The Simple Lives We Live
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The Simple Lives We Live
A Life Spent Caring for Others | Sherry Libis
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In Sherry Libis's second grade classroom, kids who talked too much had to wear a paper bag over their head. Sherry grew up in Eureka, South Dakota, playing fort on the cement bags at her dad's lumberyard, and spent 31 years in education in Beach, Medora and Dickinson, ND (including as my teacher!). She shares how her dad's job followed her to Beach, caring for her parents at home through COVID, and the night her dad finally spoke just to tell her to stop singing.
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. Thank you everybody for joining us. Today the quote is the ordinary arts we practice every day at home are of more importance to the soul than their simplicity might suggest. And that is by Thomas More. So today, my guest is Sherry Libbis. Thank you for being here.
SPEAKER_00You're welcome. I'm excited but nervous.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Well, I think that's everybody. Usually, once they get into it, it's it's always a little bit easier. Okay, so we start like every other interview. How old are you?
SPEAKER_00I am 61.
SPEAKER_0361. Okay, so where were you born?
SPEAKER_00I was born in Eureka, South Dakota, which is in the northeastern part of the state. And small town of about 1,500 people, a lot less now, but when you were born, that's about how much how many were there? Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Did you always live there? Were you born and raised? Okay, so you never moved.
SPEAKER_00Nope, not until college. Okay.
SPEAKER_03How many siblings?
SPEAKER_00I have two brothers and two sisters. My two sisters are older than the three of us, my br my two brothers and myself. Um, they it's almost like we kind of had two separate families because they were quite a bit older than us.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00And then um I was number four in line. So it was my oldest sister Lana, then Karen, then David, um, myself, and then my younger brother Chad. And there's like 18 years between Lana and Chad.
SPEAKER_03Oh wow. Same parents.
SPEAKER_00Same parents.
SPEAKER_03Same parents.
SPEAKER_00I I was a flower girl on my sister's wedding. That's the difference in our ages.
SPEAKER_03Wow. So tell me who who were your parents?
SPEAKER_00My parents were Floyd and Lorreen Libis. Um my mom was um her maiden name was Chrisman, and they were both born in the same area in Eureka.
SPEAKER_03Oh, so they were born and raised there too, and then raised their family there as well. Okay. What were they like as parents?
SPEAKER_00My parents were both um pretty hard-working people. Uh, they always held jobs, both my mom and my dad. Uh my dad, I would say um he grew up on a farm when and worked all of his life. I think he graduated, he had eighth grade grad graduate and or graduation, and he after that went to work and help out on the farm. So he never went any further. No.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00My mom did. She went to high school. She, but also she did a lot of jobs where she helped uh neighbors and went into town and did different things for people in town. Um, she worked at the telephone company. Um, both of my parents were active in like American Legion, um, the church. They were both active in the church and in the school. So um they just they were friendly, had lots of, you know, in a small town, everybody knows everybody, and they got along very well with everybody. Um, eventually they bought a business. They bought um uh the eureka building supplies it was called. Um, so they ran the lumber yard until oh, probably 1987. My dad sold it, and he, the funny story, ended up um at the auction. They ended up having um Johnny Hansen was at the auction in Eureka, and he asked my dad if anybody needed a job, and my dad said, Well, he said, I would be looking for something, but not really. I don't want to work a long time because I'm near retirement age. And um, he said, Well, I have a lumber yard in Beach and in Dickinson and in I can't even remember all the places he had lumberyards, but anyway, um, he said, Are you familiar with Beach North Dakota? And he said, My dad said, I just moved my daughter to Beach to be a teacher. And so that's how my mom and dad ended up living in Dickinson, because my dad for a while ran the lumber yard in Dickinson, or in Dickinson, Johnny's lumberyard in Dickinson.
SPEAKER_03Oh, interesting.
SPEAKER_00And so that's how they ended up coming up this to this area.
SPEAKER_03Now, when you were growing up, did you live on a farm or were you in town?
SPEAKER_00In town.
SPEAKER_03You were in town, okay. And now your mom, you said, continued in school. Did she graduate from high school?
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_03Okay, so she did have a high school education.
SPEAKER_00Yep, my mom and dad married um in 19, I believe it was 1950. And shortly after that, my dad ended up um being drafted into the army. And so my mom and dad moved for a short time to El Paso, Texas, where my dad was stationed. And then once my dad got stationed into Germany during the it was during the Korean conflict, when my dad got stationed in Germany, my mom moved back home to South Dakota and lived with, actually lived with my dad's mom and dad.
SPEAKER_02Oh, interesting.
SPEAKER_00And my oldest sister was born down in El Paso. So she came back and she was working for the telephone company at that time, and so um had to live with my um grandma and grandpa, and she uh oftentimes would walk to work, and it was kind of a she said, My grandpa didn't do a lot with the baby, but my grandma would or my grandma would, and so when my mom would go to work at night at the telephone company, then my grandma would take care and watch the baby, put her to bed, and and then during the day, mom would be back home, or vice versa, because my grandma worked too at uh um at the nursing home, and so um they took tear took turns taking care of the baby.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's awesome. So they didn't have to do daycare and they could still both work and yeah, yeah. Which rores did you have growing up? You you said you were in town, so you didn't necessarily have the farm chores.
SPEAKER_00Nope. We had chores around our house when we were younger. Um Saturday morning, early morning was clean day. We, if you were a girl, you cleaned in the house and you did all the duties around the house, sweeping, vacuuming, dusting, um, helping along with that. Uh my brothers would end up outside on Saturday mornings doing lawn work, and and we had um both times when we moved, or we had a house, we rented a house, and it was a very large house and a very large yard. And um, so it would take quite a while for them to do all the mowing outside, and sometimes I got to mow too because I liked it. I thought it was fun to be out there instead of in the house, but um that was our chores in town. And then when my mom and dad were working, I would babysit for my younger brother. Um, I started babysitting early, like I probably was third or fourth grade when I babysat my brother and I would cook meals. And by fifth grade, I was cooking supper every night because my mom during the summers, because my mom and dad would um both be working. And my dad was kind of one of those. My dad and mom are both from our German descent, and my dad was very um at very uh very much on a timeline where he wanted to have supper ready at 5:30. Oh, so they'd come home from work and supper should be ready. And sometimes I had that done, and sometimes I didn't. My mom would always have stuff laid out and would call me and tell me exactly, give me the directions, but then after a while I just was able to do it on my own.
SPEAKER_03No, she wasn't with the phone companies still then, or what was she?
SPEAKER_00Then she was working for the newspaper. It was called the Northwest Blade, and she worked there for many, many years um before my mom and dad bought the lumberyard. Okay, okay, and then at one time she also she was working both places, she was working at the lumber yard and was a church secretary at our church.
SPEAKER_03Oh, and so a couple different things she was doing.
SPEAKER_00She was going back and forth between those.
SPEAKER_03And I love you saying that you had done the meals too. Because nowadays we think our fifth and sixth graders or whatever age probably aren't capable, but they are, they're totally I just think of like my kids now, you know, and yeah, same.
SPEAKER_00Well, I babysit, or I shouldn't say babysit, but daycare for my great nephew and my great niece during the summer. And my great niece is old enough now where she could probably stay by herself, but and she comes over sometimes. And so we have done some cooking lesson, cooking lessons, but I still feel like I always have to be right there because I'm just always a little bit nervous as to whether they're gonna keep their mind on what they're doing instead of getting distracted with something else and forget that they've got pancakes going.
SPEAKER_03Yes, or things get tripped up too high or get turned off. And yeah. How was school for you growing up?
SPEAKER_00I am kind of one of those weird people. I loved school. I I never um I always I felt like our school system in Eureka really had good teachers. Um the teachers that I always ended up with, there wasn't a one teacher that I didn't like, except perhaps one teacher that um was very, very disciplined and wanted kids to be very, very disciplined at a very, very young age when they probably just aren't ready for that. And so she had silly things going on in her classroom. Like if you were naughty, you had to stand at the board. She'd draw a circle on the board, and you'd have to put your nose in the circle and stand there. Um, she also had a rubber hose and spanked people. Um we had a couple of teachers that had, I know I think back to it, and we talked about this at my 40th class reunion, and we just laughed thinking back like now these people would be like turned into social services because you just don't do that kind of thing. And it was okay, and everybody knew it that it happened, and nobody ever said anything or did anything, or which I look back at that now and I think, oh, how atrocious! Like 40 years later in our school career, we're looking back at that and knowing, like, I can remember the day when one of the boys got spanked with the rubber hose. And how old? Like what grade? First grade. First grade. Yeah. And then uh in second and third grade, the teachers had paper bags with holes cut out with the eyes and the nose and the mouth cut out. And if you talk too much, you had to wear the paper bag over your head so that you wouldn't talk to your it would be your reminder that you wouldn't talk to your neighbors and you'd have to wear it for like 10 10 minutes.
SPEAKER_03So was this, do you know, was this uh consequence that was actively taught to teachers to try and do?
SPEAKER_00I don't know. But as an ed but as an educ as an educator, I look back at it and I think, how in the world was this allowed?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. But any favorite subjects that you had growing up?
SPEAKER_00Um, my two favorite subjects were math and language arts. Again, I'd probably be like, what is wrong with you? But I loved, I loved language arts, I loved reading, I loved writing, I loved everything about it. And I loved math because in math, our teacher was a very, very like, especially in high school, um, our teacher was a very smart man, but sometimes he didn't always know how to get kids to understand exactly what he wanted to teach. And he would just teach it, put it on the board, and then he'd be done. And you could go up and ask questions and stuff. Well, I was kind of a shy person. I didn't like to go up and ask questions, and so I always thought math was kind of like a puzzle and I had to solve it. And so I like, and to this day, I love solving issues, solving problems, solving, I mean, it's just one of the things that I like to do. And I do that because I think it just helps my mind remember if I'm actually solving it myself rather than watching somebody do it for me. Um, and I need that too, don't get me wrong, because I do need people to show me and do it for me so I can watch. But um just doing it myself and thinking, oh, hey, I solved that problem was especially like in algebra. I loved algebra, and um, a lot of people don't like algebra, and right that's the one subject people will always say, What do we need that for?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And um, but I loved it. So those were I wasn't much of a scientist, uh science was not my thing. And history, interesting, but I was not, it didn't really spike my interest. I mean, it like I'd read things and think, oh, that's cool. But like to memorize dates and things like that, it just was not for me. I just that wasn't my thing.
SPEAKER_03I think too with math, it's like once once it clicks on how to do it, it all of a sudden becomes fun and it's such a boost to your self-confidence. But if you can't get it, it almost can affect every other class because you just feel like, why can't I understand this? And it's so much frustration. Yeah. So to have a good teacher in that subject is really important.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_03What are some of your earliest memories of growing up?
SPEAKER_00Oh, I would say really, in in um in the time when we were growing up, we spent a lot of time during the summers. I'll I'll start there. During the summers, we had a big lake in the middle of our town. And so that was the place people congregated, especially on the in the afternoons. It was a lake with a beach and a dock, and there were lifeguards there, and so people would go swimming a lot. Um, I didn't always get to go down there because I was babysitting for my younger brother, and my mom didn't want me taking him down there because he didn't know how to swim, and my mom was always afraid of water, so she didn't like any of us actually going down to the lake. But um, so that's where we spent a lot of our our days. Um, I had a neighborhood that we were we had the big yard. So a lot of our friends, my brother, my older brother, myself, not so much my younger brother, but our neighbor did was about my younger brother's age, and we played a lot of baseball. We had wiffle ball, we had baseball, we had because our yard was big enough to have like a, you know, we had the bases, we had a pitcher's mound, we had all that, and um, we had a sandbox, and so um when I was very, very young, my friends, I had two girls especially that would come over and we'd play in that sandbox and pretend making mud pies and decorating them with choke cherries and leaves and all the things. Um one of the things I always will remember is that we were allowed to go to the lumber yard sometimes and we could play in the wood pile, or um, there was a big room that had I don't know how many cement bags, probably 30, 40 cement bags in there, and we'd climb around on the cement bags and pretend that we lived there and that was our fort. And um, in one area of the lumber yard, my dad had an old filing cabinet, and so there we would play like we were an office, and you'd have to come and buy something or come and write something, and we'd put it in our files, and I mean make up some invoices, and then eventually my dad put a basketball hoop in there, and so then we played basketball in there. Um, and growing up, um, we always had a homecoming parade, and so um our whenever it was time to decorate floats, the floats were always in the lumberyard, and so all like all my years of going through high school for sure, not so much elementary because the teachers usually found a place, but um, in high school, when the high school kids actually decorated their float, it was we had those floats in the lumber yard, and so my brother's float was usually in there, and my float was our our float was in there, and so that was always a fun time because there was loads of kids decorating, and it wasn't so much. I mean, there were advisors there, but it was more kids than teachers, and so we always had a good time there, and kids really took pride in decorating those floats like they were fancy, yes, not not like we see today, yeah, not just put something around the bottom and then sit on top of it. It was, I mean, we did have people sometimes sitting on them, but um, they were it was a lot of work. It was when we still used chicken wire and stuffed tissues into the chicken wire to mold something or make it into something, and um I don't know, that was a lot of fun, and we spent a lot of time out at the baseball diamond. Um my town had a very beautiful baseball diamond, and um both my brothers played baseball. I played softball when it was we didn't have it as a high school sport or anything, but it was just a summer, summer league. And um, so I played softball all my four years of high school during the summer, and but we spent a lot of time at baseball games. My dad was uh, I don't know, I think they called it like a baseball commissioner, like through the American Legion. And so he would um each I mean, every year it was somebody different, but my dad did that one year, and so when he was doing when he was doing it that year, then we were out at the baseball diamond almost every night that there was a game, and um, and that That's where I mean the town really congregated there. So a lot of people would come to those, like it had a huge grandstand, and a lot of people would come to the baseball games and um trying to think of other places, just riding bike around town and doing those kinds of things. We had a bowling alley and a theater, and so bowling and um going to movies.
SPEAKER_03How about in the winter? Did you guys have a like an ice skating rink?
SPEAKER_00We did a small one. Um I never ice skated. I went out a few. My friend and I went out a few times late at night so we would skate when nobody else was there, or try to skate when nobody else was there so that nobody could watch us. And um, my best friend and I both kind of gave up on it because we were falling down more than we were skating. So we thought, uh, this isn't for us.
SPEAKER_03Um so what were Christmases like for you?
SPEAKER_00Oh, Christmas was always fun. Um my whole family, as in brothers and sisters and significant others, and husbands and kids would all come home. Um, Christmas, especially when we were little, was always the thing there was we went to we always had church service on Christmas Eve night, and we went to the church service, got our little bag of goodies after because the kids actually put on the church service. Like it was a uh Christmas concert or Christmas play or whatever we did. Um, and then we'd get our little bag of peanuts and oranges and apples and hard candy and take that home. And when we got home, Santa had been there, and so our gifts were all out in front of the Christmas tree in front of the presents that Santa had left us.
SPEAKER_03And were the presents wrapped?
SPEAKER_00Some were, some weren't.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_00So, like when we had a bike or the year I got a doll that was, I don't know what her what that little doll's name was. I can still see her in my head, but she rode a little scooter thing, and um those kinds of things weren't wrapped, but what were traditions?
SPEAKER_03Was there certain meals that you had or anything like that?
SPEAKER_00Are you still talking Christmas? Um, we always I I don't really remember on Christmas Eve because we did open presents on Christmas Eve, and then we would have a big Christmas dinner the next day. Um, but I'm not sure what we had. I I'm thinking because we've always done it as adults now, but we always do our d'oeuvres on Christmas Eve night.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_00And then Christmas Day, we still have our like the big a bigger meal where everybody's there.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. You said you had a doll, a bike, any other Christmas gifts that you can remember that you got?
SPEAKER_00A standout? Um, a doll house. That was one of my favorites. Um I wanted these boots really bad one year, and I kept, and they were called, they were fashion boots, is what they were called. And um, they had no practical purpose, I other than it was the in thing at that time. I got um, I was so excited because there was a gift under there that I just knew had to be a boot box, and I opened them up, and they were a pair of like suede boots that had a furry band around the top. And I know I cried. I because I did not want those boots, I wanted those fashion boots, and my sister was trying to explain to my mom what fashion boots were, and eventually they did get me some fashion boots, and they were in fashion boots. They were dumb because you couldn't walk in them, they had no grips on the bottom. They were totally so if you tried wearing them in the winter, you were out of luck because you were falling down all the time.
SPEAKER_03But how about birthdays?
SPEAKER_00Birthdays were always kind of a big celebration. I wouldn't, you know, we had birthday parties um where we could invite our friends and have people over, like for sleepovers or whatever. Um, my mom always made a cake. And um, but I would say all of us, I don't remember my older sisters because I don't really remember living with my older sisters that much, but I don't know what they had, but the three of us had birthday parties, and then as we got older, we you know kind of phased out and we didn't want to have them anymore.
SPEAKER_03Right. Want to do your own thing sometimes.
SPEAKER_00Or just had a friend over or something like that.
SPEAKER_03But so now I gotta ask, because the the two older sisters are quite a bit older, what's the age difference between Karen and David then?
SPEAKER_00Um I gotta think. I wanna say it's probably about I'm not exactly sure, but eight or nine years. Okay.
SPEAKER_03Do you know what did your parents ever say why there was a big age gap?
SPEAKER_00No. No.
SPEAKER_03I I didn't say there was like miscarriages or anything like that in there.
SPEAKER_00No, and I guess we never asked. I I don't know.
SPEAKER_03Uh any vacations that you took as a kid? Do you remember any?
SPEAKER_00Um I don't rem I remember I I remember a lot of our vacations, especially when we were younger, because we didn't get really long vacations because of my mom and dad's business. So it was hard for them to leave to do vacations. But um our vacations consisted usually of either going to the Black Hills, um, Detroit Lakes was often a vacation spot, um, Roy Lake, which was in northeastern South Dakota, and then um one year a lot of my mom's siblings moved out to California um during the depression. And so we um went out there one year. We drove out to California. Six of us we drove to Colorado to pick up my sister, and then um six of us drove in the my dad's big LTD car and went to California to visit all our relatives out in California, and that was exciting for us because we had never been on a really long vacation or a big vacation, and we didn't get to go to Disneyland while we were in California. We just had to go visit relatives, which was a nice thing because it was our cousins and stuff, and we did get to go to San Francisco. Our cousins took us there and we went around San Francisco and Fisherman's Wharf. And so that was a big deal for us because, like I said, we didn't ever go really many places.
SPEAKER_03The vacations were local, and nobody really back then, nobody really flew to go anywhere. I mean, it was more road trips, yeah, and your road trips were really to see family. Sounds like for a lot of people, it's you know, that was that was what you did on vacation. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And if we didn't get a vacation in that year, my mom and dad would take us to Aberdeen, which was like 75 miles away, and we would get to stay in a hotel with a swimming pool, and that was a big deal.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And eating out at a restaurant restaurants, that was a big deal. So um, we didn't we weren't too fussy, and none of our, like you said, I think a lot of people did that same kind of thing because I really don't remember any of my friends talking about going on big vacations or doing really spectacular things during their summers.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, because I think we were all kind of in the same boat where people worked and had jobs and you just couldn't take a lot of time away from your job.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Um, so well, how about jobs that you had when you were say in high school? You said you babysat like for your brother and stuff. What other jobs did you have growing up?
SPEAKER_00I worked at a lot of different places. I started working probably when I was in junior high. I worked at a drive-in, and that was pretty much. Do you take tickets? Do you deliver concessions?
SPEAKER_03What were you?
SPEAKER_00It was pretty much like food, like ice cream, and and they had built, they had redone the drive-in. The drive-in used to be where people would skate out to your car and um take your order and then deliver your order. But uh somebody else had bought the drive-in at that time and they revamped it and put a little seating area in the inside so people could actually come in and eat if they wanted to. And so I worked there for a while. Um, I worked in a clothing store every now and then when they needed help, especially like um when they needed inventory help, I would go in there and work, and that was a woman's clothing store. I worked at the theater because my best friend's grandpa owned the theater. And so um oftentimes we would take turns taking tickets uh for movies. Um I didn't ever work the concessions, but I did more of the um taking tickets at movies. And then my main job probably I would say started when I was again in junior high, I was babysitting for a neighbor's um two kids, and I would babysit every Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday, I think it was. Um, and then when I got old enough, like when I was a freshman in high school, the mom of those kids asked, because she would go to work at the restaurant that they owned, and she asked if we would want to switch places, and so she stayed home with the kids then, and then I went to work. And so I worked there all through. It was called the Midway, and it was a bar slash restaurant back then. You know, it was three-two, it was a three-two establishment, they called it, and that meant that um they served beer but no hard liquor.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00And so if you were 18, you could come in and you could drink beer there. Um, but it was mainly a food place, and then kids hung out there all the time because they had pinball machines and a pool table and um a foozeball table, I think they did have too. But um, it was a a big spot, especially after games. Like people would come there after games to eat and to just hang out, especially on the weekends.
SPEAKER_03So that's so cool. I miss that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I do too.
SPEAKER_03Do you remember when you were younger what you wanted to be when you grew up?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I probably from third grade on, I knew I wanted to be a teacher. And I don't that thought didn't ever leave me until um when I was in the midst of college, I got to thinking, like, is this really what I want to do? Do I want to maybe like go into it? Because in my senior year, I took an accounting class, and I really loved that accounting class. So then I thought about that for a little bit. And um, even when I was in high school, I was our whole family, like my mom and dad were we went to church every Sunday, and um our religion was important to our family, and um we as kids were part of our Luther League, and um we did a lot with the Luther League, and for a while I even sat in the pews thinking, maybe I want to be a minister, and I did think that for a little while, probably I think I was maybe a junior or a senior, but all in all, it was always about teaching because I just loved kids. I mean, that was my my passion and my love, and so that's never left me. And like I said, I I knew that from early on. We played school all the time at my house.
SPEAKER_03Um you were practicing from early on. Yep. Who in your family influenced you the most while you were growing up?
SPEAKER_00You know, that is a hard question to answer because I think at different times, different people influenced me. Like, I mean, I will always my grandma was so important to me. Like, she um she worked my grandma, my grandma lived to be 100 years old. She worked until she was 90. She worked as a cook in the nursing home, and she would uh walk from the nursing home to her house, was about a half a block, and she would walk every day. We eventually built a house right beside my grandma where my grandma's trailer house was, and um so we got the pleasure of watching her come home every every day, and our dog knew exactly when my mom or when my grandma would come home, and our dog would go to the windowsill at 12:30 and would wait till she saw or till he saw my grandma. And as soon as he saw my grandma, he went running and would walk home with my grandma and go into her house with her and then come back over to our house. And we always wondered, like, what's going on? Like, why does he do that? And eventually we found out she was feeding him a piece of candy every time she he came into the house. But um, you know, she was a big influence on me because she was just she was just a kind, loving soul. And she kind of had a heart of a kid too, because when she she did she babysat for us a lot, especially on weekends, if my mom and dad would go out somewhere or or go somewhere, and my grandma stayed with us, and we would convince her to play baseball, we would convince her to shoot basketball, we would, you know, we'd convince her to do all the things, and she always did as long as she could.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, but she really had an impact on me. My mom and dad at different times in my life have had an impact on me and always will. Um when I was going through teaching, um, and my brother was also a teacher, and then later became a high school principal. And I really looked up to him and talked to him about becoming a principal, and so he had an impact on me, you know, being being in the education field. My oldest sister, I babysat for her two kids during the summers, and so um she I spent a lot of time with her in Bismarck, and so she's had an impact on me. My sister, Karen, right now, probably is um one of those people that I don't get to see that often and never did get to see a lot of, but Karen now she was in the habit of my my parents had lived with me when they were couldn't handle living on their own anymore. And my my sister Karen would call every Sunday night. And so after my parents were both gone, and then my sister and I were talking, and I said, Yeah, I'm really gonna miss your calls every Sunday night. And so she still calls every Sunday night, and so it's nice that she's kind of my sounding board, and and same as my younger brother, my younger brother, we've probably probably have been the closest out of all my siblings because um we just grew up together and had a lot in common and talked a lot and visited a lot, and still to this day we talk at least once or twice a week. So um I would say all of my family has a had a great impact on me. And and then one of my teachers, um, she was a fifth grade teacher. She was her name was Mrs. Harr, and she still today was top-notch in my book, and she she uh lived across the street from me. So after school, I would a lot of times go and sit on her step with her, and we would just sit and talk about all different things. And so I just admired her quite a bit.
SPEAKER_03So after high school, did you go right to college to become a teacher? Did you take any time off?
SPEAKER_00Or no, I went right to college to Northern State in Aberdeen, and um I teaching was four years at that time, right?
SPEAKER_03Four-year degree. Okay.
SPEAKER_00But I had a double major. So I had um elementary education and special education with uh um in the area of learning disabilities. And in that time, you could teach, like if you had special education in any area, um, you could teach any area of special ed K through 12. Um, and that isn't the case anymore. But so when I first got my first job, which was a special education job in Beach, um, I had all like I had students that had learning disabilities, students who had um physical impairments, students who um had cognitive disabilities, and so I just I had all of the students at the high school, seven through twelve.
SPEAKER_03Okay, so how many years did you end up teaching before retiring? Um between how many years in education? Let's put yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I was gonna say between teaching and um being a principal, I was in 31 years.
SPEAKER_0331 years, okay. Do you feel like the school atmosphere has changed a lot since you first started teaching until you retired as a principal, and in what ways?
SPEAKER_00I think it has because I think um I feel like kids today, even towards the end of my career as a principal, kids today just had so much um for lack of a better term, I'm gonna say so much baggage that they were carrying around besides just being a kid in a school. Um I was as a principal, I I wasn't like a strict disciplinarian because I always felt like there's a reason that kids misbehave. And trying to solve that problem was always on my agenda. Like I wanted to know why that student was having the difficulties they were having. And if it was a medical issue, I probably couldn't do much about that. But if it was something that um it was a social issue or a family issue or whatever, I could get them help or try to seek help. But I just feel like kids have so much more that they're carrying around from the time now to back when I first started. And I could be wrong because I maybe wasn't looking at all those things because I was so worried about teaching academics. But I, as a principal, it just became, you know, because eventually kids sometimes, if they build that, if you build that trust with them, eventually they talk to you about what's going on. And when you find out, it's sometimes pretty um pretty heavy as to what they're doing. And then you understand. Why they can't concentrate or they can't sit still or things that worry them. Um, and that's it's a difficult thing for kids. It's a difficult thing for adults when they have those kinds of problems. I had kids that for a while were living in a van. I had kids that um mom was a heavy drug user and they didn't want to go to school because they wanted to stay home during the day to take care of mom to make sure that mom was going to be okay. Um, and when you start thinking about those kinds of things that weigh on those kids' minds, well, you understand why they don't get their homework done. I it's just I think kids have a lot going on in their life.
SPEAKER_03They're getting a lot of life lessons that most kids that age aren't getting. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And not just troublesome. I mean, there's kids that are so busy. I think kids are busier now than kids have ever been because they do so much more. There's so much more there that's offered to them. Yeah, yeah. Which isn't a bad thing.
SPEAKER_03But then they try and do too much or the parents sign them up for too much. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um, and so sometimes that becomes that becomes an issue too. But I, as far as uh academics go, I think that kids are learning more at an earlier age than they used to. Um I remember being in uh um when I was teaching, um, knowing that even when I was student teaching, because I did some student teaching in a first grade back in South Dakota, and um, the kindergarten teacher at that time was really just helping kids learn how to play with each other. And just those basic skills of being in school, and and it wasn't about hurry, let's teach them all the numbers and hurry, let's teach them how to read and hurry up, you know. Um, I even myself going to kindergarten, I barely, I kind of think we barely learned the alphabet in kindergarten, and we only had half days. Um, so yeah, that's right. Yeah. And our kindergarten was in a base, the uh church basement. And I remember us playing with the teacher bought in brought in big refrigerator boxes and built store, a store. And I remember us just playing for a good share of our day rather than so much academics. Now kids are going, you know, full-day kindergarten and five days a week.
SPEAKER_03So yeah. Okay, so you let's talk about you graduated from you said it was north northern state, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03What year did you graduate?
SPEAKER_001987.
SPEAKER_03Okay, and then where did you where did you first go for teaching? Or what was your first position?
SPEAKER_00My first position was in Beach. Okay. How long were you in Beach for? I was there from 1987 to 1996. You guys she was my teacher.
SPEAKER_03And my sheer leaning advisor when I was a seventh grade.
SPEAKER_00Probably seventh grader, yeah. Because I think I did I have you in eighth grade? I think I only had a lot of. Well, that's what I'm trying to think.
SPEAKER_03If you left between seventh and eighth, because yeah, because seventh is when we went up to the high school. Seventh and eighth, and then we then it was yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I I did, I taught special ed right away in Beach.
SPEAKER_03And then um You were my English teacher.
SPEAKER_00Yep. After somebody had moved away, and then I think the LaFoons had moved away, and she was teaching part-time. So I took her, I took her English, her her language arts classes, her seventh and eighth grade language arts classes, and a library media class I had.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_00And then um, whatever was left of the day, then I still did some special education. And then after Beach, where did you go? After Beach, I had started working on my master's degree. Well, I started when I was in Beach, and I had started working on my master's degree out of the University of Mary in Bismarck. And um I had a principal's job in Madora, and I uh well, I should say Billings County, because I had three schools. I had Medora and Freiburg, and then the school that's north of Belfield called Prairie Elementary. Um, I had those three schools, and I did that from like 1996 to 2000.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00Then after that. Then in 2000, I moved to Dickinson. Well, I was living in Dickinson. I drove back and forth when I was in Billings County, but um, then I went to Heart River Elementary in Dickinson, and I was there from 2000 to 2013, and then I started at a new school, Prairie Rose Elementary, and I was there from 2013 to 2018. And then you retired after that, and I retired after that.
SPEAKER_03Okay. So when you were in Beach, you used to coach as well. What sports have you all had a role in?
SPEAKER_00In Beach, I did um first of all, I started off with track, and I did the I coached the shot putters and discus, and then I went along with all the junior high or junior varsity. If they had track meets, I usually went with them. Um then when girls volleyball started, I can't even tell you what year that was, but when girls volleyball first started, um I didn't know much about volleyball in a professional or in a high school sport sense. I had played volleyball in college just as a intramural kind of type of volleyball, but um, so I didn't know much about that. But one of the coaches had talked to me and said, would you coach with me? Because she played volleyball in high school, and then um I knew the girls really, really well, being that I had worked with cheerleaders and track, and um, so then we were co-head coaches and started the volleyball program.
SPEAKER_03Um who was that that you was were co-coach with?
SPEAKER_00Um I can't think of her first name. Uh she was, I know she's divorced and remarried, but Mrs. Utech was her name.
SPEAKER_03Oh, Catherine, she's in Catherine now.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, she was my anatomy teacher. And now she's in Vila, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um but we coached together and it worked out really well. Um, and she taught me a lot about you know, coaching volleyball. And I think I taught her a lot about the essence of working with girls and how you have to watch those lines of, you know, you sometimes want to be friends with them, but yet you've got to still be the teacher and the professional and the coach. And so um we worked, we worked pretty well together.
SPEAKER_03Awesome. And then what else because you also were you an assistant coach with basketball, or were you the cheerleading advisor?
SPEAKER_00I didn't do anything with basketball. I was the again when the LaFoons left, Mrs. LaFoon was the cheerleading advisor. And I have no experience or nothing. I didn't know anything about cheerleading. And um, I had uh a number of girls come in and talk to me. Matter of fact, it was I think the head basketball cheerleaders, like it was um with Christina Dietz or any of them. No, no, it was I think it was uh like Christy Waldo and Jackie Waldall and um Brenda Meyer, some of those um came in and talked to me and said, please will you be and and then it was some wrestling cheerleaders, and I couldn't I couldn't tell you off the top of my head who all of those girls were, but they were the first group of girls because they needed somebody to go on the trips with them. And I went and talked to the superintendent and I said, There is no way that I can be a teacher and go to every sporting event because I would have had to go to basketball, wrestling, football, all of those. And if anything overlapped, you had to find somebody to substitute for you so that there was always an adult going along. Well, at that time they changed the rules so you didn't have to go to the out-of-town trips.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00And they said if there was an issue, then we would talk about it again. But so then I agreed to do it and I did it the whole time I was there. Like I said, I didn't really know anything about cheerleading, but I just nodded my head like when I thought a move was inappropriate and or something like that. But it was fun because I really got to know a good group of girls all every year. There was fun, you know, just talking to the girls and being with them after school.
SPEAKER_03What do you remember about the beach team that won the state tournament two years in a row?
SPEAKER_00Do you remember those two years? I do. I probably remember the very first year the most just because it was such a new exciting adventure. And um I just remember all the people that were there supporting that team. Um the excitement of winning the championship game. I couldn't tell you, like, I'd really be stretching my memory if you know to go back and and think exactly who played who and who won or who they beat, and those kinds of things. And um, and I'll always remember Mr. Waldo. You know, he Bob was uh an excellent coach, and he knew the one thing that I observed from Bob Waldo, and even just sitting and talking with him, is the fact that he knew people. I mean, he knew the essence of getting people to do things, he knew the essence of um working with personalities. Um, I know that with girls it can be hard because girls tend to run in groups and they like um one day they're liked by this click, and the other the next day they aren't. And so girls are emotional. And um, I just remember Bob saying, When you are off the court, I would like you to be family, but that might not happen all the time. But when you are on this court and in that locker room, you are family, and you will work together and we will achieve our goals if we can accomplish that. And so I will always remember that. And um, and he and he's right. I mean, I think he he knew the skills of basketball so well, and I think for years he could get people to and he knew how to encourage them to do the things that he wanted them to do and to have that hard work ethic on and off the court. And um that's kind of what I remember.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. What do you feel like was the hardest part about being a principal? Was it more the the difficulty seeing some of those kids in the situations that they were coming from? Was it more dealing with parents?
SPEAKER_00Being a principal was hard. It's probably one of the hardest jobs that there is around. And I say that from because I say that because you become the problem solver for everything, even if you don't know the answers. Um teachers might be coming to you and they have problems with parents or academics or students, and you might have parents coming at you because they're questioning what's going on and why this is happening or why that's happening. You have um kids who are coming to you because they've had discipline issues, or they've got other questions that need to be solved. You've got bus drivers, you've got kitchen workers, you've got, you know, it's it's just very difficult. And sometimes the stress of making all the decisions becomes very difficult, especially if you have to make those decisions like on the go. Because I'm like a I could make decisions on the go and in the heat of the moment, but I like to comp contemplate stuff, and I like to get, especially when I was working with kids, get the side from every angle I could. Like I'd listen to all the kids involved to try to figure out how the story really went. Yeah. Um, because kids see it in their eyes, and I'm not saying they were lying or anything, but they see it from their perspective, and sometimes they don't see everything. And same with teachers or same with even me. Um, I learned a lot about you know, stepping into um other people's jobs, like stepping into the role of the secretary when the secretary is not there and the principal has to answer the phone and do all the stuff that the secretary has to do. And um it was crazy. Like I was, I just had no clue until I actually sat there a day or two and helped out. Um, same with custodians. Sometimes our custodians were sick, and then you had to do what some of the custodians did, and so that was helping out during lunchtime, getting all the lunch tables ready, and sometimes it was going outside and shoveling snow because we got to have a clear path for the kids to, you know, and so all of that um you become Mr. or Mrs. Everything because you have to know um everybody's job, basically. And it's just it's just difficult. It was difficult some days, um, especially like you said, with kids too, dealing with their issues and how you could help them. I spent many uh sleepless nights trying to figure out what I was going to do, and um, I was more of a I always felt like teachers should be in charge of their academics because that's what they were trained to do. But I as a principal should be working with behaviors and working with kids, and even though I know academics is a big part of it, I just feel like that to me was not my strong suit, but working with behaviors was a stronger suit for me. Um, and not everybody's gonna agree with how you do things, and that's another thing. Yeah, because it seems like you can't please everybody and people get upset, and I'm I'm a people pleaser.
SPEAKER_03I like to make sure there's still rules and regulations and protocols, and yeah.
SPEAKER_00And being a principal like any other job is filled with government paperwork and all kinds of meetings. Um, so I you know, I just it's a hard job, and I hope I hope that people people feel that principals do their job, and I hope that principals do their do do their job for kids and teachers and that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_03So what were your reasons for retirement?
SPEAKER_00My biggest reason was probably was my parents. My dad at that time had a lot of issues, and I felt like I was taking off a work um a lot to get him to appointments, and I it just got to be too much. And so I decided that I would retire and I stayed home. And my like I said, my parents um lived with me. I bought a home where I lived in the basement level, and then my parents lived on the main level. Um, and right away my dad wasn't, I mean, he was frail and had some things going on, but he could take care of himself. Um, but I had some health issues back then. I ended up um having some issues with my back, and then that turned into discovering that I had some issues with um my thyroid, and that ended up having I ended up having thyroid cancer, and so had two different surgeries. Um so that first year after retirement wasn't a very good year because I was healing myself, so to speak. And then afterwards it became more and more taken care of, um, especially my dad at that time. Um, and I did take care of my dad the whole time he was at home. Um, he never went into a nursing home, he died at our home. Um, the very last week that he was alive, I was at the point of where I just couldn't lift him anymore. And he couldn't help me to um sit up and to stand up. And so I had told our hospice nurse at that time, I said, I don't know, I think we're gonna have to put my dad in uh in a home because I said I can't physically do this anymore. And and emotionally, it too was a whole that's a whole long story itself. But um, but it got to be where the hospice nurse then said to me, He said, Sherry, um, I think if you can hang in there this week, that's all your dad will have. He'll just he'll he'll only make it till he goes. And the hospice nurse said, I I think he'll just make it till Thursday. And um my brother at that time, the whole thing of COVID had started, and they didn't have a name for it, and they didn't know quite what it was at the very beginning. And so it was at a time where um, like the my brother works at Eighth Hardware, and they had their older people take a couple of weeks off because they didn't want their older people or anybody who was susceptible to getting sick easily. Um they had them take off. Well, my brother um has a compromised immune system, and so he was allowed to take off. So that helped me because then he helped me like lift my dad and move my dad around in that last week.
SPEAKER_03And so what can I ask real quick, what uh when did your dad pass away?
SPEAKER_00Um in 2020.
SPEAKER_03Do you remember the month?
SPEAKER_00It was May.
SPEAKER_03Okay, so May of 2020 was when your dad passed away, which was right two months after COVID hit. So what were the rules with the funeral and stuff?
SPEAKER_00We at first we were told that we could only have 10 people at the funeral, and we were told that we were not allowed to have it in the church. We had we had to have it at the funeral home, and we had to wear masks. Well, we thought that was pretty silly because if it was just us, we had all been together anyway. So there was no point in really, we weren't gonna expose each other because we were with each other the whole time. I mean, my all except my sister who lives in Colorado. My brother, who lives in Oregon, all of us were there when my dad died. I mean, we were right by his bedside. So we talked the funeral director into allowing grandchildren and spouses and everybody to like we just could have our immediate family, but not um any outside guests or friends or anything like that. Um, which I was really I had mixed feelings about. Like at first I was really kind of upset about it and upset that it we couldn't have it in the church because my dad, especially as he got older, I mean, he read the Bible every night and he um he just loved Jesus. I mean, he he did, and that was always a big part of his life. Um, and so I was kind of upset about that. But then when we did have the after the funeral was over and we went home, it was kind of nice that we had just that small, immediate family because you didn't have to worry about being strong for the guests and the others who are there. And um, you miss being able to listen to their stories or listen to you know some of the things that they have to say about your dad, but at the same time it was small and it was intimate, and um, we could just go home and be with each other, yeah. Yeah, and not have to worry about all the other stuff stuff. Um, my dad was buried in the veterans cemetery in Mandan, and so the funeral was one day, and then the burial was the next day.
SPEAKER_03So and then how about your mom? Because you also cared for her. So your dad passed away first. Okay, and then how about your mom?
SPEAKER_00My mom passed away two years later. Um, my mom had lots of all her life she had lots of health issues, but she was one of the strongest women I know. Like she she battled through so many surgeries and so many different things, and I just I mean, sitting by her side all the time and watching her go through like one time she had to have a surgery where she had plates and screws put into her neck and her upper upper spine, and she was in such pain, like, and I can handle a lot. I didn't think I could, but I I could, and I could handle a lot medically. Um, but watching her like right after she got out of surgery and was awake and was so much in pain, I had to leave the room because I I couldn't handle that um until they finally got her comfortable, where you know it was more like tolerable to her. Um, and then she ended up going to after she got out of the hospital, she had to go into the nursing home for about a month to do her rehab and all of that during that time. And and that she was pretty miserable because my mom and dad really weren't they were each other's best friend and best friends, and they really didn't do anything apart from each other, and so um that was really hard on my mom and my dad because my mom being in the nursing home and my dad being at home with me, it was hard on in even though like I'd go to work, I'd drop my dad off at the nursing home, and then I'd come pick him up at noon hour and let him go home for a little while, and then my brother would come pick my dad up and take him back to the nursing home so he could be with my mom for the afternoon, and so it was a lot for him, or yeah, at that time, and and he was well at that time when she first had that surgery, but um eventually my mom ended up having um um like mini strokes and so and they didn't really, I guess they didn't really tell us that that's what was going on. Um, she was having bouts of times where she would just kind of, I didn't know if she was having seizures or what it was, because sometimes she would just like blank out and um she would like kind of fall in her um walker that she had, or she would tell me, like, Sherry, you gotta help me sit down, and then she would sit in her chair and she'd kind of fall to the side. Um, and then she'd come to again. So I didn't really know what was going on, and we had talked to the doctors about it, and but nobody really told us it was mini strokes um until like probably a month um before my mom died. Um, my mom did end up having a um one night my mom was um in, I had tucked her into her bed and I was out watching TV and she kept calling me. And so I went in there and I said, What's wrong, mom? And she said, They're coming for me, they're coming for me. And I said, Who's coming for you? And she said, There's two men. She said, Call David, which who David's my brother, talk, call David, so he should come over so they don't get you. And I said, Mom, nobody's gonna get me, nobody's gonna get you, you're okay. So I was trying to calm her down. She went back to sleep, and then she woke up a little bit later again. Same thing, like, Sherry, you gotta call the police, you gotta, you gotta make sure that you're safe, you gotta, you gotta make sure they don't get you. And um, she went on and on about that. And so I thought that's very odd for my mom because for her to carry a story over and over, like after she's already slept. Um, but the third time it happened, and she had to get up and use the restroom. And so I walked her to the bathroom and got her back in bed, and she still was talking about it. And I said, I said, Mom, I said, let's, I'm gonna give you one of your anxiety medications, and then maybe that will help you sleep, calm you down and help you sleep. And um, in I'm not gonna lie, in my head, like after I had given her that anxiety medication, I had kept thinking, like, these men that are coming to get her, like, is is this it? Like, is is this the angels, or you know, who are these men? And um the next morning, or when I had given her that medicine too, I had said, I'll just come in, I'll turn everything off, I'll come in and I'll just lay beside you, and that way I can hear you if you need anything. And so I laid beside her and I fell asleep there. And I woke up the next morning and I thought, my mom's, you know, when you spend that much time with your parents and you know how they breathe, actually. Um, she sounded like she was breathing different, and she was very tired. And anytime I gave her that anxiety medicine, it really knocked her out, and she always was very groggy, and so I could hear her breathing different, so I took her um blood pressure, and that was fine. I took her pulse, and that was fine. Um, I kind of tried to wake her up, and she was kind of uh that groggy sound, you know. So I called my brother and he came over, and this was early in the morning. I called my brother, he came over, and he did the same thing, took her pulse, took her blood pressure, everything was good. And I said, She's just kind of sounds different. And he said, Well, he said, let her sleep a little bit more, and he said, Try this all again. And if you don't get a response, he said, then call the ambulance. And so I hurry up, got dressed, and got everything ready just in case I had to call the ambulance. And so tried waking her up again, and I still got that groggy sounding person, and she didn't really wake up very much, other than that groggy noise. And so then I call I did call the ambulance, and I I'm sure I sounded scared because I was the lady said it's okay, you know, because I said, I don't know if I should be calling the ambulance right now or not. Because then I kind of told her the story, and um, but she did have a massive stroke, and she um the doctor said, you know, there's really at her age, um, you could try to we could try to fly her to Bismarck, and he said, but there's no guarantees, and um, she could bleed out. Um, so we called our my brother came up and to the hospital and we called all my siblings and we just made a decision together that we would just let it let it go. And um, so they were gonna put us in a hospice at the nursing home, but they didn't have any room, and so we had to stay at the hospital then. Um my mom ended up dying on November 1st. Um, she on October 31st they said um that they had a nursing, they had space for us in the nursing home and they'd be transporting her. Or no, I'm sorry, that was November 1st, that they would be transferring her on November 2nd. And um, she ended up dying that night, November 1st. And I said, I said to my siblings, I said, I think she willed it so that she didn't have to go because she never ever wanted to go to the nursing home.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03But and so what what were the cause of death for your dad and your mom?
SPEAKER_00Well, for my dad, it was um, I can't even remember what exactly they put down, but for him, he had had uh my dad had had a tumor um behind his ear and he had it surgically removed and had to have radiation for 12 weeks. Um eventually that radiation we feel are the doctors felt like it affected his um salivary glands, and so that he was having trouble swallowing. Um, and in the long run, he just couldn't eat anymore. So it's I don't I don't know what the exact cause was. I mean, I don't remember anymore. And my mom was from I mean, hers was from the stroke.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And how old were they? Both of them were 92. Wow.
SPEAKER_03Is it something that you look back on with regret at all? Like retiring to care for them? Is it something you wish you had done earlier, retired even earlier, or anything like that?
SPEAKER_00No, I think I always believe that God's got a reason for us to do things that we do. And um, I I would not have done anything different. Um as hard as it was in the beginning, it wasn't so bad, but as my dad got more frail, couldn't eat, so we were feeding him, we were um assisting him in the bathroom, I shaved him every morning, I um it was just it was harder. And my brothers and sisters all would come every once in a while and step in and help. And they were like, How do you do this day after day? And some days I didn't know because, like with my dad, he um I think had sundowners, so he was awake at night a lot, and especially in the last few weeks, he would scream out at night. And um, I actually had put my mom in a different bedroom, and so then I stayed in that bedroom with my dad, and he would scream out at night. So I stayed awake almost all night long. And um, when I talked to the hospice nurse, she would say, you know, give him give him his medicine and he'll he'll we hope we'll calm down. But she had given me some ideas of other things to do. And so we would randomly just through them through the night, we'd randomly pray the Lord's Prayer because he would stop screaming and would follow that. Like he would say it with me. Um, sometimes I would put music on and sing alongside him till one night and my dad, and this is kind of one of those funny memories that I'll always have. But one night I was laying with my dad and I was uh had the my phone in between us, and um I was playing gospel music, and I don't I can't remember what song was on, but I was kind of singing softly along with the music and had been singing several songs, and my dad eventually said, Will you shut up? And he hadn't spoken any words for a long time, and I was like, Oh my gosh, you spoke. I didn't think I was that bad of a singer, but apparently he didn't want me singing, but um but yeah, I wouldn't have changed it. It was hard, it was emotionally taxing, and um I had been around I had been around a room where um in the same room when two uncles died, and I believe that was God preparing me for being with my parents when they passed away, I feel like, um, because I had never really both my grandparents and are well both my grand and grandpa on my mom's side and my grandpa on my dad's side had passed away before I was even born. Or I shouldn't say my grandpa on my dad's side was alive till I was five, and then he passed away. So all I really ever knew was my grandma. So I hadn't really been around death very much at all until my grandma died when I was about 27. And um, so I I am so appreciative of healthcare professionals. Like I used to be that person that when I was in a hospital, like, why can't they get here sooner? Why can't they like we we put the buzzer on, like they're not coming, you know?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I totally get why they might not be coming because everything is very time consuming. Um, you know, getting them a shower, bathing them, dressing them, all of that takes time, and they're doing that for multiple people. And so I just I commend anybody who works in the healthcare system, you know, in nursing homes and hospitals, that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_03Do you have any unique talents that people would be inter or be surprised to hear about you?
SPEAKER_00I don't think I have any unique talents other than I I feel like I'm creative um in a sense that like when I'm with kids, little kids, especially my nieces and my nephews, they could tell you like I would just make stuff up on the minute I would tell stories. Um and they'd laugh and laugh and laugh about my stories, but I was just making them up as I go. And if they'd tell me to repeat one, I could never repeat it because I didn't ever remember exactly what I said or um and I do like uh writing. I I do like to sit down and and write. Um I'm hoping someday maybe it's kind of on my bucket list to write a children's story or stories. I don't know if I'll get that done or not, but I would like to give it a try just for the fun of it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And if it sells, it sells. And if it doesn't, it doesn't. I don't care. It's just like something I accomplished.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely. Yeah. How many people could say they wrote a book?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Right. What's an important life lesson that you've learned?
SPEAKER_00Um, I think that probably the biggest lesson that I will ever know is or ever learned and will keep with me forever is just not to assume. Um sometimes you look at people and you want to make a judgment about who they are, what they're doing, or how they've lived their life. And it's just not right to assume that because when you find out sometimes what's really gone on, um it just has a whole different impact on you. Um so I try to always be as non-j non-judgmental as I can. Um, I'm not perfect because I can't say that I always am non-judgmental, but I try my best to not be because of that.
SPEAKER_03If you could go back to any stage of your life, a particular memory, particular date, what would it be and why?
SPEAKER_00Hmm. That one's the tough one for me because I think of funny stories, and I think like, oh, I probably shouldn't have done that. And I think like, well, what if I like probably did something different that day? And so I mean, I think about those stories, but I I guess if I could go back, it would probably be um spending more time like when we had a time when we had all of our family together, um, whether that be Christmas or Thanksgiving or just a summer time when we had reunions or whatever, um just because it would be fun to have everybody again, because as you get older, um those things kind of fade away. You don't, you know, you're missing when my mom and dad passed away. We still, as siblings, I and I will say our siblings have been close all our lives, and I think we'll always be that way. Um, but things are different because they're not everybody's not coming home to see mom and dad anymore. And so sometimes Christmas isn't the same, or Thanksgiving isn't the same, and they have families of their own too, and grandkids and all of that, and so um it's just different. Holidays are different, and I miss I miss the holidays from when we were kids.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. Is there anything you always wished you did but never got around to doing you had wish you had done?
SPEAKER_00Probably um I guess probably the most I it isn't such a wish that I had done, but I think I would have taken more time for myself. Um I spent so much time dedicated to my jobs and my work. Um I spent hours doing that kind of thing and not taking care of myself all the time. Or maybe um, you know, I always regret that I don't have didn't get married and don't have kids, and um, and I think that's still why I have a love of kids, is because I I don't have that in my life, and so I that's why I take care of I love taking care of my nieces and nephews, and I love, you know, I just got done taking care of a friend of mine, her little boy, for the last four years, and he's going to school now, and so um it's different just not having those little kids around. And I, you know, I don't have grandkids, and so I just borrow everybody else's.
SPEAKER_03And you know, people need that, and you need that too. Yeah, it's great. It's great. If you could go back and give yourself a piece of advice, what would it be? Would it be the whole take care of yourself or
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think that take care of yourself. Um I think I probably wish that I, if I could give myself advice is not to be so scared of things. Like when I was younger, like I didn't I didn't go out for basketball because I just didn't think I'd be that good at it. So I never went out for basketball. And I probably would have I played it in um I don't know, fifth and sixth grade maybe. And I probably would have liked it if I had stuck with it, but I just didn't. And um I wish that, like, oh, if we would have had softball as a high school sport, or if we would have had volleyball as a high school sport, um, I think I would have gone for gone out for those things. But there were some things that I just shied away from because I was um afraid of failing. And I just admire so many people that can just like, I'm gonna give it a try and regardless. And you know, they don't have that fear, and I wish I would have been a little braver, I think.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. What's your all-time favorite song?
SPEAKER_00Um, well, pretty much anything by the Eagles, they are my favorite group, but I would say, um, of course, I can't think of the name of it right now.
SPEAKER_03But because we put you on the spot.
SPEAKER_00Um Take It Easy is one of my favorite ones from the Eagles, but there's another one that's my favorite, but I can't think of it right now. But I could probably sing word for word every song that the Eagles if they came on the radio.
SPEAKER_03What's one thing you want people to remember about you when you're gone?
SPEAKER_00I think that I cared. Um and that I was a person that showed kindness. Um that I loved my Lord, that I loved kids. Um and I put my family, you know, my family and my friends were always foremost in my in my mind and in my actions. Like I I just loved caring for others.
SPEAKER_03Are there any other memories that you want to share?
SPEAKER_00Can't think of anything right now.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_03Well, thank you. You're welcome. I appreciate you doing it because we have a lot of fun at work, but no, we get to know you even better.
SPEAKER_00I'm not very interesting. Oh, that is one interesting fact is that now that I've been working for Dr. Kylie in the chiropractor's office, I learned how to become a chiropractic assistant. I'm still learning how to scan, so I guess you're never too old to learn new things.
SPEAKER_03So still get to hold babies at the end.
SPEAKER_00And I get to hold babies and play with kids. Yep, I love that. Awesome.
SPEAKER_03So thank you.
SPEAKER_00Yep, thank you.
SPEAKER_03Thanks 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.