Glimpses of My Life: The People and Events That Shaped My Life

Glimpses of my life

The people and events that shaped my life

Richard C. McCall

Co-Author and editor of

NEBRASKA FARM LIFE WW1 TO WW2

iUniverse, Inc.

New York Bloomington

Glimpses of my life

The people and events that shaped my life

Copyright © 2008 by Richard C. McCall

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ISBN: 978-1-4401-1275-1 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-4401-1276-8 (ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

iUniverse rev. date: 12/4/2008

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

INTRODUCTION

In every person’s life there are people and events that have a special effect upon his life. In many cases, the significance of these interactions is not apparent until much later in life. In looking back upon my life, I have identified many of these and would like to share them with others. It is unfortunate that most of the people that I write about in these chapters are no longer living and will be unable to read what I write. I hope that some of their relatives do read them and appreciate the deep gratitude that I feel. In a few cases, I did tell the person about their effect upon my life and thank them. Miss Florence Kellogg was one of those and I spent several enjoyable hours talking to her on one of my visits back to my hometown. She was pleased by the fact that of all of the hundreds of pupils she had taught, I was the only one who had gone farther in math than she had. This was quite surprising to me but I was glad that it gave her pleasure—a very small return for all she gave to me.

In reading these chapters, the reader should keep in mind that I was a farm boy who grew up near a small Nebraska town. In adult life, I was a physicist with degrees from MIT in a much more sophisticated life than I knew as a child. The progression was not always an easy one; it would not have been possible without the people and events described here.

There are probably omissions; the most obvious omission is my three children. It is clear that they had a great effect upon my life although it was not always clear what it was at the time. I thought long and hard about writing a chapter about them but finally decided that discretion was the better part of valor in this case. Kids, don’t think that I forgot you. I love you all and even in the difficult times, I would not have wanted to give you up.

CHAPTER 1

MOM AND DAD

Mom and Dad were rather old when I was born, 40 and 48 respectively. I remember being envious of my older brothers who had done things like going skating with Mom. She was not very well after I was born and in some respects, I was brought up by my older sister, Polly. Neither of my parents had finished high school although Mom had attended at least one year of high school. Of the two, Dad was the more intelligent but he left most of the child-rearing to Mom.

Mom came from an English immigrant family and was one of the two children of a very large family who were born in this country. They were not well off and my grandfather died when Mom was in the eighth or ninth grade. At one point, some of the children, including Mom, were sent to live with other families. We do not know much about that period. Mom wanted to marry Dad when she was 16 but her mother made her wait until she was 17, as she thought 16 was too young to marry. Dad was a fifth generation American, the second generation in the Red Cloud area and was probably considered a good catch by my grandmother. He had done various things including teaching in a country school and working as an apprentice to a tinsmith before he settled on farming. Mom never had the strong English accent of my grandmother, but there was a trace of it in her voice and a few very English sayings in her conversation. The hard times of her childhood made her very frugal and then the depression of the 1930’s accentuated her frugality. As a result, we were all brought up to avoid waste and unnecessary expenditure of money. During my childhood, we had very little cash. We ate reasonably well because we raised most of our own food and Dad grew a variety of crops, some of which always brought in a little money. Mom made butter and sold the excess to a local grocery store, which paid her in tokens that could only be used in that store. That butter money bought things like sugar, spices and syrup that we could not grow, and there were always a few luxuries at Christmas time. By modern standards, our diet in the winter was not that great since it consisted mostly of meat, potatoes, root crops that could be kept in the cellar and some home-canned vegetables. Fresh vegetables and salads were uncommon. Mom was not a harsh disciplinarian. She scolded and threatened us but never actually did anything to us. I know that I was spanked when I was small but I cannot remember it. She had a very strong moral code that was not really based on religion. For example, she resisted a lot of pressure to join the WCTU (Women’s Christian Temperance Union) because she liked an occasional glass of beer and, later in life, wine, and would not take a temperance pledge when she knew she would violate it. She went to church and was a major supporter of our little country church while it lasted but I never felt that she was a very fervent believer. She believed that her children should be exposed to church and she never said anything against it. We often had the preacher at our house for Sunday dinner and that was the only time that anyone said grace in our house. I always sat beside her and on such occasions she would have a firm grip on me under the table to be sure I did not start eating before grace was finished. She imbued us kids with a strong work ethic and a good moral sense, which served me well in my later life. She was a good nurse and when there was sickness in the neighborhood, she was often called before a doctor. She delivered quite a few babies on the nearby farms and always had a simple kit of clean rags, ironed newspapers and a good kerosene lamp ready to take when called.

My parents, Mabel and Cecil McCall ca. 1946

I think that Dad felt that his role was mostly outside the house so he left the indoor things to Mom. He taught us the basics of farm work and was rather demanding about what we did. We all had chores at an early age, which changed as we got older and bigger. My first duties that I remember were to keep the wood and corncob boxes full for the wood-burning cook stove in the kitchen. In fact, since I was the youngest, I was never really relieved of this job but just had more things added as I grew up. Dad’s health was not very good, either, by the time I came along and I cannot remember him going out and working in the fields. He took care of the chickens and milk cows and part of the feeding of the cattle and pigs that we were fattening for market. He made all of the decisions about buying and selling the animals and would travel with the fat cattle when we sold them in St. Joseph or Kansas City. We bought and sold quite a bit of grain and hay and he was an expert at dickering on the price. I would sit and listen to the conversation with a buyer or seller and after he left I would assume that no deal had been made. Dad, however, would tell me that the guy would be back the next day and a certain price would be agreed upon and he was usually right. Dad seldom praised our work and we always assumed that we had done it right if there was no comment. If he thought we were being too slow or doing it wrong, he would always tell us so. On a few occasions, when I was criticized, I was able to show him that I was right and then he would always freely admit his mistake. Most of my few conflicts with Dad were because I was just as stubborn as he was.In most cases we were probably both wrong. Dad hated to dress up and I seldom saw him in anything but bib overalls. He had a suit and would usually wear it just for funerals. He was a problem to buy presents for because there were few things that he would use. Most of his Christmas presents were cigarettes, socks, and decks of cards. He liked to tell stories and I got tired of hearing the same stories over and over. Now I wish I had listened more carefully. He put on a show of being very tough and hard-headed but was really kind of a softy. I remember once he bought a very old race horse and intended to shoot it for the pigs to eat. We had it for several weeks before