A South Dakota Prairie Story (Part 7) – The End

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south dakota prairie story

A South Dakota Prairie Story
The End

This is part 7 of the story I have been typing up here, handwritten by my great-grandma born in 1892 in South Dakota.

Back to the story….

My mother lived with one of my older sisters after her husband passed away. She came and visited us from time to time. She loved our children and they loved her. They both learned to speak the Czech language fairly well as she insisted they speak to her in her language.

My girls never had a store bought thing to wear until they started high school. I sewed everything for them, coats and all. They helped around the farm a lot, carrying wood for the stove and helping me when they could. My husband always wished he had boys because he was pretty sure the girls would just marry off. They proved to him that they could milk cows, operate the hay rake behind a team of horses, put grain in shocks during harvest time, and herd cattle when it needed to be done.

Mary especially liked to ride horses and she and her cousin who lived across the pasture from our farm would ride together. They called themselves “famous cowboys”. Sometimes they would pick chokecherries and eat them while riding. They would come home with a purple mouth and teeth. My girls were never a problem for me and I liked to sneak them a few pennies from my egg money for treats, but I usually had to pay for the groceries and had little left.

Ruby was always a business girl and got a job in the post office while going to high school. She worked through the year and through the summer, staying in town. 

My husband had loaned a man money. Time were hard and the man could not return the money so we “inherited” his farm. It was about 8 miles southwest of town. We lived here until we decided to semi-retire. Then we sold the farm and bought a place within walking distance of town. It was an 8 room house and here we had an indoor bathroom. This is where we lived until Frank died of liver cancer in 1956. My oldest sister, also a widow, came to live with me until I sold the place and moved to town to be near the girls.

The girls both married. Mary became a teacher after 4 years of college. Ruby attended business school. She worked many different jobs before meeting her husband on a bus ride. They married and worked managing the local grocery store until the moved to the Black Hills. They had 2 children.

When I first moved to town, I was asked to babysit by some friends of my daughter. Thankfully they paid in social security for me and because of this, I am able to draw a small amount now. My husband never paid anything because it was not required and he didn’t believe in “handouts”.

As for the person I am, I think I was always kind of shy. I always believed “do unto others as you would like them to do to you”. I like to get out and have worked with the Ladies Aid for many years. I have a telephone now which I enjoy. Most of my greatest joys was to have company and I always tried to have some food on hand. One should never feel that what you have is not good enough or nice enough because your company enjoys it anyways and remembers it.

I will now close the story of my life by saying, “God bless you all”.

-Anna, age 82

Epilogue:

Anna was a real person, my great-grandmother. Her daughter Ruby, my grandma, asked her many times during her life to write down her story or record it but she said she never felt comfortable doing it. This story was found in her belongings after she passed away.

During the spring of 1974, she began feeling ill. Surgery was done and stomach cancer was found. The doctor told her to go home. She felt well for most of the summer but began feeling ill again in the fall. She passed away on October 19, 1974.

Her daughter Mary taught school for 40 years and passed away just a few years ago. Ruby, my grandma, is 95 years old and she is the one that asked me to type up this story as well as her own to make it more readable and able to be shared with others.

Although Anna passed away before my time, I’ve always heard wonderful stories about this amazing and courageous woman who was dedicated to her family, could run her farm by herself, and she was loved by those that knew her. I was thrilled to be able to read her handwritten story. I’m thankful and proud to come from a line of strong women that I can look up to as I walk through this life.

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21 Comments

  1. It’s so interesting to hear other peoples’ family stories. Thank you for sharing, it was an interesting read.

  2. Thank you for sharing this wonderful life story of your family. What a wonderful spirit your Great-Grandmother had, you can see that she was so loved by her family.

  3. I have enjoyed reading this story Merissa, thank you for sharing this with your readers. My mother who is 89 now has written down pieces of her farm life in Missouri per my urging. I think it is so vital to teach how life was in the not so distant past to today’s young Ones. Congrats on the new home base too.

  4. I have truly enjoyed the story of your family history…Thank you so much for sharing it…I wish I had known more about my family…I have found lots of info on Ancestry and can just imagine how things were back then…we have small bits and pieces that we have about our family…You have a precious gift…

    Sincerely,
    PJ

  5. So blessed by the sharing of Anna’s life! Sorry to see it end. Survival was difficult at that time. Sounds like she was a courageous woman. Today we have different challenges and thankfully courage is still available to us in our journey.

  6. What a blessing to have found such as a great family story. Thank you for sharing. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

  7. This is wonderful! I told Vicky right away to reach ch 6 and tell Grandpa Harold that Ruby was born on the kitchen table! What a great legacy your family has left you! I forgot that Ruby and Harold are cousins of some sort. I’ll have to look up how that works…

  8. Thank you for sharing such wonderful memories of your family. It made my day.

    Congratulations on the purchase of your new home. The husband and I have started living in a new trailer. We hope to winter through it. Unlike for many who have no one to turn to during tough times, we are lucky to have family to stay with if our new adventure here in Eastern Ontario, turns out to be too cold! I’m nervous, but stories such as yours tell me we are not alone in forging out new experiences. You do what you have to do. Good luck to you and yours Marissa.

    1. Good luck to you on your new venture Virginia. I know from experience that winters are so hard in the RV but if you have somewhere to go and people to be with, things will be much easier 🙂

  9. Hi Anna, I have just read your story of South Dakota Prairie Story, I shared it with my husband and we really enjoyed it, parts of it made me cry. It really gives an insight into the lives and character of people and the pictures brought it to life. What a wonderful legacy, thankyou for sharing.
    Marie Giles

  10. Thank you for sharing this amazing story. It’s a blessing to be able to find out how our generations lived and many of us don’t have that privilege. You are very lucky to know you family story. I am so thankful to read this. So interesting to read how people survived those days …
    this is great reminder how lucky we are living in those modern days however their is a lot we could learn from them
    Anna was beautiful person
    thank you again for sharing

  11. Thank you for sharing your family’s story with us. I love hearing/reading stories of how those who have gone on before us lived, loved and thrived.

  12. Your grandmother’s story is beautiful and sweet. What a wonderful tribute you are to her independent, frugal yet generous spirit. Thanks for your suggestions and recipes. You have an awesome site here.