#16 Out of Place
Washington farm girl marries Montana veterinarian!
Mom with her brother, George. Probably about 1943-44.
Waitsburg, Washington
The music Green Acres is playing in my ears when I think of the courtship and marriage of my mother, Helen Lloyd and my father Don Shaffner.
Sweetheart Ball
Helen was from eastern Washington, Waitsburg. Her father had a meat market and a farm. She was from a pioneer family who settled in Waitsburg in 1859. As she went through school, Helen learned to play the piano and organ. In college she was in the orchestra, and marching band, playing the kettle drum or tympani. Her love of music was predominant in her life.
Don came from a ranching family in Beaverhead County, Montana where his father had married in 1913 and homesteaded in 1915. Montana was in his blood.
Don went to Montana State College for a couple of years before joining the National Guard and serving in the South Pacific in World War II. When he came home, he applied and was accepted to veterinary college in 1945 at Washington State College in Pullman, Washington. College on the G. I. Bill was a way to obtain an education and becoming a veterinarian was a huge accomplishment. Because of his knowledge from the ranch, he told stories of teaching professors how to lay an animal safely on the ground, such as for a horse surgery or a c-section on a cow.
Washington State College is where Helen and Don met. I have not yet learned how they met or where, but I think Dad stayed at a boarding house run by Ethel Thorton, Mom’s godmother. Her scrapbooks are full of notations….”decided to make this a partnership”, “went to Spokane for a ring”, “will get a ring on my finger”. They were married in 1946, moving to Dillon, Montana after Don graduated from Veterinary School in 1949.
Graduation 1946
Helen didn’t like horses as her father had race horses and she fell off once and hurt her back. She was allergic to all animals; cats, dogs, horses, cows. A ranching family in Beaverhead County, Montana was totally different than her family in eastern Washington. One of her first trips to Dillon was for Labor Day which is a big rodeo weekend. She was shocked at the bars, liquor and poker games. She was totally “out of place”!
First time to Dillon, Montana
Labor Day 1949
Yet, the marriage survived for 55 years. Music was Helen’s vice and gift. I think she played for her first wedding in 1944 in Waitsburg for her friends Pat & Roy. In Dillon she gave piano lessons, played the organ at the Presbyterian church nearly every Sunday, played in a community band and played for untold weddings and funerals. For approximately 50 years she gifted others with her music.
Her piano
I remember when she bought it; she was thrilled.
Playing for a wedding in August 1978
So how did this farm girl from Washington survive with a veterinarian? When they bought the hospital, she did the bookwork. She learned to wash dirty clothes, blankets and answer phone calls when a rancher said he needed a vet because his bull was “hurt”. (translate: broken penis). She tried not to do anything else in the veterinary hospital. A story of a taxi cab driver bringing a cat to the clinic for a client and the cat racing through the clinic after the clinic cat, racing through Venetian blinds and Mom chasing the cat’s is a favorite story.
When they bought the ranch, she supported her husband in another venture. When her husband needed someone to take their daughters to the ranch, she drove them (before they had drivers licenses). But she couldn’t hold the reins of their horses if they handed them to her. Yet she bravely waved to my sister and I as we took off to gather cattle or ride in 10,000 acres. She knew the dangers, but she never let on. Well maybe once or twice. I remember her in tears when I rode a stallion in the Dillon parade when I was 6 years old.
When we were trailing cattle, a memory for many is the lunches that she packed. Saddlebag lunches consisted of 1-2 sandwiches, a can of fruit with a spoon, a hard boiled egg (that was peeled), candy, homemade cookies and whatever else she might add. Now there might be 5-8 of us, but the lunches were ready when we left the house before dawn!
When we were trailing down the road, Mom would show up with lunch packed in coolers in the truck of her car, after driving 40 miles to get to us.
Helen was a giver. Whether it was for food for a family who lost a loved one, or the birth of new baby, Helen had a dish ready for them. She gave her talents to organizations, the local hospital auxiliary, the National Women’s Auxiliary to the Veterinary Medical Association (national treasurer), Girl Scouts, 4-H; Helen never said no.
She began married life “out of place” but ended up creating a home for her husband and daughters, while remembering kindness and giving, she found “her place”.
The only picture of her on a horse at our ranch
I am not sure why that day, she decided to ride.
It was a huge milestone for her.
Gail, Mom and Dad
