Recipes for Living Sandye Kelso

I was born in 1947, the third of five daughters born to Floyd and Alice Edwards. My name is really Sandra but Dad and Grandma Edwards are the only ones who ever called me that. Everyone else called me Sandy. When I was about ten, I put an "e" on to be cool, and it stuck. Now even my school contracts are made to "Sandye".

My parents' first child, Karen, died two days after birth. It happened at Christmas. She was born the day before and died the day after. It is understandable that when we expected our first child, Brent, who would have been the first grandchild, Mom didn't want us to be ready with a layette, crib or any of the usual baby items. She and Dad had known what it was to go home to those haunting reminders. However, when we brought Brent home from the hospital, it was all there waiting for us.

Our parents were like that, always there for us if we needed them. Dad could always fix things. When my sister's husband died four years ago, a little bit of Dad died with him because he couldn't fix it for her. I think that was when he began to go downhill.

My sisters and I were and are very close. Our parents made sure that everything was always fair. What one of us had, the others did, too, so there was never a reason for feelings of rivalry. Even now we have a sisters' weekend every summer-a time without husbands or kids. If someone knows the owner of a cabin, we go there. We have gone to such a place in Colorado; there is also one near Fort Dodge, but sometimes we take a suite in a motel. We check out whatever the area has to offer, play miniature golf and spend time talking and reading. Our husbands think it is silly that we get together and read, but we can always stop reading and start talking. We laugh a lot and sometimes we cry a lot. It is a wonderful time. The summer of 1998 will be the 10th year for doing this.

This year will take on a different tone because Dad died suddenly on April 8, the day before our parents' 59th anniversary. He had lain down to take a nap after lunch and didn't wake up. His health hadn't been good but this was totally unexpected. They called it congenital heart failure. There are ways in which we're all comforted by how he died. Dad valued hard work and productivity in himself and others. He was installing quarter-round in the kitchen just before he had lain down. How fortunate for him and us that he was spared a lingering or debilitating illness. We acknowledge that it is part of God's plan, but that doesn't make it any easier to deal with the grief. I still feel his love, though, and will always remember and try to live by advice he gave, "In all things be honorable."

All of us girls started to school at Ward Center #5. I was the only one of the family that was in the right grade according to today's standards. Karolyn skipped 3rd grade. Mrs. Barnard sent work home with me for Barbe, so she skipped kindergarten and started school in 1st grade. Brenda's birthday is late September so she didn't start at the right age, either, by the present rules. Ruby Henderson taught kindergarten through 4th grade. Marie Cooper taught upper elementary. Ploy Barnard taught my younger sisters.

When I was in 6th grade, I started to school in Murray and I am Murray alum. I have a great deal of respect for that school and am proud to say I graduated from there. I may well have been influenced to become a teacher by one man who was so bad that I thought I could do better. He yelled at the kids who didn't comprehend Geometry. They would end up crying and, because I was fairly good in math; I could help and encourage them.

I had begun taking piano and trumpet lessons from Lulu Walker of Murray, even before I went to school there. Then I went into band, chorus, and played some basketball. It seemed that whatever organization there was, I was in it and was often an officer, probably because there were fewer students to choose from.

I believe one of my most helpful experiences was in 4-H. When I was in the lower elementary grades, I was so bashful I wouldn't even go out for recess. I just spent the time standing beside my teacher. But having to give talks and demonstrations, taking things for competition to the State Fair, being local and county officer and doing well with all that, brought me out of my bashfulness. It was as important as anything that could have happened.

In Murray I played the organ at church and taught little children in Sunday school. That, in addition to everything else, was overkill. I'm not proud to admit it, but, when I was in college, I just wanted to escape and not get involved. Still later, when I came to Osceola, I didn't even want people to know I could play the organ or piano.

I went to Iowa State University (ISU), following in my older sister's footsteps. I had been valedictorian in high school, largely because Mom said we didn't have to do dishes if we had home work, so every night I brought home a stack of books. It paid off. Because my math scores were high at Iowa State; they put me in engineering physics. There were 200 in the lecture portion of the class and only three of us were girls. I got a "D", maybe because I couldn't concentrate or maybe because I wasn't as good in physics as in math. But I got only two "D"s in college-one in that course and one in bowling.

Even though college began as a culture shock, it ended being the best time of my whole life. I met Bill during my freshman year in college. We actually had lived five miles apart but didn't know each other, although our parents were acquainted. Largely, I suppose, that was because he went to Osceola to school and I to Murray. During his freshman year he went to Southwestern Community College (SWCC).

That year we met through a fellow I was dating. We double dated once-I with my friend and he with my roommate. That next fall we started going together. I quickly realized what a compassionate fellow he is, more sensitive than I, and with a quick sense of humor. Those are qualities I still love him for.

We were married November 24, 1968, the day after I graduated. I had gotten the idea that my parents would pay for the education of each of us girls as long as we were dependent on them, so we waited to get married until I graduated. Mom said afterword that wasn't necessary, but it worked.

Bill started renting ground where my grandparents had once lived, just south of where my parents lived. I got a job teaching math and part-time counseling in the Murray system. I was working on my Master's in counseling and was able to be temporarily certified, but I've always felt badly about my experience there. The counseling program was new, I was starting it, and I didn't know that much about it. I felt I was as much a failure as I've felt about anything I've ever done.

I got my Master's in 1972. It was the best thing I ever did! The higher degree has earned enough higher salary that it has paid for itself over and over. However, the counseling position in the Clarke system has opened several times and I've declined. I love teaching and believe that a lot of counseling skills are needed in the classroom.

I quit teaching when Brent was born in 1971. I had the mistaken notion that farming would support a family. Wrong. I helped a lot with the farm. In fact, I would as soon be out driving a tractor as doing anything. If there were money in it, that is where we would be. I also think that is where I feel closest to God-doing anything out-of-doors. Just driving down the highway, if people will just look around, I wonder how any can claim to be atheists.

We moved to Bill's parents' farm about two miles from Osceola in 1973, and in the fall of '75, I started teaching 8th grade math in Osceola. I thought I'd died and gone to the wrong place. I had only taught in high school and kids who wanted to be there, so I'd never dealt with a discipline problem. It still sends shivers up my spine. Maxine Woods was my saving grace. She taught next door and took me under her wing. She was my mentor. I love her dearly but have always said Maxine Woods and my mother are good friends to have, but I would not want either one for an enemy. They are both very strong willed.

I taught 8th grade for five years and then went into high school math-Algebra I and II, along with Geometry for a few years. This will be my 26th year of teaching. I also teach evening classes at the Creston center for Buena Vista University. They have six sessions that run for eight weeks and I teach two or three a year. I am also a consultant for Drake University, grading course work.

Brent attended Iowa State University. He didn't like college but was totally motivated by having seen us go through financial struggles and saw education in market research as a way to avoid that. He graduated in 1993 and was able to get a job in Chicago in his field. He was married in 1995 to Ronna Eley, also an ISU graduate. They are both planning to get their MBA (Master's in Business Administration) degrees and haven't yet started a family.

Derrek was born in 1982-a huge surprise, and a good one. The boys are 10 years apart and Derrek has always very much admired Brent, almost putting him on a pedestal. Our phone bills are really high with calls to Waukegan. Most of them are Derrek's calls and worth every cent. I think the boys will be close all their lives even though they are as different as two people in the same family could be. Brent is very quiet - Derrek isn't. They don't look or act anything alike. Brent is subtle and unassuming. He doesn't come on strong. People can look at him and know that. Derrek is totally different. He would be hard to ignore.

Derrek is presently working at Hy-Vee, where many people have come to know him. One day a girl about his age carried a lady's groceries to her car and on the way the lady said, "If I were you, I'd go after that young man. He's a keeper." If he discovers there is an occasion for it-a child's birthday, perhaps-he will reach over and give him or her a candy bar-sometimes a dollar bill from his own pocket. Derrek is so giving that he will always be poor, but he is and will be rich in the important ways. Bill has had a good influence on the boys!

In 1984, we were faced with the choices of selling or losing the farm. We chose to sell it and moved to town. It is interesting how that can be told in a sentence, leaving out the trauma of going through the signs that pointed to it, watching everything going downhill. We were so discouraged. I would wake up in the night and realize that Bill wasn't in bed. I would find him out in the living room reading the Bible. That was his way of coping.

Throughout this time, of course, we considered options. Bill had quit working on his degree when he was farming, but had gotten it later. However, almost every job that was connected to it was one for which he would have to relocate and for several reasons, a move didn't seem like the choice we wanted to make. For one thing, I'd already been teaching quite awhile, and, for another and most important of all, we wanted our children to know and have a good relationship with their grandparents. So we chose not to pursue any of those opportunities and to stay here. I'm so glad we did. Both boys are very close to their grandparents. They were tom apart when Dad died. Derrek made a statement that nobody he loves had better die for 10years," 'cause I can't go through this again," He went out to the cemetery day after day after Dad's funeral.

From '80 to '84, we tried operating a health food store in Osceola. We bought it from Dixie and George South, rented the building from Bayard Shadley, where the north half of Osceola Drug Store is now. Both Mom and Bill spent many hours there. They are both very knowledgeable about health, as they are about so many things. (mother could have had a career, but Dad wanted her to be home.) I didn't spend much time at the store. I was pregnant most of 1981, and the smells of the teas made me really sick. We finally had to conclude that Osceola is too small a town to support a health food store and we gave up.

Finances, however, have been our only problem and we have been able to put things in perspective. As we looked around, we realized that we have been very fortunate. In the whole scheme of things, finances are not that important.

In the big picture, life has been very good to us. For example, we wanted to be back in the country and, off and on for several years, had been looking for an acreage. One evening in mid-April, 1996, while talking with our realtor about something else, Bill learned that the Van Loon acreage had gone on the market that day. When I got home at 7:30, we met with the realtor at the acreage and by 10:30 we were in her office putting a bid on the property. It was accepted! Two frantic days later we showed our house in town and two weeks later it sold. By early June we moved to a wonderful farm home in a beautiful tranquil setting with the songs of the birds to keep us company. We are absolutely in love with it.

Now Bill is self-employed. He makes toy tractors and sells them for several hundred dollars apiece. We have a business called Kelso Mowing, and it keeps him busy during the season. We have five riding mowers and an A-Farmall that is probably about a '46 vintage. Derrek is also involved in the project. It used to be just Derrek and Grandpa.

I help mow at the Mormon church and I think of Dad more there than anywhere because he helped with that. He is still so close to me. Whenever Derrek, Brent or Bill are on the road, I ask Dad to be an angel on their shoulders.