Through the Years

"She listened to her heart above all other voices."
                                   ~  Kobi Yamada

Two very special people are celebrating their 69^th wedding anniversary this month.  From my perspective as their child, I could not have asked for a more loving home.  But this is their story.

Dad grew up on a hard-scrabble farm, the second-youngest of fourteen kids.  By the age of six, he was responsible for driving the meager herd of cattle out to the pasture every morning and rounding them up every evening to earn his keep.  He really did walk three miles to school every day - not wearing shoes until the weather turned cold in the fall – and never missed a day.  One of the few possessions he kept from his childhood is a certificate of perfect attendance from his grade school.  He felt that education was his way out.

Tracy at six years of age

Mom was a city kid, starting school at Fremont Grade School in St. Louis.  She was artistic, and once got in trouble for collecting colored paper in the alley behind a nearby dry cleaners.   Following her grade-school years, she was boarded out with various family members until my great-grandmother eventually brought her to live permanently in her loving home.

Dorothy at six years of age

Dorothy, eighth grade graduation from Fremont Grade School

Tracy and Dorothy met in high school, where he was a sports star.  Dad once had an invitation to try out with the St. Louis Cardinals, but couldn’t afford the spikes and new glove that he would need.  A high school coach encouraged him to continue his education. 

High school sweethearts

Married in 1948

Mom was – and still is – a strikingly beautiful woman.  She has always been outgoing and supportive of others, and it is no surprise that their stars crossed.

Marrying young, money was often in short supply, but love never was.  Armed with a high school diploma, Dad first taught in a one-room school, where some of the “kids” were nearly the same age as he.  He continued to teach in Missouri during the academic years, while he and Mom both attended Western New Mexico University for seven summers to complete their undergraduate degrees.  Dad eventually went on to complete a Master’s Degree in Education.  Four years after their marriage, while they were still "commuting" to summer classes in New Mexico, I came along!  They both worked various jobs to support themselves and their young daughter during those years.  I can still remember getting up at dawn and riding in the car to pick up my Mom at the hospital when she finished her overnight shift.  Dad, at various times, worked as a police officer and a school janitor.  He often said that all jobs are honorable if you do your best.  Both of them took full course loads every summer, and worked full time, but they arranged their schedules so that one of them was always available to be with me.  And they did it all with a smile and a happy heart.  On top of everything else, they were terrific tennis players. 

One of Dad's many jobs, at a Sinclair gasoline station

Dad's first teaching job, in 1948, in a one-room school.
"Mr. Brown" is pictured in the upper left.

Dad and me, sometime in 1953

Summer of 1954, in New Mexico 

Dad would spend hours playing checkers or cards with me, but he never “let” me win – winning had to be earned.  I never became an expert at any game, but I learned to be a gracious loser.  Dad sees the world clearly.  In his eyes, there is a definite “right” and “wrong”.  One summer, he was teaching a PE course at Western New Mexico.  It just so happened that he needed a PE credit, so the chairman of the department told him to sign up for his own course.  At the conclusion of the course, he gave himself a “B.”  Because of a sinus condition, he couldn't hold his breath and swim underwater as long as he expected of his students.  He didn’t feel that his performance merited an “A” and he would not give himself any grade he did not earn.   That incident fairly sums up my Dad.

Graduation, 1959.  Mom got her Bachelor's, Dad got his Master's degree

Tracy Brown, circa 1959

Mom never met a stranger.  She exudes an understanding warmth that others instantly recognize.  Whether it was as a teacher, who saw to it that one child got a dime to buy ice cream like the other students (some 20 years later, that girl told me the story) or as a caring and sympathetic stranger who sat up all night, on a train ride to Albuquerque, while a grieving woman recounted the recent passing of her mother.  Mom is the only person I have ever met who really listens, not only with her ears, but with her eyes and her heart.  You know she is fully present.  She believes you should be kind whenever you can - - and you always can!

Mom finds joy in every day - and everyday things

Both of my parents worked hard and enjoyed their careers.  Dad went from PE teacher to history teacher to assistant principal to principal of a junior high school.  (His school literally had defined “up” and “down” staircases – another example of his clear-cut distinction of right and wrong.)  Mom taught hundreds of kids to read and to write in beautiful cursive penmanship.  She once even taught a football star to knit.

Mrs. Brown's third grade classroom, Manchester
Elementary School   (c. December 1960)

Dad was appointed Assistant Principal at
Parkway Central Junior High in 1961

Mom and Dad visiting the courthouse in Arkansas where they were married.
This photo is from the mid-1960s

Manchester United Methodist Church
directory photo from the mid-1970s

In 2012, Tracy Brown was inducted into the Western New Mexico University
School of Education's Hall of Fame, for a lifetime of work in the field of education.
Dad said that next to his family, he is most proud of this recognition.

Travel was always part of our lives.  From car trips to the Sequoia National Park where a moose once stuck his head in the car window, to visiting a pineapple plantation in Hawaii, to watching fireworks from a gondola on the canals of Venice, those adventures will always be magical memories.  There were trips to Egypt and to Turkey, and a staple for my folks for years was an annual train trip to Scotland, where they stayed in bed-and-breakfasts.

Dad, Mom and me in Hawaii in 1966, the summer before I started
high school.  (And an unknown waitress who photo-bombed us.)

Mom tried her skill at camel-riding at the Pyramid of Cheops
in Egypt in 1988.

On board a cruise ship on the Nile River in Egypt, summer of 1988

Over the years, Scotland and her off-shore islands
were some of Dad's favorite travel destinations

Dad is always in a hurry, and everything he does is at a run.  One summer, on a train in London, he decided that they should be on a different train, and he stepped back onto the platform, just as the doors slid shut behind him and the train pulled out, with Mom still aboard – along with both of their passports, all of their money, and their luggage.  With his persistent nature and her ability to remain calm and not get flustered, they eventually were reunited at their scheduled B & B.  The only repercussion was that Dad, thereafter, carried his own passport and a little money.

Mom and Dad have always been supportive of me.  When I became engaged to a divorced man with two young sons – and, most objectionable to my Dad, a beard – they had some reservations about my choice, but they accepted and grew to love the man, the boys and now their families, including three great-granddaughters.  (It did help, too, that the man eventually shaved his beard.)

Mike, still wearing his beard, at the Lake of the Ozarks
on Mom's birthday in 1989.

Dad and me in Jefferson City in the spring of 2006.  We were there
to fill out the paperwork for my retirement from a career in education

Thanksgiving 2017 - Mom and Dad with grandson Matt and his family:  wife,
Becky, and daughters Allison (next to Mom) and Abby., along with Mike

Thanksgiving 2017 - Mom and Dad with grandson Tim,
his wife, Mary, and the newest great-granddaughter, Zoey

Mackinac Island, 2008.  We took this trip in the fall, because after
Mike retired at the end of 2007, this was the first year since 1948 that
one or more of us wasn't involved with school in September.

On a cruise to celebrate their 60th anniversary in December 2008

Sonora Desert Museum, Tucson, Arizona, February 2017

September 2011

As much as Mom and Dad enjoyed their travels, their beloved Hidden Valley Farm, which they purchased in 1965 and to where they moved full-time after Dad's retirement in 1980, always beckoned them home.   For many years, there were farm animals:  registered Black Angus cattle, Angora goats, pygmy goats that a daughter brought home in dog crates in the back seat of her car.  There were barn cats and house cats, and a couple of dogs:  Moneypenny,  the sheepdog, and a loving rescue dog named Samantha.  To top it off, for decades Mom and Dad kept our dogs nearly every summer weekend as we went to the lake.  Maggie, litter-mate to their sheepdog, and two Airedales, Fergie and Tasha, were always welcome at the farm.

Cats and cattle populated Hidden Valley Farm

Two sheep and a herd of Angora goats, after shearing.  Mom spun
the wool and hair and used it to knit beautiful sweaters and scarves

Sitting in the shade with our dogs - Fergie, the Airedale
and Maggie, the Sheepdog

Dad loves to sit and gaze out over the farm that he worked for so many years

Mom seated in a chair on our front porch

Today, the farm animals are all gone.  Puff-Puff, the barn cat, and Princess, the house cat, are the only remaining four-footed residents, but visiting wildlife – deer, turkeys, raccoons and birds – are still fed and looked after.  Dad still cuts wood; Mom still knits.  There is still the nightly “best of three hands” of Rummy. 

60th anniversary, 2008, at lunch at a favorite restaurant...

...and on a cruise, where they won the "Newlywed Game" and were celebrities
for the remainder of the cruise (and I learned more than I wanted to know.)

Though he has slowed down a little bit, Dad still cuts a lot of
his own wood...and splits it all by hand

With the animals gone, Mom no longer spins as much as she once
did, but still knits a great deal - and still goes barefoot year-around.

After 69 years of marriage, they still hold hands...

There is a fire burning brightly in the fireplace, and a couple sitting in rocking chairs, holding hands.  There is love.

...and there is love.

I doubt very much if many people have been as fortunate as I to have such special people as parents.  I am proud and grateful to have been a part of their Road Stories.