Lessons From Childhood: Betty Trahern

I grew up in a small town in Colorado where you knew just about everyone.  Since my dad was the local preacher, that gave me lots of opportunities to know people.

I woke up this morning thinking about Betty Trahern.  I’m not sure why but I could picture her long brown hair.  It was always soft and shiny.  She would pull it back in a barrette low ponytail and use bobby pins high on her temple to get a kind of hair wave as the hair lined up to be pinned in that barrette.

I think I woke up thinking about Betty for three reasons.  First, we went to Dark Winter Nights in Fairbanks last week and that has me thinking of stories.  People are always gravitating toward stories.  Second, I had asked my husband what his love language is, and he replied that it is service like his mother’s.  He said he watched his mother his whole life serving others and he thought it was the best way to go. He asked me why I asked him, who had I talked to that day etc. but it just came to me in the shower.  I agreed with him that his language is service to others. The third thing that caused me to wake up thinking about Betty is because we had some friends over for Pi day.  These are friends we’ve known for years and Gary can tell a tale.  I always love to get him talking to hear what he will say.  So, I went to bed full of stories and thinking about what things have been in my path to get me where I am today.

As our children are now adults, I wonder what stories they will tell about how they grew up. I wonder who they will emulate in their lives in order to make the world a better place.  They are still finding their paths, but hopefully theirs will be full of stories of gratitude and wonder.

But Betty Trahern is someone to emulate.  I never saw her say a harsh word. She was gracious and kind when we would visit her house.  I remember she had a long farm table.  I mean it must have been able to sit twelve or more people around it.  The table sat in front of the kitchen windows that went almost to the floor.  That’s where the humming bird feeders were perched all summer.  And her windows were always spotless.

Since this was a ranch, there was a mud room when you came in the side door, which everyone who knew the Traherns used.  In the mud room it smelled of lye soap and fresh milk.  We used to buy our milk from them.  In the winter, the mud room would be full of coats and boots and snow pants.  Betty’s husband Dale made a tubbing run through one of his fields that started at the top of a half mile of a hard and steep hill.  When you added on the bottom of the field, you could travel for several minutes on a tube.  That’s another story.

Betty’s table had a long bench in front of the windows where people could all slide down and eat.  The other side and ends had chairs.  You could really pack in the adults around that table.  I remember going in and Betty would have the table set with cheese and crackers.  There would be a big pot of chili on the stove and hot water for cocoa or tang tea.

You could use the coal stove that sat in the corner of the dining room to dry your hat and gloves on.  It would be piled with wet wool.  Straight through the dining room was the family room.  The television sat in the middle of this room, but we hardly ever turned it on.  The fun thing about Betty’s house was playing games like Pit, Monopoly, Life, or Clue on the floor with Dale and Betty’s youngest child, Jess, and only one living at home at the time. He was good natured like his mamma and would play with a pack of kids six to ten years younger than him.

Betty’s hair was a marvel.  I remember church ladies always complimenting her.  She was a beauty.  That long shiny hair was always in place.  Betty always smiled, was always gracious.  She sang in the church choir and took care of anyone who came by her house.  She treated the kids as well as the adults.  It was said that she was Cherokee, but I am not sure if that was just a kid story to explain her beautiful hair or not.  She could have been.  I remember talking to her about her hair once.  I knew that she washed it in the sink only a couple of times a week.  Sometimes you’d catch her with rollers and a scarf tied in her hair.  She told me the secret to her shiny hair was to rinse it with vinegar.  She hardly had any gray in it.  Just a few strands at the sides high on her temple.  She may have colored it, but I somehow doubt it.

We should all be like Betty.