Copyright Š 2016 by Susan Davis dba SGD Publishing Company All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form. Cover and Book Design by Jim L. Friesen Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2016952644 ISBN: 978-0-692-76717-7 Printed in the United States of America by Mennonite Press, Inc., Newton, KS www.mennonitepress.com
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Dedication Thanks to God, the author of love. He has blessed my husband Ben and me with a long, happy marriage.
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Introduction
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y fourth book is more than an old-fashioned love story featuring my husband Ben and me. It contains many nostalgic stories based upon our experiences, which took place long before we knew one another. Some of the names of the people included in this book have been changed to shield their identity. While there are an extraordinary number of people in this world to fall in love with, it amazes me why certain individuals are drawn to each other. When I was a senior in high school, our teacher said to the class, “Some of you will never find anyone who is attracted to you.” Immediately, I thought, that just might be me. After all, why would someone want to marry me? I wasn’t anything special. However, my goal in life wasn’t to be a career woman, travel worldwide, be famous or any of those things. I could only picture myself getting married and raising a family. Perhaps that is because Mom was my example. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind how important her daily contributions to our large family truly were.
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At a young age, Ben often said, “You have to have a hole in your head to get married.” And he meant it! By the time he reached high school, girls were a lot more interesting to him; but he was in the same boat as I was. Getting a date appeared to be much easier for others in our age group than it was for us. Eventually, our lives turned around in a very wonderful way. When Ben and I were engaged, we attended a friend’s wedding and remember it like yesterday. The priest looked directly at the bride and told her, “If Jim tells you on your tenth anniversary that he loves you just as much as he did on your wedding day, you have my permission to pick up a baseball bat and hit him over the head with it. Your love should grow – not stay the same.” While the priest’s words of wisdom were meant for the young bride and groom, they touched Ben and me in a very meaningful way. At that moment, it didn’t seem possible to love each other more than we currently did. Now, after 40 years of marriage, we fully understand the powerful words he conveyed to them. Simply put, a plant either grows, or it dies without the proper nutrients. Love is the same way. After a certain point, most people don’t like having birthdays. It means adding another year onto their age along with more aches and pains. But love doesn’t have to grow old. It can and should grow stronger! By Susan Davis – also author of the books… Small Farm & Big Family Ancestry’s Journey Bushels Of Nostalgia
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Contents Introduction...................................................................... v 1. A Common Beginning................................................1 2. Starting School...........................................................7 3. Learning Lifelong Lessons.......................................13 4. Around the Block......................................................21 5. Cowboy and Cowgirl................................................29 6. Fresh From the Farm................................................35 7. Signs of Growing Up................................................41 8. Learning to Drive.....................................................47 9. School and Part-time Jobs........................................55 10. Dances and First Date..............................................63 11. College Life As a Bachelor........................................71 12. Full-time Jobs and Leaving Home............................79 13. Blind Date................................................................87 14. Meeting the Parents..................................................95 15. The Engagement Ring............................................103 16. Ironing Out the Details...........................................111 17. Wedding Day..........................................................119 18. After the Honeymoon.............................................125 19. Filling the Nest.......................................................133 20. Moving to Kansas...................................................141 21. Growing Old Together............................................149
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A Common Beginning
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n an early Monday morning in the fall of 1952, a dark-haired baby girl cried her first cries. The parents of the newborn named their second daughter Susan; but almost before the ink was dry on her birth certificate, they began calling her Suz. Mom knew the doctor would likely keep them in the hospital for six days. It was just standard practice after giving birth. She shared a room with three other mothers at a cost of only $4 per day. The nursery was full of babies, one of them being her niece who was born just the day before Suz. Her sister-in-law was a patient in another room down the hall. Mom and Dad had no idea that their new daughter barely missed sharing the nursery with her future husband Ben. He was born at St. Benedict Hospital in Sterling, Colorado, just 18 days prior. As newborns, they had taken their first breaths of life under the same roof. The three1
Lovebirds For Life story, red brick building had a large cross prominently displayed on its rooftop. Benedictine Sisters of Sioux City, Iowa, opened the 50-bed hospital in 1929, but not all of the nurses at the hospital were Catholic nuns. The nuns were dressed in white floor-length habits. The hospital’s superintendent was Sister Mary Francis. She was the one who filled out and signed Ben and Suz’s birth certificates. The official documents included pertinent information about their arrival into this world. When the doctor released Ben and his mom from their hospital stay, they went home to the small town of Fleming 20 miles away, and he began his life as the son of a Burlington Northern railroader. His father worked on a section gang manually repairing tracks for a living. Ben joined a brother who was ten and a sister who was nine. On the day Suz and her mom left the hospital, she began her growing up years as a farm girl, living near Cedar Creek and the South Platte River seven miles north of Sterling. And so the two babies went their separate ways. Suz was just a little over two when Mom once again was a patient in the maternity ward at St. Benedict Hospital. This time, she gave birth to a son they named Tom. A couple of years later, Suz was playing on the kitchen floor with her older sister Delores when Mom heard a vehicle drive up. She glanced out the window, and there was a sense of urgency in her voice as she said, “Hurry up and get in the bedroom closet!” Suz had no idea why they had to get inside the small, dark quarters. Mom crouched down beside them in the cramped space, and she was holding Tom. She was trying her best to keep him from crying. “Be quiet,” she whispered to her daughters. “I saw the Watkins man driving into the yard. We’re pretending like we’re not home, because I don’t want to buy anything from him today.” 2
A Common Beginning After what seemed like forever, Mom whispered, “I’m going to see if he’s gone.” She quietly opened the closet door and tiptoed across the room. “You can come out now,” she announced. Suz was happy to get out of the stuffy, black-asnight closet. She didn’t like hiding in there like a scared little mouse. Her big, brown eyes had to adjust to the bright sunlight, streaming in through the bedroom window. It was a gorgeous afternoon, and she couldn’t resist going outside to play. There was always plenty of activity around the farmyard. They had chickens, cattle, pigs, workhorses, cats and a dog. She didn’t have to learn what sounds those animals made from a book; she got to experience it firsthand. Their house was surrounded by fields on all sides. About a mile north of their home were two tall silo-like structures. When she asked Dad what it was, he replied, “It’s a hay mill. They make pellets there from fresh cut hay, and sell it as feed for cattle, horses and rabbits.” “Why don’t we feed pellets to our animals?” she asked. “We raise our own feed for them. No need to buy anything,” Dad replied simply. Suz thought the light green smoke that billowed out of the top of the hay mill looked very pretty against a bright blue sky. If the wind was out of the north, it carried the strong odor to her nose, and she kind of liked it. But Delores had an entirely different opinion, “I don’t like that smell! I think it stinks!” Mom’s reply to her comment was, “You just have to put up with it.” But that wasn’t going to be the case for long. Several months after Suz turned four, the family moved to Dad’s boyhood farm, which was seven miles away from her first 3
Lovebirds For Life home. Shortly thereafter, Mom had another baby at St. Benedict Hospital, and they named her Patty. Suz wasn’t the only one who experienced moving at a young age. By age four, Ben’s family had moved from Fleming to several places in Nebraska before settling down permanently in Holyoke, Colorado. His father had finally built up enough seniority, so that other workers couldn’t bump him out of his current job. While Ben adjusted to life in another small town, Suz got used to living at a new farm. One calm evening, Dad decided it would be a good time to burn some dry weeds. Even though it was on the chilly side, she went outside and ran around in the charred area where the fire had already burned. She couldn’t get too close to the dancing, reddishorange flames because of the heat they gave off. As the oncoming blackness of night set in, the contrast of colors was spectacular. She was having a great deal of fun, but it was time for bed. In the middle of the night, Suz woke up screaming. She was convinced that bees were stinging her. Mom rushed into the bedroom, checked under the covers and assured her there weren’t any. After touching her hot forehead, she said, “You’ve got a fever. I’m going to give you some baby aspirins to bring it down.” The medicine worked, and she didn’t have anymore bad dreams that night. The next day when Mom took Suz to the doctor, he said her tonsils needed to come out or else they would continue to bother her. He scheduled a surgery time at St. Benedict Hospital to remove them. On the morning that the operation was to take place, the family drove into town. Suz knew something scary was about to happen but just didn’t understand it completely. Dad reassured her, “I’m going to stay at the hospital with you. After the surgery is over, Mom will take your sisters 4
A Common Beginning and brother home.” All too soon, they were at the hospital that was alive with activity. It struck Suz odd that the nun nurses were dressed in all white habits. She had an aunt who was a nun, but she dressed in black except where white framed her forehead and around her neck. Her thoughts were interrupted when a nurse began pushing her down a long hallway on a gurney to the operating room. She watched the walls go swiftly by and got kind of dizzy. The last thing she remembered was when they gave her some ether, so she wouldn’t feel a thing. Meanwhile, her family went to the waiting room. About 45 minutes later, the surgeon gave them a good report. All had gone well with the surgery. Later that day, Aunt Clara came to visit her in the hospital. When a nurse brought in a dish of vanilla ice cream, Suz wondered how she was going to eat ice cream in bed. “I’ll feed it to you,” Aunt Clara offered. Suz’s throat was quite sore, but the cold made it feel better. Deep down inside she had a warm feeling, and it was because of the special attention she was getting from her aunt. The day quickly wore into night and Suz felt safe, because Dad was staying in the room with her. As she slowly drifted off to sleep, she didn’t realize that he probably wouldn’t get much rest sitting in a chair. Come the next morning, Dad was already awake when she woke up. A nurse came in and wanted her to drink a glass of orange juice. It definitely didn’t agree and up it came. Suz had no idea that the lingering effect of the ether was probably the reason why. She just hated the fact that she’d made a mess on the floor, and the kind nurse had to clean it up. Shortly thereafter, Dad surprised her by saying, “You’ll 5
Lovebirds For Life be okay by yourself for a little while. I’m going to walk to church, but I’ll be back.” And she knew he’d keep his promise, which he did. Later in the day, the doctor released her. Mom and the rest of the family had driven into town to pick them up. The first place Dad drove after leaving the hospital was to the grocery store for a carton of ice cream. “What kind do you want?” he asked. “Chocolate!” Delores piped up immediately. It thrilled Suz when Dad didn’t go for that answer. “Nope, Suz is the sick one, so she gets to choose.” Now came the hard part…she liked both vanilla and strawberry. Everyone was waiting for her answer. “Strawberry,” she replied in a raspy tone. And that’s what he bought. Then, it was home to recuperate at the farm she would grow to love. Around the same time that Suz had her tonsils removed, Ben was admitted to the Holyoke hospital to go through an identical operation. He distinctly remembers a nurse telling him, “I need you to count backwards from ten.” He was perplexed, so she kindly helped him out by saying, “Ten.” He repeated what she said. Once again, he had no idea what number came next, and she told him, “Nine.” The ether took effect, and the lights went out. When Ben came to, he was totally confused about where he was. “You’re in your hospital room,” Mom told him. “The doctor carried you in here after your surgery. He even put your tonsils in this jar, so you could see what they look like.” Ben blue eyes lit up. Like a typical young boy, he declared, “I’m going to keep them forever!”
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