MY STORY: HOMESTEADING IN LINCOLN COUNTY, NEW MEXICO

To accomplish this task I grabbed the opportunity to sit back, listen, imagine, use current technology, forget about other tasks at hand and walk with Mother through various remembrances of her youth. Compiling information about Mother's educational years at the request of Eastern New Mexico University for granting her a diploma at age 92 was the catalyst. I spent 10 days with Mother and tape recorder asking questions and describing pictures to her as her eyesight was impaired by macular degeneration. When I returned to Iowa after my visit in August 2000, I left knowing Mother in a way I'd never experienced - it more than respect and love for my Mother it became a reverence. Through her stories I knew her as she was before my birth. Throughout the following pages, regular text is Mother's from typed pages she had recorded and printed or from transcribing what she told. Text that is italicized and/or bracketed is mine for either clarification or further information that I have gathered from other sources be it relatives or records or from memory of what Mother told throughout the years.