that man. Um let's see. What was his name? Rick. Richard Robert Wales, right? That's dad's name. Um, called him Rick. Um because when he started started his kindergarten, there was three Ricks. There was two Richards. Richard, and so one was Dick, one was Rick, and one was Richard. So he happened to end up with Rick, which I always was so fortunate because it wasn't Dick. Um, oh, let's see. He just was, he had, he, he went to um SDSU for a year and uh didn't make it. He was um mu musically loved his trumpet, played trumpet uh at everything, was in the band, got to go to all the basketball games, went to the Metrodome and and marched in the SDSU band, um, played at uh at Macy's Day Parade, played in Chicago at the St. Patrick's Day Parade. Um just a good man. Um loved his kids. Maybe could have been a little more active with them, but um once they got to be in sports, you know, we never missed any of their sporting events. They all played basketball, volleyball, ran track, good good tracksters, uh, made our entertainment for 10 years was going to their basketball, volleyball track and wouldn't give it up for the world. I mean, um what did he do for a living? What did he do? Yeah. Uh when we he graduated, he f eventually graduated from school in Northern after this was like his third or fourth college. Um, academics was not one of his things. But it's okay. It's not for everybody. He uh graduated from Northern and then got offered a position in Mowbridge at uh job service. Um and so we moved to Mowbridge and then he worked there for oh maybe 10 years, and then uh then a job came up in the post office, and so then he was worked at the post office, which was a blessing. I mean, it's just it's good, I got a good retirement, good health insurance. Um, we were first married. Um we lived, let's see, he graduated then. Um did he graduate after we came back? Anyway, that was the Vietnam era. And all, you know, if you weren't in college, you were gonna get drafted. If your grades weren't good, you were gonna get drafted. And so uh it was kind of hard on the on the boys, um, just knowing that they could be in Vietnam. And a lot of our friends ended up over there. Um, but his dad, who was uh in the uh World War II, must have seen some horrible things because he just about refused to let his son go into the service, and so we worked his butt off to get him into the army band. He flew to Chicago and auditioned and got into the army band. And so after um, then he was assigned to Fort Sheridan, which is just south of Chicago, and so we lived in Chicago about a year and a half, and he and that's when he basically buried all the young men coming back from Vietnam. He played taps. We always talked about wishing maybe he would have kept track of how many. And then in Chicago, then there was a five-state area. He did get to South Dakota a couple times um for kids that were killed in Vietnam. Um, and then Fort Sheridan decided to close down, and he got orders to go to Korea, um, which, you know, that that's just the way it was. It wasn't Vietnam. So, but anyway, then we so we loaded up our stuff and uh went to pick up his orders and they couldn't find him. So he ended up being assigned it to West Point.
SPEAKER_01No way.
SPEAKER_00Yes, and so we went home for a week at Christmas and no, and then packed everything we could in our little car and drove to New York and lived in New York for a year and a half at West Point. And it was just it's it's just an ad such a oh, it was just such a wonderful life. It's like in Chicago, he um he would be, you know, you would take he would be gone for two days or three days and then come home, and then he would have three days off, and we would go see a movie for 50 cents, or we just got to do a lot of things that um there was just no people. You would go to a museum and it was you know Tuesday afternoon, and who's in the museum? And it was just him and I. So we just did a lot of a lot of uh went to the musical hair, went to um just downtown Chicago, um, just walking around the one time. And I had a cousin that worked at O'Hare um at the airport, and we were down, I don't even know what there for. Um anyway, this guy was this lady came over to us and said that guy was trying to get on the bus, and but he was having trouble, and she wanted to know if they would help him. So they said, sure, you know, two boys from South Dakota, what do we know? They just went over and they kind of grabbed each side of him and he started yelling, and the cops came and he thought they were you know, you know, mug him, and uh they I he the cops just said, You just you know, you just gotta be a little more gentle. You know, this is this is Chicago, and uh um and then the one time they flew into um oh gosh, where was the horrible shootings at the city in uh Chicago? Oh, they drove the the burial detachment drove to this town and they um just they had it some time before the funeral, and so they stopped at this restaurant and they went in having coffee and two great big cops came walking into the restaurant. They said, That's your vehicle authority. Yeah, they said, Do you know where you are? I wish I could think of the city in the red. Anyway, um, they said, You have guns laying there on, you know, for the to do the 21 gun salute. And they said, You're down, you know, this get in your car and get out of here. So it was a terrible time um for the blacks and and uh you know, I mean they were just they were so I don't blame them, they were upset and um and then when we went to um New York, uh he did a few taps. Um but um mostly it was uh entertainment for old Macy's Day Parade or some guy flying in. Nixon flew in and then they had to play. Uh and then he, oh, I know what he his I know his job was to get up in the morning and go and bugle the true the cadets out for breakfast and then bugle them back in, and then at lunchtime he would go and he would bugle them to lunch, and then he would bugle them back in, and then at night he would bugle them to sleep. He was the alarm clock. Yes. But it was it it it uh West Point is uh just is a beautiful place, it's all along the river, and we uh we ended up living um in housing north of the city, and then eventually got into housing right on West Point, and it was just old brick townhouses all hooked together and. And and the backyard was all uh trees and the running water, the running creeks, and we just spent a lot of time back there.
SPEAKER_01Well then um our oldest daughter Lynn was born at West Point, so we would put her in a backpack and our dog and yeah very and so he you were there for about a year and a half, you said, and then you after New York, after West Point, then you went back to South Dakota. Yes, and that's when he did more of like the job service. Yes, okay.
SPEAKER_00I think he finished finished crap, I think he graduated. Yes, he graduated, finally graduated from college uh at Northern in Aberdeen, and then that's when he got the call to go to job service. And so then we ended up moving to Mowbridge with was one little girl, and I was pregnant with my second one and uh lived there for 55 years, raised the four girls and until just recently, yes, and then moving. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so we talked about how old you were when you got married. Talk about what the wedding was like. Was it simple? Um, did everything go as planned?
SPEAKER_00Um, yes, it I I remember, yeah, I remember waking up and it was raining, and they always say that's good luck, and I didn't believe that. Um we got married in the church in Ramona, little tiny church. Um, my sisters were bridesmaids. He he had uh, and then one of his sisters was a bridesmaid, and then he had three of his, he had a cousin, um, and then three friends from college that were groomsmen. Um my dad bet somebody a hundred bucks that we'd never be there on time. We always had a tendency to be a little late. I always said it was those stupid hats we had to wear to church. And we were growing up, we had to wear a hat to church. Okay. And it was, you know, my brothers wore long-sleeved white shirts with cuff links. Yes, and everybody were trying to get the cufflinks on, we're trying to get our hats on, then we all crawl in this little car. And I yeah, we were I don't know. Were you on time then for the wedding? Yes, we were. We were kind of sitting around and and my dad was laughing because he said we'd never make it, but uh, we did. Um other than when the lady that brought my flowers, she bought um white roses and the jackets were white. Um and that okay. Uh if you've in whatever, but anyway, it worked out fine, yes. Um, and my dad came walking up into the reception area, he had 10 jugs of whiskey, you know, and put one on each table. And uh my grand and grandpa were both grand, both my grandparents were there, both sets of grandparents. Um, all my aunts and uncles, uh, just a big family. Uh first one, yeah, first one to get married uh in the in of the cousins.
SPEAKER_01Um a big reception then. Yes. I mean, even if it was just your family, it would have been a big reception. Yeah. Yes. So you had the the the meal, the reception, and you had a dance as well. So you kind of did the whole thing. Did you buy a dress? Did you make a dress? I bought a dress.
SPEAKER_00You did buy the dress. Yeah. Okay, so you didn't have it. No, and then um mom mom had the bridesmaids' dresses made. Oh, they were made, uh, a neighbor lady made those for us, and uh my sister was my flower girl because she was like two, three, and and I had my dad there. Wow, and yeah, so it's some really good pictures of my dad, and because now I okay, let's talk about.
SPEAKER_01I'm gonna kind of skip some things because you talking about your dad. Your dad passed away in a pretty traumatic way. So you were pregnant with your first, so then that means that you must have been living in New York at the time. You guys must have been at West Point at the time. Okay, can you talk about your dad's passing?
SPEAKER_00I remember getting the phone call. One apparently one of my aunts called and asked for Rick, and we had company. Um, and so I said, It's for you. I said, I said, must have a girlfriend. I said, God, I mean, you know, just anyway, and so one of my aunts called and said that dad had been killed in an accident, and he was 47. And um I never thought so much about my dad as I did my mom because she was he was her life. I mean, you know, he drove, he wrote the checks, he bought you know, she just kind of stayed home and you know, barefoot and pregnant kind of thing. Um so maybe that's why I admire her so much for how strong she was. And then after I lost my husband, I just kept thinking, God, I was 70 and she was 40. How did she do it to be alone that long?
SPEAKER_01And um and can you can you go into a little bit more detail about how he passed away because your mom found him, if I if yes, right? Yes. So can you can you describe that a little bit?
SPEAKER_00He was um, it was July. He was he'd hauled a couple pieces of um farm machinery out to they just bought this acre or 80, uh quite a ways from the rip from our rip the original farmhouse. And um when he was really busy, she would make him dinner and take it out to hit to the farm or out to hit to the field so he didn't have to stop and come in. And and uh he had apparently tried to unload a piece of equipment, and it of course he's a little bit, he was just like he always came in the house bleeding, always stood up too fast and hit his head or something, and apparently we figure it didn't release, and so he went underneath and then it released and crushed him. And she found him. And she found him. We don't know when it happened, we don't know how long he laid there. Um and so then she left my two two of my younger little sisters, not Cheryl, with him. And she ran to the neighbors, drove to the neighbors and had them calling, but came out and got an ambulance. And uh some guy got in, lifted the truck up, and then they put him in the ambulance, and then she rode with him.
SPEAKER_01And then one of the neighbors came and got the girls and had he been passed away already, or was he still alive when they put him in the ambulance?
SPEAKER_00Um we don't think he was alive, but I hope he wasn't. I do too, you know, because it was a hot, hot, hot summer day, and we just hope it was instant. You know, you just it I mean, that's kind of my thought is I just you know, I didn't want him to lay there and know he was dying. I just wanted him dead, you know. Um but we don't know, and I I don't know that any of us ever talked to mom about it. You know, I mean, as far as his name hardly came up at the house because it just seemed like when you said dad's name, you know, like this was dad's chair, and then you could see her kind of, you know, or this is dad's desk, and and so um and she kept that farm going.
SPEAKER_01Yes, that amazes me. How did she do it? And you were saying she didn't like she didn't drive, she didn't like to drive, she didn't like to leave the house. How was she able to then kind of pick up and do all the things?
SPEAKER_00I sometimes think that was probably her reason for staying sane, was that she was so first off, she had five kids at home yet, and one was pretty little. I mean, she was three, maybe four when he died. She doesn't know him at all. You know, doesn't really remember. Um, she said vaguely, I have a couple memories, maybe, or but I, you know, so much of it might be from a picture that she but she said, um, you know, um, but she they they uh all the neighbors came over, they finished the crops, got the crops out for the year, um, then they sold the um cattle, and uh then she cash rents cash rented the land the last few years to uh one of my sister's room uh uh classmates, uh Billy. Um he and he was really good to her.
SPEAKER_01He always came over and shoveled her driveway out and made sure she did your oldest brother Jim did he have to kind of help with some of that stuff, set some of those things or he he was in the service, he was in the Air Force.
SPEAKER_00Okay, and so when he got out of the Air Force, he came back and decided he would farm, but that lasted not very long because she said my mom said he'd he'd want to drink all night and then sleep till noon and then get up and try and get everything done from noon till the bars opened again, and so she asked him not not to stay. So then my other brother, um, he came back and he had he was gonna fence the whole thing in and raise sheep and and my mom didn't want so anyway that neither one of them worked out. So eventually she's had a farm sale and sold the uh equipment and then just lived on the farm and and uh and rented the land. Did what she had to do to stay there. Yes, and still okay, and and and then um let's see, I think my Lynn and our oldest was in college, but anyway, I went down to help mom um uh decorate for Christmas one year, and I was outside and I fell off the ladder, had a concussion. She drove me to the hospital, and then uh and then they let me come home and I went to her house. But laying in and I and it was always my home. I loved it, but without it was her alone, everybody else was gone, and it was cold, and she had forced air, and so it would either be you'd oh, you'd say, Oh my god, it's just turned the heat up, you know. And then all of a sudden the forest air would kick in and it would be hot. And so I just said to the girls, my sisters, I said, we gotta get her off of there. I said, It's just, you know, it's a lot of stairs, and and so then we started kind of um trying to get her off the farm. Um, and my sister in Brookings, you know, her husband is a house builder, and so they told her they were gonna build her house in Brookings. You know, it's kind of like with Jess and I, a few, you know, so not not beside each other, but so that yeah, she said that and Cheryl said that way. I thought my kids could kind of check on her when they come home from school, and and um so they built a home in Brookings and then she found one in Ramona and called and said, Would you come take a look at this house? I really want it. And they were she broke my sister's heart because she I mean, they drove down every weekend, helped her mow, and they she maintained my youngest sister, just kept my mother on the farm for a lot of years just because of I mean, it would take us eight hours to mow. Um, you know, because she mowed all it and it was beautiful, it was a beautiful and when I can remember mom and I sitting on the bench and having a beer after we got done mowing, and I'd she'd say, you know, this is just so worth it when it looks like this. But I said, Yeah, it you know, and then it would rain and then it would grow and back at square one.
SPEAKER_01Yes, right?
SPEAKER_00Yes, but but we did move her off the farm, um, moved her into a very nice home in in Ramona. Um and my brother, my one of my youngest, my uh the younger brother came home and helped her painted all the walls and put in new carpeting and new drapes. It was beautiful. And I think she was happy there. Um, I don't think she was just because when you'd stay there, she'd all at the farm, she would turn the radio up really loud. And so and then say, Mother, and she said, Well, if somebody's coming off the driveway, I don't want to hear it. Somebody's gonna come in and kill me. I don't want to hear it. I'm thinking, that's just not the way you want to go to sleep at night.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_00And so then I think moving her into town, I think she was um just a little more at ease. Yes, those little things.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Now, how many kids do you have? I have four daughters. Okay, let's list them.
SPEAKER_00Uh, the oldest, Lynn, uh Jessica, Jennifer, Michelle, Jessica.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Now, when your kids were little, when you were in the stage of having kids, did you stay home when you were like building that family, or did you work throughout?
SPEAKER_00Um, I I was home not very much. Um, after I did, I worked with the three girls, one of the three girls were when we moved to Mowbridge. I worked at the bank. I got hired at First National Bank and I worked there. And then when I got pregnant with Jessica, I just said, Oh, I'm just gonna stay home. I'm just, you know, it caught daycare was expensive. And so I uh had Jess and I was at home, and then um the CPA firm called and and said, somebody give us your name and said you should. And so I went back to work and I worked there for like 35 years. And how old was Jess at the time? Um, I probably probably just a year.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so about a year when the young Jessica's the youngest. So then you went back to work and you worked there until you retired. Yes, pretty much, right? And she always says too that you chose that job, or that you say you chose that job to take it because you were allowed some flexibility. So you could go to the girls' sports events and things like that, and you enjoyed it for the most part, yes, yes.
SPEAKER_00Um, I had trouble with daycare. Um, you know, you think your kids are perfect, and uh they are, they are, um, but you know, it doesn't, and you really is silly to do it because they're little such short time. I mean, just like I'm just so glad Jessica's to be home with hers. And and she's a good mom and patience, which I didn't really have anyway, so but um Do you ever regret that?
SPEAKER_01Do you regret going back to work when she was a year?
SPEAKER_00Yes, yeah, yeah, hindsight. Just because I especially now when I see her with her kids and I how much I love those little kids and all. And I was fortunate enough that I got to really be around my grandkids, all of them, when they were little. I mean, I could I when they were born, I was at the home when they came home from the hospital, and I'm the one that got to rock them to sleep at night and and let the mom and dad sleep a little, but um one of one of Jennifer's uh Ashton had um no Victoria, the oldest one, had had uh colic. And I mean she just I mean Jennifer would call me I eight hours from Jennifer's and she would call and be crying because she wasn't getting any sleep and the baby wasn't getting, and I just I remember hanging up and saying to Rick, I should be there. I mean, I should be there. My kids don't call crying very often, and when they do, you want to be there. Um, so I did take some time off and I and went to um with with her. I can remember in the rocking chair with Victoria and waking up and realizing oh I fell I fell asleep with her in my arms and I was you know I she was still safe, but um and then um Justin and Michelle, the third one, they moved to North Carolina, so then I got took time off and went down there with them. Um that was scary um to have them so far away. And and she never she chose not to work because they didn't know anybody, you know, no daycare or yeah, to where you could trust somebody. Yes. Um, and so she she stayed at home with the two boys. Um and then they had then they had two girls, but uh my my job was very they were very good to me as far as letting me have time off. And then um when Jennifer's Ashton was uh diagnosed with leukemia, um and so I just said I'm going down there. I said I I you know you know somebody take my job. I don't, you know, if it's not here when I get back, I understand, but I'm I'm going down there. So I stayed there about a month with the two older ones while she was in Denver Hospital, and uh and then when I came back, then they I had a paycheck and they paid me for it. And and uh yeah, but I like I would work all Friday, work halfway into the night on Friday nights so that they played volleyball on Saturdays during tax season, so then I could be at their volleyball games.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, still participate tired, yes, yes, tired and exhausted, and yeah. Did you do any other work between the bank and and that? That was those were pretty much the two main jobs. You said you had a summer job at a cafe, but those were the so like the three jobs that you've had. Yes, I'm gonna call them careers, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Some jobs of career, right? A little of both. Uh yes. Um after after Rick passed away, then I also did uh Marsha and I cleaned everything. I mean, well, before when Rick was still alive, then I would clean at the Legion Sunday after church, or I'd go to church Saturday night and then clean at the Legion on Sunday. Um, just my my mom was a cleaner, and when dad died, that's kind of how she maintained her her cash flow as far as you know, she cleaned everywhere and every, you know, for people and for businesses and okay, and uh and she enjoyed that. And I do too. I in in Mowbridge now we I clean at a hunting lodge, they pay us three hundred dollars. Yeah, I mean to go clean. Yeah, to clean um a day. Nice. I mean, yeah, and it it's it's not hard. I mean, it's it's and it's good exercise. Um, like cleaned at the the Legion, I cleaned at uh two or three different motels, I cleaned at the doctors, two doc two different doctors' homes. I just enjoy it. It's you know, nobody's there and it's quiet and turn on my music and do your thing. Yeah, yeah. And then I just because I got so lonely, I went to work at the grocery store stocking groceries when the truck came in. That was twice a week, just to see people. Um and then I got ended up with a blood clot, and so I had really trouble with my legs, so I quit at the grocery store and then things got really quiet and lonely. And um, I I still was cleaning a little, um, but I don't know, Jess and I got to talking, or I don't know why. I just decided to move.
SPEAKER_01Now, when did your when did your husband pass away? How did how did he pass away? He was talking to me a little bit about that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it was Christmas Eve. The son-in-laws were home, and he was he loved, um, I mean, he just he would get so upset because he'd want to have good hunting for his son-in-laws. And uh, and so he had taken, they were out hunting, and apparently he had an aneurysm, heart attack, stroke. No, we don't really know. Um, they were walking a field, and when they got to the end, he wasn't there. And so then they started walking back, and then they saw him laying in the snow. And like they said, they thought maybe he'd been shot, you know, because they were hunting and you know. Right. But um he wasn't, and they really we don't really. I mean, they called the ambulance and and uh he was hunting on land uh land of uh friends of ours, and she was the doctor, and they called her and she came and and um did CPR on him until the ambulance came, but she just said it had to almost be an Anders, and he was so blue, and and he never as far as they know, he never yelled. Didn't make a sound, yeah. Nobody remembers nothing that he they mean. They got to the end, he just wasn't there. And so um a lot, you know, a lot of blessings that my kids were all there when it happened. Uh, I didn't have to deal with anything alone. Went out to the hospital with them, uh, with the daughters and son-in-laws were there.
SPEAKER_01Um because I remember Jess saying too, because remember it was Christmas Eve. Yes. I was like, what? She goes, you know, we went to mass that night and we were pretty much in our pajamas, and we were in, I think you guys went to the crying room and just sitting there, or basically I don't know. I can't remember a word. Um, and she's like, We just looked awful, but here, I mean, we Went to mass. Kind of a haze. Yes. Too much emotions of Christmas, but yes. That's a hard, that's a that's a really hard day when you have one thing in mind of how this day is going to go down, and that is not at all what you anticipate dealing with.
SPEAKER_00We're just well, we've come from the hospital. Well, I mean, you know, and and I he's he's laying on this bed in the emergency room, and they were still keep trying to keep him alive, you know, trying to resuscitate him. And I and I said, I said to Doctor, I said, Travis, what are you doing? He said, John, I don't think there's a chance. I said, then stop. I said, I mean, he it's horrible, horrible to see. Um, seeing on TV and it's horrible, but when it's somebody you love, um I just said, please stop. And so then he did they started taking the stuff off him. And I laid there, held him for a while, and uh he was warm, you know, they still had the blood going through him. And then I he had all this crap on him around his neck and stuff, and so I said, and his hunting boots on, he looked like hell. I said, Can we take this stuff off? And and Dr. And then Travis said, Yes. He said, then the nurse said, Well, this is a death, you know, and then Travis said, just take it off. She wanted somebody to come in and verify that I hadn't killed him, I guess, or whatever, you know. I mean, that it was an accident or and uh then I said, could we just put a blanket over and just you know, because the kids are gonna come in, I don't want them to see him looking like this. And uh so then we all just sat there with him for a while and then hard to process that though, I would think for everybody.
SPEAKER_01Like we just just had a picture of him the last time he was holding must have been Ginny, yeah, just as a baby, like before maybe it was that night or it was morning or whatever, you know, before going out, and you just think he was just there. Yeah, which is like how do you, you know, like that that would be a hard one.
SPEAKER_00It is, it it really was. Uh, and and then we sat and just kind of visited a while. The kids, you know, each hugged him and talked to him a little bit, and then when they came in, they said, Well, we'll call the funeral director, and and so then I got up to hug him before we left the hospital. And it's cold already. And Jennifer had the Jennifer, the the second daughter, that they had a baby who was stillborn. Well, he was warm, and and then they left the hospital and then they were headed back to home. And then Jen said, No, I'm gonna run in and hug him one more time. And she said the same thing. I wish I never would have, because then he was cold, you know. And I that's I that's a memory I have that and then to leave that hospital and leave him in there alone just breaks my heart. Yes, yeah, but I had the girls, which was Christmas Eve, they were there for Christmas, so a blessing too, you know. That um, so then we went home and we just kind of sat around. We had, you know, had food ready for Christmas Eve supper, and and I I just said, we may as well go to Mass. We're gonna sit here and cry. I mean, we can cry in church. I I mean, I don't and so we went to went to Mass and then the girls came home and did everything. You know, they wrote rode his obituary and um picked out his clothes and all the stuff that if they wouldn't have been there, I would have had to do and I didn't have to. And sometimes that's hard because you want to process, and sometimes people don't get to process till after all of that is done.
SPEAKER_01Yes, you know, yeah. So yeah. So you said since his passing, it's kind of been more lonely. Like you've been able to keep yourself busy with cleaning, um, working at the grocery store you said for a little bit, and then you decide it's time to move to Dickinson. So you're close to Jess, to her kids. What was it like to sell your, to sell that home? I mean, that's in a sense, it's not a house. It is a home. It's where you raised your kids, it's where you have all these memories, grandkids, your your late husband. What is it like to m to sell that house and to leave?
SPEAKER_00It wasn't as difficult as I thought. Um it just got so lonely the last few years that I just got, and it was it's it's a hundred and year old house. We put a lot of time, a lot of hard work into it, did the floors. Um, so it's it was a beautiful home, but the basement needed work, just like the girls say, Mom, every time you do something, something else needs fixing. And and so they really tried to encourage me to get out of there, even if it was just move somewhere else in Mobridge, like a townhouse. Or and I had two sisters that just recently moved to Rapids, so I talked to, I thought, I'll just move out there. I can, you know, I mean, I could make them my friends, or you know what I mean, and and be busy with them and and uh but I don't know. We we were my sisters, we were such good friends, um, but we weren't always together. And then as we got to be always together, we weren't really such good friends. I mean, they're so short pieces.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_00My sister, two sisters are so different. One is the one never they never had children, so she has a hard time dealing with us wanting to be around our grandkids, uh not missing any of their stuff. Um, and so it got there got to be some hard feelings. Um, you know, she wanted to go do that, she wanted to go hiking. Well, we can't, the kids are coming away. And so I just thought I'm not, I just did I'm not getting in the middle of it. And so um Dickinson was my next choice, and I think it's the best thing I ever did. Um, and you're enjoying it so far. Yes, I love Dickinson, I love Jess and her kids. Um there's just there's really nothing I I don't I don't like the loneliness, I don't like being alone, but I've come become very involved in the band, the church, um, which I wouldn't have done in Mobridge. I don't know why I I should have, but I I love Monsignor, I love Queen of Peace. Um that's kind of something I do every day, and so it I think it's just made me gives you a sense of that purpose too.
SPEAKER_01Yeah before it's in a in a different direction sometimes, but now it's the same where you can.
SPEAKER_00I was Catholic for 70 years, not a good Catholic, just a Catholic. Um never missed Mass, you know. Um, but I just was such a busy person. I was busy with my kids, I was busy with my husband, I was busy with my job. I didn't really have time for God, and I didn't need him. I was happy. I really had a good life. I mean, I, you know, I lost my dad, but um, when you don't live there, you know, basically I stayed with mom a few months after dad died, but then I just flew back to New York and I had my own life, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and so um you don't feel the loss as much because you're back you're not in where you would notice the loss.
SPEAKER_00Yes, exactly. That exact and I'm and then that's kind of how the girls are. I mean, I know they love their dad, but um they were all gone, they all have their own lives, and I so I know that they love him, but they don't but I just miss him. I just miss the having someone to talk to or going for a walk or we would sit on the back deck having a beer. Exactly, yeah. I mean, we and we you we used to bike together and and uh there are good things though, too, because he hated yard work and I love it. But I always thought in Billy Bean looked like Jess says the same thing with Garen, he loves to garden, but he wants Jess out there to help him, and she doesn't like it. Well, I love my yard, and I would I could just be out there all day in the sun and and he'd be in the house playing on his computer and I would be mad. And so now I say when I mow my mom, I'm not mad anymore because he can't help me because he's not here.
SPEAKER_01Right. So there are him sitting there catching.
SPEAKER_00Or or he always said, after I get done mowing, he'd bring, he'd say, Yeah, I bet you want to beer.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_00Yep.
SPEAKER_01How many grandkids do you have? 15. 15. How has being a grandma been different than being a mom?
SPEAKER_00There are not words to explain that. I try and say to people like my sister just she's just started, she just had her first two grandsons. It's just a you know, you can't explain love, but it's just such a feeling of uh I don't know. There's just I don't know how to explain it. I wish it for everyone. It is motherhood is wonderful, but being a grandma is just over the top. It's just so get the best parts of them. You get to spoil them with not yep. Yeah, I don't have to worry about are they gonna are they got their schoolwork done? They're you know, are they uh nothing? I don't have to worry about anything. I just get to love them and play with them and be present.
unknownYes.
SPEAKER_01Do you feel I feel like my mom probably feels like she gets to be present more with the grandkids when she's with them because she's not thinking about, but now I have to go get this person, now I have to go get this person, and I gotta do this, and I gotta do that. You can more fully be present with them when you're with them. Yes.
SPEAKER_00I mean and then general justice, you know, can you be here? Can you take uh Dominic after math? So I could, yeah, yeah, I can. I love because I know it's two hours, or you know, it's it's not overwhelming, and it's just loving him. He just yeah, yeah, he's just such a he's so great. He really is. I I say he's our blessing. He's just yeah, absolutely, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Did you spend any part of your life traveling? Did you do much traveling other than to see kids?
SPEAKER_00Um no.
SPEAKER_01Do you ever regret that?
SPEAKER_00We were always always wanted to do, I had I lost an uncle at Pearl Harbor, and I always wanted to do Hawaii and Pearl Harbor. Um, that was my dad was my dad loved it to drive around, travel, and so we did, you know, in our car with no air conditioning. So traveling was just not, yeah. I mean I've seen with Jess I've done so much because she and I have traveled to see all her sisters. You know, we drove to California to see Garen's mom. Um, you know, traveling with her kids are they're just so they're so good. I remember Josie was um what six months old, maybe, or maybe older than that. And then we were headed, we were headed on our first road trip, and we stopped at Subway, and she was miserable. We stopped in Brookings. That is my sister was living in Brookings at that time, and I said, we'll stay overnight here and decide if we're going on, because it just it and we woke up, she was just fine. We tried, we she's just they were good travelers. We would stop at a dollar store and pick up, you know, four or five different things and never heard from them, other than I gotta go to the bathroom, but which is good. Yes, but they should let you know this. But we we uh we drove to North Carolina, um, and we've driven to Indiana, we've driven to Omaha, just so my traveling with them uh has been wonderful. Jess is just does a good job with them and um kind of seeing all the country I want to see. Um my husband had a map that he got out when after when he retired and I worked a couple more years, and we were gonna go out to Washington. He had a cousin out there, lived in Oregon, and uh he did a a map. He was we were gonna go out to Oregon for a couple days and visit Dave and then swing back down to Iowa. He had a cousin in Iowa that he really liked, and and then his cousin in Oregon uh got cancer and died, and he just tore the map up and was done. He just and I always wanted to go south for the winter. Of course, you know, you can hunt till January 1st, and then you can ice fish. So we never got south. He never got soft. He loved to hunt and fish. That was his he loved it. I mean, he did you go with him? I used to. Okay. I I I did when the w and the kids were little and stuff, and I'd say a Sunday after church, he'd say, You want to go out? Well, you yeah, we'll go for a couple hours, yeah. Four hours, five hours. It'd say, well, one more road, one more road. I finally quit going. I just you know, you just can't entertain the kids for five hours in the backseat of a car.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. It's more stressful than yes.
SPEAKER_00Yes. And so, um, but then the girls, he took the girls off and on. They enjoyed, I mean, I couldn't, you know, they would say, Oh yeah, we hunted over here. There, you know, they could spot deer and pheasant. Yeah. Uh, so it was kind of nice, but he he that was his love of hunting and fishing.
SPEAKER_01What's an important life lesson that you've learned?
SPEAKER_00I don't know. I don't know if I have one. I wish I would have been kinder to my husband. Because you just never know. He he was a drinker, loved beer, and ended upset me. I mean, I just you know, I it just bothered me. Like he he used to smoke cigarettes, and then when the kids got into school, then they did a um uh a chapter on cancer and cigarette smoking, and so and then it's gonna kill you. So then they they're thinking their dad's gonna die because he smokes, so they come home from school, then they would hide his cigarettes, and then they hide his lighter, and then they would hide his ashtray, and he finally said, It's just not fun anymore because I got to work for it. So he quit smoking. Um, and he I always just thought he would quit drinking too, but and he and he was not a bad drunk. He was, you know, but I just I uh I just was kind of tough on him.
SPEAKER_01What's a memory from childhood that you didn't realize was important until later in life?
SPEAKER_00Mom and dad laughing together at the kitchen, and we always ate together, um, ate our meals together. We'd always waited for dad, no matter, you know, and he would come in and they would, and they were just they just laughed. And then we then my sister would say, I think they want to be alone. So we would eat and then we'd go out the back door to our playhouse. We had a playhouse in the backyard, and and uh then we because then we'd let them be alone. And uh well, I mean what just seeing them, seeing my mom smile at my dad, she just really loved him.
SPEAKER_01That's such a beautiful memory. It's so simple, and like even you saying you always ate together doesn't happen very much anymore. No, and you take that for granted, yeah. You know, that that is actually a really big thing.
SPEAKER_00Well, and that's like um, you know, she stayed at home, but so we, you know, well, we all like chores. We had one of us had to peel potatoes, one of us had to bake a cake. We made a cake every day at our house. Every day. I I mean, well, we had my dad wanted dessert after he ate, and so then we would have a piece of cake after after we ate, and then the rest would go in our lunch boxes, you know, because we all because we had to take six lunches to, and so um, but I just think you know, she her life was his, or his life was hers, I guess. I mean, we just ate when he, you know, if he if it was or like she would take it out to the field. We all a lot of times we all went out to the field and ate, you know, like a picnic in in the cornfield. I mean, you know, just us running around and um so yeah, a lot of yeah, really it it uh we were very blessed. I'm very blessed. I always say I didn't I just didn't need God for so many years, and so I didn't I didn't appreciate him. I didn't uh Jess has made me a better Catholic, uh Dickinson's made me a better Catholic, Queen of Peace has made me a better Catholic. Um I did it because I was Catholic and it was mandatory, but now I do it because I love it. And if I'd gone to Dickinson or gone to Rapid City, I I wouldn't have that because my my sisters have both left the church. So I think God was pointing me in the right direction.
SPEAKER_01Is there anything you always wished you had done but never got around to doing?
SPEAKER_00No, not really. I I'm just very I wish my husband would have stayed alive a little while longer, but I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't be the Catholic I am right now because he wasn't Catholic. Uh he went when we asked, or he always never never missed any of the kids' first communions or anything, but um I just no, I if you could go back and give yourself a piece of advice, what would it be? Be calm, let him have his beer. That's so funny.
SPEAKER_01I think that's what a lot of people honestly would say, or even like with being a mom, right? Why do you get so upset? I still get upset all the time. Do you have any unique talents that people would be surprised to hear about? No, no, no, unique. What's your favorite song of all time? This is really the question Jess wants answered, I think.
SPEAKER_00Really? Um well, when I was in college, there was a song called Heat Wave. Uh Rick was in um a rock band in college, and their break song was Heat Wave. So when I would go with him to these dances, then I knew I got to have him when Heat Wave played. So that was kind of how I always uh and now my favorite one is um I hope you dance.
SPEAKER_01What's one thing you would want people to remember about you when you're gone?
SPEAKER_00Let's see. Uh I must have been a good mom because my daughters are good moms and they're good people. And they were they just blessed my life. So when I when I talk about um not needing God, raising those girls was just, I mean, it was hard because you worry about them, but it was they were just such good kids. They just you know they they always say they were scared of me. And I think I was a my mom too, but they just I just I never had you know, they never pushed me to the limit. Um Jennifer had a boyfriend that scared me. Um what with four girls, only one. Yeah, pretty good. See, you gotta look at all the good things here. Um, and she was, I mean, she was had a head on her shoulders, not to um that I but I just he scared me because I I saw the way he was raised, and I just I just didn't want him to take that out on her. So, but other than that, gown my life was blessed. They they did what I asked. They worked, I mean, they all had jobs, summer jobs. Um they're just you know, they didn't fight me with anything, really. Any other memories that you want to share?
SPEAKER_01Is there a favorite memory that you have from motherhood? Is there something when you look back at when your kids were young growing up that is a favorite for you and you wish you could almost like go back and just do that moment again, be in that moment again? That is not on my list of questions, by the way. I just think it's it's interesting.
SPEAKER_00I I think of my daughters now when I'm holding Justice when I'm rocking Dominic and just how quickly time goes. That you know, I this is how I held mine. And I'm, you know, he's sleeping and you're rocking, and he's so content. It's just like, where did the time go? Why why didn't I rock them more? Or um you know, busy, busy, busy. Um I I I mean, I working moms are hard because you know, you've you got responsibility to other people, and and uh I just I wish I would have taken more time with them to do things that you know, go play. Why didn't I go outside and play with them? Why didn't we go for a walk? Because now walking, if I'm walking the girls, just as girls or something, or even my older grandson or grandkids, when we're walking, it's like, oh, look at that flow. I never did that. I had their hands and we're I'm pulling them. Come on, come on, we gotta hurry, we've gotta hurry.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and yeah, isn't it pretty? Let's go, let's go. Yes, now you're looking for a few.
SPEAKER_00Yes, and that's a mother. And with a grandma, it's I see the the joy of just bending over and looking at a at a dandelion with them. And I never did with mine. I mean, I can remember pulling, come on, we gotta get this, we gotta get there, we gotta do this. Um, probably none of it's important, but at the time you think, yeah, you know.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Kids can teach us a lot. Yes, they can. Being a grandma is such a blessing. Um, I can I feel sorry for people that don't get the opportunity um to to love just so genuine, you know. It's just like you don't, you know, when you well, you worry about your kids, you worry about your son in his class trying to get trying to pass this class. You know, none of that with your grandkids. Well, I shouldn't say that. I have a couple grandsons I'm a little worried about, but I'm you know, I'm not responsible and I'm not right, but um, yeah. I think God's best blessing is being a grandma. Anything else you want to add? I don't think so.
SPEAKER_01Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. It was wonderful, super interesting and fascinating and just wonderful. Thanks for spending a little time with us today on the Simple Lives We Live. If these stories mean something to you, one of the best ways to support the podcast is to follow, share an episode with someone you love, or leave a review. You can also support the show through the links in our website or social media bios. Until next time, don't forget ordinary lives often hold the most extraordinary stories.