Leaving A Legacy

The following excerpt is found on pages 24-26 of the 107 page life history of Joyce Combs Dillon

My dad was always buying property, fixing it up, and then selling it.  He bought a ranch and of course, he had to go and see it.  So he went down to visit.  He came home one day and he said, “Joyce.”

“What Dad?”

“I found you a husband.”

I thought, “I’ll find my own husband, thank you.” 

He said, “You’ve just got to meet him.  He’s really nice.”

And so I said, “Where does he live?”

“He lives on the ranch I bought.  Let’s all get ready next Saturday or Sunday and we’ll go down.  You can meet him.”

I thought, “uh-oh.”  We’re gonna miss church again.  So, Mamie cooked up a big dinner and packed it all in the car and we went down.  The man was completely different from what I was expecting, but kinda good lookin’ and he had a cute way about him.  But I didn’t know, I didn’t think he’d ever like me and so I wasn’t worried and just kind of went along with my business.  Then the first thing I knew, he was asking me if I wanted to go dance with him.  And I said, “No, I don’t dance.”

 He said, “Oh, well I’m goin, thought maybe you’d like to go.”

And off he went.  He didn’t sound like he was heartbroken about it. I found out that he was going with a girl from the neighboring ranch.  They had a big ranch and a big house… they were well off.  She and I got to meet each other and over a period of three or four months we became friends.  She invited me to her house one day.  It was over the weekend.  She said, “We’ll have fun.  We’ll go horseback riding and just goof off.” 

And I said, “Oh, okay. That sounds fun.”

So, I went and we did have a good time.  She had a nice horse and we went horseback riding and saw a lot of their farm.  Then we went to the house and I don’t know what we did…didn’t do anything important.  And who should come, but Howard….here he came.  He was the guy that was at Daddy’s ranch.  And I thought, “Oh, boy.  What am I gonna do while they have a date?”   They were sitting and they said, “Oh stay and visit with us.”   So I stayed in there a little while and guess what?  They were talking baby talk to each other!  I thought, “Of all the things I ever heard.  That’s the silliest.”

  It REALLY turned me off.  So, I thought, “I’ll get up and go to bed.”

 So, I went into the bedroom and I could hear ‘em giggling through the door. I thought, “Oh no.  I don’t want to hear anything.” 

I guess they took me home the next day and it was ok.  So, I thought I never want to go with a guy who talks baby talk.   They went together for a while and he finally asked her to marry him. I think she wanted to, but when she told her mom and dad they said, “No you are going to go to college.  You cannot get married now.  And if you wanted to get married to him you can wait until after you go through four years of college.”  So, Howard and her broke up. Howard didn’t want to wait four years to get married to her.  He thought too…that she wasn’t doing what she wanted to do. She was doing what her mom and dad wanted.  Which I thought was very good of her to do but Howard didn’t think so.  So, they broke up and first thing I know, here was Howard up at my house in Dodge City. 

“Oh you wanna go to a show?”

I didn’t know if I wanted to go with him or not. I didn’t want to hear him talk baby talk.  So, finally I said, “Oh, I guess”.  We went to the show and what do you know? We had a good time. He took me out for a sandwich and a cup of iced tea.  It was a good time. But I didn’t want to be around him too much.  So, he brought me home and said, “Well, I’ll see you next time you come down to the farm”.

 I said, “Oh, okay”.  And let it go at that. The next time I went down he asked me again if I wanted to go to the dance.  And I said, “No, I don’t dance.”

            My parents went and I went to the ranch and my mother always took a big dinner down and invited him to come and it was very pleasant.  It was so quiet and peaceful there, I really loved to go.  The next time I went down, he invited me to go with him on horseback and check up on the cows.  I thought, “Oh, that’d be fun.”  He saddled me up a horse and he took a horse and off we went.  We came upon a cow that had just had a calf.  It was still in the birth sack.  I thought “Oh no, now he can really say something naughty about the cow and having a baby.”  I was really dreading what he was going to say.  He went over and looked at the calf.  Because it still had the sack still on it he began to tear it away and clean up the calf.  Pretty soon he was satisfied.   He came back to the horses and said, “Well what do you know?  They come all wrapped in cellophane.”

And I fell in love.  I thought, “Any guy that would talk like that is worth having.”

 And of course he didn’t know that I fell in love, but I just thought that was so nice.