‘Hello, kid!’ In her world, everyone was family

Family legend has it that, when my mother was growing up, her mother warned, “don’t learn to milk the cow, else you’ll have to do it every day.” Maybe that’s why Mom never learned how to drive a truck, much to my father’s disappointment, fearing that it would become a regular task.

But she did pretty much everything else.

Early in their marriage, Dad worked in construction in the summers and was a mechanic at Ortel and later Franchi Chevrolet in Boulder during the winters. Mom did bookwork for the dealerships as well. Eventually they got into trucking, hauling cattle for local ranchers, many of whom became lifelong friends. Dad was proud to haul rodeo stock for Mike and Peggy Quinn, and to help them put on rodeos.