My plans from the start were to tell you more about my family and my Grandma. I have thought many times about how awful this was for them. I am not sure there are even words to express how that phone call felt. My Grandma was out cutting coupons off chicken feed bags. I am not sure if my Grandpa and my Uncle were on the farm or out in the field. But when they received the news that their Son and Daughter-in-law had died and their Granddaughter was in the hospital it had to be earth shattering. Not to mention my other Grandparents had both died. “Tragic” barely scratches the surface of what that had to be like.

My sister Cheri lived for 6 to 9 hours, depending on which paper you read. So there was another phone call once she had passed away. I seriously have never known how they even handled that.

I know that the next morning early, after a night of very little if any sleep, a pastor from Holdrege called my Grandparents home and asked if they were considering adopting me out. He knew a couple who would take me. My family was so upset by this. The timing was horrible. And when this story was told to me, by any one of my family members, it was always reinforced that it was not in any way an option to let me go anywhere but with my family. They wanted me to know I was always wanted.

When my Aunt Dee and I talked after I got my Mom’s letters, she told me how my family’s good friends came over and took care of all of their basic needs. Just did everything for them you can imagine. I wished I could have said thank you to those people, but they have since passed away. I just felt such affection for them when I heard the story. Their Grandchildren are my friends and I want them to know that their Grandparents are my hero’s!!

To be honest I do not have a lot of insight into how my mother’s family handled losing their parents, sister, niece and brother-in-law. I do know they were totally devastated. I just do not know details. I know my Aunt Rita and my Mom were very close and it was horrible for her.

An interesting thing I learned recently is that Mitchell Funeral Home from Orleans took hearses out to California to pick up my family. I had never thought about that before. I just knew that I had things that had been in the car and I now know that others had some of their belongings also. I assume the police gathered all of the personal belongings so the funeral home could bring them all back. I also feel a deep gratitude to them for that. Having their things has been a blessing during my life but none more than when I was able to plan our trip around the writing my Mom and Grandma did on their trip.

I am not sure how to describe how devastating this actually was for my family, but it is so important because I also want to describe what I know of how amazing they were in living through it all. I am trying to be careful of everyone’s thoughts and feelings from my family. I dearly love them and what they feel is their story not mine. But like I said I have been asked to tell my story many times.

From here I will share what I feel is for me, the best and most amazing part of the story. I would like to also share insight to how this tragedy affected so many people in ways you would never even realize.

I want to share a letter written by Lorraine Westergren. Her daughter Linda ended up being one of my dearest childhood friends. She was my big sister and taught me all the things a girl needed to know. Especially how to ride a bike🤗 (In a small town that is freedom). I have great affection for the Westergren family. With out realizing it they made me feel at home and welcome. I looked up to Linda’s sister and brothers.