Life in Nesbitt, Mississippi

When we arrived in Mississippi, we found that the bedroom in the house was at the other end of the house from the  kitchen and "dining room".The living room was rather large.  There was another room in the front of the "dining room".  The dining room was the only room with a closet. Then out from the kitchen was an addition of a hallway and bathroom and there may have been a storage room.  And there was a small screened back porch.  There was also an open front porch.  The driveway to the manse went back from the road in front of the church to the house.  The road was between the church and another house which belonged to an elder of the church.  Next to our house was the house of Mrs. Lusher.  We arrived 6 weeks before our first child Ken was born.

That isn't a very good description of the house, but you might realize that it really wasn't very convenient.  Irvin used the far room for his study.  The dining room was our bedroom, I think.  The room in front of the dining room was a guest room and then the room for the baby as best I can remember.  The kitchen was big and we ate there when we didn't eat on the back porch.

We quickly found out that Mrs. Lusher was a widow and never disposed of anything.  All of her conversations were preceded by "Before Mr. Lusher died" or "After Mr. Lusher died".  We asked what she did with her garbage and she didn't seem to know she must have had some.  Well, a black man came along and asked if he could have our garbage for his pigs. We gave it to him willingly.  We later had a few chickens who got some of it too.  He came by during the fall and offered to sell us some "corn fed pork".  We declined.

I had some help from a black woman in the mornings.  I was informed by some of the church members that we were not to pay the "help" any more than 25 cents an hour.  She really worked hard and if I could persuade her to have some lunch she insisted on eating on the porch and not with us.  She helped with unpacking things that Mother and Dad had sent from Waco that we didn't need at seminary. After she finished she asked me not to ask her to do anything like that again.  She was so afraid she might break something. She was a very good and faithful woman and I wished that I could do more to help her.

On June 1, 1950 the Presbytery met in Nesbitt and they ordained Irvin.  Several family members came up from Meridian and Stainton brought the twins, David and Donnell, who stayed after the ordination for about a week.   I think they were about 12 or 14. They loved to go down to the train track and see the train come through and pick up the mail sack on a post as the train went by the post office.  They also put pennies on the train track and let the train run over them.  When Irvin had time he helped them build or they helped him build some model train cars from scratch.  David really liked trains, and I guess Donnell did too.  (David still runs out on our porch here at Covenant Village if he hears a train coming when he and Beverley come to visit.)

Mother came about the middle of July to help out with things when Ken was born.  Irvin had to ordain elders and deacons on the 16th.  He had been to a junior high camp and expected to go to the high school camp the next day.  Ken was supposed to arrive on the 16th and my mother thought it was just my stubborness that kept him from coming on the foretold date.  Well, I was going over some of the camp dances with Irvin and I decided about noon on the 17th that I should probably go to the hospital.   So he called a woman whose daughter was to go to camp and she agreed to take the kids and we took off for Memphis and the Baptist Hospital.  They called the doctor.

I was doing very well and one of the aids was a member of the church Irvin served in Olive Branch.  She came by to see me.  About 4 I felt like I would rather be in a labor room so a medical student who was assigned to me agreed that I should do that.  The labor pains were coming more quickly.  Mother and Irvin thought about going out to eat some supper sometime before six so they asked the nurse how long it might be.  She sent the aid to say they would have a couple of hours probably.  The aid said she didn't think it would be that long.  At 6 pm. Ken arrived and Mother and Irvin were glad to be there.  The doctor told me to be sure that if I had any more children to tell the doctor that I have them in a hurry.

Ken was the first child to be born to the pastor and wife of any ministers since the parents of two ladies who were members of the church were babies in the manse.  They were both grandparents when we got there.  In fact the son-in-law of one of the ladies, lived in White Haven and was our primary care doctor.

I was not successful in breast feeding any of our children until Robert came along.  So after a week when I came home (they kept you in the hospital for that long at that time), we came home.  Ken was crying in the night and I couldn't feed him.  So Irvin drove to Memphis and got some Pet milk and we made up some formula.  That was quite a night.

Then another night, we got a phone call from Vivian.  She was in Memphis for the night and would like to come out to see her first nephew and could we come and get her.  We bundled up Ken and went to the airport.  She had to be back in Memphis to take the train early the next morning so we got up early and took Ken and went back to Memphis.  When we got home, the elder in the house across from the church called to be sure everything was all right.  He was worried because he had heard us leave in the night, and again early in the morning and had been over and gone through the house to see what had happened.We assured him that everything was fine.

Another thing about Nesbitt was the phone service.  We were on an 8 party line.  We only got the rings for 4 of the 8 people.  Each had a distinctive ring, but who knows how many listened in.  We had to be careful about what we said.  Shortly after Ken was born Mother got a phone call from Minnesota saying that her Mother had died.  We encouraged her to go but she said she would go sometime later.  There was nothing more that could be done for her mother and she felt she should help with the new baby.

Mrs. Lusher was a very nice lady and we noticed as time went on that she was not referring to "Mr. Lusher so much.  One time she decided to go to Lakeland Florida.  There she sat on a park bench in the middle of town. A widowed man came and sat next to her and they talked.  He lived in Gainesville, and worked at the county court house.  They exchanged information and after we had moved to Naples Florida, Mrs. Lusher got married and thoroughly enjoyed going to the court house and listening to different court cases.

Ken always like to explore things and I'm not sure just what happened, except that we got a call from the grocery store.  There was a small cotton patch between our property and the one store in town. The patch  had been plowed for planting. The manager called to say that Ken was there and we might like to come get him.  We did. I'm not sure who was supposedly watching him, but Ken  thought it was a big sandpile, at least that was what he called it.

Ken in the real sandbox                                                  Ken's first birthday

Life went on in Nesbitt and Irvin preached in four different areas of the county.  Each church was different. One was also served by the Methodist church. It was in Eudora, MS.  We had a Vacation Bible School there.  The Methodist minister was a rather short man, and as he followed Irvin into the sanctuary one time the children started calling the Methodist minister "Zacchaeus ".  Then they often sang the song about "Zacchaeus was a wee little man".

The church in New Bethlehem was noted for it's adjacent cemetary.  It was also closer to Memphis, TN.  They had a very dedicated church family and it was a joy to go there.

Olive Branch MS was the home to Bethel Presbyterian Church and it was the largest of the congregations.  They were another very dedicated church and one which should have been self supporting.  One of the elders once said to Irvin something about "all church receive Mission money don't they."  He got that straightened out and when we left it did become a self-supporting church.  They have added new areas to the church and we still hear from several members there.

During one of the church meetings, the people were talking about pledging and such and Ken and another child walked down to the front of the church.  The other child had one of his parent's billford.  Irvin said: "Shall we consider this the first contribution?"  We mothers went down and got the kids.

Nesbitt was the one in our "front yard".  One time when Irvin's mother came to visit she painted a picture of the church while sitting on our front porch. It is a wonderful reminder of a wonderful time.  The congregation was not really large but very committed.  The twins and some of the children of one were all members.  They did a lot of mission work and were a pleasure to serve.

The Natural Gas company in Memphis was bringing Natural gas to Nesbitt.  We had a big propane tank in the yard, but had let it get low since we wouldn't be needing it much longer.  We had some very cold weather and ended up having to move in with "one of the twins"  and her husband since our house was unheated when the tank ran dry.  The railroad people had gone on strike and we couldn't get more heat.  Irvin and the husband went out each morning and thawed the water pump and brought in water to use during the day.  We had tubs of water all around the kitchen, and Ken in his walker would go around sticking in his little hand.  I don't remember how long it took to get back to our house but we certainly appreciated having a place to stay until they got this fixed and we had heat again in our manse.

Life went on and soon another child was on the way.  What with the cotton gin nearby and the flowers coming out, Irvin was having a lot of hayfever.  Ken still had not slept through the night and the doctor had put him on a medicine for allergies.  We later learned that it gave him nightmares which wakened him.  Our baby was due on April 16, 1952.  My Mother had come to be with us and all was fine.  We went to New Bethlehem to visit some ladies and show Mother the beautiful azaleas and dogwood trees in their yard.  It was about 5 and I had started having some labour pains. I said that we needed to leave so I could get to the hospital.  They asked that we stay for some supper, but I declined.  We took Mother and Ken back to Nesbitt and got them set up for the night and Irvin and I headed to Memphis.  At 8:10 Jean was born!  It was published in the Memphis paper and the ladies we had been visiting had to be assured that it was right about the time.  I was just glad we had made it.

During the fall we talked with the head of the one of the National Missions agencies, Dr. Earl Jackman..  He said he had an opening in Florida.  The doctor had told Irvin that his allergies would be better on the southern coast of Florida and so we decided that we would move to Naples for that position and see if Ken and Irvin would be any better.  We moved right after Christmas and told the mover to call one of the hotels where the lady was a Presbyterian and she could tell him where we were going to live.  The Synod headquarters were in Lakeland and we stopped there.  Had dinner with the executive and his wife and then went to Sarasota where my cousin Joan and her husband lived.  He was a pediatrition and Jean had a fever.  We thought it was another strep throat and he treated her an put us up in a motel.  The next day we headed for Naples to find a house to live in.

Beginning of Married Life

The beginning of the married life of Margaret and Irvin happened after the wedding ceremony.  We were to go by train in the afternoon.  We had lunch with the family and wedding party, then went back to Mother and Dad Olson's house.  We were tired and the train wasn't to be boarded until later in the afternoon.  We had only told Irvin's Mother where we were going for our honeymoon.  Aunt Mabel had made arrangements for us to use her apartment in St. Louis and she would stay for the time in Waco.

We knew if anything happened she would know how to get in touch with us.

We thought we would like to rest a while so we started to go into my room and Vivian quickly said: "Just a minute and I'll straighten up my room for Irvin".  I let her know she didn't have to do that, we could lie down together!

At the train station we tried to be quiet when we told the porter our destination, but he repeated it loudly.  We also tried not to look too newly wed,  but they had thrown a little more rice on us.  Vivian said she heard them say St. Louis but she figured we would be stopping in Dallas on the way.  But we just took the overnight trip to St. Louis and arrived in the morning.  All was well and soon we had a call from Aunt Mabel's maid.  She wanted to make sure that everything we might need was there for us. It was fine.  Even had food for us in the refrigerator.

We had a great time and went downtown.  I don't think they had many stop lights in those days in downtown St. Louis.  It seemed that when a crowd arrived at a corner, they started out into the street and then the cars stopped for them to cross.  I think this has changed over the years.  We also located a nearby Presbyterian Church and attended church on Sunday.  Later that day the phone rang and we answered.  It was Mother and Dad.  Aunt Mabel had asked Mother if she would like to call us.  Mother said she didn't know where we were.  So Aunt Mabel asked if she had her new phone number.  Mother did and they called.

While in St. Louis we also had an evening cruise on the Mississippi River.  Also Mabel came home a day before we had planned to leave and stayed with a friend and she took us to the Zoo.  It was a famous one and was close to her apartment.  We had a great time.

On to Louisville on the train and to the Seminary.  The apartments for the married couples had not been finished so we spent several weeks in the "Catacombs" (an underground connecting hall for all the buildings) with the other couples.  There was a common kitchen and the bathrooms were down the hall.

We had no furniture when we moved into the apartment except for what we picked out while living in the Catacombs.  It was nice when we got into our own apartment.  There was a Pullman kitchen, a living room and a bedroom, and bathroom in each apartment.  The kitchen had a cabinet, stove, and sink,  All were quite  small and a door closed over the whole thing.  Very efficient.  The only phone was one on the second floor and it was for everyone. 

We were on the first floor and were very comfortable but we appreciated our own apartment for privacy sake if nothing more.  Irvin's sister Betty and her husband Henry came by for a short visit with us and I was glad to meet Betty and their son Len who was about 3 years old.  We had a nice visit and then they went back to Pennsylvania.

Irvin went to Washington DC for a conference and it was the day he was supposed to come home.  I got a call from the president of the seminary.  I was pregnant with Ken and had a near loss of the baby and was supposed to stay in bed. But I got up and dressed to go see the president and found out that one of Mama's girls had died.  I asked if it was Mildred, who really took care of Mama McArthur.  He didn't seem to know.  Later his brother's called and talked to me and I found out that it was Betty.  They wanted to know if they should stop and pick up Irvin on the way to Pennsylvania.  I told them he was in DC and should be home before too long.

When Irvin got home we talked for a bit but when I heard the phone ring I somehow felt that this would be the boys telling him about the service and when they would pick him up. I had to tell him right then that Betty had died. It was totally unexpected. She had gone to have her tonsils out and when they injected the medicine to deaden the tonsils she had a reaction to it and died.  I encouraged him to go with his family for the service.  He did decide he could leave me for a bit longer.

One of our friends at seminary was the blind organist who played for the chapel.  I took lessons from him for a while.  I'd swear he could tell if I used the wrong finger on a key.  One day the power went out at the seminary and one of the students was walking through the Catacombs.  He had no idea how he would get out of there when he heard the footsteps coming through the hall.  He immediately called to Bob and was gently led out of the Catacombs.

Bob used to like to go downtown so we would take him with us.  Saturday was usually the day we went.  He kept asking why they let so many people out at one time.  He was full of humor and really enjoyed life.  He was blinded when the doctor put the wrong medicine in his eyes when he was first born.  But he had memorized all the hymns in the hymnals of the Presbyterian Church.

Irvin graduated in May and we headed for his first assignment under the Rural Church Department of the Board of National Missions.  Our new home would be in Nesbit, Mississippi.  It was a 4 church parish and we had a manse, a car and a salary, and our first child on the way.  The men of one of the churches brought up a truck to move our goods to our new home.  But that's enough for the start of the marriage.

Santa Fe

Mother and Dad enjoyed the atmosphere and living in Santa Fe.  They  made many friends.  Dad did some appraisals for houses as he had done before in Waco.  They were really into the pottery of Maria Martinez from San Ildefonso Indian Reservation. Often trips were made to the reservation and Dad especially liked to collect the small animals that she made.  There were also bowls and other pieces.  I believe that Elizabeth Herman now has the collection of the pottery.  Irvin and I also went to the reservation at times with Mother and Dad.


Dad also liked taking pictures of the scenery of New Mexico and did a lot of looking for good opportunities to add to his collections.  He was really enjoying life and retirement.


In March of 1962 John Caperton Pace III, was born in East Northport Long Island.  Mother and Dad had gone to be with Vivian and John and take care of Elizabeth when the baby came.  The day John went home from the hospital, my Dad went into the hospital.  He had prostate cancer.  He had an excellent doctor and all went well.  For a while everything was just fine.   From then on Dad was the optimist that thought everything was going right.  He planted roses in the back yard as well as raspberries.  The house was a nice 3 bedroom house and we stayed there several times throughout the years that followed.

But cancer came back, along with other health problems.  He had specialists in most fields of medicine and even went to Mayo's for a checkup.  This went on for about 5 years.  At one time, just before the Presbyterian General Assembly in Portland, to which Irvin was to be a commissioner, Vivian and I arranged to go to Santa Fe without any children or husbands.  We had a wonderful time and Dad seemed very good while we were there.  As I was leaving Dad said to me:  "Enjoy the Assembly and come back and tell me all about it."

I went home and we had arrangements made to leave on a Saturday to go to General Assembly.  I'm not sure when Dad was taken to the hospital, but we got a call on Friday saying that they weren't sure Dad would make it through the night.  Friday night Ken was in a play at the high school.  I made arrangement to fly out on Saturday morning from Grand Junction.  Irvin would stay until after services on Sunday and then bring the kids down.  

When I got to Santa Fe, I went to the hospital and Dad was still alive.  He was not very responsive and the time would be short. Irvin brought the kids to Santa Fe.  Ken was the only child that wanted to go in to see Dad.  That was fine with us.  Irvin and the kids stayed with a family who were friends of the folks.  (I remember that they had a beautiful white carpet in their house.) Aunt Mabel and I stayed with Mother.  We took turns staying with Dad at all times.  Monday we celebrated John's birthday and Monday night Irvin said that he would stay the night with Dad and then take the kids back to Delta the next day.  He and Mabel came home shortly after midnight just after Dad had died. So we all stayed and Mother quickly arranged a service for Thursday morning, and got it in the paper.  The service was held in a packed church.  The family had dinner in a restaurant and we packed up and left. Mabel assured me she would stay with Mother until I returned.  Mother insisted that Dad would have wanted us to go to the General Assembly and we must go!

We stopped in Gunnison for supper.  Irvin said he wasn't hungry and only wanted a bowl of chicken soup.  When they brought it, it was not hot.  So he sent it back to be reheated.  When it came back it looked and tasted like condensed soup that had no added milk or water, He tried to send it back again, but the waitress was afraid of the cook and just went and got a pot of hot water!  Irvin would add a little water, take a few bites and then add more.  We were all tired and we got the giggles, except for Jean.  After all, Irvin didn't want much to eat, and he was still eating soup when the rest of us had finished.  The waitress brought the check, and Jean told the rest of us to go ahead,  she'd come out after we left.  

We got home and had a good night's sleep.  Did washing the next day and packed our bags and headed with another couple to Portland and the General Assembly on Saturday.  One of the church members stayed with our children while we were gone.

When got home I called Mother, she had sent Mabel home.  She said she would have to adjust sometime and as long as she slept in Dad's bed she was fine.  It was OK for her bed to be empty, but not Dad's.


Mother enjoyed being in Santa Fe and we didn't press her to move.  But after a few years Vivian became concerned about something happening to her.  Mother went to visit in East Northport and then came to Lakeland to see us.  She asked one day if we worried about her being alone, and I told her I could get a plane out any time she needed me.  Vivian's children were younger and it would be hard for her to come.  Vivian had told Mother that she worried about her being alone.


I took Mother to see the plans for the new high rise apartment building in Lakeland which was being built for moderate income people.  She could put down a $25 returnable deposit and reserve an apartment.  They were to be finished in February.  It was just a couple of blocks from the Westminster Presbyterian Church which we attended and that was less than a half mile from the Presbyterian homes where we were living at that time.


She made the decision to come and everyone was happy about it.  She sold her house in Santa Fe and Vivian and I helped her get rid of some things and decide what she would need in Florida.  I think she gave her car to a fellow worker from Ghost Ranch who had a young family and needed a car.  She didn't want to drive in a new place (and we agreed it would be best for her not to).


The Apartment building wasn't finished when she arrived in Lakeland so we put her things in a room off of our garage and she stayed with us until it was finished.  They were moving people in from the top down.  Mother didn't like heights so she had selected a 3rd floor apartment.  
But I think she was so ready to move in that when she found they had an apartment on the 13th floor and looked out of the window and decided that it was a lovely view of the lake and the height didn't bother her, she took it.  We were all very happy that she was with us.

  

Ghost Ranch, New Mexico

Ghost Ranch outside of Abiquiu, New Mexico was given to the Presbyterian Church by Arthur Pack.  He had a trailer house on the ranch but spent much of his time in Tucson, Arizona.  My Mother and Dad were hired to go and help get things built and the dining room up and running.  On the gate into the ranch was a metal replica of a painting by Georgia O'Keefe.  


They moved from Waco to Ghost Ranch in the fall of 1958.  We were on our way to Colorado that December and stopped for Christmas with my folks.  They had a small house just outside the big alfalfa field.  In the evening the deer would come down from the hills and feed and sleep in the field.  It was rather exciting to us and our children to see them come.  


Behind .the house was an arroyo.  It could be very dry at times, but if there was any rain around, you needed to be very careful and not get too close.  They would fill with water rushing down from all sides and hills.  We learned that the ranch hands often sent groups into the hills to help rescue people who were trapped and couldn't get back to the ranch.  They would go out for a hike and then it might rain a little, but the flood that followed took it's toll.


Mother and several other women had gone into town and when they came back it either was raining or had rained.  There was a bridge over the arroyo and just after they crossed the bridge, it collapsed because of the high water.  They were glad the bridge didn't fall in when they were on it.  A new and stronger one was soon built. 


Mother was a consultant on the design of the kitchen.  On it's completion she managed the dining staff and planned the menus and supervised the serving of 3 meals a day to campers, sometimes up to 300 people or more.


One time on a visit a man (I think his nickname was T. Bone) from the Board of Christian Education (which supervised the whole operation) was building a teepee village.  He and a crew were stripping the bark from some tall tree trunks.  Ken (our oldest son) had the privilege of helping do some of the stripping.


One day Irvin decided to take the kids up the face of Chimney Rock.  There are lots of formations called Chimney Rock in the Rocky Mountains.  We got part way up but the altitude was a bit much for me, so I decided to wait part way up.  After quite a while Irvin and the kids came back.  They had gone up pretty far and Irvin realized that they couldn't really walk back down, so he told the kids   (I'm not sure if John was with them) to sit down and dig in their heels and slide down until they got to a less steep slant.  That night Dad told us about the trail up the back side which was rather easy to hike.  We used that one from then on.


Dad took endless pictures of the area, but the film was not so good in those days, and many of the pictures are faded.  One of the ranch horses had twins one year.  They were named Abi and Que.  


We made many trips to the ranch when we lived in Cortez and the folks came to see us often also.  It was nice to be so close.  We would often go on to see other relatives. As we came back from Mississippi one time, John was getting all stuffed up in his head.  When we got to Ghost Ranch he went in the pool and he made a fast recovery!


Mother and Dad would come to see us in Cortez, and on one return trip, they had an accident on the way home.  I don't remember if it was summer or winter, but the car went off the road and Mother got a broken collar bone. For some reason the road was slick and the car slid.
As we passed that spot many times I was amazed that the car hadn't gone way down an embankment.  I couldn't find a spot that looked wide enough the keep the car on the side of the road.  After that trip Dad always took a hundred pound bag of pinto beans back to the ranch.  They could always use beans at the dining room!


After everything was built, Dad worked on the bookkeeping end of the business and that went on until Jim Hall was hired as manager and Dad and Mother retired in 1962.  They moved to Santa Fe and became very active in the First Presbyterian Church there.

Evalina's Wedding or Engagement Ring

This story was sent to me by Carolyn Helmke.  Carolyn is the daughter of Polly Cleland who was the daughter of Hazel Boss Cleland, oldest of the children of Andrew and Evalina Boss. Marge  Munter was the oldest daughter of Hazel and Spencer Cleland.

When Andrew married Evalina, there was no diamond. I think the story is that he had no funds.

On 25th wedding anniversary, Andrew gave Evalina the big diamond in the middle.

When Hazel got married (or engaged?) , she got one of the small diamonds on the right or left of the bigger one. 

So.... after Evalina died, Hazel had a ring remade with her mother's diamond, her diamond, and a little one that she bought. 

When she died, the ring went to Marge Munter. Marge gave it to Shelley, her daughter. When I had cancer, Shelley gave it to me, in friendship and to give me strength.

I wear it pretty much every day!

Love,

Carolyn 

Andrew Boss "Heritage Northwest"

In 1976 radio station WWCO in Waco, Texas had a series of programs on "Heritage Northwest".  In looking through a photograph album I found the script for the program they did about Andrew Boss, my grandfather.


"During the late 1880's a young man from Minnesota tried to find a way for more farmers to make more money.  First, he said, they had to keep better records.  They also needed more advise on matching the best crop with their soil and weather and pocketbook.  He tried setting up small farm plots at the University of Minnesota's agricultural experiment station.  The project was a pioneer effort in crop rotation.  It failed.  So the young man tried it with real farmers.  He would pick them from three test areas around the state.  One little problem.  Some of the farmers did not trust this university "book" farmer.  Some were afraid he was gathering information to use against them....perhaps to increase their property taxes.


This man's career covered 50 years of agriculture in Minnesota.  In the 1880's when he came to the University of Minnesota there were about 7,200,000 acres under cultivation in the state.  In the 1930's when he retired there were close to 31,000,000.  He did not have a college degree, and yet his research in agriculture touched crop rotation, animal husbandry, agronomy, plant pathology, meats and farm management.


Andrew Boss was born the oldest of 11 children to parents of Scotch ancestry in Minnesota's Wabasha County, 1867, Gillford Township. He drove a plow and harrow at age 10, enrolled at the University's agriculture school in 1889.  Two years later he was named foreman of the university's agriculture experiment station, started only four years earlier.  He apparently was not impressed.  'The more I see of these professors,' he wrote, 'the more I think talk is all they amount to."


It was not long before Andy Boss was doing pioneer work in the science of breeding plants, when few people thought much of cross-breeding and inbreeding varieties of seeds.  His research laid some of the groundwork for many varieties that resist disease.  He was one of the first to take a serious interest in the feeding and management of livestock.  "It has been a maxim of  scientists", wrote Andy Boss, "that animals adapt themselves to their environment only gradually and then begin to grow strong.  We have here our own conditions.  Why not have breeds of American stock, for Americans?"


It was said that Andy Boss could stroll around a farm and then with what seemed just a few questions, judge the quality of the operation, point to the problem areas.  His plan to measure farm profits and planting decisions eventually took hold in three areas: Northfield, Marshall, and Halsted.  After a while most of those skeptical farmers came to see Andy Boss as one of them.


Andy Boss liked to say he was on the payroll at the University every month from October 1889 through 1936.  He came to the university husking corn for ten cents an hour.... he left as a respected chairman of the department of animal husbandry.  He died in 1947.  "I have in my veins," wrote Andy Boss, "the blood of my forebears, who were attracted to America by a desire to own a piece of land.  That desire is strong in me. and may bias my views, but I am firm in my conviction that a permanently satisfactory agriculture must be built upon the family unit."

John and Elna Olson 3rd Episode

 Mom and Dad had a great influence on my life.  Dad had the ability to tell you all about anyone he had met.  One day he called the newspaper to talk to a reporter.  He didn't get the person he expected to talk with but he managed to find out all about another reporter who had been to Norway.  They talked for a half hour or more and he told us all about the man and the trip when he hung up the phone.


The church and their church friends were the most important part of their lives.  They each held offices in the church.  Mother and Dad were both elders.  Dad was moderator of the Presbytery for at least one term. Mother was also very active in Women's work.  She was even a Presbyterial and Synodical President.  She attended many National meetings of the women's organization.


After  Vivian had graduated from Trinity University, she worked as a censor for the PO and checked the mail coming in from Mexico.  She was fluent in Spanish including conversational Spanish.  But after the war, she went to work for the Synod Office.  Hoytt Boles was the Synod Executive and Vivian was the secretary.  She wrote to many people in the New York Office at 156 Fifth Avenue.  So, on a vacation she went to visit the New York Office.  And shortly thereafter went to work for the Office for Rural Church  Work headed by Dr. Randolph.  That was the office that was in charge of the field that Irvin pastored in Northwest Mississippi after graduating from Seminary.


There are so many connections to the Presbyterian Church in my lifetime that I can hardly recall them all.  And I am so thankful that John and Elna were so dedicated to the church that some of that rubbed off on me.


In 1957 Dad got a call from Rev. Elmer Gieser.  He was our first pastor in Hereford, Texas and his daughter was my best friend.  Elmer wanted to know if Dad would be interested in moving to Ghost Ranch near Abiqui, NM.  Mr. Pack had given the ranch to the church for a conference center and they were going to need to build several new buildings before it could get up and running.


But when Dad said he would be interested, the Board of Christian Education (who would be in charge of the program) said they needed a Dietitian and couldn't afford both.  Mother had graduated and was a dietitian, so they hired both of them for two positions, but I think they only got one salary.  They packed up and sold their house in Waco and moved to Ghost Ranch.


It just so happened that our son John had been having many allergy problems in Florida and we had been there for 5 years and we called the Board of National Missions and Dr. Jackman and asked if there was a place in the Southwest where we could serve.  There was and Irvin flew to Mississippi where he visited his mother and then on to Colorado.  He visited the site and thought it would be a good fit.
He came back and gave notice that he would be leaving First Presbyterian Church in Miami the end of December.  We took December as a vacation month and left Miami on Dec. 12th and headed west.  We were excited.  We stopped in Mississippi for an early Christmas with family, and then on through Texas.  John still had not been able to sleep through the night, and we were spending the night in Corsicana.  About 2 am we had been up with John and decided to put the kids in the car and drive on.  John then went to sleep and we went to Hereford where I had grown up.  We looked at some sights and I visited some people, and everyone went to bed very early, and John slept through the night!  He was 18 months old.


We got up early the next morning and headed for Ghost Ranch.  The kids had asked about tumbleweeds.  Did they really tumble?  They got their answer. All the kids except Robert liked watching the tumbleweeds but he was quite frightened by them. We had quite a few on the highway to Clovis and ended up at a service station where we could pull the pieces out of the radiator.  Then on down the highway.  There had been a recent accident on a major highway and we stopped to see if we could be of help.  When Irvin got back to the car, it wouldn't start.  At that point another driver who had stopped offered to jump start our car and that worked.  He explained that in the higher altitude we needed more octane in the gas than at lower elevations.  And so we made it to Ghost Ranch just before Christmas.  John and Elna were glad to see us and we all slept well at the higher altitude.  We were happy to be able to live closer to them and had a wonderful Christmas before going to Colorado.

Elna and John in Waco

I was in my Junior Year at Trinity when Mother and Dad moved to Waco.  Dad took a job with a friend who built Quanset buildings and Dad supervised the building..  He also did inspections of buildings.  During the last week of school, Trinity University had to close the school because of a flue virus which was getting out of hand, so tests were not given but we still got the credits for the classes.  Dad came to San Antonio to pick me and my "stuff" up.  I was glad he didn't have to drive all the way from Hereford to get me.

1605 N. 18th St.

He enjoyed his work.  Then one day he went down to get some shoes at a repair shop just across the street from the tall office building in which his boss had an office.  The buildings were sold from another quanset hut out on or near a highway.  Dad had gotten to the quanset building when the wind started blowing.  It took 3 men to get the door closed.  That's when the phone rang and his boss asked if everyone was all right.  There had just been a tornado which blew through the town flattening all the buildings except the tall one in which the main office was located.  We were grateful that Dad was gone from there, because the shoe repair place was gone.

Dad and Mom enjoyed their time again in Waco. Dad taught the Berean Bible Class at church.  They had many church friends   And as was told in a previous blog, Irvin and I were married in Waco. Irvin graduated from Louisville Seminary and we moved to Nesbitt, Mississippi We had our first son in 1950, when Ken arrived on July 17th.  We were living in the manse in Nesbitt and Mother came to help us.  Our year together in Louisville Seminary was nice in many ways, although Irvin had a number of deaths in the congregation he served in Indiana.  My Grandmother Boss died just shortly after Ken was born.  I expected that my mother would go to the funeral, but she said that it was more important to help with the living than with the dead and she stayed with us for a time. It was a long time before I wanted to answer a phone, since I thought there might be another death.

One night we got a phone call from my sister Vivian she was in Memphis and wanted to come to see her new nephew!  We bundled up Ken and went to Memphis and got her and got home about Midnight.  Then she had to be back in Memphis to catch a train early the next morning so we left about 6 and took her to catch the train.  When we returned we thought that someone had been in the house.  Sure enough, the elder who lived right across the lane that went in front of the church to the manse, had been over to check and see if everything was all right.  He had a key to the house which we didn't know about.

Ken had his first birthday in Waco at his Grandmother and Granddaddy's house.  Being the first had it's advantages. 

Jean arrived on April 16th in 1952 and again my mother came to be with us in Nesbitt.   She was enjoying the beautiful azaleas and dogwood trees at a church members home when I decided to go to the hospital.  We left at 5 and took mother to Nesbitt from New Bethlehem and got things out for Ken, and took off for the hospital in Memphis.  Jean arrived at 8 pm.  The church member had wanted us to wait until we had some supper, but was glad we hadn't when she found out that Jean was born so soon after we left.

December of 1952 we moved to Florida for health reasons, but Elna and John stayed on in Waco.