I’m looking forward to February 22, 2023 because then I will be 88, and I love elevens. 88, 77, 66, 55, all the way down. They’re the best. [My daughter is about to turn 11; she’s looking forward to it as well.] Although, my great aunt, when I was visiting her in California, once said to me that there’s nothing wrong with me but 88-ness. So that gives me another thing to think about. [You could make up a…
I think of it as an honor to have worked for this particular person. He was interesting because he was well-read and very knowledgeable and he liked to talk. We always kind of joked around—not with him—but between ourselves. He was the kind of guy you would stick in a nickel and get a dollar’s worth back. You just couldn’t shut him off, he would go and go. I later learned he had a photographic memory, and he could just…
A person who was very important to me was my Sunday school teacher. She—it was an older woman—she was so spiritual. I don’t think I’ve ever known a woman that was more spiritual. It was in a little country church, and so the class was not divided age-wise so much, it was a pretty wide range of ages. We just all held her in the highest regard. She knew her Bible. [And you didn’t listen, did you?] Of course I…
I really liked when I was five—four, five, and six. When I was younger, I was really really wondering what it would be like to be older. I still wonder about that. [One day you’ll find out, so enjoy every day you have now.] I’m really curious–are you kids looking forward to being older, or is now the best, most fun time? Do you have an age you want to be?] Well, I don’t know. Now that we’re in junior…
Well, I graduated in 1949, and some of my friends had gone to college, and a lot of them were getting married, and I was working in a store. I decided I’d go in the Navy because I couldn’t afford to go to college, but if I went into the Navy I would be able to go to college. I had a fantastic time in the Navy. I fell in love with dancing. I did my job during the day,…
My mother was the singer in our family. She had a lovely, lovely soprano voice. She could just get those high notes light as a feather. She’d sing in church and for funerals. As a little kid, I sang too. I sang outside, it was a farm so animals, maybe cows, heard me, whatever. There was a windbreak; it was a grove of pines that my grandfather had planted to save us from the northerly wind. I would go out…
May 21, 2015, 8:49 a.m. I got this text. I had the worst case of poison ivy I ever had in my life. I was all broke out, just nasty, and I’m sitting at home, sitting in my recliner, can’t move or do anything, just let it ooze and heal and do what it can do. In that moment I thought, you know, I need to get people praying for me. So I started sending emails and text messages out…
[What was the best moment or period in your life?] I think that’s a pretty easy question for me. I think right now. You know, I’ve had a good time all my life, never had any real problems to speak of, got a pretty decent education I thought, and I grew up in basically a small town farm community in Iowa–in O’Brian County. So I mean, it was a free life. My parents didn’t worry about where I was. You couldn’t…
1. Did you know parents didn’t worry about you then? We were never told to be home from school at a certain time. We would meander a different way home from school all the time. We knew every way. And we went outside to play. We knew to be home for supper, we better be there for suppertime. 2. We did the same thing. I lived on a farm and we just played. We went out in the woods, we…
Is anyone familiar with persimmons? [I have a friend in Indiana and they go to persimmons festivals and stuff.] The ones in the store are from California, and they’re big and round and perfect, but that’s not the way they are in Indiana. And you don’t eat a persimmon until it falls off the tree. If you eat a green one, it’ll pucker your mouth like nothing you ever—anyway, when we were little, the woman that lived next door had…