I was fortunate to be able to renew acquaintance with Uncle Richard Charles Luckert's third wife, Aunt Billie (b. 20 October 1914) in her later years and have rediscovered her letters to me and two that she wrote to cousin Kay Vanness Sanger, who forwarded them and actually visited Aunt Billie at Carmel, CA, where she lived in her last years. Sue's records lack all of Rich's marriage dates, but I will make amends when their son, Richard Earl (REL), tells me after I have forwarded these family pleasures on to him. There is a "Sept 18 '41" on the back of this photo, which is probably correct. Whether the photo is a marriage photo or not, I don't know.
I had earlier entered formal portraits of them but now wonder if that is correct. And I have found some other old photographs including her, which cousin Kay somehow got and also forwarded. Rich had a son, Alton Lincoln Luckert (b. 12 February 1923), by his first wife, Ella Clements Luckert, and I have previously dealt with that history. A sister to Sarah/Sally who married Rich's brother, Chester/Chet, Ella died when Alton was three and is buried in Bloomfield (see those cemetery pictures). Alton was brought up by Rich's second wife, Sylvia Maranville Luckert, by whom he had Phyllis (b. 13 January 1928) and Stanley (b. 13 May 1931). He had Richard Earl (b. 15 June 1943) and George Washington (1 August 1948) with Gertrude/Billie.
Here is a photo of Aunt Billie with Alton, with "6/24/42--Dad--I Think This is as Good a Picture as one could get of Both Dont You. Do You Wonder Why I am Proud of Them. Rich." I have another undated photo of ours of Alton in his WWII uniform, which is how I remember him from my childhood when he visited us in his uniform, which I'll include.
The following is another at Aunt Lizzie's outside her house: Grandpa George W. Luckert, Rich and Billie, Phyllis and Stan.
I don't know when she sent me these two or if Kay Vanness Sanger did. Above Aunt Billie is with her brother. At left she's laughing at a Duane Hansen sculpture that I've seen (and I know how deceptively realistic his people were, starting to ask one a question at the Joslyn show here). As she mentioned in one of her letters to me, this is Aunt Billie and her son, George, "Where we lived just up from Monterey Bay in Pacific Grove."
I want to type in one of her letters, a long one with family history and Nebraska anecdotes. I did scan in a short letter to prove that her legibility was just fine in her late 70s and type the other only because her pages are too long for the scanner and also would require much more space. This short scanned letter refers to her birthplace, Nehawka, NE, a village northwest of Nebraska City, almost straight west of Shenandoah, IA, where coincidentally Rich had met Sylvia and run a Sinclair station. I had sent her one of those fancier state maps put out for tourists, and then she goes on amusingly about the 1919 Volstead (National Prohibition) Act, famous for creating bootlegging and such criminals as Al Capone. Sheldon would be a fairly familiar name to Nebraskans besides the governorship, at least is to me, for the Sheldon Memorial Art Museum (a Philip Johnson building) and Sculpture Garden on the UNL campus in Lincoln. The next time I visit it, I shall think of Aunt Billie, named for Gertrude Sheldon Wolf. And she did indeed include a Sheldon family incident about Nebraska's Rose Bowl appearance, as you will read.
Always stylish, as I mentioned earlier, she included two photos with a very short letter, "Taken 10-20-94 My 80th," which I shall split. Her ashes were spilled into the Pacific by George, who wrote me after her death.
I am not bothering with proper use of quotation marks, for I'm copying this 1-29-94 letter verbatim, including my bracketed explanations, and correcting her infrequent misspellings:
Dear Gary,
Forgive the lined paper--I am too old to slide down hill or for that matter to climb. So much for the aging process, enough to have to admit the spotty memory.
Thanks for the letter. Will try to give it a line by line answer. To begin--I made copies of the calendar and, true to form--left the calendar [I had sent her] in the copy machine at Mail Boxes. They said it was not here. Some one must have found it & recognizing the true spirit of the subject matter, decided to add it to his collection of interesting photography.
Speaking of which--glad for the picture you sent. I feel more like I'm writing to some one I can see. And in return here is one of George and me--taken in 91.
Don't hurt yourself with the walking. You'd be surprised at what 20 or 30 min. of good 2.5 or 3 mph will do if done on a regular basis and the speed sustained. Gets the heart going & will burn up 80 to 100 calories--but must be sustained. Sorry to get repetitive (not really)!
Where is the "Old Market" [our most popular tourist destination besides the Doorly Zoo]. Remember I once lived in Omaha. 2922 Decatur, 1020 So. 29th, 817 Park Ave., 605 So. 29th. I went to Hanscom Park grade school off & on until I got through the 8th grade. [President Gerald Ford was born across the street from Hanscom Park.]
Glad for you that you can take such great trips, the best road is the one to sanity. I could not handle your job [court stenographer]. Now that I live in single blessedness I do not have to contend with stress. I do worry that I may wear out the remote as I browse. I prefer most of the old movies even though I can't believe how innocent we all were to buy into the "messages"?
Back to your vacation--You took me to some of my old country. I went to 13 schools before I got out of high school--plus all the moving we did keeping up with Rich's jobs. I did my freshman & Jr. years in Kemmerer Wyo. [hometown of J.C. Penney]. I lived off & on on the Wind River Reservation at Ethete (pronounced EEthaTEE)--means "good" in Arapahoe--during that time I spent 2 summers on working cattle ranches as nanny-house keeper and/or kitchen help in DuBois. [My trip I had written her about was to western Wyoming, and I had stayed in Dubois at the edge of that reservation.] Also during that time I had a couple of passes at Denver--the second of which brought me in touch with Rich. He was on the same job as my brother, Joe, at Fort Francis E. Warren in Cheyenne--and they came down to spend an interesting weekend in Denver & there I was! You don't want to hear about the rest, and like the old Yogi Berra wisdom I have no desire to do "deja vu all over again"! We lived in Salt Lake City, Idaho Falls, Gillette Wyo., Virginia Minn (George born there '48), Bowman ND, Rapid City-Edgemont-Burke-Stickney & Aberdeen SD. We lived in Kearney NE--where Rel was born in '43--Grand Island and Shelby NE. We lived in Colo. Springs twice. The second time proved to be the last that we traveled in "double harness."
I was born in Nehawka NE & spent some school time in Cozad. My soph. yr. was in St. Joe MO. After the WY jr. yr. we moved back to Raytown & then Independence MO. We lived one block up from the Trumans. He was then an official "appointed" something to do with highways, which was how Dad knew him (they were not friends).
Well at this time my pen is getting tired--Better give it a rest.
In 1936 I took a vacation in Wis.; it was a summer when they had some interesting fires. It had been pretty dry so finding worms for fishing was difficult. We went up to Madison and on to Fond du Lac which was as far as we went. Don't know just where they are but know we did go through the Dells which were at that time quite a tourist attraction. Then returned to Lewiston [Illinois] where I was living then. I had quit school just 2 1/2 credits from graduation and went back 1/2 days for the last semester to earn them and graduate in the 50th anniversary of Edgar Lee Master's graduation. He did not come that year as he is not too well liked in that area. Too many people were still living who had relatives or were themselves referred to in his "Spoon River Anthology."
I did touch into Wis. once before in 1928. Dad was supervising the building of a connecting road between Green Bay Hiway & Seredan [?] Rd., the 2 main roads between Chicago and Milwaukee. During that time we lived in Zion City, Il., a cult settlement. They manufactured lace & fine filled candies & the best fig newtons I ever ate. But then we were lucky enough to be able to get them when they were still warm. I still have a lace curtain panel that was made there and of the type that was displayed at the Worlds Fair in Chicago. The man who started the cult was put aside by a man named Volina, who knew a good thing when he saw it and of course drove it into the ground. The fact that he needed a bodyguard and used a limousine with bullet-proof windows may have had some negative effect on the "followers." Chicago got a little upset also because his broadcasting station was stronger than theirs. Anyway, so no smoking, card playing or popular music or any other "Sin" was allowed. We went into Wis. to see movies or dance. The town was Kenosha and easy to make it in time for shows so they were on daylight saving. The reason I went to Wyo. with my sister & brother-in-law was because school was due to start before the job was finished & my parents would have been required to sign a paper stating that they believed the world was flat, which was one of the Zionites' tenets.
I haven't decided just where this letter is going. I know my penmanship is really losing ground and legibility and spelling "ain't too hot"!
So take heart and take care. This may be the last of this that you will need to endure.
I got a nice card with note from Sis (Anne Stocking Alexander?)--just seems like too many of those young people are gone.
Give my love to Jack and your sisters--Billie.
The Sheldon family anecdote involving the 1941 Nebraska Rose Bowl appearance was in a letter to Kay Vanness Sanger:
The Sheldon Art Museum was of interest as it was named for one-time Gov. of Nebr. whose sister was Gertrude Wolf, hence my name. They lived in Nehawka where I was born. My father worked for the Wolfs for a time when he & Mother were first getting started. The Sheldons & Wolfs & Pollards were the "great" families of Nehawka. Sounds impressive till you learn that the town had a population of 300. But, seriously, lots of good people there--The Shafers among them (mine). I believe I heard that there is an Ag college in Lincoln named for Evelyn Wolf, who was always very active there. She was a maiden lady school teacher.
. . . . Of course I must go on with the Sheldon Saga. Of course they all went to Ne. U.! Some, however, were not very athletic. One especially was but only in his heart. After a while his mother began to wonder why this child was costing so much to educate. Don't know what he told her, but the fact is he was totally supporting a very poor but very promising player. Sometime in the 40s (I think) when Nebr. was entered in the Rose Bowl, it was announced, after Ne. made an important point and went ahead, that someone in the stands had collapsed. Sheldon had of course gone to the greatest game of his life & tho they lost the game--he died there thinking they had won--Great story and true.
. . . . Couple of wks ago we had a style show put on by one of the stores. I modeled. That's OK. Surprised me too. Really had fun . . . .
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