Donna Sanders (left, above), the first-born Remington daughter, remembers the years around 1948 or 1949 when her family lived at their 60-acre place about halfway up Gopher Valley. The farm across Gopher Valley Road (to the west) of them, on part of the original Kerr Brothers Donation Land Claim, was owned by Frank Shannon and his wife. Their adult son “Snookie” lived with them.
Donna wrote:
I was probably 12 or 13 when Mr. Shannon came to my mother to ask if it would be OK if he hired me to drive his tractor during haying season. At that time the ranchers would hire a “traveling group of men” (work crew) to do the haying. Well, my mother, finally agreed. But her biggest worry was not that I was going to be driving a HUGE Oliver Row-Crop. She was concerned that I was going to be subjected to “rude men” probably using obscene language!
I felt so cool and privileged to be able to drive that big tractor as it had 13 gears forward. I was so little that I had to jump up on the clutch to get it to shift, but I did it! And yes, I probably learned a few nasty words, nothing I hadn’t heard before from the boys who sat in the back of the school bus!
I drove that tractor and pulled the big hay trailer around the field and then to the barn to be unloaded with big hay tongs. There was a young girl “Janie” at the (Wilfred) Smith’s place just down the road that I got permission to play with, and together we did quite a bit. We went into Shannon’s barn and would “swim” down through the fresh hay. That was a great feeling (and I know there were snakes there too, but we didn’t care).
We would ride our horses down through Shannons’ field to Deer Creek, tie them up and learn to swim with the help of an old inner tube. The water was always murky with lots of crawdads in it that would bite our toes.
In looking back, I realize my mother could not see us while we were at the creek, as there was too much brush. But we essentially taught ourselves to swim, and we certainly could have drowned, but we didn’t. And guess what? That experience—being independent and teaching myself to swim—served me well in adulthood.
(This is an excerpt from the Gopher Valley history, a work in progress which includes writing by various contributors and myself –Cliff Sanderlin).
Energy, talent, and power in these Remington women!