April 1, 2013 - Continuation of David's Story

I am sharing with you a manuscript that Uncle David Russel Daugherty wrote in an unknown year about his life in the 1940's in Eastern South Dakota.  This was a new writing for me to see and I'm thrilled that cousin Gwyn sent it to me.  There's a lesson here...remember those forgotten letters, papers, pictures that are sitting in some dark box and share them with family members.   The house in Bonilla is one that I remember, though I was very small.  I remember David's room upstairs and all the wonderful books and comic books that he had.  "Uncle Wriggley" was especially fascinating. 

If I add any comments they will be in bold/italics.

"In 1948, we sold our farm animals and equipment and moved into Bonilla.  Our family bought the old bank building.  I think they paid $1200, which was most of what they had.  My mother later sold the house for a few hundred dollars.  It was offered to me once for $75 and you could probably get it for next to nothing now.  Around this time George got married.  Mom (Irene Carrington Daugherty) set up the one room with equipment to test the butterfat content of cream and she bought cream and eggs from the farmers for Swift and Company of Huron.  We also sold fireworks, shoes or anything else that we could make a few dollars.  Ocassionally Dad (Fred I. Daugherty) and I would have to go out to someone's farm and pick up chickens.  Dad was so sick with asthma that he would sit up all night and gasp for air.  He took it pretty well but Mom took the doctor's advise and moved him to Colorado.

In 1950, while in the 7th grade, we packed everthing up and moved in our 1935 Chevrolet to Colorado Springs, Colorado.  I seem to remember taking someone else with us also (a Hamilton girl with her child.)  I was the only child to move to Colorado.  My parents were very brave to move without the knowledge of what was at the other end.  It took at least two days and my mother got a job as a cook at the YWCA as soon as we arrived.  We then found an apartment on Weber St.  It had two rooms, a bedroom/living room where my parents slept and a bedroom/kitchen where I slept.  We shared a bathroom with another apartment.  It was quite an adjustment to come from an area where we had to carry our water and go to the outhouse to one where we had all the indoor facilities.

School was different, 400 in a class rather than 6.  While in Colorado Springs, we moved almost every year: Weber Street, Tejon Street (1 room apartment for the 3 of us), Nevada Ave., Brown Hotel on Pikes Peak Ave., back to Nevada Ave., Bijou Street (we lived here when Dad died in July of 1955), Platte Ave., another street near the Deaf and Blind School.  Then I started college at the University of Colorado in Boulder.  Mom moved into the Colorado School for the Deaf and Blind where she was a salad person.  She remained there until she retired in the 1960's.  We lived somewhat austerily but so did my friends, so it didn't seem at the time that we had problems. 

Dad was sick most of the time, occasionally he worked at the Cadillac garage.  All the kids had fond memories of Dad.  He was kind of a rough character at first sight; short, skinny, usually unshaven, wore bib overalls and work shoes with flannel shirt, smoked roll-your-own Bull Durham tobacco, chewed spark plug tobacco in the field or when talking in town (cigarettes werre useless in the field because of the wind so farmers usually chewed tobacco).

There is enough of the manuscript left for one more posting.  Which I'll do tomorrow.  There is so much that I've learned from David's writing.  He's gone now...and I hope he somehow knows how much I appreciate him jotting down his thoughts and memories.

The Daugherty Family in front of the old bank building.  I'm the little girl on the left.  David is on the right.  There's grandpa Fred, Grandma Irene, my mother Helen, Uncle Ken, Aunt Beulah, Aunt Delores, Uncle George.  Only Uncle Ken and Mom remain.  Wonderful memories!