Happy Birthday To Me
On this day, back in 1943, at a farm on the Nebraska Plains, the author of this topic The Great American Plains was born right in the middle of the kitchen table. Now the story goes that when her mother’s water broke the old Doc in attendance there in the kitchen was having a look-see at the situation down at his end of the table. Well, that Doc, glasses and all, got a drenching so complete that for a spell he couldn’t see if anything was coming or going.
It seems that when the damn broke the author’s mother, not being in much pain to bare mentioning, took one peek at that nearly drowned doctor and commenced laughing. It’s reported that the author’s father offered to lovingly smack his laboring laughing lady if she didn’t hush up her merriment and get down to the business at hand—that is, give birth to the author. She did, and just in time since the doctor now had his hands full of a wet, squirming, pink and white little critter, namely the author.
Times were hard back then for most folks, what with the country just pulling out of a depression and jumping in to a world war. At some point the author’s family, consisting of her parents and three older sisters, pulled up stakes and headed for California. Even though the gold rush there had long since simmered down, they headed for California’s gold country anyway, up around Stockton in the San Joaquin Valley.
The date is uncertain but at some point in the author’s very early years the family packed up again and moved on back to the plains. This time they settled in Missouri. The author’s maternal grandparents, Mae and Walter Attabery, had a farm there, though a long time back they had been homesteaders in Colorado. Of those Colorado days, the author’s mother recalled, when she was a little bitty girl, seeing the last few wagon trains moving westward. And one time she and her sister were hidden in the feather barrels when some Indians were slipping around the homestead. Their mother, the author’s grandmother, feared that because of the two little tots' bright golden curls the Indians might take a shine to them and make off with them.
Well, in Missouri the author’s family settled on a farm in Daviess County. Daviess is in the northwestern part of the state, just due west from Clay County in the northeastern sector where two good ole boys called home some time back. Jess and Frank James raised their cane in Clay County for a time before they opened branch offices for their business in various banks and train express cars around the country.
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