From the 1920s through the late 1940s, Dave Remington and Ruth Linton brought energy, leadership and creativity to Gopher Valley. They both came to the Valley to live on and farm the Nash Place, on Thomson Mill Road. Ruth and her family came first, in 1922, when Ruth was 13. Dave’s family came in 1929, when he was 17.
After his father died, Dave helped take care of his widowed mother and younger siblings. Ruth became a teacher, beginning with Upper Gopher Valley School, where she had graduated, then in the hills near Stoney Mountain.
“The Remingtons’ biggest and most enduring gift to Gopher Valley was Deer Creek Community Hall.”
After Dave and Ruth were married, the Remingtons’ biggest and most enduring gift to Gopher Valley was Deer Creek Community Hall. They mobilized the people of the Valley–including Red Snyder, and my grandparents and uncles–to build “The Hall,” completed in 1931. Up until then, “get-togethers” had taken place in private homes, one-room schools or buildings outside the Valley.
The Hall was an immediate hit, providing a large venue for holiday- and card-parties, potlucks, roller skating, marching band practice, performances (including wrestling), meetings of the Deer Creek Women’s Club, dancing and more.
Gopher Valley soon became the main local center for square dancing. Square dance fans from Sheridan and the surrounding area braved miles of gravelly road to get to The Hall. For several years it served as a summer Sunday school facility for Valley children who wanted to attend or whose parents wanted them to attend. There were no churches in the Valley, so summer Sunday school at the Hall was as close as they might come to hearing Bible stories.
Dave and Ruth were very involved in the Gopher Twirlers Square Dance Club. They helped build Gopher Valley’s annual float in the Phil Sheridan Days Parade, and were always ready to lend a hand in other volunteer activities. Their girls had plenty of room on their 60-acre place halfway up the Valley, and in neighbors’ large farm fields to ride their horse.
After my parents bought their 60-acre place, the Remingtons moved to town so their girls could be more involved in after-school activities.
Three of the four Remington daughters (all except Sharon) inherited artistic abilities from both sides of their family, the Remington’s and the Nilsen’s (their grandmother Winifred’s parents). Sharon, a very caring person, had a great career as a nurse.
Today, Dave and Ruth are gone, and their daughters have moved away from Sheridan.
Through the Internet, they stay in touch with many people in the Sheridan area.
(There is a chapter on the Remingtons and another on the Deer Creek Community Hall in the forthcoming History of Gopher Valley.)