The first two are marked July 1950 and demonstrate the size of Bloomfield's Royal Neighbors of America Camp No. 42, the adults and the juveniles. In the juvenile photo, I am in the center rear next to Anita Kienow Barlow, our adult supervisor. The Ellingsons may remember Vivian and Mary Lou Clausen, daughters of Gerhard and Lizzie, who were the closest farm neighbors across the road south of the second Koftan-Bloomfield farm just two miles west of Bloomfield. Vivian is sixth from the left, Mary Lou second from the right.
In the adult photo, Grandma Fern is in the second row, fourth from the right, next to her best friend, Lillian Braunsroth, also in a dark dress. Velma, Mom, is in the center of the second row with her dark bangs, fifth to the left from Gram. At the right end of the second row is Lizzie Clausen, long the camp treasurer to whom I sent my yearly dues on my policies. Many of the members were also members of Gram's extension group, the Crystal Club, including Lillian and Lizzie.
This is the Nebraska delegation at the San Antonio convention, June 19-25, 1950. We are all in the standing back row. Mom is second from the left, often confused with Edith Evans, sixth from the left (seen in subsequent photos because she was the daughter of Alma Snyder, one of our chief state officers). I am at the right end. Gram is seventh from the right, in the center behind the State Supreme Oracle Florence Torkelsen with the rose bouquet (whose later memorial will be a few pictures on).
To the left is the Nebraska delegation at breakfast, but I don't see either Mom or Gram. I am next to the empty chair, very tan from all my walking under the Texan sun. Following that are a photo of Gram in our hotel room and one with her two best friends there, though I have only Rosewood Bennett at the left identified, with Gram turned toward her. Both friends were very funny, and we laughed a lot. I remember that.
This one was in Omaha, 1957, Gram at the left end of the front row, the aforementioned Edith Evans, Mom's lookalike, fourth from the right. I'd guess it to be of the Nebraska deputies. Grandma's chief rival/enemy selling insurance in northeastern Nebraska was Emma Richling, who lived in Neligh, third from the right in the front row, who actually had written up our family policies long before Grandma was deputized, helped by her daughter, Vera, the tall brunette second from the right in the back. They appear in other state photos here.
This is a state convention photograph from North Platte, 1958. Fern is second from the left in the front row, Emma Richling in the center. Edith Evans is fourth from the left in the rear, Vera Richling third from the right.
The last is the memorial drill for Florence Torkelsen (the State Supreme Oracle in the San Antonio photo) at Los Angeles, 1958, the martini convention. Fern Koftan is at the left, the front of the row behind the two standing women. Edith Evans is to her right in the back, and Emma Richling is at the front right.
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