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Kay is pictured wearing a fur coat that her husband, Glen, arranged
for her sister to buy Kay for Christmas 1943 before he went
overseas. She's standing with the turkeys she raised to earn a
little money and to keep herself occupied while she waited and
prayed for her husband to come home. Glen, a bombardier, was shot
down over Germany on Jan. 11, 1944, and by the time this photo was
taken Kay knew he was alive in a prison camp.
The Swenson Ranch as it looks today. It is located near Opal, SD
which is 40 miles SW of Faith, SD in Western SD. |
This photo was taken at the site where Kay lived with her
sister during the harsh winter and thaw of 1944 (late January
through April).
They stayed in a tiny room on one side of a lean-to
structure attached across the front of my mother's one-room country
school. The front door of the schoolhouse opened into a short
hall that led into the classroom; a coal room was off the hall to
the right, the teacherage (room for the teacher to stay at the
school) was to the left. The room was so small my mother could
almost spread her arms and touch opposite walls at once. The room
had a fold-out cot (full size), a small table and chair, a shelf and
a wash stand. Also it had a stove she could use for warmth or
cooking. In the winter of 1944, while roads were impassable (for
large distances), my aunt (Kay Weiss), who taught at another
one-room school 4 miles north, would spend weekends in the
teacherage with my mother, arriving on horseback. It was a memorable
winter for the two sisters.
She's holding a tiny bouquet of wildflowers that now
magically grow and mark the old trail she and her sister traveled in
their parents' 1936 Chevy. The trail was the route used to get to
this school site, and to go beyond to the Opal, SD store and post
office, and further along to Kay's school. When the blizzards came,
they used this trail to stay in touch with one another and neighbors
via horseback and on foot.
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