https://voicesofignacio.cvlcollections.org/files/original/31446c3981e1eb9e62f0fbafe892ae85.pdf a7cd980e2a3b10bde18016253f6e866e PDF Text Text RICHARD AND HENRIETTA (Benson) GARDNER Richard Harold Gardner was born near Sioux Falls, South Dakota, on April 1, 1896, the youngest Child of George and Hanna Gardner. George had been reared in Dearborn, Michigan, where he went to school with Henry Ford, (The old Gardner home is now a part of Henry Ford's Pioneer Village at Dearborn). George went west at the age of 19, settled at Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and took advantage of the Homestead Law to acquire farmland. When George died at the age of 48, he was farming 1500 acres of rich Missouri Valley farmland with horses. After his death Hanna moved the children to town and rented the land to others. "Heinie and I attended the same high school," Dick recalls, "but since I was older and a member of a different class in school, I never knew her till several years later. I didn't have much time to get into mischief. When I wasn't going to school, I was working. Part of the time I did chores for farmers. For a while I helped the school custodian until I got a job at the telephone company. It amounted to 40 hours per week counting all the evening hours and an all-night shift Saturday night through Sunday morning. I worked on the test board tracing down malfunctions in the circuits. Originally, I was paid $30.00 per month which later was raised to $45.00. In summers I really made big money. I traveled with a telephone construction gang as time clerk and bookkeeper. We installed telephone systems in small towns in South Dakota and Minnesota. For that I was paid $75.oo per month plus my keep. Those were in the days before cables and micro-wave transmission. Since every conversation required two separate lines, the telephone poles of those days were laden with several cross arms and dozens of wires. Long distance calls could only be heard a certain distance. The farthest city we could speak with directly was Chicago. Beyond that an operator in Chicago would have to relay the message on to another operator until it reached the party being called. I learned to use the telegraph. Telegraph messages were relayed on the phone lines without interfering with conversations. Because of my work I always had money for high school and for college." Dick was about to finish his sophomore year at South Dakota State when he enlisted in the Army for World War 1. He sailed to France in a convoy of 13 ships. The crossing required 13 days, landing in France on Friday the 13th. Many of the men were spooked by these numbers, but any bad luck incurred did not affect Dick. He was a member of a special railroad unit which built narrow gauge tracks and operated supply trains right up to the trenches. "Once our outfit connected its lines to some German tracks, crossed into German Territory and pulled a German train back into Allied territory." Dick returned to America in July of 1919 and enrolled in college again. The first day back his friends invited him to go with them to a dance. Though he didn't have a date, Dick decided to go. As soon as he arrived, one of his friends pointed out Heinie and said, "there is a girl from Sioux Falls. You should get acquainted." That's exactly what Dick did, Henrietta Amelia is the youngest child of Henry and Amelia Benson, both of whom were born in Sweden, My parents taught me English first, then Swedish. Father was a laborer. I lived in the same house I was born in until I married. 62 �'l '1 '1 '1 '1 't ) ' ' ) ) l ' ' ) 1 ) ) ) ) ) ) ) } ) ) __) _) _) _) ...) J ..J J ..J J J J J J J I~ Heinie had three brothers and one sister. After graduating from high school, she enrolled at South Dakota state to study home economics and commerce. She had been a secretary before college and afterwards did secretarial and book-keeping work all her life. Even though Dick and Heinie were serious students, they found some time for fun, A new music professor from Hew York who knew little about the ways of the west roomed in the same boarding house as Dick. On a snowy, windy night Dick and some of his friends took the prof on a snipe hunt and left him literally holding the bag. About 2:00 A.M. when the boys were about to get worried, the professor came wearily up the stairs. After dating for four years Dick and Heinie were married in 1923. Dick says, "Some people may think that is a long time to date someone, but in those days a boy was supposed to have a job and something to offer before he got married. I had a degree in agriculture and one in school administration. My first job was with the first rural consolidated school system in the state at Madison. We had the first school buses and worked all the bugs out of running a consolidated arrangement. After two years of teaching agriculture, I was selected to be the superintendent. I stayed with that two years and then took the job of county agent." When World War II started Dick felt a responsibility to help with the war effort. He quit the county agent job and started teaching a Radio School for the Army Air Corps. At first he was stationed in Sioux Falls, then in St. Louis. In 1943 the Gardners returned to Madison where Dick resumed his job with the school until 1956. It was not a matter of being unhappy with life in Madison which started the Gardners looking for another place to live. They loved their life and friends there, "We had never lived outside South Dakota," Heinie says, "and we decided if we were ever going to see any other part of the country, we should go then. Dick resigned his job and we started looking. Actually, we had Colorado in mind from the start. When we got to Denver, Dick visited the Colorado Department of Education and learned there were openings for administrators all over the state. We made a list of possible places and began looking. If we didn't like the looks of a place, we wouldn't stop. We almost didn't come to Ignacio because an outdated map showed an unpaved road over here. We immediately liked the looks of the country around here, but did not make a final decision until later. After visiting several schools in Texas, Dick called back and accepted the job in Ignacio. He was principal at the high school for 3 years and, also, of the grade school 3 years until he retired in 1962. That same year we went to the World's Fair in Seattle and then on to Hawaii to visit the grave of our son who died in the war," The Gardner's son, Richard Robert, whom they called Bobby, was born in 1924. Bobby was tall, 6'2", ambitious and had high ideals. He entered the Marines in 1942 and was killed in action on March 13, 1945, on lwo Jima. He was awarded the Silver Star, Purple Heart with 2 gold stars, Presidential Unit, Citation ribbon with star, Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal and the World War II Victory Medal. After retiring, Dick served on the Ignacio Town Board, as town clerk and as a manager of the town gas system. He had been active in the Lion's Club, American Legion, VFW, the 63 �Regional Planning Commission and Alpha Zeta, a national agricultural society. Both of them have been active in the Presbyterian Church and have held various service positions in the local church. "We've had good friends everywhere we have lived," the Gardners say, "but we'd never by happy away from the mountains." Shelby Smith, October 1977 64 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Shelby Smith Interviews Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource https://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-NC/1.0/?language=en Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 1973-1980 Subject The topic of the resource Ignacio; Southwest Colorado Description An account of the resource Collection of biographies, predominantly of residents from the Ignacio Senior Center, based on interviews conducted by Shelby Smith from approximately 1973 to 1980. The abridged interviews were originally published as individual entries in The Thoughtful Years newsletter, published by the Ignacio Senior Center, beginning in 1973. They were later published as a whole in Smith's book: Oral Histories of the Southern Pine River Valley, from which the original scans in this collection have been derived. Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smith, Shelby Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard Gardner and Henrietta (Benson) Gardner Biography Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 1977-10 Subject The topic of the resource Gardner, Richard; Gardner, Henrietta (Benson); Ignacio, Colorado; Southwest Colorado Description An account of the resource Biography of Richard Gardner and Henrietta (Benson) Gardner based on an interview conducted by Shelby Smith. Originally included in the October, 1977 issue of "The Thoughtful Years" newsletter published by the Ignacio Senior Center. Later included in the book "Oral Histories of the Southern Pine River Valley" by Shelby Smith. Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Ignacio, Colorado; Southwest Colorado Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Gardner, Richard; Gardner, Henrietta (Benson) Extent The size or duration of the resource. 3 pages Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NKC/1.0/ Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smith, Shelby