I don’t remember any particular friends that I had in country school. I started going to Clarksville in the fourth grade. I made friends with Kay Cagley Greeley, Betty DePuew Miller, and Shirley Leerhoff Buhr. Kay was always my special friend. She lived directly across the street from school for many of our school years. I would eat my lunch and head for her house to wait for her. Her Mom treated me like one of their family. This included chewing me out big time when Kay and I snuck out one night and rode around town with a couple of guys from our class. To her credit she didn’t snitch on me to my dad. My parents liked Kay and she stayed at our house, and I stayed at hers. Loved the times staying in town and doing the things I didn’t get to in the country. We had slumber parties with groups of girls from our class. A memory with Shirley Leerhoff was a time when we both stayed with her sister Florence Christenson to go to something at school. We were in such a hurry to leave that Shirley turned the clock ahead an hour. Dumb, that made us get home an hour late, but you had to know her sister to see how we got by with it. Our friends after we were married and lived in Waterloo were Pete and Mary Jensen, Robert and Barbara Miller, Bob and Ida Tilford, Merlyn and Diane Heinselman. We would do picnics, some boating and canoeing. Bob Tilford had a motor, and we shared the cost of renting a boat and used his motor. We also went to dances with the Tilfords. The last few years we traveled to Branson and to New Mexico with Pete and Mary Jensen. We went out to eat with them and stopped at each other’s homes for coffee and cookies. Pete passed away this winter and Mary is in the nursing home. I truly miss him! After moving to the farm we joined bowling leagues and met Janice and Red Metz who became the friends we did many things with. Through them we started doing things with Joyce and Merlyn Hirsch. Over the years we had a group of seven couples that we went with to parties, ballgames, day trips, and weekends away. Bob and Sherry Litterer, Jerry and Ruth DePuew, and later Rose DePuew, Darwin and Sharon Neihaus, Chuck and Marilyn Neihaus, the Metzes and Hirsches. Also consider Bob and Ardith Voigts, Bob and Donna Kelm, and Bob and Karen Jansen good friends. Bob was golfing with Reed Weinberg and the two of them decided that we should go on a day trip together. I had never met Wanda and wasn’t too sure about this trip. I liked her immediately on meeting her. We think alike! We have gone on trips with them, many movies, and made friends with all their Texas friend too. Our neighbors Galen and Jerri Brinkman have been good friends also. We took trips to the apple orchard with them for many years. Jerri and I have done lots of shopping trips and just enjoy seeing each other. It’s always fun with Jerri around. We play cards go to movies and eat a lot of pizza with Kay and Dean Brinkman. We met them through our sons going to 4H. Also our neighbors Dean and Virginia Davis became good friends. Bob and Virginia could always beat Dean and I at Dirty board game. (They cheated!). Crazy fun people!
Photos
