When the winter months were very cold, he had to go to the shop in the middle of the night and turn from Natural Gas to Propane. We all bundled up in the car and rode along so he wouldn't be out by himself. It was about an hour drive to and from our house. We had a 1967 Pontiac we purchased new; the only new car we ever had.

Mom was a stay-at-home Mom, and baby-sat, so we always had extra kids at our house. Our play area was in a little addition to the house, like a breezeway. We weren't allowed to play in the living room — that was off-limits even to us kids. But we had a fireplace and a big patio, so there was lots of room to play. Dad was pretty handy so we also had a great big playground with swings and a trapeze and all that kind of stuff. Mom always said as long as she knew where her kids were, she didn't care how many extras were in her yard, and we had lots of extras.

I have two younger sisters, Kristi and Wendy. Kristi and her husband still live in Waterloo with her family. She has three children and four grandchildren. Wendy and her family of two children and husband live in Lena, Illinois.

Our parents were neat and simple people. Even though we didn't have a lot of money, we always looked nice. We had clean clothes and food on the table and I was thankful for that. My dad's brothers and sisters asked him how he did it with Mom not working, but we managed.

Being out in the country, we had a two-acre plot which we "farmed" with another family in the sense of raising all our fruits and vegetables. We had apples from trees in our yard and cherries we picked from our neighbor's trees and shared. We grew rhubarb and raspberries and had a big garden in the back yard. I was expected to go along to help, and I remember, even when I was little, pulling very, very many weeds, and complaining, "I don't want to go!"

I went to Washburn school, walking the 2 1/2 blocks twice each day. Because we didn't have lunch money, we went home for lunch, in whatever kind of weather. When it was raining, we walked in the rain, or snowing, we walked in the snow. I remember walking lots of days when I'd rather have missed lunch and not gone home. However, when we came home at noon or after school, Mom always had fresh-baked cookies and bread. One of her favorite things to do was to freeze applesauce in baby food jars and we would have applesauce when we came from school. That was our treat.

It was also a treat, as I was growing up, to go to Minnesota for a week almost every year. My aunts and uncles and all of us would get one cabin. There were six of us kids, and when night came, we would stack up like cordwood in the kitchen in our sleeping bags. It was a simple vacation but we all liked to fish.

When I was about 13, and in eighth grade, my dad pulled me out of school for three weeks. We tore down an old barn, salvaged all the old lumber, pulled out all the nails and built our cabin. We rented land for $10 a month and built the cabin which was by the Wapsipinacan River near Littleton, Iowa. We fenced off an area and built a 24x24 cabin that had three bedrooms and a kitchen. We had an outdoor building to go out to and it had an attached shower. Our water supply was rain water we saved for washing our hands and that kind of stuff. We learned to be very conservative. We swam and boated and fished in the river.

We had bonfires at night and sat around in lawn chairs. There were probably about eight families of us, maybe 20 kids, and we could always find something to get into. That was our fun get-away place. We went there every weekend but our favorite time was the 4th of July. Somebody always happened to have fire crackers, and cowpies came in handy. They were part of the game. The deal was everybody had to stand and hold hands, somebody had to put a fire cracker in a cowpie and light it. Everybody ran when the fuse was lit, hoping not to be splattered by flying debris. Whoever got spattered was "out" until the new game began. It was hilarious and didn't cost a lot of money.

When we were younger, we were active in the Washburn United Presbyterian Church. The population of our town was about 600 people and we didn't have a very big congregation. We went to church every week, and I started going to Sunday School when I was three. I remember many times when we didn't have a preacher, Dad was in the pulpit. He wasn't a minister but he could deliver a message. He shared leadership with Pat Carmack, who was and still is pretty influential in my life, although she now lives in Tennessee. She always thought of me as her daughter-in-law, so I called her my other mother-in-law. She was my Sunday School teacher, my catechism teacher as I took first communion, and all that good stuff. The congregation was a pretty close-knit group. We had church pot-lucks, church picnics and raised a lot of money for the church. We didn't have money to hire things done, so we took turns mowing the yard, washing windows, painting, and cleaning.

One year the heating bills were exceptionally high so a crew of guys built solar panels on one side of the church. We were one of the first churches in our area, probably including Waterloo, to have solar heat, and we didn't have very high heating bills after that. Someone else came up with the idea of putting in a wood-burning stove, so we also cut wood and sat by the fire in the Fellowship Hall on cold Sunday mornings and had church around the stove. We also had Sunday School classes on tables by the wood stove. We had lots of cost-saving ideas in our church.

A younger memory was going to Grandma's house to stay overnight, which was a big deal. One of the highlights was watching the garbage truck come in the morning. We didn't have garbage pick-up in our town so it was a big deal to sit on the window sill and watch the truck come at 6:00 in the morning.

We only had kindergarten to 6th grade at Washburn Elementary School so we went to junior high at Hoover Junior High School in Waterloo. I went there for two years — just 7th, and 8th ; for 9th grade we went to country school in Orange Township. I went there for one year and then they decided the school wasn't safe so they shipped us off to Waterloo West High School. My class went from a class of 52 and graduated with 535. That was very much a culture shock for most of us. I wasn't pleased to be going to the big school. In fact, I didn't like school and wanted to get out as soon as possible, so I took all the classes I could in 10th and 11th grades, and only a half-day my senior year. I graduated early.

During that time, I didn't do a lot of school related sports. There weren't activity buses at that time, and we didn't have the money to drive back and forth to school. Unless our parents took us, we had no way to get to school or home so a lot of us didn't go. I was on the gymnastic squad in high school by riding with my father when he went to work in the morning. There were three of us Dad dropped off really early. The janitor opened the building and we sat and waited until it was time for practice, then we'd go to school after that.

When I was in 9th grade at Orange, there was an opportunity for a family to have a foreign exchange student in the 12th grade. They went through the classes — 12th, 11th, 10th and nobody wanted one but when they came to the 9th grade, I begged my parents, and even though we didn't have the money to do it, they finally said yes. In 1972, we took a girl from Brazil, whose name was Maria Helena Mani Dias Sardilli from Sao Jose Do Rio Preto, Brasil. Their language is Portugese. We picked her up from the airport and quickly learned she could barely speak English. She could read English but she couldn't speak it. I remember sitting in a restaurant and asking what she would like to eat. She didn't know what anything was. In trying to explain "chicken," we folded our arms underneath our shirts and clucked like chickens. I'm sure she wondered what kind of family she would be stuck with for nine months. But we managed to get through it all.

I had to move out of my bedroom and share with my sister so Maria could have her own room. That was no big deal, but I never really realized what a culture shock it must have been for her to come to the United States and settle in with us. She came from a family where they had both a cook and a housekeeper, and her mother took care of the children when they were home. My family didn't have outside help. We did our own work and kept busy. For entertainment we did a lot of family things, but not a lot of extras like going to movies and that kind of stuff. She stayed until June. Her English got much better and we had a lot of good times.

When I was 15, I got a job at Mama Nick's Pizza. I turned 16 the next month after I was hired. I worked for them and was also hired on to be their nanny. They had a cottage home in Minnesota on Piquot Lakes, near Brainerd. Whenever they wanted to go for a weekend or a couple of weeks, I would go and take care of the children of three families so they were free to do what they wanted to do. I was paid and had fun. I worked nights and weekends at Mama Nick's in my 1lth and 12th grades, and worked almost 30 hours a week at that time.

In my senior year, when I was 16, I was in the Industrial program and we job-shared with the school. We worked part of the day and went to school the other part. I packed my lunch every day because I got out of school at 11:30, ate my sack lunch on my way to work, and worked from 12:00 to 9:00 at HyVee. I worked almost 40 hours a week for half of my senior year. The day I graduated from high school in January, when I officially got my diploma, they offered me full time. So I stayed on at HyVee and also worked at Mama Nick's.

By taking extra classes, I graduated mid-term. Maria and I have kept in touch all those years, and when my parents asked me what I wanted for graduation, I said I wanted to go to Brazil. I already had a car and was making payments on it, so my graduation gift was my plane ticket to Brazil. I was there for three months, which was as long as my visa would allow unless I worked or went to school, and I wanted neither of those choices.

So there I was in Brazil and Maria went off to college, leaving me with my foreign exchange mother and father. My Brazilian father, Milton, is an obgyn; my mother, Magaly, I would call a stay-at-home Mom, but she was also a "Social Director." In the three months I was there, along with being a guest myself, we had somebody stay every night but two. My mother entertained and we had people at our house all the time.

My Brazilian father did not speak English well. He could read it in a book and he could speak it a little bit. My mother spoke absolutely none. I had taken a year of Spanish in school and in those three months I learned Portugese by necessity. Nobody spoke English and I had to pick it up quite fast if I wanted to communicate. I sat down one weekend when my sister was home from college and made a little book. We cut out pictures of an apple, banana — common things, and she labeled them in Portugese. I still have the book and get it out occasionally to refresh my memory. By the time I left, I was watching television and reading parts of the newspaper. I speak Portugese very fluently now. I was there for three months in '75. My grandfather ran a music store and he wanted me to stay. His wife had died and he had a maid who took care of him. Later, about four years after I was there, he married his maid. She was a wonderful lady.

For the fun side of life, in 1978, I got on two soft-ball leagues — for HyVee and Mama Nick's Pizza, we had two teams. I did that until 2003. I played various positions except pitcher. I am not a pitcher. I mostly played the outfield. I remember one year they gave me a Burger King crown because I had 28 home runs in one year. That was what we did in the summer and had a lot of fun doing it. I also played on a Coed Volley Ball Team and we trained at the Tennis Club during the week and played some higher-up teams. It was amateur because we weren't paid, but it was pretty much professional ball, so I enjoyed it a lot. I did that for about five years.

It was the "olden days," when I started at HyVee, the girls didn't have to do anything except run the cash register. Within about 1 1/2 years women were starting to come up in the world, and I was in charge of ordering candy. Then I was in charge of the Regal Stamp Division. The customer bought so many dollars worth of groceries and received stamps accordingly, which made them eligible for gifts that were listed in the books. For example, for six books the customer could get a can opener, or step stool. A card table and chairs would be maybe 50 books. They were free, no tax or anything. I ran that department ordering, counting books and all that was required for a couple years.

The first store where I worked was Waterloo #3. Then they built a new store in Waterloo —#4 on University Avenue. I helped open that store. The day we got there, they were laying floor tiles so I laid floor tiles that day. They were getting ready to put up shelving, so I helped with shelving. In other words, I helped everywhere from the bottom up, and I was there for four years.

HyVee used to have "aisle-men." These were designated fellows in charge of an aisle. Probably in 1978 or '79, they put me in charge of an aisle. I was the aisle-woman in the aisle-men's job so they just called me an aisle-person. I was in charge of ordering everything in my aisle. For instance, if it were the paper aisle, I ordered all the toilet paper, all the paper towels, napkins, etc. Each of us had an aisle we were responsible for. Then I began ordering for two aisles, then three aisles. I had up to six aisles I was in charge of, which meant it was my job to run all the back stock every day and make sure the shelves were full and ordered. We had 12 aisles in that store and we went through a new store every 10 years. It was necessary because the former one had worn out. It was a very busy HyVee. I worked at two of the stores while I was in that particular location.

After that I became the checker-trainer, and I trained new people how to sack groceries, how to check, how to handle customer service and work at that. I also learned a little bit of bookkeeping at that time, as I was helping out in the office. Then they asked me to run the shift at night, which position they called shift-manager. Our store hours were 6:00 a.m. until midnight . The manager and upper management would be there during the day, I worked until midnight. It meant, by the time I got everything done, put away, counted, etc., I was usually out of there by 2:00 a.m., locked the doors, took care of the security system, and drove home. I might be a little hesitant to do that now, but it wasn't scary then. We usually left in groups clocking out at the same time.

In 1982, I married Larry Fraser from Oelwein. We lived in Waterloo and bought a house there. I worked at HyVee during that time and he was a carpenter, belonging to the Carpenter's Union Hall. He could travel around with me because at that time I was just getting ready to start moving to other stores. From there I started interviewing for assistant manager. Keep in mind, it was at the time when women didn't yet belong in the man's world. A lot of older men did not want women to run their stores. I had a couple interviews of that kind and said, "This isn't going to work." I was very disappointed but knew they were not willing to have a woman run the store.

I was hired at Boone where I was the 2nd Assistant Manager in competition with Fareway so that was tough. I was there for two years, from there went to Council Bluffs #2, which was one of the bigger stores in the company. I went as a 2nd assistant and three months later I was hired as an assistant. There were three of us at the same level because it was a big store. I was there for 2 years training in management. One day they called me from the corporate offices which were in Chariton at the time and asked if I would like to be in a new department they were just starting. I was to travel all seven states helping build HyVee stores. I would be in charge of the construction crew and arrive when it was in very rough form — no heat or inside potties. I would get there with the construction crew and there would be another crew I would have to help coordinate. I hired and trained all the employees for that store, which would be almost 1,000 people to interview. I attended all the construction meetings every week — one big one every week, and report to the corporate office what was happening.

I loved it! I traveled to all seven states and put together three to four stores a year. One store I put together was in Sioux Falls, South Dakota; another was in Quincy, Illinois; and in the Kansas City area. I've been to Nebraska and all over Iowa. It was a long drive to Sioux Falls, South Dakota once a week so I flew a lot in the corporate plane. I drove my car there and left it. There were usually two or three of us who went. We could come home on Friday or Saturday.

During that time, I was traveling around, and my husband and I divorced. He stayed in Boone and I left for Des Moines. We had no children. I was living my corporate dream and was working a lot so it all worked out well. I put stores together for about 2 1/2 years. Osceola was being built at that time. Someone else was in charge and needed to go on vacation, so I came the last two weeks before the Osceola store was completed and helped tweak things, making sure everything was working so we could open. Then I went on vacation. Every year I took a vacation in January and went somewhere warm to relax.

Back from vacation, I left to build stores for another 1 1/2 years. The Osceola store came open for a manager's position. They knew I was training to put in for management, and I had just finished the training program, which was mostly in the Dubuque area. I did bakery and meat there. During that time I stayed at the Best Western which was close to the store. Vita Blue was in town for a week at the "Field of Dreams." I had supper with him almost every night, and we played a round of golf. A highlight of that time was, he signed my golf card. I thought I was very special being with someone of his fame.

I passed all my classes to be a manager and put my name in for the Osceola store. I remember Ron Pearson saying, "Are you sure that is where you want to go?" And I said, "I'd like to live in a small town." So I got the Osceola store which I managed for about two years. It was a new store, in debt, I worked hard and was proud of myself for helping bring the store up to the profitable level.

One day I was looking for some shelving at Osceola during a re-set, when they called from the corporate office and asked if I would like to work at the corporate office and buy all the equipment that goes in the stores. I would be buying everything from vans and cars, silverware, stoves, ovens — everything that goes into a store. I would have my own secretary. I said, "Sure, I'd like that," so I moved into the Equipment Purchasing Department for 2 1/2 years. Then they decided to change some ranks and I went back to building stores. About every two years I went back into the field, and about every two years I was offered a job to do something new. I started out working hard getting stores set up then on to the next level. I spent most of my career in the corporate office.

I became kind of tired of traveling. . .I never could belong to anything. . . I could barely make it to church on Sunday because we were always leaving to go somewhere, driving to be at work on Monday. I was on the road almost 8 1/2 years and I said that's enough. I didn't have a life. You don't meet many people when you are never home. At that time the carpenter shop in Chariton came open, and I applied for the job. It is where they build all the counter tops, cupboards —everything goes into a grocery store. I had 27 employees working for me there and I kept about 15 of them on the road every week. I had to schedule the motels where they would stay, where they were going, plan what they were going to do, coordinate the semis so they got there the same day the fellows did, to put everything in and keep the employees busy while the Carpenter Shop guys were there. I did that for about two years until I retired.

I have gone to Brazil a number of times. I went in '75. My foreign exchange sister Maria married in 1982, so I took my parents, my first husband, and his mother. I don't even remember being in Brazil those two weeks because all I did was interpret. I went back again in 1989, and stayed about three weeks, then I was back in 1992, and I was there for six weeks. In the meantime, my sister, who had become a heart doctor — a cardiologist — came to the States about once a year for conferences and I always tried to meet up with her. Two years ago she came to Chicago for a two-day conference, and then they went to visit Pfzier Pharmaceutical Company, their parent company is in Pennsylvania.

In the fall of 2008, Maria, my foreign exchange sister said, "I would like for you to bring all your family and come visit me in Chicago. All your sisters and husbands and all the children and great grandchildren and parents." We spent two days with Maria and Claudualdo, her husband in Chicago. Then she said, "Sue, I want you to do something else for me! I want you to fly to Pennsylvania, pick us up and drive us around for a week. I'll pay for the rental car and I want you to get us some nice hotel accommodations, and take us to the restaurants we would enjoy. We don't want to spend a lot of money, but we want to see a lot." So we went to Cape May, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, Boston, New York and stayed there. I spent the whole week traveling and sight­seeing the Eastern Coast with her and her husband. That was a lot of fun. We all had a great time!

She was here again in November 2009, and I couldn't get to Florida. I had too much going on, so I asked, "Where are you next year (2010)?" She said, "I think we are going to Sweden." I said, "Whoa! I could meet you there." And in a couple years I'll probably go back to Brazil. I enjoy my family and I have lots of Brazilian family to go visit any time I'm in Brazil. When I was there the first time for three months, I think my dad paid people to take me on vacation. I got to go so many places to see the country, to stay a couple days, then they would bring me back. I met a lot of different people. I had relatives all over so they would take me to relatives or put me on a bus and away I'd go. People have asked me what I did the whole time I was there but I have many aunts and uncles, and other relatives to visit. They are a very close knit family and it has been a wonderful relationship.

I had met and dated Kenny Wilder when I was running the store in Osceola. He had asked me to marry him, and I said, "That would be great!" I mentioned work and he said, "If you don't want to, you may stay home and help out at Wilder's.." I had worked 80 to 100 hours a week for the last 18 years and I was kind of tired. I really wanted to have a life for a change. So in March of 1999, I asked for a meeting with Ron Pearson to let him know of my retiring plans. I had worked for the company for 25 years and would soon be getting married. He asked me if that was for sure what I wanted to do and I said, "I think it is. I would just like to have a life and he agreed, "That's pretty important. You haven't had one for quite awhile," and I hadn't. He wished me well. I retired in April 1999, and Kenny and I were married May 8, 1999..

Kenny is the son of Frances Bowman Wilder and the late Bud Wilder. He was born, raised, and educated here. From age 10, he worked with his father and grandfather. They hauled grain, and later Bud began working on trucks. They had a shop north of town where the Hard Rock Car Wash is now located, before they moved out to their 18 acres on the hill south of town on highway 69. Frances was the bookkeeper and at 82, she still keeps the books and goes to work every day.

Kenny operates a wrecker large enough to lift semi trucks, which he services up and down the interstate and weigh station. If they are wrecked or have any kind of accident, perhaps overturned, he rights them. If somebody has an over-load, and must bring another truck to off-load it, he makes the connection. In the winter of 2010, snow plows were stuck and he wrenched them out. A garbage truck got stuck with both wheels in the ditch off a city street. He takes care of any and every situation that needs a tow truck. He is on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

I thought it was really cool that I could stay home. I had about a moment's thought of what I would do with myself, but it didn't take long for people to begin asking me to volunteer. I really wanted to belong to something because I'd never been able to do that. When I was a store manager I got involved in lots of things in various communities, but then I'd leave and have to quit everything, so this was kind of like coming back home.

I got involved in the Master Gardener's class. I wanted to learn to be a better gardener and help others with problems. It may have been in my genes because when I was growing up, Mother always had a big garden and lots of flowers. My grandmother and all her sisters were the same.

I did that and helped the Extension Office with classes. I joined the Southern Iowa Garden Club about 2001, and was their president for five years. In 2003, I was invited to join the Ackworth Garden Club. There were 32 of us men and women, and we were very active. We met in their church and took care of their property — watered the flowers, kept the bushes trimmed and mulched.. We met there until about two years ago when it became hard for the older ladies to get up and down the stairs. I have just finished my term as president of the Ackworth club.

We did a lot of things for Habitat for Humanity, and found more opportunities to volunteer. We took flowers to the Nursing home, and helped with Buxton Park. The Osceola Garden Club also planted and currently maintain the flower garden at the Americinn. Last year we planted all the front with perennials and this year we have a beautiful flower garden for travelers to see as they drive in. Bev Schader, Shirley Pennock and I volunteered to take care of the plantings at the First Christian Church.

I also help with the 32 plots of the Diversity Gardens located on highway 69 behind the Faun Bureau offices. Marilyn Dorland, Mike Schmidt, our master mechanic, and I are in charge of the project. Marilyn and I maintain seven plots throughout every growing season. Four of them need to be changed every year. That means we have to come up with ideas of what we are going to do and what we are going to demonstrate. Through Iowa State Extension Service, we usually have a Field Day and Open House every June.

I was invited to be on the Clarke County Development Board and I've been on that for three years. I have totally enjoyed my time serving on their Board. I am also very active in the church. I play bell chimes, sing in the choir, and help with other duties as needed. I also am treasurer for the Clarke Area Fine Arts Recreation Board, and I am also on the Arts Council Board, and on the HyVee Alumni Board. My goal this last year was learning to say "No, I'm sorry I am unavailable to help you." I really need more time to spend in my garden and yard, which took kind of a hit last year. I would like to get back to doing that. Being a Master Gardener I also get a lot of calls from people with problems and situations that need answers. I am always glad to help people who are struggling with a problem. I like to do that.

For travel and entertainment, Kenny and I follow drum and bugle corps. Kenny used to march with a corp from Marshalltown, "Silver Spectrum," after he graduated from high school. It is necessary to age out at 21, but he has never missed the "World Championships" since he graduated from high school. So every year we take a vacation, and go wherever the world championships are. They just booked 10 years at the Lucas Oil Stadium at Indianapolis so we are on our second year at Lucas, a very big football stadium just built, air conditioned. It is the first time we've been in air conditioning with the corps. Usually we are outside in the elements.

Throughout the summer months, we follow the Drum and Bugle Corps that are on tour in the Midwest and try to catch as many shows as possible. We've been to Florida in the middle of August. It's very warm. It rains in the afternoon every day in Florida, so we always had to stop and wait for the rain delay. We've been to Massachusetts, Canada, and to Kansas City. We follow that activity throughout the summer These are the best of the best kids. They have auditions to make sure they qualify for this. Kenny likes to hit as many competitions as he can but it is hard to get away. We used to be able to drive to Chicago, work a half day, see the show and be back for church the next day but we're getting too old for that.

The World Championships of Drum and Bugle Corps are the beginning of August every year so the kids can get back to school. Then we come back and start with our band here under Brad Lampe's direction. His directions are, "Don't forget the big picture." Kenny pulls the equipment trailer. When they have competitions, he helps out at the school on Competition Days. He also helps as a room monitor. He helps the judges get whatever they need to judge the students' performances. He assists Brad. We keep the band trailer at our house. Kenny usually helps with the jazz band, and takes the trailer to wherever they have to travel. Kenny is still with Celebration Brass. He is able to play numerous instruments.

My life so far has been a wonderful and fulfilling journey and I expect there to be more tales to tell as time goes on.

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Last Revised January 6, 2015