I am Russell Dean Adams, Jr. They tell me, I was born December 28, 1921, near Clear Creek, north of Mason City, Nebraska. There was a bad snowstorm, so Dr. Carothers could not travel through the country roads. Grandma Arminta Adams lived a quarter of a mile down the road north and she helped as a midwife for the delivery.
When I was three months of age, we moved to a farm in the Snake Run School District north of Broken Bow where Pete and Charlotte Esch now live. One year later we moved to the Senate Valley district northeast of Broken Bow. We lived there for 20 years.
My first recollection is standing up at the dining room window on a cold winter day to see what was going on out in the yard. I went with Dad whenever it was warm enough. I also remember NOT wanting to go to the ladies club with Mom! I would say, "Uh! Uh! No like the ladies!" I can remember going with Dad to ride in the wagon while he picked corn. One time I went to sleep and became buried in the ears of corn. Dad had to dig me out.
My first year of school, I remember falling off the merry-go-round one morning. When I raised up a bolt in the seat ran about 1/4-inch into the center of my head. Margaret took me home so that Mom could cut the hair out and patch it up. Another school recollection was when Pete Esch brought some new horseshoe nails to school to play hopscotch with. After the last recess on Friday, we were waiting for the teacher to tell us what to do for drawing. I had one of those nails in my mouth and it got too far back. I had to let it go and swallow. That evening the folks took me to the doctor to look at it through the fluoroscope. It was headed head first out of my stomach, so the doctor said to eat mashed potatoes until it came through. I was supposed to be quiet, but I forgot about that and was jumping off a haystack the next day. Fortunately, the nail came through without an operation. Mom saved the nail and gave it to me a couple of years ago.
Another childhood memory is of Bob and Francis playing football out in the yard. Our black-faced buck sheep would jump a four-foot gate and take after them. If they saw him coming in time, they could lay flat on the ground. If they tried to get up and run he would HIT them! I also saw this sheep hit Dad from behind as he carried a couple buckets of water across the yard. Luckily it didn't break his hip or back!
One day I took a young calf from its mother and put it into an "A" hog house (the same one that Janice picked up a long sliver in her seat from sliding down), anyway, the cow jumped the fence and was bawling for her calf. The buck sheep jumped the gate and came out into the yard with her. I had gone on to the house, and glanced back just in time to see the buck sheep and cow shaking their heads at each other. They were about 20 feet apart and started for each other. The buck met the cow head on in mid-air. It sounded like a shotgun going off! The buck sheep backed up, shook his head, and never hit her in the head again - just in the side! For the next couple days he just followed her in the pasture.
Uncle Edgar and Aunt Hazel Van Dyke came to help us farm one year. A small house was built south of our house for them to live in. Their son, Howard, and I played together. We would hook up our two dogs to a little wagon to pull us. On day the dogs killed some pigs so Uncle Edgar took the dogs over the hill and we heard two shots. That was hard to take.
In the summers we often bathed in our own swimming pool - the horse tank. We didn't have running water in the house, so this saved us carrying and heating bath water. If the cattle had drunk the tank down and there was wind we had a cold bath. If there was no wind we had to pump water.
I don't remember just how old I was, but I did something Mom didn't quite approve of. She picked up a stick and chased me around a buggy sitting in the yard. She couldn't catch me. Dad stood nearby and laughed. Soon Mom was laughing too - and I didn't get the spanking she had in mind for me!
Senate Valley school just had the first eight grades, and school was one quarter mile north of us. I rode horseback to Rose Valley School, which was three and a half miles away, to attend 9th and 10th grades. I attended 11th and 12th grades in Broken Bow. I had to work and had no time for things such as sports and music. During the week I worked at Bill Shirkey's cream station from 4:30 to 6 p.m. and on Saturday from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. with thirty minutes off for meals. I was paid $3 a week the first year and given a raise to $4 the second year.
Walt Hanna and I sat at the same table in Mr. Sterner's class in High School. One time we each worked half the questions and then copied each other's questions. He got a D, and I got an A! Another day I was sitting with my head on the table. Mr. Sterner, thinking he'd caught me asleep, said, "If you were driving 90 miles an hour down the road with a pretty girl's head on your shoulder and she said, "I wouldn't trust my life with anyone else, what would you do Russell?" I raised my head and said, "I'd stop!" From then on I could sleep through any of his classes and he wouldn't say anything.
Towards the end of my senior year, some of my classmates and I skipped school and drove in a Model T Ford towards New Helena Park. We ran out of water in the radiator and stopped at a farmhouse. We started playing ball with the farmer and never did get to the park.
After graduation from high school in 1940, I farmed with my dad. In 1943, when I was 21, our family moved from Senate Valley to a farm just east of Broken Bow. We moved all the grain (wheat, barley, and ear corn) with two wagons pulled by an International Harvester tractor. I practiced enough that I could back the two wagons into the granary without unhooking them. We drove the cattle over. The farm in Broken Bow was much better. Moving into the valley made the difference between making it or not. With the sub-irrigation for the alfalfa and hay, there was always a crop of some sort. I farmed with Dad for eight years.
Before we had a corn-picker, we picked corn by hand with shucking hooks. I still have two of them hanging in the office. I used a wagon drawn by a team of horses called Nellie and Dan and a team of colts called Queen and Daisy. One day when everything was about right, I picked 40 bushel in 80 minutes. The usual amount was about 110 bushel a day. We had two to three bang boards on the opposite side of the wagon to stop the corn when it dropped into the wagon. We always felt good if corn picking was finished by Thanksgiving.
In October 1941, on a Sunday morning, I drove to the Bill Hammond farm two miles west of Berwyn to apply for a job picking corn. Angenette came to the porch door. I talked to her through the screen. She and some of the family had returned from church. Her Dad came home a little later. I waited in the car to visit with him. He only offered three and one-half cents per bushel, so I accepted a job at Sutherland, Nebraska, for seven cents with the Shorty Wrights (Glen Wright's Uncle).
In late January of 1942, I visited with Bob Hammond, Angenette's brother, at a school activity in Broken Bow. He told me her age, and I decided to write and ask for a date. We had our first date on February 3, 1942. We were married in January of 1945 and lived in the small south house on the Rogers Farm, also known as the Walt Cole Ranch. The folks had moved from this house into the big house earlier. We lived there six years. Dwayne, Cheryl, Jerry and Bill were born during this time.
On May 10, 1950, Dad and I purchased the home place from Frank Rogers, his mother, and sister. Dad and Mom bought a whole section on the south side of Highway 70 and some south of Highway 2. Angenette and I bought a half section on the north side of Highway 70. We gained possession the following March. We moved into the small house on our new farm east of the fairgrounds on March 1, 1951. Lawrence and Leslie were born during the nine years we lived there. We remodeled the barn into a dairy barn and sold Grade A milk to a Grand Island dairy. We also fed a few head of cattle and hogs and raised corn and hay. We enjoyed many family trips and outings during that time.
In the fall of 1959, we purchased the Dairy Queen from Uncle Wes and Aunt Dorothy Sloggett. We needed a larger house for our family and Uncle Wes had a health problem and wanted to sell. We remodeled a bedroom into a kitchen and joined the Dairy Queen and house, a convenience for family togetherness. We opened the Dairy Queen in early March 1960. The weather was warm and the work was overwhelming. In time, with adjustments and the help and teaching of the Sloggetts, we all learned.
This venture helped with expenses to send all our children to the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. Angenette did most of the managing of the business as I was much more interested in farming and the cattle.
Christmas of 1960 was very sad. We had decided to take a winter vacation to Biloxi, Mississippi to see Angenette's brother, Earl Hammond, and wife, Beverly, and family, and then to go on to Atlanta, Georgia to spend Christmas with her brother, Marvin, Pearl and family. On third day out, on December 19 near Baton Rouge, Louisiana, at about 3 p.m. a sugar cane truck ran a stop sign and hit our car. Leslie was killed and all our family was injured. We were taken to The Lady of the Lake Hospital, then flown home on December 22nd. We buried Leslie on December 24th.
In September 1961, I started digging the basement for a home on a small hill on the east end of our farm. In February 1962, we sold the Dairy Queen and moved into our new home in March. We built a dairy barn and continued Grade A dairy until a dispersion sale in 1966. After recovery time from our 1960 car/truck accident we bought the Dairy Queen back in February of 1965 from Ann and Richard Fox. We had it for six years. Then in the spring of 197,1 when Lawrence, our youngest, was at the University in Lincoln, we leased the Dairy Queen to Jerry and Ruth Sloggett. Later we sold it to them in the summer of 1973. We then purchased the Warren Nelson place south of Broken Bow for more farm and pasture land.
In 1969, I purchased a share in the Nebraska State Bank. It was like the cattle and farming in that it had ups and downs. In the early eighties the bank felt like I had a tiger by the tail and couldn't let go. Like most things, however, it turned out well. I am still one of the stockholders and on the Board of Directors.
All of our children are married and we have 12 grandchildren to enjoy. Dwayne married Betty Ann Craig in June of 1966 and they have one son, Brook, born in August 1973. They now live in San Antonio, Texas. Cheryl married John Jarchow in August 1969 and they have a son, Jeff, born in August 1974, and a daughter, Michelle, born in March of 1978. They now live in Greeley, Colorado.
Jerry married Linda Hardessen in April 1972. They have three children: Amy born in February 1977, Melissa born in August 1979, and Scott born in 1981 on his dad's birthday, February 10th.
Bill married Connie Pokrant in September of 1973. They have three children: Kelley born in February 1977, Matthew born in August 1978, and Jill born in October 1983. Lawrence married Marilyn Dickey in November of 1973. Their son, Chad, was born on Mom's birthday, December 8, 1977; David was born in July 1979, and Danny was born in November 1981. Jerry, Bill and Lawrence and their families are farming, ranching and feeding cattle with us at Broken Bow.
Russ finished writing this in early July 1990. We had spent from February to July with Dwayne's family in San Antonio, Texas, for treatment of prostate cancer that had metastases to the bones. The cancer was first diagnosed in October of 1986. We flew home and Russ was pleased to attend his 50th Class Reunion on July 7th. Russ suffered much pain from the cancer. He spent the last three weeks of his life in the hospital. He passed away August 25, 1900, and was buried August 28th. We miss him so much. He was a very special person in all our lives.
It's great to have Mom Adams with us at near 100 years young, and Russ felt honored to have a chapter in her book.
Angenette and Family