A Dove in the Distant Oaks

A DOVE

in the DISTANT

OAKS

DORIS NEWMAN

Copyright © 2016 Doris Newman.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-5127-3601-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-3602-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-3600-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016905009

WestBow Press rev. date: 7/19/2016

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11   Dementia

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Credits

C HAPTER 1

W ITH HER PONYTAIL IN PLACE and her sack lunch held tightly in her fist, even the front seat wasn’t safe. What should have been a day of running and laughing in the park instead abruptly ended when the bus’s nasty radiator hose broke on the final ride of the school term. The smelly green liquid sprayed onto her leg. The burning pain went deep inside her left ankle, not just on the skin.

A high-school student, who had just completed a first-aid unit, jumped to action, retrieving the appropriate equipment from the kit and wrapping the ankle to ready Dianna for transport. Beverly carefully placed gauze strips and gel along the injury.

The bus driver turned down the volume of the classic radio station and drove back to Dianna’s farm and up to the house. Tears streamed down Dianna’s face. Her mother came out of the house and Frank, the bus driver told her about the burn, while Dianna was placed into the backseat of her parents’ car.

Later that week, the superintendent visited the farm with a doll dressed in a colored, polka-dot print. Dianna had never seen one like it. A stuffed animal would have been more squeezable, but this was something new, and even though she was hurt, she felt a little guilty that none of her sisters had gotten one. But if they were upset about it, they didn’t show it.

Once again, the surge of pain in her leg reminded Dianna that there was a reason she’d received the doll. Perhaps that made the gift fair somehow. The doll didn’t really make her happy or feel better, but it was something to hold when the pain shot through her lower-left leg.

When Dianna awoke on the first day of vacation, the sunny, blue sky was visible out her second-floor bedroom’s window. She thought it would be fun to be the first one to get up and go outside. There was no planning ahead or reason why; she just stepped out from under the white sheets and tiptoed down the steps of her family’s eighty-five-year-old farmhouse. Once downstairs Diana walked through the house and into the entryway and opened the front screen door.

There was something fresh and exciting about being the first one up and having the whole farmyard before her. Dianna looked across the yard toward the quarter-mile-long driveway where the bus usually arrived this time of the day. But today she was free of the bus, free of school, and free of all her school-year woes.

Her father’s footsteps and the squeak of the door behind her quickly interrupted the peaceful moment on the porch. You’re up awful early, aren’t you? He chuckled.

That was the one and only time Dianna remembered waking up before her father. Being up early would remain something she always enjoyed. She valued the quiet, the solitude, and what would become her time with God. So from eight years old until adulthood, she woke up early to hear from God in the same excited way.

At the end of the week, as the nurse pulled away some of the stringy pieces of gauze, Dianna closed her eyes after she peeked at the shriveled skin. The nurse’s touch hurt, but Dianna couldn’t cry out more than a muffled whimper. That was her nature. She had planned on going to Vacation Bible School or VBS that day but due to the burn was not able to. The unpleasant experience concluded her day and left her wondering what vacation Bible school had been like. Yet she had to be content with only wondering. Her expectations were unmet, but into her mind came the phrase Godliness with contentment is great gain. How does that make sense with what I have gone through? she wondered. These things just happen.

C HAPTER 2

D ISCOVERY AND WANDERLUST WERE PART of Dianna’s family history. Dianna had been assigned a report on just that subject. What convinced people from all over Europe and other parts of the globe to emigrate? Early in the twentieth century, her family left Norway by ship for Ellis Island, where they safely arrived. Dianna’s grandfather had been a shopkeeper in the old country, with an even older story about being a reindeer herder.

Dianna’s grandfather decided to come to America. He had fallen in love with a woman who died shortly after their wedding. Heartbroken, he chose to leave the fjords of Norway for the unknown.

Dianna’s grandmother was the daughter of a ship captain in Norway’s Royal Navy. What made her choose to travel to America? Enterprise, adventure, and stories of changed fortunes dotted a trail through the tales that filled her head. In the years that followed, Grandma Astrid found contentment in a family with eleven children on the American side of the ocean.

On Dianna’s father’s side of the family, both grandparents came from Telemarken, Norway. However, they immigrated to Wisconsin a generation earlier. No longer would they wear the Norwegian national costume at holidays, but instead they would become citizens in their new homeland. The Bunad outfit with all the hand stitching and special accessories was stored away to show children and later grandchildren. They seldom spoke of the class and society left behind as they transitioned to the revered lives of Americans.

Dianna finished her report and it was time for her and her three sisters to do chores. Belinda, her oldest sister, carried two five-gallon pails with finely ground feed for the Holstein dairy cattle. Mary, just a year-and-a-half younger than Dianna, fed the older calves corn and alfalfa from the hay mound of the barn and filled the troughs with water. Dianna and Jaclyn, clad in their red galoshes, fed the littlest calves with oversized bottles, and then they fed the pigs.

The hog barn was southeast of the dairy barn. When the sky went black with storm clouds, her father said, Close the windows on the south side of the house, the north side of the house, or wherever it is raining into the house. Before going to the fields at the start of the day, he said, I’ll be in the north field today.

Once the livestock was cared for, it was time to return to the house, where Mother had a job or two waiting on the tip of her tongue. Dianna knew Mom assigned ironing to Mary, because she was good with detailed work. Belinda had some task to do with dinner. Dianna and Jaclyn set the table and put on the condiments. Of course they never used the word condiment; rather, they said salt, pepper, or the names of other items most likely added to the meal.

Mother often made Scotch oatmeal bread. The family recipe started by dissolving two packages of yeast in lukewarm water. Dianna watched her mother create the recipe almost every week. Along with bread, there would be beef roast, peeled carrots and potatoes, along with peeled and sliced onions, all made before her father came home for lunch. Mother measured flour or corn starch for the gravy. When everything was ready, Mom sent Belinda out to the field to wave Dad home.

The family—Dianna, her parents, and her three sisters—lived on two-quarters of land. It was enough to maintain the farm in eastern South Dakota and provided all the needs of their family. They weren’t considered to be very high on the social ladder of power, politics, wealth, or economic success, but those weren’t goals Dianna’s parents would instill in her .

At the table, discussion was about how the alfalfa crop was doing. Her dad considered how soon the first cutting would be ready. By the end of the week, it would be cut and laid in rows on the ground to dry out over the weekend. Baling would begin the following Monday.

Dianna envisioned the process of baling hay and getting it stacked on the flatbed behind the baler. She would have to remember to wear her gloves to avoid blisters from the rough baling twine. The dark-green alfalfa hay was heavy and used for feeding the calves. Oat straw, golden colored and much heavier, was used for bedding the calves.

Although some farmers used the giant, round-bale style, Dianna’s father remained content with the rectangular shape. He was thankful for the equipment he had, and that gratefulness allowed him to say no to unnecessary purchases. The alfalfa was lifted from the ground by a combing process and shot out the other side of the baler as a bale. Then her father carried the bales to the back of the flatbed and stacked them neatly so he could fit as many bales as possible. Then he could take them to be restacked in the cow pasture.

Though baling hay was a challenge for Dianna’s father, Scripture verses the real challenge. He didn’t change the method of baling. And he didn’t change the method of memorizing Scripture. He would read the verses over and over. Jeremiah 33:3 says, Call unto me, and I will answer thee…(KJV). How would God answer him with contentment?

C HAPTER 3

D IANNA ENJOYED SHOPPING FOR SCHOOL new clothes each fall. This trip to Watertown even included a meal at a Main Street restaurant. Shopping was often on the same day as the sidewalk sales, which meant extra clothes look at. Her father tired of the shopping, but Mother had a list of what they needed.

Each of her sisters selected three pairs of denim jeans, which would go with most anything. She did the same. Her mother added their essentials to complete her wardrobe. Selecting a blue plaid dress with a high waistline and a striking tie at the neckline, she felt confident she would enjoy sitting with her new notebooks and folders at her desk. They found socks and undergarments before returning home in time for the evening chores.

As the family returned home, the dog, Snowball, began barking. Their white collie was a welcome sight. Usually she barked when the milk truck came to pick up the milk from the barn. Dad worried that the truck would endanger Snowball. As far as the dairy business, family pets often died in tragedies for some reason.

Dianna looked forward to the first