Hardships couldn't sweep McCook woman away

Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Veldron Hall of McCook prunes some of the rose bushes she has at her home, one of the many activities the 89-year old does to keep busy. (Lorri Sughroue/McCook Daily Gazette)

Veldron Williams Hall knows the power of perseverance. Maybe she learned it as a 15-year old in 1935, when she hung on to wooden beams for 10 hours, while the swirling flood waters of the Republican River churned up to her knees.

Maybe she learned it during the hard times of the Great Depression, when everyone made do with what they had, or while working years for the telephone company, pulling 12 hour shifts during World War II. But wherever it came from, the 89-year old from McCook still doesn't let much deter her.

She keeps busy in her own house next to the Sen. George Norris Home on Norris Avenue, tending her roses and mowing the lawn. She also volunteers at the local museum and plays the piano at two nursing homes, one where her 101-year old sister, Velma Steinke, is living.

The youngest of three daughters, Hall's sisters were already out of the house by the time she was a teen and the family was raising dairy cows and corn for feed south of Culbertson, near the Republican River.

After years of drought, people were grateful for the wet spring that Memorial Day weekend in 1935, Hall remembered, but the ground quickly became saturated as the rain continued. Water began to rise along the house and Hall and her parents went to a neighbor's home to wait it out.

While there, she and her father, along with the neighbors, checked on the stakes they had put in the ground near the river, to measure the rising water. Suddenly, the water surged drastically, she recalled. They ran back to a neighbor's house "ahead of the water," she said and by time they reached the house, they were wading in it up to their knees.

Realizing at that point that they couldn't wait this one out, Hall, her parents and the neighbor family of nine made a beeline to the only structure on the neighbor's property that was bolted to its foundation, the grainery. And with men on one side and women on the other, they grabbed ahold of what they could and hung on from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., while the dirty, debris-ridden flood waters swirled through the building. At times, the water reached up to her knees, Hall said.

She wasn't really afraid, she recalled, but maybe more in shock.

"We just stuck it out," she said. "It happened so fast, there wasn't anything else we could do. Really, we were just grateful we were still alive."

At one point, Hall looked out an upper door and watched as her home folded in on itself and was swept up by the flood water, pushed from its location to about a city block away.

The water gradually receded so that eventually everyone could made their way back to the house, where a man with a small fishing boat picked them up one by one and carried them to higher ground a few miles away.

"It was a rickety boat but we were glad to see it," Hall said.

Their farm and home destroyed, her parents moved in with a daughter's family and and Hall moved in with a friend nearby. Then, they tried to pick up their lives.

But it wasn't easy. Before the flood, the farm had sustained all their needs, Hall said. Now in town, with no employment, they had to find a way to support themselves."We thought we were pretty rich, as we had $100 in the bank," she said. "But now we had to pay rent and so that meant trying to find a job."

Jobs, along with everything else, were scarce in the Depression. Her father began working as a salesman and Hall got a part-time job as telephone switchboard operator. Later, after graduating from high school, she moved to McCook when the phones changed to dial.

It was a job she ended up keeping through World War II and beyond. The Army Air Base opened up outside of town and an influx of wives and families followed, making housing a premium. Basements were hastily remodeled as apartments and alley houses sprouted up to accommodate the rush of people. The downtown shopping area thrived.

"The air base made all the difference in the world," she said. "McCook was a boom town then."

After the war, she moved to Washington state with the telephone company and later married an Air Force major. She returned to McCook after her husband's death and went back to work at the Keystone Hotel in the 1990s, when it was a retirement residence.

After retiring from there, she continued to keep busy and nowadays tries to walk at least eight blocks a day, Hall said. She attributes her staying power to a healthy lifestyle and an active childhood.

"I'm kind of a health nut," she said, that began years ago after reading a health book in the fourth grade. "I took everything I read in that book to heart."

Several dams have been constructed in the Republican River Basin, in response to the deadly flood in 1935. And Hall herself has fond memories of the river.

"I spent a lot of time running along the banks when I was a kid,' she said. "That's just what we did back then."

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  • Great article and a very deserving tribute to a wonderful woman. Veldron was my rock during all my years at the Norris House...I always appreciated her company. I admire her healthy ways...Veldron makes a credible role model for any of us. Linda Hein

    -- Posted by ImissMcCook on Tue, Jul 28, 2009, at 5:56 PM
  • Veldron "JUST ROCKS"..She is an amazing lady and I have been lucky enough to know her!!!

    -- Posted by ALL4MCCOOK on Thu, Jul 30, 2009, at 3:01 PM
  • Typical Nebraska determination and longevity!

    -- Posted by greb on Sat, Aug 8, 2009, at 2:26 AM
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