Source; Post Register, Idaho Falls, ID 10 Jan 1998 Pg A 8 Morning News, Blackfoot, ID
Minnie Ellen Ard Plesner
02/26/1896 - 04/06/1992
...written May, 1989
I bounced into this world on February 26, 1896. The first child of J. D. and Elizabeth (Lily) Zimmerman Ard. Guess they liked me, as they put up with me. They called me Minnie, after my grandmother.
I was never lonesome as a child. I had six sisters and four brothers come along for company. I became a very young nurse maid. How I loved those babies. A little two-roomed house on a farm in Kansas was my home, but as the babies came along, Dad had to build onto the house. He finally built on three bedrooms and a front room. This is where I lived and grew up. I went through school and started High School, but Dad took a notion to go to Idaho to lease some land but he had to have a cook, so I was elected to be his cook. That ended my schooling, and everything else that mattered to me. We had a basketball team. My two sisters and I made up half the team. We won the honor of being the championship team for one year of the State of Kansas, and a chance of winning it the next year. Then Dad had to go to Idaho.
In the spring we left for Idaho. That was my lonesome, lonesome time. I missed that dear Mother of mine so much. That summer they started up this little church and we all went to that. The way I got around -- I had a little black mare I called Bridge. She was a balky horse, she would never go the way I wanted to go. I found out if I let her go the wrong way for a while, then turn her around real quick, she would go the right way. That little cart is still on the farm. On Sunday I noticed a fellow eyeing me up quite a bit, but I never let on I even saw him. I just went out to my little balky horse and cart and went home. Later one day I answered the door and there was this fellow. He asked me to go for a ride, so I did. That is how I met Henry. He had come and met Dad and visited a little while with him. We dated the rest of the summer.
I went back to Kansas with Dad that fall, but we corresponded that winter and Dad and I went back to Idaho in the spring. We dated that summer, but when Dad went back the next winter, I decided to get married and stay in Idaho. The family was moving to Idaho the next spring. We went to a Judge and said "I do" and that was it. Just went to his house to live. His uncle lived with us, or we lived with him for a while. He finally left and went to California to live.
Henry got the farm but he didn't like farming but liked to tinker with cars. We finally sold the farm and moved to town, and be became an automobile mechanic. Then our babies started coming. We had six, and all turned out to be good self-supporting kids. I had the last little one at home and I decided I needed something more to do but didn't know what. One day a lady called and asked me if I would take care of her child while she did something. I never turned one down, so just kept getting another. Some days I'd have as many as twenty of the little darlings a day. One day a lady called, and when I opened the door, it was a black lady. Bet you could have knocked me over with a feather. I couldn't say, no, you're black, so I took her. She was just another little girl. The kids didn't pay any attention that she was black after they sized her up. She did look a little strange mixed in with the others. I did that for twenty years.
I finally sold my little place and bought a trailer home and now I just take a day at a time and do nothing but just what comes along. Watch the days go by one by one.It seems a short story for 96 years of life. Grandma was the ultimate caretaker. She spent her life tending first to 10 brothers & sisters, her brood of six, her parents when they got old and ill, her husband and other people's children. She had so many abilities that she took for granted. Crochet, knitting, tatting, embroidery, sewing, baking, gardening, quilting, canning, crafting to mention a few. I never saw the woman sit still without something in her hands. She entered stuff in the Blackfoot Fair each year and had a gazillion blue/red and white ribbons. She never belonged to a church but was religious, never drove until 1967 and was fearless, loved baseball and bowling. She made the majority of her and grandpa's income by tending other people's children, took in washing/ironing, washed/strarched/stretched and ironed lace curtains, did mending and arranged bouquets for others. Never...NEVER heard her complain.
She lived several years on her sister's property in a trailer until her children moved her into an assisted living home. She missed her home and independence and it shows in her last comments. I wish I had been able to spend more time with her in her later years....regrets. :(