Our Stories
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Mom Married a Farmer
Mom married a farmer. Dad soon learned the type of girl he’d married. Not long after their wedding, Dad became very sick. The irrigation still had to be changed and the water was running hard–two…
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You Can’t Kill Love
“You Can’t Kill Love” Mom first met Dad at a ward party at Dry Falls, Washington, on a Sunday in July of 1951. A few days later, on July 24, Dad knocked on her family’s…
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More Jerry
We can’t forget to include dad and mom’s love for animals. Daddy loved horses and they always had a few in their early years of marriage. Dad’s all time favorite horse was Jerry. It’s a…
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Dad’s Right Hand
The lack of material goods was not a hindrance in our upbringing, but in actuality a great blessing. There were times dad held 2 or 3 jobs at a time, always determined he would fulfill…
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Chased by A Buffalo
During a trip to Yellowstone, Dad got chased by a buffalo, Billy was bit by a bear, and Dad, Uncle Kenny, and Billy were scolded by the park rangers for leaning over a cliff to…
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Don’t Feed the Bears!
Gary and Alane were included in a trip to Yellowstone. It’s hard to remember ages but Alane was probably about 7 or 8 and Gary about 9 or 10. Also on the trip were Uncle…
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Disney at the Drive-In
Remember piling into the station wagon and going to the drive-in theatre. I think we did this just about every weekend it seemed like (when we lived in the Coulee). We saw many of the…
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Barn Sour Silverbell
We also had a ¼ Shetland pony named Silverbell. She was bigger than Smokey by a ways. She was the most barn soured horse (meaning on every ride she would fight to go back to…
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Just Fun n Games
Remember playing fox and geese in the snow, or “No Bears are Out Tonight” How about the cliff climbing in the Coulee, then we’d play on the plateau on top.
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Sleigh Ridin’
Remember how dad used to pull us kids around on a sleigh hooked up to the back of his horse. Then when we no longer had horses he would take his red pick-up and pull…
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Grandma’s Market
Fred and Alane were early entrepreneurs. One of their first money making efforts that netted them 100% profit was making cookies and selling them to Grandma Sybil. Fred, Alane, and Grandma Sybil all seemed to…
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Ditching Seminary
Alane drove to seminary down the mountain road on early winter mornings and ended up in the ditch many times!
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Charlie Twosome
When we lived in the red house on Block 89, Charlie Tusome “the Gruesome” came to live with us. We all thought he was so grown up because we were so young. He was 16…
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Boogie Man
Uncle Garth stayed weekdays with us while we lived in the coulee. One evening when no adults were home, Fred and Alane entertained themselves by telling the younger children scary stories. They were trying to…
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Rattlesnake Eggs
One of the summers that Lee came to stay with us he introduced Grandpa to “rattlesnake eggs” which was an envelope with a wire shaped in a large u shape. A rubber band was strung…
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Nearly Gone
One summer Fred and Alane were riding in the back of the pickup as Dad checked things out on the Block 89 farm. Fred who was most likely 5 or 6 years old was leaned…
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Rust in the Pipes
While living in Chewelah, Mom and Dad experienced the greatest financial strain of their married life, but those years gave us some of our family’s most unforgettable family stories. Dad would be gone for days…
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Mom’s Candy
If we caught Mom eating candy and we asked her what she was eating she would tell us that she was just chewing on her tongue.
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Gary the Tooth Fairy
Gary playing tooth fairy for Emily by giving her all his extra change, which was quite a lot. He apparently thought Mom and Dad had not been generous enough.
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Wait Till They’re In Bed
How Mom and Dad would wait to pull out the good desserts after they had put us kids to bed!
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Overhauling Combines
Carol Jean remembers the year she helped Dad in the shop overhauling the combines. Learned a lot about tools that year (and a little about swearing).
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Grandpa & Grandma’s Slug Bug
Grandpa Ostler had VW bug. We loved it! One summer Fred and Alane traveled to Utah with Grandpa and Grandma in the “slug bug.” It wasn’t working right and would slow down to about 20…
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Grandpas’ Sweets
Our grandparents (especially Grandpa Ostler and Grandpa Lybbert) had specialty treats. Grandpa Ostler loved Black Jack gum and Grandpa Lybbert always had little pink lozenges that were wintergreen flavored.
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Tom Dooley
Mom used to love to play the piano and sing. We all loved hearing her sing during the day. Later in our lives we found an old recording that we had made for Grandpa Lybbert. …
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Poor Yeller
Yeller coming home from yet another trip to the vet to pull out porcupine needles from his month and staggering around like a drunk. We soon discovered that it we left the porcupines alone, so…
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More Farm Fun
Playing teeter-totter on the hay elevators in the Coulee. Or how about the go cart we built, or playing hide-n-seek in the tall grass around our house.
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Crossing Lind
Washouts on the Lind Pacific that required a lot of faith from Dad, who was determined to get to church, and shouts of prayerful exclamations from Mom at the attempt to cross the ¼ mile…
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Milking Positions
Lee and Nadine Ostler (our first cousins) frequently came to spend the summers with us. We remember one summer milking the cow all together. Lee and Gary got the sides of the cow while Alane…
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Sugar Brick Houses
The year Dad was out of work and we had no money for Christmas. We were living on our food storage. For Christmas, Mom bought boxes of sugar cubes and as a family we made…
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Another Shortcut
Gene and Carol Jean were visiting Mom and Dad and decided to take a ride down to the coulee. Dad, of course, wanted to take “a short-cut” across the mountain. Mom warned him that there…
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Driving Crazy
Learning how to drive on the farm was great. Of course the older kids got trained REALLY young on tractors & trucks. When it came to Carol and Janene, we were kind of on our…
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Your Tummy’s Meowing
We had a missionary one time who frequently visited our home whose tummy would make a meowing sound or he was some kind of ventriloquist. He had us looking all over the house for a…
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That’ll Learn Ya
Remember when Carol and Janene were fighting over what to watch on television. Finally in pure frustration Carol decided she would end the battle once and for all so she punched Janene square in the…
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Liver n Onions
Our dad always enjoyed liver and onions. He frequently would ask it to be served. Most of us struggled to eat our dinner on those nights. We can tell you a time that everyone seemed…
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Pete Chapin
We moved to Chewelah in 1971. It was there that we raised dairy calves. We had a young man that came to live with us. His name was Pete Chapin. He was always hungry. We…
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Shepherd George
In 1970 we moved to Deer Park and dabbled in the sheep farmer business. When we purchased the sheep farm, a shepherd and two sheep dogs were included in the purchase. The shepherd’s name was…
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Warden’s Jr Miss
Did you know that Emily was a beauty queen? Yep, her junior year she tried out and was awarded Junior Miss for Warden. Fred and Alane, being the loving and supportive siblings that they are,…
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Farm Chores
We always had farm chores as children. None of us remembers a time when we didn’t have a milk cow. We milked a cow morning and evening during our entire childhoods (except maybe Emily). When…
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Cat Thru the Window
Living in the Coulee, we didn’t have television (home computers weren’t even thought of at that time) or telephone. We typically had no trouble finding a way to entertain ourselves while our parents were away. …
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Ol’ Yeller
Remembering our faithful dog, Yeller. We lived in Chewelah and Todd Scaugaard came over and was tormenting (flirting) with Carol Jean and she screamed and so Yeller ran and jumped up on Todd, grabbed his…
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Pop Shoppe
We had some yummy food when we were kids that is no longer marketed. Two of our favorites were “Spoon Candy” and “Fruit Floats.” We could also buy pop called “Pop Shoppe Pop” for…
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Sic ’em, Yeller!
Remember Uncle Hardin chasing Yeller and all of us kids chasing Uncle Hardin. Yeller didn’t like Uncle Hardin much and was very protective of us kids!Uncle Harden chasing Yeller with a stick for biting him…
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Old Lady & the Broom
Remember playing the Old Lady & the Broom… “there was an old lady with a stick and a staff and you must neither smile nor laugh” We loved doing it to mom, cuz she ALWAYS…
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Tall Grass
While living in the “red house” in Block 89 in Ephrata, the lawn didn’t get mowed very often. Dad would come in on occasion with the swather and swath the grass. We loved the tall…
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Livin’ in a Beehive
We lived in a brown house also in Block 89, we called it the “Reese Place.” It was owned by a member of our ward, Bob Reese. We remember a year when we had a…
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Dad Could Make Anything
We appreciate how creative our father was at providing comforts for us. We hated the long car rides (no air conditioned cars when we were young) to Utah that we took every summer to visit…
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Warden Jr Miss!
Emily performs the talent that won her the Warden Jr. Miss title for the WA State Jr. Miss Competition.
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One LARGE Salesman
Salesmen were the bane of Mom’s existence. She despised them. We remember her telling us to hide in the bedroom when they knocked on our door and to be very quiet until the salesmen would…
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Dad’s Shortcuts
Family vacations were both entertaining and grueling. We didn’t have air conditioning in the cars. Dad was always trying to get somewhere faster than anyone else. Looking at maps, he always seemed to be able…
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Dancing At Doxies
We all had jobs at young ages. Alane worked at a sewing company in Chewelah, Fred did logging with the Johnsons. Carol & Janene worked at Doxies in Wilbur. Gary used to come visit us…
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“I Love You, but You’re No Henry”
Remember how Emily used to make out with the piano bench legs? I think this is what finally prompted mom to make “Henry”
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Not Like Mom’s Cooking
Mom was always the best cook. It seemed there was nothing she could not make. We had homemade cottage cheese, butter, ice cream, pickles, relish, donuts, maple bars…It was awesome and we never realized how…
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Like a Chicken With Their Head Chopped Off
Feeding chickens was a daily chore for us, one that typically didn’t bother us too much. But the chore we remember and came to dread was butchering the chickens. Grandpa Lybbert was usually there to…
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Mail-order Library
Because we had no other means of entertainment while living in the Coulee, books became a staple of entertainment. We have many fond memories of Mom reading to the whole family in the evenings. Some…
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On Farm Ensuite
This is a difficult confession to make and maybe a bit too graphic for a cookbook but one of our fond memories includes the upstairs bathroom we girls created to avoid the long walk down…
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Butterscotch Calf Scours
Alane remembers a time that she and Fred tried to convince Janene that her butterscotch pudding was really calf scours so that they could eat it. That sort of thing had worked in the past…
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Winter of ’68
While living in the Coulee which was 27 miles from the closest…well anything really…we had the worst snow storm of memory. We think the year was 1968, school was cancelled…well everything was cancelled except sledding…
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Runaway Cart
Emily tells a story of a vacation she remembers while in high school. The trip was to Canada. During a grocery store visit they loaded a cart with groceries, purchased them and proceeded to unload…
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I’m Right, You’re Wrong!
One day 3 year old Emily and Mom got into an argument. Emily was sent to her room. After some time Emily came out of her room and sweetly asked the question, “Mom, is the…
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Emily’s Makeout Doll
Remember Emily’s little stuffed doll mom made for her. I think she called him Henry. Emily made out with him so much that his whole face was stained with dirty kiss marks!
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Farm Livin’
Living on a farm provided amenities that most children didn’t have. Because we always had a trough that was big enough to water the cattle, we always had our own swimming pool.
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Faith to Move…Manure?
Carol Jean remembers a time in Chewelah when she and Fred were cleaning the calf stalls. It was a horrible, stinky job, and Fred said to her, “If we have enough faith and pray hard…
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Emily’s…Driving?!?
It was Fred’s job to feed the cows in the wintertime. He would load the pick up with hay and drive from spot to spot to dump hay in a line for the cows. To…
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Gary’s Broken Neck
Gary (age 16) and Fred (age 12) went collecting Fast Offerings one Sunday. We received a call that they were in an accident crossing crossing Highway 395 at Burroughs Road. It was years later when…
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Janene’s Favorite Rooster
Remember the rooster in Wilbur that liked to attack Janene every time she went into the coop. When she complained to dad, he would say “you’re bigger than the rooster”. Janene wouldn’t enter the coop…
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Christmas at Hansen’s
One Christmas, when my kids were little, I realized that I was spending all of Christmas Day in the kitchen and missing out on watching them enjoy their presents. I decided that I wasn’t going…
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Cleaning Calf Stalls
Carol Jean remembers a time in Chewelah when she and Fred were cleaning the calf stalls. It was a horrible, stinky job, and Fred said to her, “If we have enough faith and pray hard…
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Homemade Rootbeer
When we were growing up one of the highlights of our childhood was making homemade root beer as a family. We had the whole shebang…bottles, capping machine (back in those days there were no screw…
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Gary Run Over by Tractor
Dad and Mom tell a story of 3 year old Gary riding the tractor with Dad. Dad hit a bump; Gary fell off and was run over by the tractor. Dad says the ground was…
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Family Activities Around Food
Engage in fun family activities centered around food. The Harker Family shares ideas to make cooking and dining a delightful experience for all.