Time Would Tell: A Collaborative Memoir

By Maxine Premer and Gary Premer

Maxine Premer was no stranger to hardship. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, her childhood was largely defined by her father’s alcoholism and frequent brushes with the law. As the oldest of six children, she grew up quickly in Colorado and Nebraska amidst a backdrop of isolation, poverty, and illness. As a teenager, she encouraged her mother to divorce, which led her family to live with Maxine’s grandfather. Ever a tyrant, he soon forced her to drop out of school. With the support of her son Gary, she began writing her life story in her late seventies. As much as this journey brought Maxine closer to the past, it also illuminated the present, enabling her to better understand her life and heal the wounds that shaped it. All book sale proceeds net of publication expense will be donated to the Alzheimer’s Association.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Apr 12, 2018
• ISBN: 9781483479811

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PREMER

Copyright © 2018 Maxine Premer and Gary Premer.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-7982-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-7983-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-7981-1 (e)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 1/31/2018

This book is dedicated to my beautiful grandchildren, great-grandchildren and their future generations.

Maxine Premer

PROLOGUE

She suppressed it—nearly her entire life. I asked her to take me there and tell her story. She didn’t want to. It was humiliating. It was frightening. But most of all, it was very painful. She thought about it, and knowing she had a story to tell, lessons to teach, secrets to reveal, and mysteries to solve, she began to tell her life story. In the beginning, I didn’t know where we were going or if we would ever arrive. Then the memories began to flow, and they flowed in therapeutic, life-altering abundance. I was there looking into her misty eyes as she painted the pictures of sixty and seventy years ago. Eventually, she found her childhood and adolescence. When she did that, I found a part of me, as well.

She is our matriarch. She is human, imperfect, and persevering. She is an ordinary heroine. But most of all, she is family; she is love.

It was a miraculous journey. Thank you, Mom.

Love,

Gary

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I give my heartfelt thank you to my son Gary for this book. Without his diligence and investigation, I would not know what I now know, and I would not have been able to present this gift to my family. His questions and inquiries stimulated memories that I thought were long gone. The trip to Nebraska was a highlight in my life, and I will be forever grateful for the new perspective I have on my childhood days. Gary’s inspiration for the book came from his dear friend, Eldon Riser who attended the Aims Community College class Writing Your Live instructed by Mary Borg. Over the many years teaching the class, Mary created a companion handbook that was invaluable. Writing this book with Gary resulted in a special bond and a joyful, yet sometimes painful, cherished experience. The mysteries solved and questions answered gave me closure and forgiveness. No matter what your age, a person can learn and grow from every experience, and writing this book was an incredible growing experience for me. My Dad had been an enigma for my family and for me. Paradoxically, we now know more about him than other family members thanks to his extensive paper trail.

The kind helpfulness of the wonderful people we met while in Nebraska provided a miraculous and life-altering experience. Upon arriving in Auburn, we decided to stay at a locally owned hotel and restaurant, the Arbor Manor. Good choice. Gary shared our mission with owner Camille Stanley while checking in, and by the time we got to our room, the telephone was ringing with people calling to provide assistance. Marvin Casper attended the Stonehenge Lutheran Church located in the country not far from the old Shurtleff School. Marvin said he knew people at the church who could probably help us, and that he would talk with them at church the following day. Sure enough, Orville and Ruth Gerdes remembered the Trimble family and their plight. On Monday, Marvin drove us to many of the country sites significant to our search and then took us to the Gerdes home. Somewhat skeptical, I met Orville, who offered a warm handshake and a smile. Sure, I knew your Dad, he said. Was he called Toad or Fat? I knew that we were talking with people who did have the knowledge and could provide insight. Our time with the Gerdes was special, and they immediately became wonderful friends. Orville, who had been a school classmate, put his arm around me and said, It was not your fault. His statement began the healing.

We then met the Bantz family who lived near the old shack our family lived in when Dad was in the Nebraska penitentiary. They knew my beloved schoolteacher Miss Cummings (Lucile Lechliter) and told us she was still living. My time with Miss Cummings was a dream come true, as I got to tell her how important she had been to me. She passed away two weeks after we returned from Nebraska. Lucile’s daughter, Marlene North, retrieved school pictures of my siblings and I from her mother’s collection and Dennis Bantz mailed them to me. Miss Cummings’ pictures, as well as those from the Gerdes, are priceless additions to my story. Everyone we met was warm, kind, and helpful. When we headed home, it had become a very different Nebraska for me.

I would also like to thank the people at the Nebraska State Historical Society in Lincoln, the people of numerous Nebraska county courthouses and school districts, and those at the Colorado State Archives for their assistance. Dolores Mora at the Colorado Mental Health Institute in Pueblo was most helpful in copying and mailing research documents. My daughter Darla assisted at the Colorado Archives and with the family tree, and my daughter Lynette read the manuscript several times, providing encouragement to finish it. My daughter-in-law Sue Premer and step-granddaughter and her husband Anne and Mike Sudmeier were extraordinary editors.

To all, I am most grateful.

Maxine Premer

THE MAXINE PREMER FAMILY

Great Grandparents

Reverend Robert Henry (R.H.) and Rachel Ann Hatfield Rhodes

Luella

Flora

Mary Jane

Gertrude

William Hatfield

Harry Snider

Linnie

Robert Baldwin Dusty

Rachel Ann

Katie Francs

Robert D Clark

Goldie

Blaine

Grandparents

Robert Baldwin (Dusty) and Goldie Clark Rhodes

Gertrude Marie Rhodes Trimble (later married Verl Cottrill)

Harry Rhodes

James Allen and Anna Traster Trimble

Harry Trimble

Emma (Doll) Trimble Cook

James Arley (Toad) Trimble

John Harley (Fat) Trimble

Leroy (Roy) Trimble

Bessie (Bess) Ellen Trimble Redman

Parents

James Arley and Gertrude Rhodes Trimble (Cottrill)

Maxine Trimble Premer

Marie Trimble Premer (married Garland Premer, Dale’s brother)

Faye Trimble Adkisson (married Grundy Adkisson, Dale’s friend)

Gerald (Jim) Trimble

Kenneth Trimble

Floyd Trimble

The Dale Premer Family

Parents

Douglas and Almina Holly Premer

Merle Premer (married Margaret Cottrill, Maxine’s friend, and Verl Cottrill’s distant cousin)

Dale Premer

Garland Premer

Clyde Premer (married Helen Lesser)

Alice Premer Dundas

Eileen Premer Dee

Dean Premer

Dale and Maxine Trimble Premer Family

Darla Premer Thomas

Lynette Premer Austin

Gary Premer

Doug Premer

PART I

Maxine’s Story

Heritage

CHAPTER ONE

The Rhodes Family

The Rhodes family lived throughout Indiana, moving from Washington to Crawford County, where Robert Henry, known as R.H. Rhodes was born October 16, 1830. His future wife, Rachel Ann Hatfield, was born on Christmas Day in 1839, in Mead County, Kentucky, directly across the Ohio River from Crawford County. The Hatfield family is infamous for the 1861 to 1891 feud with the McCoys.

R.H. went to Bible Seminary and became an ordained Methodist minister. It is unknown how Rachel and R.H. met, but their proximity to one another definitely worked in their favor. R.H. and Rachel suffered from asthma, and doctors suggested their health would improve by moving to the dry climate of Colorado. R.H., age 42, and Rachel, age 33, set off for Colorado in 1873 with the bare essentials and six children. They then had four more children in Colorado.

They likely traveled to Colorado by rail, as in 1869, five years preceding their move, the Central Pacific Railroad connected with the Union Pacific Railroad at Promontory Point, Utah, creating the first transcontinental railroad. Although the Union Pacific bypassed Denver, Colorado for an easier route 100 miles north through Cheyenne, Wyoming, Coloradans quickly built a spur connecting them to the great cross-continental railroad.

The Civil War was now eight years past, and railroad and mining ventures were creating a fast and vast westward expansion into Colorado. Between 1870 and 1890, Denver’s population grew from approximately 5,000 to over 100,000. Denver was incorporated in 1861 and was selected the territorial capital in 1867 and the state capital in 1875 when Colorado gained statehood. The 1870s and 1880s in Colorado were prosperous and exciting times because of rich mountain gold and silver deposits, railroads, irrigation farming, transcontinental telegraph lines, factories, mills, and new roads interconnecting the West. Health issues were a motivating factor for their move, but the Rhodes family was also adventuresome. They were drawn to the frontier through personal opportunities, as well as those within the Methodist ministry.

The Methodist Church helped move the family to Colorado where they homesteaded on the southwest edge of Arvada, Colorado. R.H. became a circuit rider, ministering to congregations in mountain gold mining towns. He also helped establish the Methodist Church in Wheat Ridge, Colorado, a town adjacent to Arvada.

English and Irish immigrants brought the Methodist religion to the United States before the American Revolution. In 1769, John Wesley sent missionaries to America, and the American Methodist Church was sanctioned in 1773. Circuit riders spread Methodism, and revival meetings advanced westward with the frontier. In the early 1800s, the tolerant position of Methodism and its emphasis on personal religious experience, universal salvation, and practical ethics gave it religious appeal.

As reported by the Jefferson County, Colorado Historical Commission, it did not take long for R.H. to become involved in his community. In September 1873, Reverend R.H. Rhodes, a licensed Methodist minister, and skilled carpenter completed the supervision of the construction of a new school on Prospect Avenue (West 38th Avenue – Wheat Ridge). The small frame building became the community center, housing the library, the Lyceum, the grange, and all public meetings. On January 11, 1874, Reverend Rhodes organized a Methodist class of thirteen members who began meeting for the next ten years in the school. That was the beginning of the Wheat Ridge United Methodist Church which is currently located at 7350 West 38th Avenue in Wheat Ridge, Colorado. The church still displays some of Reverend R.H. Rhodes’ memorabilia and his photograph.

The industrious Rhodes family worked at several enterprises to endure and prosper. Rachel and the children grew a large vegetable garden, trucking their vegetables to area markets. They also had a bee apiary on their farm. Reverend R.H. was often gone for months at a time, ministering in challenging Colorado mining towns. Once home from months of circuit riding, Rachel was always very excited to see R.H., but his first interest was to read the mail and newspapers. So…she often hid the mail and newspapers in anticipation of his return. She must have gotten his undivided attention occasionally because they had ten children between the years 1862 and 1881, not including miscarriages. Having an abundance of children was not unusual for western agrarian families. My Granddad, Robert Baldwin Rhodes, known as Dusty, was the eighth of ten children. He was born in Colorado on February 17, 1877. His brother, William Hatfield (Bill) Rhodes, born in Indiana on September 26, 1868, would come to play a prominent role in my life.

Family tutors educated the older children. The younger girls went to public high schools, but for the most part, the boys did not. All of the children were educated in the basics: reading, writing, and arithmetic. Dusty began the eighth grade in public school but ultimately quit, citing the inability to get along with the principal.

When the boys grew older, the family opened a dairy on their Arvada homestead. The dairy grew to thirty Holstein cows which were hand milked twice daily. The milk was strained into ten-gallon cans and delivered to customers throughout the west Denver region using a horse-drawn wagon. Dusty met his bride-to-be, Goldie Clark while working as a milkman on his delivery route, proving that there really is something to all those milkman stories!

Goldie and her brother Blaine were raised by their grandmother, Mary Clark, who was a widow. Goldie and Blaine’s mother died young, and their father married a lady who was unkind to her stepchildren, resulting in Mary taking in her grandchildren.

Dusty Rhodes, age 23, and Goldie Clark, age 17, married April 15, 1900, at Grandmother Clark’s home, 3141 West 38th Avenue, Denver, Colorado. Dusty’s brother Harry had also recently married, and with two newly married couples going their separate ways, it became difficult for the family to maintain Rhodes Brothers’ Dairy. It was decided to dissolve the dairy operation, as only one brother Bill and his sister Luella, known as Lou, remained.

Dusty went to work for a farmer in the Arvada area, and the newlyweds moved into the farmer’s large old farmhouse. The house had an abundance of creaks and groans, causing Goldie to be afraid to stay alone, even during the daylight hours. One night, as the story goes, a horrible sound erupted from the kitchen that sounded like dishes falling from the cupboard. No broken dishes were found. On another evening, the couple heard a knocking sound, as if someone were at the door. The brave Dusty called out, Who’s there? No one replied. The noise continued. So with a shotgun in hand, Dusty cautiously opened the door. A cat stood at his feet struggling to dislodge a tin can from its head. Dusty, shaken, tried to help, but the cat sunk its claws deep into his hand. And with that, he shot the cat!

My mother, Gertrude Marie Rhodes, (some of her Bible notations refer to her as Marie Gertrude Rhodes) was born April 18, 1901, at her great-grandmother Mary Clark’s house. During the two years following Gertrude’s birth, Dusty worked several farm jobs in northern Colorado and the Denver area. Their second child, Harry Rhodes was born May 12, 1903, on a farm west of Denver. After Harry’s birth, the couple returned to the Arvada homestead, living in the downstairs of the old dairy barn - a big, square, unfinished two-story building. By that time, the 10-acre homestead had been subdivided into two five-acre parcels. Reverend R.H. and Rachel, along with two children, Bill and Lou, owned the north five acres that included a house and barn. Their daughter Gertrude and her husband Ollie owned the south five acres. Gertrude and Ollie built a new, red-brick house on their property and raised three children who graduated from Arvada High School. In 1907, my mother Gertrude and her cousin Florence walked to elementary school together. Years later, they graduated together from Arvada High School.

Reverend R.H. retired from the Methodist ministry, and in 1903, R.H., Rachel, son Bill, and daughter Luella purchased a 120-acre farm east of what would become Milliken, Colorado. Their handicapped daughter Mary also moved with them to the Milliken farm.

Dusty worked many different jobs during his early years of marriage including farming, carpentry, and as a county employee. Out of work in 1908, he finally landed a carpentry job where he assisted in building White City Amusement Park, subsequently named Lakeside. That job took him to the 1908 opening night celebrations, something he fondly remembered. Steady work enabled the family to purchase a house in a subdivision north of Lakeside Amusement Park at 4452 Evans Street. During this time, young Gertrude came down with the mumps after having been exposed to the disease at school. Goldie, pregnant with their third child, also developed a serious case of the mumps, resulting in a miscarriage.

In 1910, young Gertrude became quite ill with scarlet fever and her mother, Goldie, was again pregnant. Goldie had frequently been ill over the past two years and was hospitalized several times with unknown illnesses that she could not overcome. Gertrude and Harry stayed with family while Dusty spent most of his off-work time at the hospital. On Sunday morning, February 27, 1910, at age 27, Goldie and her unborn child died with Dusty at their bedside. Grief-stricken and enraged, a nurse became the immediate target of his verbal and physical attack. A widower at age 33 with children ages nine and seven, he was a heartbroken man who would never overcome his grief.

The tragedy for Gertrude and Harry was not only losing their mother but also losing their father. Never again would he be a committed father. Dusty’s parents and siblings mostly raised Gertrude and Harry who were too young to understand their Dad’s bitterness. Such an unhappy father caused them to want to live elsewhere. And when forced to live with him, they sought to escape. Gertrude’s life choices, including her difficult marriage to an alcoholic, estrangement from her Dad only to again live with him, would plague yet another generation—her six children.

Dusty sold the house, and for a while, the children lived with Goldie’s relatives. Gertrude and Harry then lived as boarders with two different and unrelated families for a period. They also spent time on the Milliken family farm, attending the nearby Daniels School. Dusty’s employer took a large construction contract for a school in Iowa, compelling his relocation. Gertrude feared Harry’s and her placement in an orphanage, but grandparents R.H and Rachel intervened, resulting in their more-or-less permanent residence at the Milliken farm with their grandparents, aunts, and an uncle. In 1912, their Aunt Lou died from a ruptured appendix she had refused to have treated until it was too late. Gertrude graduated from eighth grade at Daniels School in 1915, and Dusty made arrangements for her to continue high school in Arvada, living with her Aunt Gertie and cousin Florence on the Arvada homestead.

During the summer of 1917, seven years after Goldie’s death, Dusty made an abrupt decision that his children should live with him, even though Gertrude was to be an eleventh grader at Arvada High School in the fall. After years of abandonment, he forced his children to adjust to yet another change and moved them from their school and summer routine of living and helping on the farm to living with him in a newly purchased home in Greeley.

This change also left his parents R.H. and Rachel with much of the summer farm work, as Gertrude and Harry were at an age where they had been making a significant contribution. Gertrude was excellent at canning, cooking, and completing other household chores, while Harry had grown accustomed to helping Uncle Bill. R.H. and Rachel were getting on in age, and consequently, the majority of the heavy work fell to Bill. Their daughter Mary needed close supervision, as she had been severely handicapped since childhood. Mary damaged her voice box as a small child and never learned to talk. She developed a language of her own and had the mental capacity of a four-year-old. Dusty’s decision to reunite his family became a hardship for his children, his parents, and his siblings. During the subsequent holidays, he never understood why his children so longed to be on the farm—their only true home.

That summer, Gertrude canned and did household chores for her Dad in their Greeley home while he rode a bicycle to work in Windsor. Gertrude began the eleventh grade at College High School located in Kepner Hall on Eighth Avenue, and Harry began the eighth grade, likely at Meeker School on Ninth Avenue. Both children walked several blocks to school, and Gertrude was allowed to take piano lessons.

Granddad Dusty was a tall, slender man, whose endurance facilitated hard work. During this period, he rode an early 1900s bicycle to and from Greeley and Windsor each day for work.

Dusty’s brother Harry moved to Greeley at about this same time. He worked as a framing carpenter. Dusty did finish carpentry, but he and Harry did not work together. Sometime that winter, the brothers heard about a tenant farming opportunity in Weldona, approximately ten miles west of Fort Morgan, Colorado. Dusty sold the Greeley house, bought farm machinery and a horse, and moved his family in the middle of the school year. Dusty’s son, Harry, finished that school year in the Weldona School, but high school was not available for Gertrude. When summer approached, Rachel wrote to Gertrude, asking for assistance on the Milliken farm. Gertrude spent the summer commuting by motorcar, a one-coach train, between the two farms. When fall arrived, Gertrude did not want to return to Weldona and convinced Dusty, probably with Rachel’s help, to allow her to finish high school in Arvada. Having missed much of her junior year of high school, Gertrude was academically behind her peers right from the beginning of her senior year. The Arvada teachers were very accommodating, providing make-up classes after school. During the 1918 - 1919 school year, a flu epidemic hit Colorado. This caused Gertrude and many other students to miss even more school, necessitating Saturday make-up days for a timely graduation. Gertrude did graduate on May 19, 1919, with her cousin Florence, an achievement she was proud of for a lifetime. Many people died that winter from the flu epidemic, and a temporary morgue was set up in Milliken. Gertrude’s Grandmother Rachel also died that winter, but not from the flu. At age 83, she fell and broke her hip. Bedfast and a lifelong sufferer of asthma, Rachel’s lungs filled with fluid, causing her to die from pneumonia.

After graduation, Gertrude continued her previous summer routine of helping out on both farms. In August, a cousin gave Gertrude a motorcycle ride from Weldona to Milliken. Approaching the Milliken farm, they passed the Brigs farm and waved to Mrs. Brigs who was tending her garden. Mrs. Brigs was a Daniels School Board member in search of a lower grade teacher for the upcoming school year. She contacted Gertrude that night about the job opening. Gertrude was concerned, saying she had not taken any special subjects to become a teacher. Mrs. Brigs replied, We all know that you can do it. All you have to do is take an examination in Greeley. Gertrude took the exam and scored well in all subjects except arithmetic. She successfully retested that subject. With her teaching certificate in hand, she was offered a two-year contract which would have been a four-year contract except for her inexperience. Gertrude remained somewhat ambivalent towards her newfound career. She had set her heart on attending nursing school, but Dusty, ever present and overriding, would not hear of it, as he harbored deep resentment toward the medical profession that he believed cost him his wife and third child.

The fall brought Gertrude a new career and the end of Dusty’s Weldona farm opportunity. This resulted in both of them living at the Milliken family farm, absent Harry. The inevitable had happened. Unable to meet his father’s insatiable demands, Harry had succumbed to his continual criticism, culminating in an explosive argument. Dusty, indignant at Harry’s reproach, demanded that Harry leave and never darken his doorway again. At age sixteen, Harry gladly obliged, first moving back to the Arvada homestead and then on to California where other relatives resided. Harry honored his father’s demand, and they never saw or spoke with one another throughout the remaining thirty-nine years of Dusty’s life. Two more failures were added to Dusty’s difficult life, the loss of the Weldona farm and the disowning of his son. Dusty returned to the Milliken farm even more embittered, and Gertrude was living with him once again.

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Reverend Robert Henry RH and Rachel Hatfield Rhodes (Maxine’s Great Grandparents). Rachel weighed 76lbs. RH was an ordained Methodist Minister.

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The Rhodes Family – William (Uncle Bill) is standing third from left and Robert (Dusty) is standing fifth from left.

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Robert (Dusty) and Goldie Clark Rhodes (Maxine’s Grandparents). Goldie and her third child died during birth. Heartbroken and bitter, Dusty never fully recovered.

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Robert (Dusty) and his children, Gertrude age 7 (Maxine’s mother) and Harry age 5. When Harry was age 16, Dusty told him to never again to darken his doorway. Harry obliged and moved to California.

CHAPTER TWO

The Trimble Family

Shanty Irish - it’s a term that still reverberates in Irish American folklore. England ruled the beautiful island of Ireland in the early 1800s, imposing on Irish citizens’ mandatory tithes to the Anglican Church. Irish aristocrats (landowners) were typically pro-England, and the populous, over 70 percent Catholic, toiled under oppression and financial obligation to the Anglican Church. By the mid-1800’s, the mandatory tithe for tenant farmers was converted to rent to appease the agitated Roman Catholics. It did lessen religious tension for a period but resulted in higher tenant rent because landlords now paid the tithe to the Anglican Church. The obligation to the Anglican Church remained an onerous burden that destroyed the Irish economy. Ireland had no middle class, resulting in generations of poor Irish who lacked motivation, lived in dire poverty, and often relied on alcohol to endure their hardships. The wealth gap widened, resulting in a culture of uneducated, unmotivated, hard-drinking, rebellious people who were bitter and defiant and seemed to believe the world owed them, probably with some justification. A fungus attacked and destroyed potato crops from 1845 to 1852, resulting in extreme famine and starvation. Consequently, many poor, unsavory, and rebellious Irish immigrated to the United States where they became known as Shanty Irish. My Granddad James Allen Trimble was among them. Although a Protestant from Northern Ireland, he was a product of the pervasive culture and economy.

I know very little about my Granddad James Allen, and his name is very common, making research difficult. Further, it was common for men of that era and culture to have multiple families, and oral history suggests that possibility. He was born around 1815 and worked as a stonemason. In 1888, when he was approximately 73 years old, my Dad, James Arley, and his twin brother, John Harley Trimble, were born in Hopkins, Missouri. Their mother Anna Traster Trimble was 28 years old at their birth. The twins had an older brother Harry, born in 1884, an older sister Emma (Doll), born in 1886, a younger brother, Leroy (Roy) born in 1890, and a younger sister Bessie (Bess), born in 1892. Granddad James Arley was known to be mean-spirited. He left his wife Anna to relocate to Iowa before Bess was born where he presumably had a sister. He is believed to have died not long after moving to Iowa and was buried by the Masons. Dad was four years old when his father left the family.

Oral history has it that after James Arley had left his family. Anna lived for some time on an island on the Missouri River with her six children and took up with a man named James Hugely. One story is that she ran off for a time with Hugely, abandoning her younger children, the twins, and Roy and Bess. Apparently, older brother Harry came home