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Note: n to "imaginary" rooms -- a living room, kitchen, bedroom, dining area. There was a fireplace at one end and a privy outside. They lived out there 10 years with daughter, Ruth, who was adopted in Minneapolis. During this time, Guy stopped drinking though he suffered from bouts of severe jealousy. Despite this, Ethel described these years as the happiest of her life. For a long time, Ethel continued to live as they had in Minneapolis with linens and a fully set table, even out on the prairie.
Ethel had been told by Mayo Clinic that she could not conceive which is why they adopted Ruth who was 4 lbs. at birth and fit in a "shoebox". Ethel and Guy were totally surprised when Ethel conceived and thought it was a tumor at first. When Ethel felt life they realized she was indeed pregnant. She wanted a baby so badly and knew everything about how to conceive according to medical science at the time. She would lie quietly in one position trying to encourage her body to conceive.
When Ruth was 7 years old, Phyllis was born; Ethel was 35 and Guy was 47. They gave up the homestead and moved back to Minnesota but didn't stay. When they returned to Wyoming, they moved to Keeline. Fourteen months later, Guy Donald was born in the hospital in Lusk. Phyllis doesn't remember when they moved to Keeline, a town 20 miles from Lusk.
In Keeline, Ethel and Guy had a medical practice, a dentist next door, and they ran the pharmacy. The family lived in the back of the store. They then had John who was born in the medical building in Keeline. Phyllis remembers waking up (at age 4 and a half) and they had a new baby. Grandpa and Grandma Wentworth lived out in the country outside Keeline. Their daughter, Eva, and her husband, Vic Hughes, lived around there also in Flat Top, with their five children: Walter, Shirley Mae, Bob, Kurt and Patty. All stayed and lived in Wyoming. They later moved to Riverton.
Phyllis remembers being about 5 years old and Grandpa Wentworth offered her a dime if she could be quiet for ten minutes. She never got the dime!
Grandma Wentworth (Myrtle) and Grandpa Wentworth followed Ethel and family to Lusk, where they lived on the edge of town. Myrtle made divinity which was so good! She was always really nice to the kids but she was hard to get to know. She didn't seem very interested in the kids but was always nice. They lived near the Niobrara River and Phyllis remembers at age 14, she fell through the ice when she was skating and walked to her grandparents house. Phyllis thinks that Grandpa knew that Guy drank too much and was concerned about Ethel. As a result, Guy and Charles didn't like each other.
When Grandpa Wentworth was 75, he hung himself on a tree. Phyllis was 15. He went into the hardware store and bought a length of rope and announced he was going to hang himself. His nickname was "Foxy" and eveyone just thought it was a joke. He got up in the night and hung himself; they found him at dawn. Ethel was embarrassed and heart broken and the Episcopal Church refused to provide services for him. That's when Phyllis met George Jenkins because he was the minister of the Congregational Church and was willing to provide services. Grandma Wentworth moved in with her daughter, Eva. Phyllis doesn't remember when she died.
Grandpa and Grandma Wentworth was always really nice and kind.
Ethel: Wisconsin Her father was a wonderful ice skater and could turn figure 8s. They were farmers and not well off but had enough to eat. He also worked on the river and could stand upright on the logs that came down the river, which Ethel remembered as a unique skill.
NOTE TO SELF: Check parish records for birth, death, burial records on Katie Moran and Charles Wentworth.
They used to pick wild blueberries, which Ethel fondly remembered. She had a job washing dishes one summer at about age 15 and some customer said he didn't want her to sing while he was in there!
By the time Phyllis was 6, Guy was appointed Niobrara County Health Officer and the family moved to Lusk. He was paid $100 a month and would bring home a hundred dollar bill and lay it on the table. They bought a house called the "Hammer house", named after the Hammer family who probably built it. A year later, the family moved again into the "Ollinger house" (after Ralph and Elvira Ollinger and their son, Harry who built it three years before). It was a wonderful house with mahogany finish on all the wood, an upstairs with spacious bedrooms and closets, and downstairs a dining room and pantry and a huge entry hall with the staircase. Beautiful windows and a window seat in the dining room where Ethel kept her geraniums in the winter. The family piano, which had belonged to Grandma Harriet McKinley Murphy Rader, was diagonally placed across a corner in the living room. (The piano is now owned by Paula Inmon, daughter of Phyllis.) The Ollinger house is still in Lusk and Phyllis revisited it 1995 when it was up for sale. The Murphys lived there until 1945 when they sold it and moved to San Diego, California to be near daughter, Phyllis and her husband who was serving in the Marines and was overseas.
Memories of Lusk: Phyllis started grade school in Lusk as a first grader. The little building where they held first grade is still in Lusk though it's incorporated into several other buildings now. School was easy for Phyllis for the first three years; then it got a little harder. She loved school. She started piano lessons when she was about 6 with the organist from the Episcopal church. She learned classical pieces and she learned lots of technique -- scales, etc. She had her first recital and remembers having a dress with big bow on the back. Clothes were either made at home or purchased from a catalog. Her hair was dark brown, a "Buster Brown" cut, with bangs.
in 5th grade, Ethel moved the family to Casper for one year to try and get away from the drinking. Phyllis remembers Guy coming to Casper and putting his head in Ethel's lap saying, "Ethel, I can't live without you." So they returned to Lusk. She moved again but didn't take the older son, Don, to Casper when Phyllis was a senior. Thus, Phyllis graduated from Casper High School, Class of '39, and then they moved back in the summer. She attended college at University of Wyoming one year at Laramie and Ethel borrowed $50 for Phyllis to attend. When Phyllis came home at Christmas, Ethel told her there wasn't enough money to send her back. She cried and cried. Ethel called on Senator Barrett who was on the board of the University and got Phyllis a job at the Student Union building (selling candy and lots of cigarettes) and later in the offices of professors. She lived with Betty Hahn in the basement of a professor's house off campus.
With one year of college you could teach in the rural schools for three years so Phyllis took the job teaching even though she really did not want to! She lived with the Joe Klempke family who had two daughters, Joanne and Vivian, who attended the school. The following year, she moved in with a Dutch family, Bakker. The mother was a wonderful cook and Phyllis gained 5 lbs a month for the first three months she lived there! The house was beautiful and they had put a shower in the basement which was unheard of at that time! Phyllis lived upstairs where there was no bathroom. Only one child remained at home, Dorothy, who mother called "Dorty".
Phyllis met Amos on the streets of Lusk on May 17, 1941. We were all downtown on a Saturday night and there was a dance in next town, Manville, which was a real rough place to go. (Papa J didn't like it when Phyllis when there.) Brother Don was driving and three guys from Lance Creek were there, including Amos. They were all back in Lusk and Phyllis met them. After that night, Amos said he was going to fall off the rig because he was day dreaming about the girl he was going to marry. The next day, Phyllis had her appendix out. That summer, Amos bought a new car, a '41 Chevy, which he used to let Phyllis drive when he went fishing for the weekend.
The war broke out in December of that year. Phyllis finished out the school year, then got a civil service job in Denver with Remington Arms who made ammunition. Phyllis moved to Denver and Ethel sold the family home and came to live with Phyllis. In the summer of 1943, Phyllis went out to visit Amos in San Diego and stayed. Ethel soon followed. Brother Don was in the Navy at this point (he joined three weeks before Dec. 7) and Amos was in the Marines.
On July 17, 1943, Phyllis and Amos drove to Yuma, AZ and got married against her mother's wishes. He moved in with Phyllis and Ethel who lived in Linda Vista, California in "war housing" which has since been town down. Amos was shipped overseas in January of 1944 and he was gone until August, 1945. Phyllis worked for an airplane manufacturer and she read blueprints from which she ordered parts. Ethel worked swing shift for the same company and made enough money to pay off all her debts she'd left behind in Lusk. Ethel was really proud that she had paid off her debts. She learned all about the fruits and vegetables and flowers of California. She loved California!
Following the end of the war, Amos was flown home from Hawaii and hospitalized with an ulcer in San Diego. He was discharged in San Diego and didn't have a job. Phyllis resigned her job (because she was determined she wasn't going to support this "big lug") which forced Amos to find a way to support the family. Amos was emotionally "stuck" and didn't know what to do next. He looked up a friend from Oklahoma who helped him get a job in Long Beach and the family moved.
They lived in Los Alamitos and meanwhile, Ethel and Guy bought a chicken farm in Escondido. Phyllis conceived and when Amos's sister, Quzella, heard Phyllis was pregnant, she moved out from Oklahoma to "help with the baby". However, Phyllis had her parents there who had delivered and cared for so many babies. Phyllis found herself very crowded in the small trailer they called home and she neither wanted nor needed Quzella's help. So Phyllis moved in with her parents in Escondido. Her brother John drove her to the hospital. She lived with her parents for 6-7 weeks after Jack's birth and announced that she wouldn't come home until Q. moved. So Amos asked Auntie Pearl if Quzella could live with them, which she did. Q. got a job in a large drugstore in Hollywood and she met Don Sprague who also worked there and she later married him.
Later years: Phyllis and Amos were divorced in 19?? and she remarried Walter Charles Fernau from Lusk, WY. She and Walt had known one another their entire lives and Walt's first wife, Betty, who died of cancer was Phyllis' roommate at the University of Wyoming. Phyllis and Walt lived in Borrego Springs, California in the winters and in Lusk in the summers. Walt died in February, 2004. Phyllis sold their home in Borrego and moved to Washington state to be near her children in May, 2005. She lived in a retirement home and celebrated her 85ht birthday with an Irish band and all her family gathered in her honor. She died peacefully on June 9, 2010. She had donated her body to science and her cremated remains were returned a few months later. Her ashes were buried at Tahuya, Washington with a lilac bush in her memory.
Note: Born in Douglas, WY in the hospital. Her family lived on the Homestead at Hat Creek, WY where they built the native stone house. The one-room house was a rectangle and Grandmother (Ethel) made it i
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