• Home
  • Treks & Tales
    • 00 Introduction
    • 01 The Beginning
    • 02 Levi Turner Farm
    • 03 Erick Erickson Farm
    • 04 Northwest of Brockton
    • 05 House by the RR Tracks
    • 06 Kapinos House in Poplar
    • 07 Hanes House at Poplar
    • 08 West to the Mountains
    • 09 Burke, Idaho
    • 10 Lakeside, Montana
    • 11 Dad's Tree Farm
    • 12 Gem and Wallace, Idaho
    • 13 Kalispell, Montana
    • 14 San Rafael Street
    • 15 Montana Trees--Tours
  • Timeline
  • Appendices
    • Donald
    • David
    • Elsie's Story
    • Majorette Missteps
    • Wanda the Welder
    • Norman
    • Dance
  • Albums
    • Dad was a Cowboy >
      • Cowboy 1917 & 1921
      • Cowboy 1922 & 1923
    • Dad's Army >
      • Registration
      • Enlistment
      • Basic Training
      • Base Hospital
      • World War
      • Armistice
      • Beatrice
      • It's Over
    • Dad's Diploma
    • Donald's Album
    • Donald's Army >
      • Amphibious Tanks
      • Anti-Aircraft Okinawa
    • The Thinker
  • Travel
    • Utah 2016 >
      • Farewell Twin Falls
      • Promontory, Utah
      • Zion Park >
        • Exploring Zion
        • Riverside Walk
        • Emerald Pools
        • Weeping Rock
        • Canyon Overlook
      • Grand Canyon >
        • North Rim
        • Cape Royal
        • Desert View
        • Canyon Village
      • Glen Canyon
      • Bryce Canyon
      • Temple Square
      • Grand Tetons
      • Yellowstone
    • Alaska 2017 >
      • Malaspina >
        • Bellingham
        • Inside Passage
        • Ketchikan
        • Wrangell
        • Petersburg
        • Haines
      • Golden Circle Route >
        • Haines Highway
        • Haines Junction
        • Whitehorse
        • S.S. Klondike
        • Klondike Highway
        • Skagway
      • Alaska Highway
      • Cassiar Stewart >
        • Cassiar Highway
        • Stewart
      • Cariboo >
        • Cariboo Highway
        • There's Hope

Introduction


Our parents were not perfect.
How could they be? They were human.
All things considered, they did an outstanding job
and accomplished a lot.

​Dad was schooled through only the third grade.​​

​​Mama was heartbroken when Grandma pulled her out of
high school in Sidney because she was “needed at home.”
Education meant the world to her.

​Mama taught herself to play the piano with a cardboard keyboard
laid out on the window sill.
In Sidney, she stayed in the home of a piano teacher (Mrs. Rounce)
who gave Mama her first real piano lessons.
She had to leave that opportunity behind as well.

Over the years, Mama and Dad did a lot of studying and reading,
including a correspondence course in English grammar.

Mama taught us respect for our Dad by telling us what a fine man
he was,
how smart, how people mistook him for a doctor
because of his quiet, dignified demeanor.

Well, he wasn’t a doctor, but he was in the Army Medical Corps 
during WWI in France.
There he served as an ambulance driver, hospital orderly,
and worked in a pharmacy.

Dad didn’t reciprocate in like manner for Mama.
It just wasn’t his style.
But we learned respect for our mother from strong,
sharp commands such as, "Don’t talk to your mother like that!”
or other orders to treat her with respect.

They made a good team, from farming and harvesting,
home remodeling and design,
home upkeep,
and - not too bad a job raising a bunch of kids.​
Picture
Writing “Treks” has given me a renewed respect for our parents.     
Actually, it’s even made me appreciate my “little” brothers more.     
☺ Helen      
Brother Donald asked me, as the eldest sibling,
to write a chronology of houses we lived in
and interesting places we lived.
Included are memories of various events -
sad, funny, and otherwise.
​​
Helen wrote nearly all of these Treks & Tales   (2005 - 2006)