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CELEBRATING MARIAN - 100 Years of Milestones and Memories
She was born during the Roaring Twenties, lived through the crash and depression of the Dirty Thirties, and experienced the distant effects of World War II while three of her siblings served overseas. She has lived through 17 presidents, numerous cataclysmic events, and has seen new inventions become things of the past. The little girl amazed by an occasional airplane flying over her childhood home, grew up to watch a man land on the moon.
CURTIS, Neb. - A mere 84 years ago, a young High school junior from the Nebraska School of Agriculture was chosen by the faculty to represent the school as junior attendant to the queen. Included with this honor was riding a float in the 1939 Curtis Fall Festival parade. In honor of her upcoming 100th birthday, she will once again ride those same streets as “princess of the parade” in this year’s Festival.
Marian (Bailey) Davis, had only just turned 16 when she traveled 250 miles by train from her home in Palmyra, Neb. to attend the school in Curtis. Upon her arrival, after enrolling in courses and meeting her roommates, it was off to the kitchen dorm to learn what her work responsibilities would be. To pay for her room and board, arrangements were made for full-time work in the dorm kitchen. At only 15 cents an hour, she had to average five hours of work daily to pay the bill. Growing up on a farm and living during the great depression, she certainly wasn’t one to shy away from hard work.
Marian graduated from high school in April 1941, but the two-year teaching certificate she had gone there to pursue wasn’t in her plans, nor was she alone in these plans. The year prior, while accompanying her roommate home for the weekend, she was invited to a get together with a family she didn't know—the Davis family. It was here she found herself locking eyes with a handsome young man two years her senior. This young man, Roy, was the brother of her roommate’s boyfriend. A relationship blossomed, and it was on graduation night that she and Roy, along with another couple, drove across the Kansas border to get married.
They weren’t yet of legal age in Nebraska (Kansas either, for that matter, but that’s a whole other story). Nevertheless, at ages 17 and 19, the two were officially hitched. After breaking the news to their respective families, they set out to build their lives together.
Apart from a stint in Buffalo, New York, where Roy worked for Curtiss-Wright during the war years, the two made a home for themselves in Frontier County—farming the land, tending to their cattle, and raising a family. When they first moved to their farm in 1945, they already had two young daughters. By 1947, they added a son and third daughter.
While Roy farmed the fields, Marian was busy tending to her four “live wires,” as she referred to the kids. In 1955 and 1957, two more sons were added to the family bringing the total to six children. Marian has always stayed busy no matter what was at hand. While still rearing her children, gardening was her favorite hobby, followed by sewing, crocheting, and painting. She also enjoyed textile painting when she found the time.
Soon, the older kids were in their high school years and leaving home to begin their own lives. By 1959, they had welcomed their first grandchild.
The 1960’s and 70’s brought along many milestone moments, such as graduations, marriage, and seeing their oldest son off to the Navy. These years not only brought good and bad years of crops, they also brought the loss of family. As it is with life, some were leaving this world behind while others were entering in.
By the close of the 1970’s, there were 12 grandchildren and one great grandchild with more on the way. Large family gatherings with everyone home at one time were rare, but when they did happen, they were memory-filled times. It was a good thing they added an addition to their house in the late 60’s to accommodate their ever-growing family.
Having grown up during the depression and World War II, they knew how to be frugal and live simply. As Marian has often said, “growing up, if we were poor, we didn't know it because everyone was in the same situation.” This mindset followed them into adulthood. Instead of blowing their money on frivolous things like beer and cigarettes, they saved that money and used it for their summer vacations.
They didn't go on expensive trips or spend money on needless luxuries. Instead, they would camp along the way and often spend their vacations with others. If they weren’t camping alongside family, they would certainly make their rounds to visit them. Roy came from a family with nine children, and Marian was the second oldest of five. She also had several great aunts and uncles on both sides. Many of their vacations consisted of visiting family across the United States of America.
By the 1980’s, Roy and Marian were in their sixties and forty years into their marriage when they were bitten by the international travel bug. Friendship Force, a home-hosting travel organization, took them overseas to Korea, England, Scotland, Germany, Egypt, and Israel. They experienced different customs and cultures while making friends along the way. To this day, Marian fondly remembers walking in the same places that Jesus walked.
For a girl who never traveled more than 30 miles before coming west to Curtis, she certainly became well-traveled. Also, in the 1980’s, they were involved with the Country Concert Association, which brought different country musicians into the area. She still remembers meeting and working for a young Reba McEntire.
March 1983 brought along a mortgage burning party and by June of that year, they considered themselves retired…from farming, that is. This was at a time when many people were losing their farms and there was little profit compared to the time and money invested . Roy and Marian turned their sights to other opportunities.
By the time they celebrated their 45th anniversary in 1986, what had started out as one property-turned-rental-home, soon turned into several. The Ag school had been bouncing back from some rough years, and kids were moving into the area and needed places to live. Their new “work” consisted of tending to properties and fielding student housing requests. Many weekends were spent at estate auctions gathering furniture and other supplies for these properties.
In 1991, it had been thirteen years since the last grandchild, and it was quite a thrill when grandchild #13 arrived. By this time, Roy and Marian also had six great grandchildren, again with more on the way. What began as two young teenagers eloping in the middle of the night had grown to a family numbering more than 36.
This made it quite the celebration when they reached their milestone 50-year anniversary on April 18, 1991. In June, the family gathered for a belated Fifty-Year Anniversary celebration, which they shared alongside the wedding of their youngest daughter, an occasion bringing more family into the fold.
At 68 and 70 years old, Roy and Marian weren’t slowing down. The international travel had stopped, but they continued to handle their rental properties while also traveling to visit family and friends near and wide. In the early 1990’s, their home address changed when they moved to the outskirts of Curtis. This is the house where Marian still lives today.
If you are to ask any of Marian’s children and grandchildren what is something that sticks out to them the most about the mom/grandma, you will hear at least one of them say “her homemade treasures.”
Marian, like her own mother, has been a lifetime hobbyist and member of various home extension clubs. In 1974, she was recognized as “Rural Homemaker of the Month” in a local publication. She has spent many hours sewing, crocheting, and experimenting with all kinds of craft techniques. One year, she decided she wanted to have an Afghan Christmas. She began storing away crocheted Afghans until she had enough. When she started the storing process, she only needed 28, but soon that number grew to 50. She has done these Afghan Christmases, and later rug Christmases, more than once. If you have one of Marian’s Afghans or rugs, you are truly blessed.
As with the normal cycle of life, the mind stays young, but the body begins wearing down. This was true in the early 2000’s when Roy’s health began to deteriorate. Diagnosed with Parkinson’s, he faced many health changes and challenges over the years. Marian was by Roy’s side the whole way. Her young love and partner in life was slipping away, but he was always surrounded by the love of his family.
When he passed away in December 2005, it was fitting for him to be laid to rest wearing a pair of his good overalls. In his front pocket was a small bunch of sweet pea flowers. This was a nod to the moments he would bring sweet peas to Marian while working the fields.
Roy’s passing never slowed Marian down. In fact, the common theme in this look back over the last 11 decades points to a woman—somewhat unsure of herself at 16 when she rode the train to Curtis—to one who has forged her own path. Through these twilight years of life, Marian could be found attending her different clubs, always driving herself to and from. She would often go dancing with friends, create and craft alongside others, research and share her family history, and always be up for hours-long conversations on the phone with friends and family.
Like all of us, Marian has been given one life to live and she is living it well indeed. Thankfully, Marian is a storyteller herself and had foresight to collect history, capture her stories and others’, and pass them along to the next generation. She has experienced and lived through things that most of us will only know through the stories passed down.
She was born during the Roaring Twenties, lived through the crash and depression of the Dirty Thirties, and experienced the distant effects of World War II while three of her siblings served overseas. She has lived through 17 presidents, numerous cataclysmic events, and has seen new inventions become things of the past. The little girl amazed by an occasional airplane flying over her childhood home, grew up to watch a man land on the moon.
Today’s current culture and situation are warning signs, to her, of events she has lived through. Often, she will say, “not very many people care where they come from. Do they even know what it took for them to be here? They can't even imagine living life the way we had to live it.”
Today, the family matriarch may not remember why she walked in a room or what she said five minutes ago (I struggle with that at 47 years old), but she can still recall her earliest childhood memories back to the age of three.
Just recently, we took her to the home she was born in. Watching her reminisce about her childhood was like watching 20 years fall from her face. At one point, we were turned around on the country roads. I’m not sure why we were worried. After all, who needs a GPS when you have a centenarian whose long-term memory is still sharp as a tack?
In recent years, Marian has said many goodbyes to those whose lives were a large part of her’s this side of heaven. Her parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles are long gone, and she has outlived all her siblings as well as Roy’s. The loss of her youngest daughter, whom she was especially close to, came as a shock to all her family in 2020. However, as Marian has always shown, life goes on and we continue to put one foot in front of the other.
While she has slowed down some and needs the assistance of others for some things, she is still fiercely independent. Her faith sustains her. Her fortitude drives her. She does indeed care where she comes from, knows what (and Whom) it took for her to be here, and she is aware of where she will someday be.
On Sept. 23, we celebrate this amazing life that began in 1923 in a world far different than today. Happy 100th Birthday Grandma! We know the world is brighter because you are in it.