BILL HOLST

I was born in Sedalia, Missouri, on January 20, 1932, to Louise and Ernest Holst.  Dad was a letter carrier and walked a route for 38 years. Mother was a homemaker until after we kids left home when she went to work for Full Cry Magazine, an international hound dog magazine for hunters. It was published in Sedalia by the family of one of my high school friends.

I had one sister and one brother. He and I were less than a year apart. He was born on January 11th the year following my birth. He died in 1937 at the age of four. At that time many people died of pneumonia, consumption and "complaint" which was a general term for unidentified illnesses.

Dad’s income wasn’t much and after everything was done and groceries purchased there was usually about l6—cents left over at the end of every month. We lived with Dad’s folks until I was six when we moved into the house that I was raised in. The folks lived in that house 52 years.

There were no public kindergartens at that time, so I went to a private one. I hadn’t associated with lots of kids - the folks didn’t have the money to go places so I hadn’t played with others. I went to Washington Elementary School from the first grade through the 6th. I walked the four blocks. I attended 7th and 5th grade junior high and 9th through 12th senior high at Smith—Cotton in Sedalia. That was 10 blocks which I walked. There weren’t any parents taking you to school and picking you up then, primarily because we had only one car and Dad drove it to work.

Some of my childhood activities I took saxophone lessons in 1st grade through 7th, long enough that I could play as well as my instructor. I played a lot of sandlot baseball. At that time we had sandlot baseball leagues. We played at the high school where there were three fields.

One evening at home I got a phone call from Cecil Glen who managed the Junior Legion baseball team asking if I wanted to join the team. They were going to the State Tournament in St. Louis and had room for one more player. I told him that I wouldn’t be able to do that because we didn’t have money to pay expenses, but I accepted when he told me all expenses would be paid. The following year I went out for the team, made the team for live years, four of which the team went to the State Tournament that was held in different communities. This is where the saxophone was laid down and the ball bat picked up.

In junior high I was kind of interested in basketball but didn’t like the 7th and 8th grade coaches. In my sophomore year the new basketball coach was going through the halls asking people if they would go out for team. I talked it over with the folks and decided I’d do it. I made the starting five beginning with my sophomore year and for the rest of my school years. We went to the State Tournament in my senior year. One of my accomplishments in high school was that I graduated with the highest grade point average of any athlete. It was pretty close. They had to carry it out eight or nine places to find the winner.

Basketball got me a scholarship to the University of Missouri. I made the team my junior and senior years. My major was Agriculture because that was the only degree you could get without the two—year foreign language requirement.

I went through school in the ROTC program. To fulfill that commitment I served in the Air Force from the October 1954 through October 1956, stationed at Fairchild Air Force Base at Spokane, Washington as a photo interpreter. At that time the B36 bomber group practiced targets runs with radar. We interpreted the pictures of the bomb drops and how close they came to the targets. About twice a year they would fly over certain large buildings and complexes. We would interpret the industry taking place there in preparation for doing this over enemy territory if the occasion ever arose.

After the Air Force I came back and worked in three or four different jobs that lasted from three months to two years. Nothing interested me. I had been interested in animal nutrition so I went to graduate school. I finished all the classroom work and experiments assigned by the professor, In place of comps I needed to write a thesis. I submitted it for approval four times over a three year period and was unable to get it approved so I gave up on that.

I was working for a retail credit and insurance reporting company in Lebanon, Missouri, which is where Patsy lived. We got acquainted through her neighbor.

I started selling feed for Walnut Grove 4x4 in Maquoketa, Iowa - that’s what brought me to Iowa. That was one of those one to one-and-a-half year jobs. In that community I had about four different jobs.

Before I moved in 1961, Patsy and I had established wedding date - June 25, 1961. We were married in Lebanon.

Our first child, Geoff, was born in November 1965 and by this time I had quit all my jobs and was out of work. We lived on my savings while I tried to End a job I liked. I submitted my name to the colleges of agriculture at Iowa State University and the University of Missouri. In January 1966 I drew out the last of my savings and headed for Springfield, Missouri to look for work there. While I was down there I put in applications in over a dozen places and only had one interview. We were out of money and I was thinking about moving back home with the folks when I got a call from the Farmers’ Home Administration in Des Moines. I don’t know how they found me at my folks’ address because I didn’t put my home on any of the inquiries.

This was the first time that I became aware that God was working in my life.  Here I was — I had taken the last of our savings out of the bank, leaving a zero balance, when I went to Springfield to look for a job. Now the Farmers’ Home Administration wanted me to come to Des Moines for an interview, which I did. They offered me a job to start work for them, and I started in their training program in March 1966. After having numerous jobs that lasted two to three years I made up my mind that this was the one I was going to retire from. And I did.

Training was for an eight week period, in Independence, Iowa, and then I was assigned to Clayton and Fayette counties. We lived in West Union where our other two children, Karen and Kevin, were born.

FHA provides loans for farmers to purchase farms and to provide operating expenses. It also provides housing loans for individuals and communities with populations of 5,000 or less at that time, increased to 20,000 or less by the time I retired. There were community loans for housing facilities, golf courses, community centers, tire stations, hospitals and water and sewer systems.

When I first started, an application was submitted and the decision was based on the financial statement and cash flow. The applicant for a home loan needed to show there was adequate income to make loan payments and provide for the family’s living. In the case of farmers, they must show ability to make payments and to pay the farm operating expenses.

In 1978 I applied for county supervisor of FHA in Osceola, got it and moved to Osceola in October. I had been an assistant prior to that. There was a difference in the type of cases. In northern Iowa there had been only one major crop disaster and we had three grants for emergency loans, which at that time were $2,500 grants. That had been my only experience with them.

However, even by 1978 southern Iowa had suffered three major disasters and every FHA borrower in Clarke and Decatur counties had an emergency loan; in fact, everybody had at least one or two emergency loans. Consequently, the case load was two or three times heavier than in northern Iowa.

While qualifications for emergency loans were pretty well defined, when the emergencies were passed and the case load became heavier, more decisions and time were required. After two years of working with this case load and not seeming to make any progress with it, I looked for a way to get out from under the Osceola office.  Working with the district director of the FHA, we worked out a way for me to be transferred to the Creston office as an assistant. I drove back and forth I4 years until I retired.

During these years and after retirement, I have been involved in the Osceola Masonic Lodge, Cub Scouts, and in the Osceola United Methodist Church as lay leader, lay member to Annual Conference and on a variety of committees: nominating, staff parish, memorial and finance. Most recently I have taken on two new positions: financial secretary for the Board of Camps of the United Methodist Conference and treasurer of the Indianola Chapter of the National Association of Retired Federal Employees.

I have become very interested in the use of my computer, particularly as I use it in record keeping for all the above. I’ve even branched out to be a computer teacher. I have an S7 year old friend who I am working with in purchasing and learning the operation. He has learned the key board and I am trying to persuade him now to buy a printer and write letters. He might even later be interested in the Internet which we could learn together.

I know that God has always been working in my life, even though I was unaware of it.  Looking back on situations that occurred during my lifetime, like being selected off the sandlot to join the Junior Legion team, the basketball coach talking to me in the hall in high school, and getting the job with FHA.

After getting that job I took more interest in attending church and in the finances of the church. Being a one income family and that being in a government job, which isn’t the highest paying, I started giving regularly to the church from my income. The first year we started out at $1 or $2 every time we attended church. The second year I made a pledge of 1% of my income, having in the back of my mind that I wanted to work toward giving 10%.

I hear people saying, "I can’t give to the church because I have children;" but remember that at that time we had three kids at home and only one income. As pay increases were received, I would take half of the increase and give it to the church, even though it might be more than I had pledged at the time. 

One of my favorite stories is that of Jesus observing what the rich put into the temple treasury. He observed a widow who, although she gave only two copper coins, he regarded as having given more than any, for  she gave out of her poverty and they out of their abundance(Luke 21:1-2).

As the Bible promises, somehow there was always money available to do the things we needed-- not always all that we wanted. Even when the kids became teenagers and needed more money all the time, we were still able to have what we needed. We were looking toward Geoff getting into college and the other children also getting to that age, but still we found we could manage. We only took one vacation while we were in West Union and, as I look back, one thing I might have changed is that I would have taken more vacations with my children, even if I had to borrow money to do that.

Each year I increased the percent that I was giving and by the time we moved to Osceola in 1978 I had reached my 10% goal of giving. The way this worked best for me was, after each payday, to write the first check to the church; then the balance was available to pay for family living, rent, car payments, food, utilities or whatever was needed. When the money got low, I stopped spending.

When we moved to Osceola, Patsy returned to teaching as a substitute at Clarke Community Schools. She was a sub for six years. During those six years she took classes to renew her teachers certificate. The renewal certificate arrived in August of 1984 and she became a full-time teacher in November of that year. When she received her first check I said, "Ten percent of that goes to the church."  She said, "Oh, no! Wait a minute, that’s my money."  But she had been supportive of our giving 10% prior to that time and after reflecting on it she agreed; and 10% has gone to the church.

Dad died in June, 1990. Mother had been in a nursing home for several years. Dad made a daily visit to the home. With Dad’s death we brought Mother to Osceola to live in the long term care unit at Clarke County Hospital in September, 1990, where I began the daily visits to the hospital. She died in January, 1994.

Our oldest son Geoff and his wife Jana live in Houston, Texas. He will be getting his degree in Corporate Logistics from the University of Houston in December, 1996.  Jana is a computer programmer for Chevron Oil Company.

Karen got her Business degree from Simpson and is now working for Preferred Risk Insurance Company in Des Moines.  She and her husband John live in Polk City. He works for Delavan in Des Moines.

Kevin and his wife Kerri live in Liberty, Missouri with our only two grandchildren, Cole, 3 in August and Cheyenne who was born February 14, 1996. Kevin got an Associate degree from DMAC in Drafting and Design. He is working for Butler Manufacturing in Kansas City. Kerri is a long-time employee of Wal-Mart in Liberty, Missouri.

Return to main page for Recipes for Living 1996 by Fern Underwood

Last Revised April 28, 2012