Kids
When you see a cute picture like this one of my aunts, Bonnie, Dixie, and Sandy, you immediately think, “Oh, those girls must be best friends and sisters, not just sisters. Or their parents must have really trained them very well, for them to stand there so obediently.” Well, you would be right most of the time, but as we all know, siblings fight sometimes and kids act out occasionally.
Younger siblings can be a joy and a pain…within minutes of each other. They can make you laugh and then make you mad, usually because they are so needy. Then, when the older siblings become teenagers, every request, every question, and especially the presence of the younger sibling within a mile of the older one, is a huge annoyance, and some things are the worst thing in the world!!
We have all been there…at least any of us with younger siblings, or even cousins, so you can’t exactly fault your own kids when they try to do the same things you did. You can hope they won’t, but you really need to be realistic. It’s just the way things go in families. There will come a day when they will be friends for life…when they will look back at these days and think about how silly they were to worry about having their younger sibling around them. Like it was going to steal all their coolness away. We realize that they just wanted to be like us, because they thought we were so cool. How could they not see the serious lack of confidence we had? How we felt so very not cool, and we were trying to show the world that we really were cool. Thankfully those days are very short in the total of our life. And thankfully during those days, that feel like forever, there are a few golden moments when they forget that they don’t want that younger sibling around.
It is in those precious moments that they find that it’s kind of fun to have someone who looks 
up to you. It isn’t something that happens very much, after all. They see that they are someone of value to this, their younger sibling. They find that they like helping out. After all, it’s just a helping hand to get up on the bed of a pickup, because the littlest girl can stand behind her taller sisters and it will make a great picture. And it is kind of funny when you are both a little clumsy at getting her up there, because while she is your little sister, she isn’t so much smaller that you can easily lift her, so you let her push up on you and she slips a little, and the whole thing is so comical that all you can do is giggle. Pretty soon, it isn’t just her who is saying, “A little help, please!!” It’s both of you, because you can’t stop laughing long enough to get her up there.
My grand nephew, Ethan Hadlock is in his second year of preschool, and is excited to be moving on to Kindergarten next year. Like most kids at this age, Ethan likes school, probably because it makes him feel grown up. I have seen such a change in him since he started school. He is no longer the toddler he was, but is maturing into a big boy, who knows a little bit about the big wide world that exists beyond the confines of his home. It is a rite of passage that all kids go through at this age, and it is a cool thing to watch.
Ethan has a little sister, named Rory. Rory is a force to be reckoned with, and Ethan has a tender heart. All too often in these situations, Rory ends up bullying Ethan, and like lots of brothers, he won’t fight back physically against this weaker sex child he lives with. Oh don’t get me wrong, Ethan is not constantly bullied by Rory, but she does know that she has the power to do so, and it is an efficient weapon when she decides to use it. And Ethan does have his limits, and when those are reached…well, their mom, Chelsea just wants to lock herself in the bathroom for a Calgon moment.
Ethan is very much into Ninja Turtles right now, and like most boys his age, he fancies himself a super hero. Not a bad plan. I think the world needs more heroes anyway. His family recently moved into a bigger house, allowing Ethan to finally have his own room…a very special thing for him. His room is decorated with another super hero…Captain America bedding and cars pictures, typical of most boys, but his DVD player belongs to the Ninja Turtles.
Ethan got to go hunting with his dad, Ryan, and is getting a BB gun for his birthday, so he and his dad with be going out to teach him safety and how to shoot his new gun. He is very much into doing things with his dad. He broke his arm a while back, and he gets the cast off the day after his birthday, which will be perfect for learning how to operate that new gun. Today is Ethan’s 5th birthday. Happy birthday Ethan!! Have a super hero kind of day!! We love you!!
When a mother dies young, the family is left to try to put the pieces back together, even though a very important piece of the family will now be forever missing. Theresa Halcyone “Halcy” Davis Freese was a young mother with so much to live for, when she passed away at only 40 years of age. Halcy left a loving husband, Louis Emery Freese, and four children, Vera, who was 14, Buford, who was 10, Myrtle, who was 8, and Florence who was only 4 1/2. It was a lot for a dad, who was going through his own horrible grief, to handle. For Louis, trying to care for his children and still make a living, became almost too much. Thankfully, he had the help of his mother-in-law, Theresa Elizabeth Spencer Davis, to help them all through the pain of loss, and care for the children, when their dad couldn’t, either because of work, or just the deep sadness of losing his beloved Halcy. The children’s aunts and uncles, Halcy’s sisters and brothers helped out too,and they all showed such kindness to the children, that it became something the children would never forget.
Their Uncle Luther, who was courting Lena Timpte at the time, took the children to the Timpte’s bakery to visit Lena. Later the children would spend a lot of time at Luther and Lena’s farm, and they lovingly pointed out that Lena made the best candy!! They would also go to visit their Uncle Reuben and Aunt Maggie, who lived on the “Creek Place”. That was a great place to visit because they could go swimming in the creek. Clifford and Josephine had the farm in the center. There was always an aluminum pitcher on the table full of milk, which is a real treat for “town kids”, and they remarked that “no one can fry potatoes like Aunt Josephine!” Aunt Cassie was always so sweet, and she kept her girls long hair in beautiful curls. She also had a music box they could wind up and listen to…you could see the inner workings too, which was an added bonus. Aunt Ruth took the children on their vacations for years, and made them clothes. She also did so many other things for them over the years that they became too numerous to mention, but were never forgotten.
As these dear aunts and uncles passed away, one by one, Florence, who was Halcy’s youngest daughter, and the author of this portion of Uncle Bill’s Family History, felt the heaviness of loss that she could not feel as a little girl of only 4 1/2 years, when her mother passed away. While she loved her mother very much, these aunts and uncles had stepped in to make her life a happy one in spite of loss, and for that she could never thank them enough.
Most people think of Christmas Eve as just a precurser to Christmas Day, and it is, but for some people it is a little bit more than that. My Grandma and Grandpa Byer have made that an extra special kind of day for the Byer family. Christmas Eve was their wedding day…in 1927. To our family that day marks the day when most of us began the long road to our very existence. My grandparents became the parents of nine children over the years, thereby bringing about thirty one grandchildren, and countless great grandchildren, great great grandchildren, and great great great grandchildren. My grandfather used to remark, “Mommy, look what we started.” Did they ever!! They were married 53 years before Grandpa went home to be with the Lord. Grandma would follow him just 8 short years later, but their love has never passed away. This year, as I contemplate the love they had for each other, and the massive family they created, it occurs to me that this would have been their 86th wedding anniversary. No, they did not live to see that day…not many people do, but if they were still alive…they would have still been together…of that there is no doubt.
Many people might not think Christmas Eve is such a great day for a wedding, what with the holiday and all, but many years ago, that was considered a good time for a wedding, because the family was already gathered for the holiday, and famiy from far away usually couldn’t make it such a log distance for a wedding anyway, so that didn’t matter. Weddings were much less elaborate then too, so they didn’t take as much planning. The couple usually wore their Sunday best clothes, and then went right back to wearing them for Sunday again. Nevertheless, the love was there, and that was what matters. Grandma and Grandpa were made for each other, and they were happy all the days of their lives. I’m sure Grandma never expected to be here without him, and I’m sure there were many lonely days after Grandpa’s passing, but she held his memory in her heart and carried on for another eight years.
Being married on Christmas Eve is probably why Grandma and Grandpa Byer always 
considered Christmas Eve to be such a special holiday. They loved the family Christmas parties. They got to celebrate their Anniversary and Christmas with all, or at least most, of their kids, grandkids, and great grandkids. Many of the great great grandkids and great great great grandkids either don’t remember or never met Grandma and Grandpa Byer, and that thought makes me sad, because they have missed out on so much. While Christmas Eve is not a common day for a wedding, one couple in our family thought Grandma and Grandpa’s wedding date was so special, that they decided to marry that day too, so Happy 86th Anniversary to Grandma and Grandpa Byer, and Happy 19th Anniversary to Raylynn and Doug Williams too.
Kids have always had a fascination with animals. Any animal will do, but pets don’t seem to fall into the same category as other animals. I suppose that the reason for that is that after a little bit of time with a pet, they become normal everyday parts of the family. It doesn’t mean the child doesn’t love the pet, because they do, but the pet is an animal they see everyday, often in the house, so it’s nothing special. Farm animals, on the other hand are something different. Here is an animal that isn’t a domesticated pet, and yet it isn’t afraid of people either. They understand that they need people to bring them their food and water, and they also understand that people aren’t usually scary. Yes, the animal could hurt a child, especially if it stepped on the child, but for the most part the animal is as curious about the child as the child is about the animal.
As small children, my dad and his siblings lived on a farm, so being around farm animals was a part of life. Still, that did not stop the curiosity about those animals from forming in their minds. When they went out to play, a part of their time outside always seemed to be spent visiting the other residents of their home. They would trek out to the haystacks where the cows would be feeding, and watch those strong, yet gentle animals eat, while the cows watched these tiny versions of the people who cared for them watching them. Funny how we all teach our kids not to stare, but when put in a situation like this, all that rudeness doesn’t seem to matter. Both sides are staring anyway, and since it isn’t a person…it just doesn’t matter. I suppose in many ways the whole situation was a lot like the petting zoos that most city children have been to as their only real interaction with farm animals.
When my girls were little, we too had a little place out in the country, and we raised a cow now and them. The girls were quite curious and really wanted to help with our cow. I had to be careful what they helped with, because when it came to grain…our cows always became pigs, and a tiny little girl could get trampled in the cows effort to get to what the cows considered candy. Most of the time the cows were a gentle as they could be, but the grain had to be given in a certain way, and very quickly, because they couldn’t wait to get to it. One cow we had named Rosie, due to her red color, was so excited that she was trying to follow me and still scratch her belly too. The end result was one good, but unintended kick to the back of my knee. It left a knot that stayed with me for the better part of 6 months. It was a good thing for Rosie that I liked her, and it wasn’t butchering time, or she would have been on our table in a matter of days.
Hay was always a very different matter. Little kids could be around cows eating hay, and there 
was not a dangerous rush to the food. I suppose that was the vegetables of the whole deal, and we all know how kids, which is what cows are a lot like when it comes to food, are with vegetables. The girls loved to help put the hay in the feeding troths for the cows, and then sit and watch them eat. I suppose it was an interesting sight. If you have never watched a cow eat, you might not know it, but they really are strange when they eat. I suppose that is why Aunt Ruth, Uncle Bill, and my dad were just standing there, out by the haystack when they could have been playing in the snow, just watching the cows eat.
Isaac is the most serious of the children of my niece, Jenny and her husband Steve. The other children are always laughing, and Isaac laughs too, but much of the time he seems to be contemplating the complexity of the world around him. I know that sounds strange for a young man of only seven years, but when I look at Isaac, I see a young man who is a thinker. He doesn’t just look for the funny things in life, but rather wants to know the who, what, where, why, and how of things and situations around him. He may not even know that yet, but I see it in his eyes. I was that way when I was a kid. Sometimes the things going on around me went by unnoticed, because I was always deep 
in thought about something that came to my mind. I wanted to know why things went the way they did, so I sat and thought about it. I see that very much in Isaac too. He is a boy with many things on his mind.
Of course, Isaac has a funny side to, and is quick to smile. He is the kind of little boy that is a good friend, because he understands how to be a friend. He is kind and sensitive to others. The youngest son out of three boys, and older brother to his sister Aleesia, he knows how to get along with others. He knows how to fight battles with his brothers, and how to be gentle with his little sister. It’s a good mix. He also has a love of pets, and takes good care of 
them. Puppies think of Isaac as their best friend. He is truly a complex little boy.
Isaac is, nevertheless, all boy. He loves to go shooting with his dad, and looks forward to the day when he will be able to go hunting with his dad. In a day when so many people have a fear of guns, Isaac’s parents are teaching their children a healthy respect for guns and for life, so that as they get older, they will not see guns as a weapon to be used in anger, but one to be used to hunt and to protect. The best time to learn that is as a child, and that is what Isaac and his siblings are learning. Today is Isaac’s 7th birthday. Happy birthday Isaac!! Have a great day!! We love you!!
Kids are always doing goofy little things, and my niece Michelle is no exception. When I asked my niece, Lindsay, who is Michelle’s cousin/best friend/partner in crime, to give me a little dirt on Michelle for her birthday story, little did I know what I would hear. When I think of Michelle, I automatically think of Lindsay too, because they were practically inseparable as kids, and while they live a good distance away from each other now, that distance has not changed their friendship at all. As little kids, they decided to make up a special language for themselves. In the end they made up several…and they both knew exactly what the other one was saying. I suppose that it might be because their languages were logical to a degree. Lindsay explained one language this way. My name is spelled Caryn, so in their language it would be Caong Arong Yon Nong. Now that’s a pretty long version of a name that isn’t really that long, but that would be the name anyway. The girls understood each other completely, and their favorite thing to do was to go to Walmart and walk around talking to each other in their secret language…just to see the people around them looking at them like they were crazy. They enjoyed that so much that they spoke that language for two years.
No matter how inventive these girls were, the one thing they couldn’t imagine was enjoying a Bologna sandwich. Their grandma, my mom fed her kids and grandkids a lot of Bologna sandwiches through the years, and whenever she fed them to Michelle and Lindsay, they would take the Bologna off and throw it in the bushes in the back yard, and eat the sandwich with mayonnaise, mustard, and pickles, and they decided that they kind of liked it…and they thought Mom’s taste in sandwiches was bad. I’m sorry, but I beg to differ. Mayonnaise, mustard, and pickles…I don’t think so, girls. Still, it’s a wonder the bushes didn’t die, because…let’s face it, Bologna isn’t plant food. Michelle, is however, a very good cook, and in their senior year, Michelle had a free period right before lunch. She would go home and make lunch for Lindsay who would come over at lunch. It was a fond memory of Lindsay’s from that year. Another fond memory is the day that Michelle and Lindsay kidnapped, Lindsay’s little sister, Kellie and made her ditch her class. Kellie was a little freaked out about it, but their mom, my sister, Allyn was a good sport, and didn’t kill them for it.
Michelle is seldom called Michelle, because she has a number of nicknames. I don’t know if these date back to the secret languages or not, but Lindsay has long called her Mash Stav…don’t ask me why or what that means, because it doesn’t mean anything, it’s just one of the goofy names they used. Lindsay also called her Meechelle, my Belle. Lacey, Michelle’s little sister often called her Mish Mash. They couldn’t go with any of the normal nicknames, like Shelly or anything, because that would be too…normal. And not to be outdone, Michelle had nicknames for Allyn’s family too. Lindsay became Lance, Kellie became Killay, and Allyn became Lynnie…and there are probably many more that we haven’t thought of.
Michelle is a very intelligent person. She has moved to Spearfish, South Dakota to finish her education, before beginning her career choice of being an art teacher. She is an incredible artist and will be an amazing art teacher. She is also a very fun person, who is a friend to all. While she does feel lonely and homesick sometimes, she likes the Spearfish area, and especially the lack of wind. We miss her too. Today is Michelle’s birthday. Happy birthday Michelle!! Have a great day!! We love you!!
Sometimes we do things for no real reason…we just feel a need somehow. When my dad’s family was living in Holyoke, Minnesota, the family liked to go down to Oak Lake to fish. The lake is located about 15 miles southwest of Holyoke. The lake was a family favorite location. In fact, the whole area was beautiful. The kids, my Aunt Laura, Uncle Bill, my dad, Aunt Ruth, and their friends, went fishing at the lake as often without their parents as they did with them. The lake became an escape from the boredom of everyday life in a small town.
At some point the kids came across the Fire Warden’s house. You see, the area was very wooded, and there was enough fire danger to warrant not only a fire warden, but a fire watch tower in the area. Of course, the summer season in any wooded area presents a high fire danger, as the summer heat dries out the area. Over time, in their hikes through the area, the kids became friends with the fire warden, and were eventually invited to climb up in the fire tower to check out the view from far above the forest floor. It soon became a tradition. When the kids and their friends went fishing at Oak Lake, they also stopped by the 
tower, and climbed it every time.
Yes, they loved visiting with the person in the tower, but they also climbed the tower when it was unmanned. I suppose it was partly the challenge of climbing up the high tower. Or it could have been the beauty of the view from the top of the tower. Maybe it was the visit with the watchman in the tower. Somehow, I don’t really think that any of those were the real reason the kids and their friends climbed the tower, every time they went by it. I think they had a very simple reason that they did it…because it was there. And sometimes that is all the reason you need.
For as long as she could remember, my daughter, Amy has wanted to swim, interact, or at the very least, touch a dolphin. I think she was beginning to think that her lifelong dream would never come to pass. Then, she and her husband, Travis decided to take a very special family vacation, before their children, Shai and Caalab were completely grown up. They settled on a Caribbean cruise. At first they were going to keep it a secret so the kids would find out when they pulled up to the dock, but the excitement got to be too much for them and they found themselves wanting the kids to share in the excitement of planning the trip. Shai and Caalab were beyond excited about the trip, and over time it became all they talked about. Finally the day arrived, and they were off on the trip of a lifetime.
Their trip would take them to a private island in the Bahamas, Jamaica, Grand Cayman, and Cozumel, Mexico. 
They would get to go parasailing in the Bahamas, which was a little un-nerving for Shai…but then I’m not sure how I would feel about it either. Jamaica was the part of the trip that Travis, Shai, and Caalab were most looking forward to. They were going to see the home and grave of one of their favorite singers, Bob Marley. Jamaica was a little surprising for them too, because there are two sides to Jamaica…the rich and the very poor…still, the visit to Bob Marley’s place was the highlight of the trip for Travis and the kids. In Grand Cayman, they took a ship wreck tour, and found out what can happen when an anchor misses the shelf it is supposed to land on. The fish they saw through the glass bottom boat were amazingly beautiful, and the ship wrecks were sad, broken pieces of what used to be a ship.
Finally, came the day when Amy’s wish would come true. Their ship arrived in Cozumel at 10:00 in the morning…to pouring rain!! They all wondered if they would be able to spend 
their time with the dolphins. Travis and Caalab were trying to figure out a way to force the issue, in the event that they said it was cancelled. Thankfully the rain quit, and they headed into the pool area. After a little training, they were able to interact with the dolphins. For Amy this part of the trip was the end all/beat all best part. I don’t know if she ever truly believed that her dream would come true, but in the end, not only did she get to interact with the dolphins, but one named Diego even gave her a kiss. Travis was a little jealous, but since Diego wasn’t coming home with them, he figured that one little kiss wouldn’t hurt anything.
Every year, in the tradition my grandparents started, the Byer family gathers to celebrate the Christmas season together, and to keep my grandparents’ dream alive. It was their desire that their children wouldn’t drift apart after they were gone. The family has done their very best to honor their wish, and the Byer Family Christmas Party is a big part of honoring that wish. Over the years, we have all worked together or split the hosting into families, but the party has always been held. Santa Clause has shown up to talk to the kids, bags of treats for the little ones were always given out, and the food…the best in the world. But, the most important part of these wonderful gatherings is the family. Re-connecting with all of them and hearing all about what is going on in their lives…that’s what it’s all about…that’s the dream that our grandparents had for us. The connection to family.
This year I had a chance to hear about how well Autumn Beadle is doing in school, and her plans to graduate at semester in her senior year, and then it’s on to Nursing School for her. I got to see how much she cares for her grandma, my Aunt Virginia. I got to touch base with Aunt Dixie, Uncle Jim, and their family. We used to see them at the mall a lot, but in recent years that hasn’t worked out so well. I ran into Michael and Deena McDaniels on Black Friday, and we laughed about our shopping trials tonight. I had seen Missy and Mindy Grosvenor at 
the movies on Thursday, and we had a chance tonight to discuss how much we liked “A Christmas Candle” tonight, as well as how much they like taking care of their niece, Piper and sometimes her brother and sister, Parker and Payton. Cousins, Clyde and Susie Young spend much of their winter months in Arizona these days, but they were able to get home for the holidays and the party.
Anthony McDaniels showed up in a suit, adding a special touch of class to our party, while Shai Royce and Christina Masterson dressed up as twins, even though they are not. Aunt Bonnie’s little grandson, Noah spent the latter part of the evening trying to give her a bunny tail. Aunt Sandy has been a mainstay for information for some of the great stories I have been able to relay about the Byer Family, and has also spent several afternoons with my mom this year at the Senior Center, which my mom has cherished and fully enjoyed. The party has brought Elmer Johnson back into our lives after a time of not being able to be there, and since he and I have connected on Facebook too, we have grown to be even better friends than we were as kids. Aunt Jeanette is doing well, and always brings a smile to my face with her awesome laugh. Corrie and Kevin Petersen and their boys Christopher and Josh have been busily planning for Chris to start college in Sheridan next year and Josh to get his driver’s license. Aunt Evelyn and Uncle 
George were not able to join us this year, but their granddaughter, Rachelle French took lots of pictures for them so they would not feel left out.
This year’s highlight, however, had to be the idea someone had to open up bags of cotton balls for the little kids to play with. It turned into a cotton ball/snow ball fight, and everyone had a wonderful time. Xander, Zack, Isaac, and Aleesia Spethman; Kya and Noah Hamilton; Logan and Lea Orr; Mateo Steiner and Dera Elvidge; Noah Williams; Parker, Payton, and Piper Dobson; Raelynn, Matthew, and Audrianna Masterson all had a wonderful time picking up, loading up on, and throwing those cotton balls. I don’t know who thought of it, but it was a great idea.
