|
Helen's Valentine |
||
| On a hot sunny day in May of 1934, my family
moved to Elk Mound, Wisconsin, a small farming community of 376 souls. I was ten years old and certainly had no idea that down one of the country roads leading out of the village lived a young boy who would determine the course of my life. In 1934, our country was in the midst of a depression and a drought. Dairy farmers were driving their cattle down dusty country roads in search of greener pastures. Johnny Ausman lived on a farm two and a half miles from town. We were in school together from the sixth grade on, but because he rode the school bus I didn't see him after school or on weekends. Our social life revolved around school and church, and he attended a country church. I didn't really become aware of him until our junior year in high school. By that time I was as opinionated as I am now, very vocal, and in addition to that, I was the top student in our class of 19. This did not endear me to the boys in my class, particularly Johnny, and we started on a round of verbal battles. If I was for something, he was against it. My parents listened to several tirades against this boy. He was on the basketball team and after the games we girls would hang around the gym waiting for the players to emerge from the locker room, watching them leave with their girl friend of the moment. I saw him leave often and with various girls. In our senior year, after one particularly heart-wrenching loss, Johnny was standing at the gym railing by himself looking as dejected as only a teenager can look. Some impulse of kindness caused me to go tell him that I thought he had played a good game. From that moment on, although neither of us realized that it would be the case, there was never any other girl for him, there was never any other guy for me. |
In those days, we didn't "date". Boys rarely had
cars of their own, and seldom had the use of the family car. In our little
town there wasn't any place to go. Our relationship consisted of sitting
together on the school bus when we went to out of town games. My church youth
group scheduled a New Year's Eve watch night party, an invitation affair. I
agonized over whether or not to invite him as my guest. I was afraid he would
say "no". Finally, after my girlfriend said in exasperation that if I didn't
ask him, she would, I worked up the courage to extend the invitation and he
said "yes". The night of the party he hadn't shown up yet by the time I had
to leave so I went without him. When he stopped to pick me up, my Mother had
to tell him I was gone. She said he was such a polite boy. To his credit, and
my relief, he did show up at the church before the evening was over.
This was a sign of things to come. Johnny's father had a large farming
operation and was also very active in politics. He had an older brother who
was at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Johnny was the one who stayed
home and worked, and work always came first. He was the one who kept the
machinery running. When he was just 14 years old he was driving truckloads of
cattle to the stockyards in St. Paul, Minnesota. By the time we graduated
from high school, although I had never actually been proposed to, we knew we
were committed to each other and that we were probably going to live on a
farm. World War n started that fall and his father expanded the farm operations, including hiring a crew of Jamaicans to come for the summer months. My younger sister traveled in more carefree circles, and she would go out while I stayed home waiting for the brief moments when John and I could be together. Johnny never earned a salary at home and didn't have a car. He got to take the family car on some occasions and the big old stock truck on others. I was not very happy going out in that vehicle. For one thing, it was so noisy that the neighbors all knew what time I got home at night. go to page 2 |
|