Little family history.

75º with bright sunshine in Clarinda, IA at 12 noon Thursday.   Have been doing walking, did 16 whole laps in the cardiac therapy room at hospital yesterday.  Of course, it is a very small room and I doubt I did a quarter mile.  This morning Phyllis went with me and we walked completely around the hospital and back.  Had something like 1300 steps on my walking app.

With little going on I will attempt to do some family history.

This is a photo of my mother's place near Lodi, NE in 1910.  Lodi is no longer a town;
it was about half way between Callaway and Oconto, NE and the Johnson family
lived in the hills a mile or more to the east of present highway 40.

My dad, Kermit, is the blond haired boy in the center of this photo.

My mom, Pearl Merna Johnson Miles was born near Lodi, Nebraska on June 6th, 1907 at the farm.  She had many brothers and sisters, some of the older ones having been born in Norway and some in Wisconsin before the family moved to Nebraska.  My dad, Kermit Lester Miles, was born in or near Pana, Illinois on September 6, 1904.  His family moved from Pana, IL to Huron, SD either when he was 10 years old or in 1910, not sure which.  I am not sure how many brothers or sisters he had, but I think he was the oldest boy and had one sister older, with many younger brothers and sisters.  His dad worked a dray wagon, hauling coal, etc. with a team of horses for a while.  They finally were able to either buy or rent a farm northeast of Huron.  In 1932 or 1933 Dad and one brother went south into Nebraska where they heard there were jobs picking ear corn.  This was in the depth of the Depression and they needed to do anything for a job.  They found that job on a farm in Custer County, Nebraska, picking corn for one cent per bushel, managing usually to get a hundred bushels picked in one day; one load in the morning and one after noon.  They also got room and board.

     Sometime prior to June of 1934 he went into the telephone office in Callaway, NE to call back home to his dad or else a brother or sister (His mother had passed before this time) and at that time there was a Central Operator at the telephone office to make the call.  That day it was my mother and that is how they met.  

Add caption

They went with good friends the Gourley's to Kerarney, NE and were married by the Justice of the Peace on June 6, 1934.  I think they lived in Callaway for some time, Dad doing handyman jobs for people and also working on farm jobs.  Mom's sister, Emma, was married to a Doctor and for some time Dad would drive for him.  It was an old Model A type car and the doctor made house or farm calls.  Dad would drive and the doctor would try to catch some sleep.

At some point, they rented a farm a couple miles south of Callaway, NE and my older brothers Roger, Donald and I were born there. 

Roger was born in 1937, Don in 1939 and myself on June 10, 1943.  Younger brother Darrell was born there in 1945. 

These old photos of my folks and two older brothers weren't dated, but I believe they were while we were living south of Callaway, prior to 1947.

 In March of 1947 Dad was able to rent a farm/ranch west of Highway 40 about half-way between Callaway.  The house and barn were about 7 miles to the west on what we later always called the "Ranch" and Dad, a a lot of neighbors, moved both the house and the barn out to the eastern-most point of this place which was on a road and only about a mile from Highway 40.  It was quite an undertaking.  

Dad bought a brooder-house from the lumber yard (or else built it, I'm not sure) and he stayed in it many nights while in the process of this moving.  They moved the barn first and got it situated then brought the house out.  It was getting dark when they got the house to the place and they shut off the truck, intending to move the house another 100 feet or so away from the barn the next morning.  It rained that night real hard and the mover truck couldn't wait several days to let the ground dry so he could move it, so they just unloaded it where it sat.  It was only a hundred feet or so east of the barn.  So for many years the cattle and hogs were pretty close to the house.

Will pick this up again, sometime. Lynn