Letter to the Editor

Credit where credit is due

Wednesday, June 15, 2016

Dear Editor,

I wish to thank Connie Jo dor the nice article about our Bartley History book. I really appreciated her kind words. But I wish to give "credit where credit is due."

I'm definitely not into this century, with computers, hard drives, flash drive, scanning, etc.! I have Parkinson's and the symptoms are not conducive to handling the mouse or the keyboard. On a project of this size, several are needed to help in different capacities, and I certainly needed the friends who stepped in to offer assistance, at the last minute!

With Vol. I printed 30 years ago, I did not help with that pictorial history, with the exception of helping find a few pictures in my mother's collection. The ladies who were responsible for the book in 1986 were the late Leona Wight Rosier and sisters, the late Iola Day Moore and Pauline Day Moore. The artist for the cover of that book was Larry Foster.

I had a three-month time period to get this book finished by june 4. I didn't have time to worry about a cover, so not having any scruples whatsoever about borrowing my "kissin' cousin" Larry Foster's cover idea. My partner in crime (another cousin) Michelle Lytle, just did a little changing to fit the year and I added a new slogan. Michelle Lytle also did all of the printing and binding of the book.

Others who contributed to the book Vol. II were Loretta Moore Carpenter, the daughter of the late Iola Moore, helped with many old pictures and last-minute printing and arranging pages. Also helping with last-minute details were Kathy Rosico Hansen, the daughter of the late Leona Rosier. Kathy helped with various tasks, especially the last few days of rushing to get the book to the printers.

There would not have been a book without the computerist Myra Brooks Minnick, better known as "Mick."

She is the daughter of the late Gerold "Geb" and Bertie Brooks, founder of Brooks Construction. Mick did all and I mean all of the computer and scanning work. She is also the office girl for the construction company.

Not only did she have all of the book clutter to contend with, at the same time she had an office to run with time sheets, payroll, seeing that construction workers were off and running every day, as this was the company's busy time fo the year and the phone rings often in this business.

It is said that if you want to get something done and done right, a bussy person is the one to ask. This proved true with Mick. She is an EMT with our fire department and a volunteer with the department. She attends all of the state-sponsored instructional meetings for fire fighting and safety and EMT state meetings. Mick had volunteered to do the computer work for me, and I was very grateful. Like "Topsey" of the old saying, this project just grew, grew!

But Mick just kept persevering and arranging each page from rough copies I sent down to her. She even took time to go down to our new fire barn, drove all seven of the fire fighting vehicles out of the barn, lined them up in front and took pictures so we would have a better picture for the book. Going above and beyond some of the girls even went to the cemetery to get correct spelling of names of some of our long-ago citizens.

Another acknowledgment goes back to two friends from the '30s, Jackie Day Johnson of Cambridge, who was able to get a story about our last editor of the bartley inter-ocean, Doc Lantz.

Evelyn Crawmer Duckworth of Omaha, a friend of 86 years, sent me all of her parents' pictures of the 1935 flood. Old as the snapshots were, Mick scanned them beautifully.

All of the "girls" (I'm using the word girls lightly) are graduates of the Bartley Bombers High School, with the exception of Evelyn Crawmer Duckworth, who had to move to Indianola and finished school there.

It was a fun time doing the book, but also a trying time, because we had a deadline from March to June 4. To do a history correctly and be really thorough, one should think years not months to get it perfected.

I plan to give a book to the McCook museum and the Bartley, Indianola and Cambridge libraries.

And to the Gazette, thank you for the space today and for the articles of the past we have used in our book.

Patsy Lee Redfern,

Bartley, Neb.

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