Author wish to thank.
Acknowledgments
The majority of the history in this book was told to me by my mother, Bonnie Marie Schultetus (Pronunciation: Shultaytus) Brace, over fifty or sixty years. She told me stories all my life; at home or in the car or anywhere. If something reminded her of her childhood, she told the story in pretty thorough detail. We took a lot of trips to the home places, Meadow Farm and Rosevale Ranchlet; and these trips led to stories and explanations, and then of course answers to the questions I had to ask relating to the stories. Her life was so foreign to mine. She grew up on farms miles from a town, doing farm work without the implements that I knew farmers had even in the fifties. She lived in houses without the luxuries I grew up with, simple indoor plumbing, electricity, air conditioning. Even though this was common in the thirties and forties, it was astounding to me. So it made for very interesting telling.
When I told my children these stories, even they were amazed and asked for the same stories by name over and over. “Tell the story about the house burning down,” or “Tell the story about the horse running away.” When I told them to other children with their parents present, like on a trip, I was told, “You should write those in a book.”
As I got older and realized the immense value of this history, I was doubly inclined to ask for more stories. And then as I started to write about them, the least little mention of something made me have to dig deeper. So I asked more from Mom. Jules wrote me letters years ago. My Aunt Pauline was deluged with requests for answers, and then I realized that the lives of the oldest Schultetus children were so very different from the youngest. She sent me many emails and texts to fill in holes.
Sometimes memories of the same situations differed, but also they had memories of different situations. Their lives were not the same. It could actually have been two different generations.
That in itself was strange to me. I only had one sister five years younger. Relatively, we were close together in age. They each had eleven siblings with births ranging from 1916 to 1939. Some of them never lived together in the same house, and there were only twelve for one month. The oldest siblings could have been the parents of the youngest and often had to assume that role. Times had changed.
Toward the end of their lives the remaining five children, Bonnie, Azalea, Jules, Elsie, and Pauline, decided they should write down their memories. They compiled them in a wonderful volume titled Family Proud, an excellent name. Jules gave Pauline the duty of coming up with this title. Elsie thought it a bit prideful, and maybe it is. But it was written for their children and grandchildren, and you certainly want to instill a sense of pride in your descendants as to where they came from and who they are. I think it is far better to feel special than to be woeful and ashamed of your ancestors. So, I am personally glad to be part of this family written about in Family Proud. I have taken excerpts from this book. But I will have to admit, the default was always my mother. If there were different versions, I always went with her. She told so many of them when she was younger, and the memories were fresh, plus she was in the oldest half of the birth order. Many of her stories were written in the seventies when I first started this, and I would type them on an old word processor. So if I didn’t give credit to a certain sibling for a story it was because I relied instead on my mother’s version.
All through these pages, as I would read about the memories of the last five living children, I would whine and bemoan the fact that I couldn’t read the stories of the other seven children. But, at least we have what we have.