11/30/1925 Letter from Ted Surdez

c/o Dewey Surdez

Skidmore Mo.

Nov. 30, '25

Dear Little Pal:  Well here I am in Mo.  Came down here yesterday and we are going to work tomorrow.  The corn sure is good.  The job we are going will last about two weeks then I think we will head tward S.F.  Dewey and Bernus think it is rather strange that I am going back to Dakota this time of year.  So you know they are

kiding me a lot.  Bernus says I am the funniest guy she ever saw.  She says I always get serious but it usualy turns out to be a huge joke.  But I told her this was different.  So you see I have spilled the beans.  And they took it up right away.  Now they think I am going to get married xmas.  "Well I wish I was."  Most of the girls that I used to go with down here are married

except the one that I went with steady and she isn't here.  So you need not worry about losing me.  Well you wouldn't need to any way, even if they were all here and a lot more.  Because I only think of one girl now and she is the best in the world "Doris."  Dewey has a radio but no loud speakers so Norman and I each have a set of head phones on listening to jazz music while we write.  It works pretty (over)

good except that it makes us kinda homesick for our sweeties.  These folks sure were glad to see me.  And it seemed rather nice to see some of my old friends again.  But I would be ready to leave now if the corn was all picked.  But I don't think it will be so lonesome after we get started working again.  Doris I realy haven't been with any girl since I lift and don't intend to be.  And I trust that you will do the same.

Sure are having fine weather here.  I hope it stays this way for about two weeks.  Then, o boy won't we travel north.  Well I'll say we will.  Norman is realy homesick as this is his first time to get so far away.  He sure can pick corn for as small as he is.  We have been picking just the same amount every day.  He says I am the first guy that ever kept up with him.  And he is also the first one to stay with me.  So you see we get

along fine together.  We picked seven hundred bushels apeice in six days when we were in Iowa.  So you know we were steping right along.  How did your mothers sale turn out?  Good I hope, Have you heard from Harry?  Well dear I must close as I am out of some thing to write.

    xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx                                                                    Yours Forever
     xxxxxxxxxxxxx                                                                             X    Ted.

P.S. - Tell Les there is a lot of corn here if he comes right away but in another week jobs will be rather scarse.  You can call him and have him come down.

"Doris, get your gun." by Dione M. Surdez (September 20, 2007)

Doris, get your gun.

 

Father has a girlfriend.

Father used to roam.

Father settles in Sheridan.

He calls that place his home.

Father falters, There is good work here.  I’ve got a fine girl.  I think I’ll make a home.

Mother tends to her man.

Mother bears him four.

Mother attempts to understand.

She thinks that woman a whore.

Mother marauds, I am told that since the time that they have installed the road around the Northern end of those Black Hills, driving through has become less stressful than in past circumstances.

Doris procures the car of steel.

Doris packs the good book.

Doris is told to take the wheel.

She insists for her sisters to look.

Doris declares, Dear Father has thought to reside away from our family.  Uncle believes it in our best interest to dissuade him from doing so.  Hurry now.  Move along quickly.  We must go forthright. 

Three little ladies head toward the west.

Three little ladies pulley round the hill.

Three little ladies navigate their best.

They pause for overheating, gathering all their will.

Ladies labor, Once we arrive, we will have a sit with Father.  Certainly he will choose to come home soon.

Father agrees. 

Mother gives smile.

Doris perceives.

Three little ladies drive an extra long while.

Siblings simmer, Mother regrets that, after a month’s wait, a letter has arrived.  Father will not come.  Mother has retained an attorney for processing of divorce.

OUT WEST by Doriz Zilpha Sisson



Harry Sisson and Delia Johnson Sisson
(September 11th, 1898)

While I was still at Kennedy's I got a call from Lawyer Owens to come in on the next Saturday. He had a letter from my Dad stating that he and Mother had never been happy and he would like a divorce, to "talk to Doris--she would understand". Yes, I understood alright. I told the lawyer about us hearing how Lula Barber was out there, too and certainly did not take my Dad's side. We decided that Mother should see Dad, so I bought a Ford coupe, and mother, Maude, who was about 8, I think, Lorraine and I headed for Wyoming in my little Ford. We set a little wooden yeast box on the floor at Mother's feet that Maude was to sit on. That wasn't a very good place for a kid as she couldn't see much and I think she was on Mother's lap most of the time. What a trip. None of us had even been in the Black Hills, leave alone mountains. And we had little money to spare. One night Mother and the girls slept on benches in a community log cabin and I curled up in my car, best way I could. We were half scared to death going from Black Hills to Sheridan. The roads were not good like they are now. One place we met another car just as we came around the mountain, and met another one with two older men and a lady in it. The road wasn't very wide, and I couldn't see how we would meet. Both stopped and the men had the woman drive close to the edge against a young tree--sappling--and they, hanging onto the tree held the car there and let us drive to the inside! When I got to Sheridan I was so fearful I didn't think I'd dare drive home again. But Clifford and Marie Clark soon got me over that. They got their friends and really took me for rides on mountain trails. Their fast driving in the country scared me stiff. At first I'd just yell! After I got used to it I loved it.



The Sisson Family - Lorraine, Harry, Delia, Maude, Doris (Sheridan, Wyoming - 1925)



Harry Sisson (center) - Chef in Veteran's Home (Sheridan, Wyoming 1925)

We were there and Dad and Mother made amends and made plans for the next year. She and Harvey were to farm another year, till spring. Then Clarks and Mom and the kids were to join Dad in North Dakota, where all would go into farming again. And so we started for home much happier.

Mother wondered why she didn't hear from Dad after several days. Finally she did, he said he couldn't go through with it--he wanted "out". Then he had suit for divorce delivered on their wedding anniversary! But lawyer Owens took her side and said he'd really hurt Dad if he didn't buy the old home in Colton for Mother. He did, and Mother moved the next spring, after having her farm sale.

Doris and Lorraine (Colton, South Dakota - circa 1913/1914)

LIFE BEGINS by Doris Zilpha Sisson (September 1924)

As I stated before, I came to Kennedy's to board in the fall of '24.

George Sisson brought me out from town, and I left my suit cases, it being a Saturday, and then went back with him to spend the weekend with Grandma Flodin's. When we got to Kennedy's there were a couple young fellows there who had come in from Kansas.  They were Floyd and Lester Surdez.

I learned when I came back out Sunday night that they would help with stack thrashing, and then pick corn. Kennedy had a threshing machine and they worked for him.

That was really a difficult fall for me--away from home, a school teaching job that really worried me for fear I wouldn't do it well enough. But all the patrons were so nice to me, and cooperative that I needed not have been so worried. The county superintendent walked in on me one day when I was teaching the primary grades the poem, "September," and each day as they learned a verse, we tried to picture it in our minds; then each child drew and colored what he "saw." At teacher's institute a couple weeks later she told the group about it and made generous comment. I got over my fear of a "county superintendent", and she became a very helpful friend.

As before stated, I was engaged to Gerald Tyler at this time, and though I got letters from him regularly, I was lonesome, and homesick at first. Ted kept asking to take me home, so I let him, but we didn't really date. He still was seeing Miss Snyder, who had taught here the year before, and boarded with Kennedy's. She came down just a couple weeks after school started and so Molly Kennedy had a house party (we danced on the enclosed porch) so she could see her old friends and pupils and so I could meet the parents. Clyde Langloss called square dances and I got to dance most of the time. Johnit Erickson was there, just looking on. I thought he was sure a nice looking guy and gave him "the eye", thinking we might get acquainted. But he was too bashful. When lunch time came Snyder and Ted wondered whom they might get for my partner. Then she suggested Oscar Schjodt, so I ate with him. Snyder stayed overnight with me, and she told me about the people and students, and helped me out quite a bit. I liked her very much.

One weekend Ted went to Madison to visit Snyder and while sitting in a rocker visiting with her and her Mother he got a terrible pain in his leg. He had bumped his knee when picking corn and they thought at first that was it. He got so bad that they had him put in the hospital there. The doctors didn't know just what it was, and let his right leg draw-up til the heel touched the hip, and there it locked. Learned later it was polio, but it seemed to be the only case around at that time. One day the Doctors and nurses, after putting him to sleep, forced it out straight and put a cast on him from waist to toes. They had put it out of joint and didn't even know it. The suffering he went through was terrible--and away from folks or relatives, and no money to pay hospital bills. A friend, Royal Siegried, whom he had met down here, since he had worked in the neighborhood, lived up there; that is, his folks lived on a farm near Lake Madison. Royal asked his folks if he could bring Ted there, and they generously said "yes". She told me-later that she wondered if she would ever pull him through. He was out of his head most of the time, and everything she tried to feed him, he just shook his head and said "salty."  She was at her wits end, for she knew he MUST eat. One day she made him some Iemonade, thinking he should have some fluid, and he drank and drank. She said she nursed him back to normalcy on lemonade.  So he was up there all fall, into the winter, and Les didn't go back to Kansas. He stayed and worked for Kennedy.

Christmas time came and Gerald came home and wanted me to go back to Mankato with him and look at apartments, so I did. I stayed at friends of his, the Peppers, and of his brother and wife, Ray and Georgia, who had moved to Clinton, Iowa, that fall. I came back in time to go on down to Kennedy's on Saturday before school was to start again after Christmas vacation. And here was Ted. Les had asked if, instead of taking pay for his work, he could work for his and Ted's board. Ted was still in the cast but could get around with crutches. We all had fun that winter; they played "pitch" and taught me to play, and we played most every night. The neighbors, also, got together for cards, playing "500" which I learned, too. Once in a while someone would have a "house party."  This meant dancing to someone's fiddling. These parties were at Siemonsma's, their cousin's the VanDer Waude's, and a few other places. Josephine started to school that year, and Don was in the 7th grade.  Ted had a difficult time getting a job that spring, because there were some things he couldn't do. However, he painted Kennedy's barn and hauled manure for Oscar Schjodt. Then, that summer he hired out to Baynard Cornue for $3.00 a day for days he could work. He ended up working every day that summer.

In the spring we started dating, and I soon knew it was all off with Gerald, and wrote him so. Ted had a Buick roadster, and took me home week ends, and came after me on Sunday, but not for long for this was only an 8-month school.

I went to summer school at Madison again, Ella Anderson and Esther Lickness, being in with me in light housekeeping rooms. I had bought a Ford coupe through Uncle Ira, and drove it.