Mom’s Story, Part 1, Also with Homestead Beginnings

Picking up from where we left off with Dad’s story, in his words:

Betty’s family moved away to Colorado in the spring. I gave her my box camera and told her that I would develop and print pictures for her if at least one of the pictures on the roll was of her. We wrote every week, sometimes twice, as postage was only three cents.

Two of Dad’s early cameras. Was the “box” the one he gave Mom to use?

Whatever happened to those photos I don’t know. The couple was apart two years. We’ll use that break to back up and give some of Mom’s story, in her words. (I’ll put those in red.)

I got an invitation to go to a high school class reunion. I hear all the time of people going to those but I have never gone to my own. I think there were about 30 people in my class. That was in Yuma, Colorado, where I graduated in 1938. Of course I couldn’t go all the way to Colorado for my 20th reunion, but I did get a list of where everybody lived at that time. No telling where that list is now. I was surprised to find out that about a third of the class had moved to California.

I was two years behind in graduating because of my parents’ frequent moves, causing me to miss so much school.

One of those times was the year they homesteaded in northern Colorado, 40 miles southwest of Laramie, Wyoming. Our homestead was just barely over the state border. The first six or seven months we lived in an unused log cabin belonging to a rancher who let us use it rent free until we could get our own house.

About eight miles from us was the town of Roach, which doesn’t exist any more. It was just a settlement, with a post office, one general store, a sawmill and a schoolhouse. The school was one room with all grades and one teacher who came every year from another state. There were two of us seventh graders. It was a company town of the owners who owned the sawmill. They made railroad ties. When the trees suitable for that purpose were gone the company would desert that town and start a new one. If I remember right, Roach was the name of the company that owned the sawmill, and the town.

 Next: The two-room homestead, built from reclaimed logs.