Helen Sigle Gossett

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Helen Sigle Gossett

The Story of My Life

by Helen Fern Sigle Gossett

I was born August 29, 1911, on a farm southwest of Hunter, Kans. known as the “Sid Tuttle Farm.” My parents were Christoph Frederick Sigle and Lovie Mae Sperry Sigle.

We lived on this rented farm until I was 6 years old. I remember so many things during those six years. I remember how my older sister, Cleo, and myself were hustled off to our Uncle's home during the birth of my brother Harvey, also again when my sister Wilma was born. Those days it wasn't “proper” for children to know any thing about pregnancy or giving birth. Anything that related to sex in anyway was a deep dark secret----just for adults!

Cleo and I were taught many things during those 6 years. We learned to ride horses, milk a cow, hoe weeds in the garden, wash and dry dishes and I'm sure many other jobs, such as, carry out trash, gather eggs, feed the chickens and ducks, and run errands for our parents.

I remember when my father developed appendicitis. It was late one evening when the doctor and others rushed him to the train in Lucas, Ks. Since there were very few cars at that time every one traveled by horse and buggy. So it was a slow process getting my father to the train. On the way to Kansas City Dad commenced to feel a lot better and he wanted to go back home. The doctor (who went along) said “No way! We must quickly get you to the hospital for the operation or it will be too late. Your appendix has burst and gangrene will set in.” Which it did. Before he could have the surgery, we almost lost him. Mother stayed with him during his hospital stay. Cleo was 5 years old, I was 3, and Harvey was a tiny baby---we stayed at home in the care of my Aunt Bessie. It was a happy day when Mother and Dad returned home.

The night they took my father to the hospital, I was playing on the back porch. I fell off, and as I fell, my right hand went inside a bucket that was sitting there with a broken cup in it, and it cut my wrist severely. I wear a scar on my wrist to this very day.

I also remember several tramps that passed through our area and how frightened my Mother always was when they would stop at our house. “Tramps” were men that walked through the country looking for work and when they were hungry they would stop at homes along the way and ask for food. We never turned them away. One time Mother fixed a large bowl (stone crock) of bread and milk and gave it to one tramp. He sat on the back porch while he ate. After he went on his way, we couldn't find the spoon he used and Mother just “knew” he stole it. But several weeks later it was discovered lying under the porch where it had fallen through a crack in the boards.

One time a touring car, loaded with a man, woman, boy and girl came rolling into our driveway. Everyone got out and went in the house except the 13-year-old boy. After awhile he got restless waiting and got up and sat on the top of the back seat---you see the car had the top down. This boy was Orthy Chester Gossett, who became my husband some 20 years later. The family had come from Oklahoma to visit us. Orthy's mother was my mother's cousin.

I experienced my first schooling while living on this farm. My Uncle Doyle (Mother's brother) was my first teacher. He lived south of us on a small acreage. He drove a horse hitched to a one-seated buggy (with a top) and he would stop in on his way to the Green Valley School (where he taught) to pick up Cleo, as she was a regular student. I was allowed to go only part time since they felt 5 years was too young for kids to go to school. Kids usually started school at 6 years of age and often it was 7 years of age. I probably wouldn't have been allowed to go even part time if the teacher hadn't been my uncle. But he babied me. I was more or less a visitor, but the next year I went full time and our teacher was Myrtle Miller. And a strict one, she was!

Whenever we needed anything from the towns nearby, we had to drive a team of horses hitched to a lumber wagon or a surrey. The lumber wagon had a seat at the front large enough for two people. Our parents would sit on the wooden seat and we children would sit on a blanket inside the wagon. There were three of us children that had red hair and real fair skin, so Mother always had to take extra care so we didn't sunburn. She said when we were babies she would hold us on her lap and hold a parasol over us. It took quite sometime to travel by surrey or wagon to towns such as Hunter or Lucas; and if Dad needed to go to the courthouse, or our bank, then it was a longer trip to Lincoln and/or Sylvan Grove. Those days it was unheard of to have babysitters, so whenever the parents went, so did the children until we were grown up enough to stay alone.

In 1917 my father bought a farm from Oscar Stewart. It was about six miles south of Hunter, Ks. He built us a new two-story frame house. The house had four rooms: two bedrooms upstairs, with a kitchen and living room on the first floor. The stairway was on one side of the kitchen and under the stairway they built a large pantry. It was on this farm where my brother Richard and his twin brother were born. The twin died at birth.

I loved to go to the fields with my father and I'd sit on the ground at the end of the listed rows and wait for him to make a “round,” as we called it. He would list a row of corn to the other side of the field and a row coming back, so every “round” was two rows of corn. It was fun to walk barefoot in the freshly plowed fields and feel the damp soil between my toes. My father was a good farmer and was prosperous until our nation went to war (World War I) in 1917. Then it was difficult to make money. We were limited in some of the things we needed to buy also. My father didn't have to go to war because he had a family and was a farmer. But he just missed having to go, even so. They needed more soldiers, so they started calling up the farmers. His number had been drawn, but before he was called up, the war ended.

We lived on this farm for five years and we children attended a one-room school-Cedron School. During those five years, we had Ina Altman and Florence Leach for teachers. Florence and her parents and sister Inez lived one mile east of us, so they were our neighbors. During our noon hour at school, Florence decided to teach all us pupils how to waltz. She played the old pump organ for our music. After a few lessons, our parents found out we were learning to dance---so---that was the end of our dance lessons. As I grew up we were not allowed to dance, play cards, etc. But, even so, we always had lots of fun.

We played all kinds of games, using sticks, cans, balls, or whatever we could find. I remember one game that we enjoyed until our parents made us stop; they were afraid we'd hurt each other. It was called “Shinney.” Two would play. Each had a big stick or club, then we'd put an empty tin can on the ground and when someone would say “go,” we'd hit the can as hard as we could, trying to bat it to our home base, while the other player would try to bat it to his home base. Sometimes we'd get conked in the head with the other player's club. So really it was a dangerous game. We played in the creek, fished the water holes for catfish, using a stick from the woods with a string and a hook on it. When I say “we,” I mean my sisters and brothers. We loved to play school, play house, play church, etc. Many times we'd use tree stumps for pulpits and one of us would stand on the stump and “preach,” while the rest were the congregation. When we played house, we'd draw out a diagram of a house on the ground, dividing it into rooms. Then we used pieces of broken dishes and tin cans to put in the kitchen and sticks for beds, etc. Each one of us would have our own house at different locations along the creek, and then we'd visit each other taking our dolls and teddy bears along. They were our children.

Along with the fun we had, we were taught to work. Just to give you an idea of our work---we gathered eggs; fed the chickens, ducks and geese; and sometimes we raised turkeys, so we helped with them also; and carried in wood and kindling. Sometimes the kindling would be corncobs, and other times it might be wood chips. I learned to saw wood into short lengths, then using an axe, I'd split the wood so it would fit in our cook stove; also it would burn better and quicker if it was split. We had to milk cows, feed and water horses, harness horses and hitch them to farm implements, and work in the fields---usually from 9 to 12 with an hour for dinner, then back to the field from 1 to 5. When we came in from the fields, we unharnessed the team, watered them and put hay in the manger for them to eat. We also had to grind corn, wheat or milo, whichever Dad wanted, then “grain” the horses before turning them out in the pasture for the night. We would ride our pony out into the pastures to bring in the milk cows and horses each morning and evening. All of these jobs were accomplished according to our ages. Our parents were good to us and worked right along with us children. We were never abused or made to do jobs too difficult for our ages.

I learned to list corn, hoe weeds, run the weed cutter, mowing machine, hay rake, corn binder, wheat binder, header and header barges, disc, sulky plow, gang plow, harrow, etc. (I never learned to drive a tractor because my dad never owned one until after I was married and gone from home.) I knew how to plant potatoes, top kafir corn and milo, shuck corn, gather in the potatoes in the fall, shock wheat, oats and rye, pick potato bugs off the plants so they wouldn't eat off the leaves, plant a garden then keep the weeds hoed out, or sometimes we had to pull the weeds, and later bring in the beans, peas, beets, etc. as they were ready to eat or can. We watched our dad and his helpers (usually our uncles and sometimes neighbor men) butcher the hogs, then we were taught how to help cut up the meat, make sausage and head cheese, help with the curing of the meat and putting it away in wooden barrels for winter's use. We learned to can vegetables and fruit, bake bread, churn butter, cook, sew, clean house, etc.

A lot of the learning and working experiences I've just mentioned were over a period of years.

In 1922 we moved from the farm south of Hunter to a farm in Osborne County near Covert, Kansas. I was only 11 years old when we moved to this farm and my parents never left this farm until they retired to the town of Osborne in 1954. We always felt that this was more “home” to us than the other farms because this is where we children spent most of our growing up years.

We children attended the Blue Ridge School, a small one-room school that was located one and a half miles east of us, and we had to walk the one and a half miles to school. Before we could leave for school we were expected to help with morning chores (which consisted of milking cows, separating the milk, and feeding the calves), then eat our breakfast, dress for school, fix our lunches and then walk the one and a half miles and get there by 9:00 a.m. and NOT be tardy. Our lunches were rather plain most of the time, but occasionally we got treats such as bananas or oranges, or maybe some store-bought cookies. Our sandwiches were made of home-baked bread with either peanut butter or eggs or jelly (which soaked into the bread and was “yukky” in my estimation). Fresh fruit was a real luxury and many times we couldn't wait until noon and we'd slip the fruit out of our lunch pail and eat it on the way to school. If we ran out of bread and Mother hadn't had time to bake more, we would bake biscuits for breakfast and then we would have to take biscuit sandwiches in our lunches.

My mother was an excellent cook and could make delicious homemade bread, sweet rolls, pies, biscuits, pancakes, etc. In fact, everything Mother cooked was excellent. She was also a very good seamstress and made all our clothes. I sometimes wondered how she had time to sew for herself and three daughters along with all the other work she helped with. Many times she worked in the fields along with Dad and us kids, as well as taking care of the work in the house.

My dad farmed the usual crops such as corn, wheat, sorghum, milo and kafir corn, and in addition raised Hereford cattle. The wheat crop and the sale of cattle once a year took care of our yearly income, and from the sale of eggs and cream we got our weekly income. Dad used the yearly income to pay taxes, yearly rent, buy more cattle, hogs, etc., and we used the weekly income for groceries, clothes, school supplies, and daily expenses in general. We didn't have to buy too many groceries other than staple goods, as we canned our vegetables and fruit, butchered our beef and pork, milked cows for the milk, cream, and butter (we churned our own butter).

Grandma Sperry lived with us from about 1924 until she passed away in 1935. She loved “greens” and was always anxious for spring to arrive so she could pick wild turnip leaves and certain edible weeds to use for her greens. She would take one of us kids with her and we'd go searching along the creek or roadside wherever fresh little weeds were coming up. She knew exactly which weeds were edible. Then we'd wash them clean and she'd boil them with a piece of pork and enjoy them with our dinner. Later on in the spring we grew spinach in the garden for our greens.

I graduated from the Blue Ridge Grade School in the spring of 1926. There were four in my class. In order to graduate we had to pass an examination that was given by the County Superintendent. If we didn't get an average of 80 in the 12 subjects covered in the examination, then we had to repeat the 8th grade. After we passed the exams, which were given on two consecutive Saturdays at the school in Covert, Kansas, then the County would give us a graduation service at the Covert High School in May. It was a happy time for us as we got new dresses and shoes, etc., and were made to feel we were extra special. We received our diplomas that day and were officially ready for High School come September.

One thing I remember from my growing-up days is the “Gypsy's.” We saw groups of them fairly often and they would be coming through in fringe-topped surreys pulled by horses. They would stop at farm homes, and while two or three women would come to the door begging for food, the men would be raiding the chicken house for freshly laid eggs, and many times would catch a chicken or two for their meals. If my dad was around, he would chase them off. They had the nerve to open your doors and walk right in your house if you weren't right there to keep them out. One time a group of them camped right across the road from where we went to school. The teacher and our parents cautioned all of us to stay close to the school house where we would be safe. There were always stories floating around of Gypsy's who would steal children. Of course, now I feel that those were just falsehoods, but we were always afraid of Gypsy's anyway.

One of the jobs I had as a child was to keep the potato bugs off our potatoes and the beetles off the beans and other vegetables. We had to pick them off by hand - people didn't have sprays to use in those days. Our parents would pay us a penney for every 100 we picked off. We'd get a tin can and put some kerosene in it, then drop the bugs into the kerosene. When the job was finished we poured out the contents of the can, took a stick and counted the bugs. Some way to make a few pennies!

When I was a teenager I desperately wanted some money to buy my Papa (that's what we called our dad until we were grown) a birthday present. The only way I knew of making some money was to catch Jack Rabbits, cut off their ears, string them on a wire and hang them up to dry, then take them to the County Court House were they paid 10 cents a pair. Jack Rabbits ate all the farmers' crops and were so destructive that the County paid a bounty on them. They required a pair of ears as proof that you had killed them. I used our dog to help me catch them, and sometimes I used the 22 Rifle. Anyway, when I had enough ears, I earned a dollar. I then bought my dad a narrow, beige-color knit tie…that was one of the most exciting gifts I ever gave anyone.

When Cleo and I were around seven and nine years old, our cousins, Everal and Louis Sperry, who lived just a mile or so from us, helped us put up “Old Maude”-a long, heavy rope tied high in a tree that branched out over our deep creek. We tied a stick on the other end. Then we dug out a shelf-like place to stand on the side of a steep bank. We then would catch the rope, jump onto the stick and ride out across the creek, being sure to stop on our home base before the swing stopped out in the middle of the creek, which would have been a long drop to the bottom. Our parents just knew we'd end up killing ourselves, but we never did get hurt, and as I look back, that was one of the really fun times in my life.

One summer my dad raised such a huge crop of delicious watermelons we had no way to sell them or eat them all, so he gave us kids permission to go to the patch and get a melon, break it open, and just eat the center part or as much we wanted, anytime we wanted. I can still taste those sweet, juicy centers!

While living on our farm south of Hunter, KS, our mailbox was on a corner one mile south of our house. It fell my lot many times to go get the mail, and that meant walk, or run, as I did many times because I was deathly afraid of rattlesnakes, and there were many of them in that part of the country. Every once in awhile we would find one coiled up in our yard or in the garden. One time Cleo and I were riding our pony in the pasture-we were rounding up the milk cows to bring them home so we could milk them. We were galloping along looking for the cows, when all of a sudden our pony (Dick) stopped. We were thrown forward over his head and we landed, thank goodness, far enough away from a rattlesnake that we weren't bitten. Horses can smell a snake before they get real close to them. To get back on our pony, I helped boost Cleo up on the pony, then she held her foot real stiff and I stepped on her foot, and using Dick's mane, pulled myself up on the pony. We were riding bareback with no saddle to help us. Sometimes if we fell off and there was no one to help us on again, we would walk to the nearest fence or tree or creek bank, and climb on that way. We invented our own ways of doing things instead of running home for help.

My dad had a few horses that were easily frightened. One day he hitched up Frank and Jim to the lumber wagon, so my mother and I could drive to my Uncle Charlie and Aunt Myrtle's home. We had traveled about 5 miles when something scared old Frank and he started to run. And old Jim had to run too, although he really didn't want to run. My mother pulled on the lines for all she was worth, and was hollering “whoa”, but the team wouldn't stop for quite some distance. Finally they calmed down and she got control again, but it was a frightening thing. Our pony, Dick, would run with us once in awhile when he'd get frightened of a car coming up behind him. Cars weren't that plentiful yet, and many times they frightened the horses.

We had several real scary and serious “runaways” during my childhood. One was when my mother jumped out of the wagon before the team ran down a creek bank. The wagon ran over her and she was seriously injured. We didn't know for a few days if she was going to live or not, but she finally pulled through. Another time Dad and I were listing corn…he was in the lead and I was following him with my four head of horses pulling the corn lister. Something was wrong with my lister, so Dad got off his lister, came back to me, and was busy fixing it when he noticed his horses were just slowly moving a little. He hollered “whoa” several times as he was hurrying to get to this horses. That particular time they didn't mind him, and just kept walking faster and faster with Dad running to get to them. In no time at all, they were in a dead run and were headed toward our barnyard. The lister was swinging from side to side, scaring them all the more. Soon they were out of the field and onto the road, Dad and I both running to try and stop them. They ran so hard they broke loose from the lister. As soon as the horses got to the barnyard they stopped and just stood there until we got to them. Fortunately, no one was on the road. It would have been a tragedy if they had met up with a car. Dad had quite a time fixing up the lister and the harness which was torn up pretty bad, and I had to go back to the field to get my horses and see that they got home okay.

As to our spiritual life…when I was a wee child we attended the Green Valley Church near Hunter, KS. I can remember being in Children's Day programs and Mother, driving a single horse hitched to a one-seated buggy, taking us to practice. Later, when we lived on the farm near Covert, we attended the Blue Ridge Baptist Church, one mile east of us. During one of the revivals, when I was 11 years old, I gave my life to Jesus and was baptized. There was no baptistry in the church, so on the last night of the revival, the men of the church rolled a stock tank into the church, filled it with water, and I, along with my sister, Cleo, my dad, and some other folk, was baptized. My mother was already a Christian and had been baptized several years earlier. A few years following this, the church closed its doors because all the members had moved away except our family and the Sherbon family.

Our neighbors, the Thompson's, invited us to go to their church, the Victor Church of the Brethren, about two and a half miles west of us. After attending for a couple of years, all five of us children joined the church and became active in the youth programs. My parents never became members (Mother didn't agree with their closed communion belief), but they did work in the church. This was a very sacred and spiritual church, and it meant a lot to me during my teenage years. I was active in all phases of the church, holding several different offices through the years, including S.S. teacher, church secretary, Y.P. treasurer, pianist, and Y.P. song leader. When I first joined the church, they had no musical instruments, but soon got a pump organ which I played until they bought a piano, then I played the piano. (I had a total of nine piano lessons, but taught myself to play the piano because I wanted to do it so badly). I also went as a delegate to several different conferences during those years.

My sister, Cleo, was a Junior in high school the year I started as a Freshman. Since we didn't own a car, we had to work out some way to get back and forth to the Covert Rural High School, which was three miles north and one mile east of us. Our parents couldn't afford to board us in Covert, so we decided to drive one of our horses hitched to a spring wagon (a smaller version of a farm wagon). The horse had been “wind broken” several years earlier by some boys that rode him too fast and hard, so he puffed so loud you could hear him for a long distance. Needless to say, we were embarrassed to drive him into town where other school kids were standing around. We would drive him to a barn that Dad had rented for the school term, then unhitch him, feed and water him, and tie him inside. After school we had to hitch him up again so we could drive home.

After Cleo graduated in 1928, I rode our pony to school the following two years. Many was the time I had to ride to school in sub-zero weather and those days girls didn't wear jeans or pants out in public…so I can tell you I got mighty cold riding the pony those four miles in a dress with snow and wind blowing…I got frostbite a number of times but refused to miss school unless I was sick. During my junior year we bought our first car - a Model T touring car. I learned to drive it soon after that so I was privileged to drive the car to school occasionally in my senior year. Whenever I had a flat tire, I had to stop immediately (so I wouldn't damage the tire), jack up the wheel, remove the tire, get the tire patch out of the tool box, patch the tube, put it back in the tire and put the tire on the wheel, let the jack down, then pump up the tire using a hand pump. If the tire was ruined we would take it off the rim and drive on home on the rim. There's no way you could do that on “today's cars.” Since we lived in the country and neighbors lived a few miles apart, there wasn't much traffic. Seldom did anyone come along to help. If you had trouble you ended up walking home if you couldn't fix your own problems.

While in high school I played basketball on the first team - my position was Jumping Center. Cleo was my Running Center for two years, then when she graduated another girl played Running Center. I loved basketball and would rather have played than eat! The basketball tournaments were excitement not only for the students, but the whole community got involved. Many times my parents would hitch the horses to the wagon and drive the four miles to Covert to watch us kids play basketball. Dad could holler just as loud as the rest of us! After Cleo and I graduated Harvey, Wilma, and Richard also played basketball, but I don't know what positions they played.

Other fun times during high school were school plays, class hikes and wiener roasts, and Junior-Senior Banquets (we had programs for entertainment rather than dances). I also played baseball (catcher) and tennis, but never played tennis on a competitive basis. The largest enrollment at Covert High School while I attended was 75. My class graduated with only 18.

I was fortunate to grow up in a community where most everyone were Christians, and most folks did not believe in dancing, movies, card parties, etc. In high school we had Christian teachers, and two different years the principal was also a minister. Covert Rural High School was known as a very conservative school.

I had just graduated from high school in May of 1930, when the Depression hit us full force. Banks were failing and closing their doors. People couldn't get what little money they had in savings. And to make matters worse, we were beginning several years of drought. The ground was so dry that every time the wind blew hard it brought dark clouds of very fine dust. There were times when the dust was so thick it made noontimes look like night. We had to light our lamps to be able to see in the house. If any machinery was left out in the fields the dust would drift over it until you could barely see it. The drifts would be so deep it would cover fence posts along the roads and fields. We weren't able to raise many crops so our cattle and horses were hungry much of the time. Things didn't improve much until the mid-30s. (see attachment)

When I graduated from high school my dream was to go to Brown's Business College in Salina, KS, but my dad wasn't able to send me and loans for college were unheard of in those days. So I decided to attend a month of school in order to get a Teacher's Certificate. I passed the exams that covered 15 different subjects, and was eligible to teach school for two years. My first school was Diamond School, a one-room school approximately four miles west of Covert. The first year my salary was $70 a month, and the second year $75 a month. I had to take the Teacher's Exam again in 1932 in order to teach another two years. My third year salary was $60 a month, then only $45 a month the fourth year. The County decided to extend the certificate to three years, so I only had to take the exams one more time. That was in 1934.

That year I accepted an offer to teach our home school, Blue Ridge, one and a half miles east of my parents' home. My brother, Richard, was one of my 8th grade pupils. I'm glad I had the opportunity to teach him during his last year of grade school. My pay that year was $50 a month. I had to apply for other schools the following year because Blue Ridge closed due to having only one pupil left in the district. The district paid for her to attend Covert Grade School, that being cheaper than keeping Blue Ridge open for just one pupil. I was hired at Rosedale School, southwest of Osborne, and taught there the next two years. Rosedale had 11 pupils my first year there and six of them were twins-a pair of boys, a pair of girls, and a boy and a girl.

During this time I had been dating a young man from the Victor Community… (our parents never wanted us girls to date boys until we were 18 years old and well acquainted with the boy and his family-of course, we were acquainted with families for miles around so that didn't usually cause a problem)…but I took a trip to Colorado to visit my Uncle and Aunt. It was there I met and fell in love with O.C. He had recently come from Tacoma, Washington, to visit his parents (dad, L.E. Gossett, and step-mother, Aunt Bessie) and was working at Winter-Weiss Co. in Denver. During the month that I spent with my Uncle & Aunt, O.C. and I dated several times. After I went back to Kansas, we started corresponding by letter and telephone. In December of that year (1936) I went back to Colorado to visit him and we were married.

We were married December 29, 1936, in the Nazarene parsonage in Golden, Colorado, with O.C.'s dad, Rev. L. E. Gossett, officiating. Our attendants were Roland and Dorothy Horne. It snowed about three inches that evening so it was a beautiful night - not really cold either. We had a very simple wedding-no flowers, no reception, no honeymoon! I stayed in Golden with O.C. until the end of the week, then I went back to Kansas by train to finish teaching out my school term. O.C. came to visit me one week during that time, and then on April 29, 1937, when school was out, he came for me and we went back to Golden, Colorado, to live.

O.C. had two children, Evalyn, 9 years of age, and Eldon, 5 years old. They were adorable and I fell in love with them. They came to live with us in Golden, where we were for about six months, then we moved to Denver and lived there the first four years of our marriage. In March, 1941, we moved to a rented acreage in Wheatridge where we lived the next four years. We really enjoyed it there. In 1942, Eloise was born, and then Elwyn in 1945. The acreage where we were living sold right after Elwyn was born, so we bought a house next door to O.C.'s parents, who were in Pueblo, CO, then. After living there only four months, O.C. decided to stay with Winter-Weiss Co., so we bought a new house in Denver (Yates St.) and moved back. While the house was being finished we lived in a hotel in Denver for one month, then in a little cabin on the Nazarene Campground in Lakewood, until our house was ready to move into Sept. 1, 1945. We had only lived there a year when O.C. decided to sell our house. During the war years home rentals were hard to find, but he finally found a log cabin in Empire, CO, where we lived four months, then we moved to a house in Idaho Springs. In June, 1947, we bought a house and one acre of ground in Arvada, Colorado, and finally put down some roots. We lived here for 14 years. Janice was born here in 1948, and all three of the children consider this home as this is where they spent most of their school days. Later on in 1947, Evalyn married John Holley, and they moved to Denver. Eldon graduated from Arvada High School in 1950, and went to the Navy.

In June of 1961, O.C. was transferred to Wisconsin. We chose to settle in the small town of Auburndale. Our children were used to attending large schools in Arvada, so it was somewhat of a shock to them to attend such small schools in Auburndale. Eloise had graduated from Arvada High School in 1960, and decided to attend college in Kankakee, Illinois. Janice and Elwyn both joined the Auburndale High School Band and participated until they graduated, Elwyn in 1964, and Janice in 1966. Elwyn also joined the Navy, and after he returned from Vietnam and was married, we sold our home in Auburndale to them and we bought a trailer and lived next door.

O.C. traveled for Winter-Weiss a good deal of the time, spending most of 1970 in Denver training a man to take his place after retirement in June. He came home to stay on June 1st, but his health was failing and on September 18, 1970, he passed away. I was working as a Nursing Assistant at St. Joseph Hospital in Marshfield, Wisconsin, and continued working after O.C.'s death until Sept. 1, 1973. Then I moved to Greenwood, SC, in order to live in a warmer climate and be nearer the girls who were already living in Greenwood. Elwyn & Rosie moved here also, in 1976.

I got a job working in the lunch-room at Matthews Elementary School, where I worked for 8 years and 4 months, until retiring in December, 1981.

I'm supposed to be retired, but I still keep busy!!

Signed, Helen Gossett