Recalling More Than a Century of Living

To write of the life of another is a humbling experience and to live in the presence of that person is a life lesson.

My brother Richard Kent Holloway and I share with you what we have heard recounted by Dorothy Elizabeth West Holloway our mother.

Dorothy Elizabeth (her father’s choice of name) was the first-born child of Wm. C. West and Alma Minnie Walck West with Wm. H. Fickel, M.D. attending in their home located next to the livery stable owned by them in Medicine Bow, Wyo., on Tuesday, Aug. 4, 1914; the day Germany invaded Belgium and the United States declared neutrality in World War I.

Her brother Wm. E. West, only sibling, was born in the Rawlins hospital in February 1916.

The family continued in Medicine Bow until 1921 when they traveled over dirt-rutted Lincoln Highway which first began in 1913 and over the Midland Trail over part of Utah and Nevada, camping and hunting along their way to Escondido, CA with the hope of finding “better, more promising” opportunities. Escondido was where Alma’s folks had moved from their ranch near Encampment, Wyoming and now were living on their farm which had at one time been the fair grounds.

Dorothy attended second grade and her brother tagged along as they walked to school.

Not finding fruit picking to her dad Will’s liking, having been a Wyoming cowboy; they returned to Wyoming in 1923 where her father became a ranch foreman for the Qualey Brothers on their ranch near Elk Mountain located along the Little Medicine Bow River.

Dorothy, now in third grade and her little brother “Bill,” in “kindergarten,” lunches in tow would mount their trusty steed Highball and ride down river to pick up the neighbor ranch girl Melissa Vetch. The three would continue down-river to the ranch school where Mrs. Hastings was the teacher in the one-room school with seven to eight students of various ages, some of whom had been expelled from the Elk Mountain school for bad behavior. Mom said those boys would take the feed sack away from Highball to be mean. She also talked of the weather conditions and her father putting cleats on the horse’s shoes so he could cross the frozen river in winter. Highball never turned-tail to the weather but delivered his cargo safely to school and home again. The three took turns, one behind the saddle and two in the saddle seat.

When Dorothy was ready for fourth grade, her parents and brother moved from the ranch back to Medicine Bow where her father built and owned the Conoco filling station – moving from the horse age to the vehicle age. The station was on the same property location of Will’s livery business which was across the street to the west from the Virginian Hotel (under construction from 1901 and completed in 1911). As a youngster, she remembers going to dances at the Virginian with her family and pet dog. She spent her time with her dog and brother climbing up and down the stairs while the grown-ups danced.

Dorothy had four classmates in Mrs. Eiffel’s fourth grade class and went on to complete her public education in Medicine Bow when she graduated with five classmates in 1932. During her high school years in Medicine Bow she remembers many fond memories of school days beginning each day with all-school singing, dances where local musicians provided the music, and young fellows in town working with the WPA federal works projects would dance with the local girls. She played a ukulele with a group, played basketball as “jumping center”, which competed against the McFadden girls’ team who had tall team Swede members and also played against Cheyenne High School; against whom the Bow team won the game!

Upon graduation from Medicine Bow High School Dorothy was awarded a Coe scholarship to attend the University of Wyoming and began her studies there in the fall of 1932. She lived with her father’s parents who had moved from their ranch in the Shirley Basin to Laramie. Their house was a few blocks north of campus on Canby Street and she would walk to classes. She was on the varsity basketball team at the University. She attended two years, received her teacher’s certificate, and then had her first teaching experience begin in 1934 in Medicine Bow teaching combined third and fourth grades; then, the second year teaching fourth grade as a separate class. She can still name those students, their needs and their gifts.

Then, from June through mid-August 1936 Dorothy and fellow teacher, Cora Ellis, of Medicine Bow began their sojourn of traveling by bus, camping in tents, sleeping on cots, stopping along the way, and studying for credit, with 31 fellow participants on their bus, ( dubbed “The Oregon Trail” as well as the “WB 7”- with 199 participants comprising the full caravan with one shower and two lavatories). The program was sponsored by the University of Oklahoma. They traveled from Wyoming through Colorado, New Mexico, Texas (joined by 400 more participants in Dallas), Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, S. and N. Carolina, Virginia, Washington, D.C., Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska and back to Wyoming. They stopped and took in major cities, local events, etc. of which she kept an amazing travel log with photos and sketches. She wrote in detail of how these experiences widened her understanding of what life was like in these parts of the country and how it expanded her sense of life and its diversity and challenges.

Dorothy, in 1937 returned to the University to continue her education pursuing a liberal arts degree. During this time she pledged the Kappa Delta social sorority (established at the University of Wyoming in May 16, 1914, the year of Dorothy’s birth) which had their house on Grand Avenue in Laramie. She has been a loyal member of the sorority for over 80 years. A member of the Spurs (a sophomore honorary scholarship and service organization which was begun in 1922 at Montana State University - Bozeman) she participated with that group, supporting and attending many campus activities – even in the Wyoming cold!

Upon completing her bachelor’s degree in 1938 she became a teacher in the Saratoga school system teaching typing and English. She said it was because no one else wanted to teach English and she finds that to be a mystery! She stayed at a boarding house and walked to school.

Romance came into the picture at that time as a sorority sister and University of Wyoming graduate; Margaret Dooley, who was teaching in Medicine Bow, introduced Dorothy to a gentleman, her cousin Leonard Cecil Holloway, who lived and worked in McFadden, Wyoming, an Ohio Oil Company oil camp. Margaret’s beau was Sherrill Drum, a University of Wyoming graduate and geologist with Ohio Oil Company. The foursome spent special times together when they could. Leonard “Cece,” having saved his money, had taken pilot training in Rawlins while in high school in McFadden and had earned his license (he was quite a prop, bi-plane pilot, by the way).

Anyway, the foursome decided to elope on Oct. 15, 1939. They drove from Wyoming to Nebraska, secured their marriage licenses and a pastor in Kimball, Nebraska in Duel County. They all went to Lover’s leap north of Kimball and were married. Since it was not permissible then for women to be married and to teach in public schools their action had to be kept secret! At the end of the teaching year in 1940 Dorothy and Cece were officially united and lived in McFadden.

Then began WW II with the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Since Dad, Cecil, was already an airplane pilot he passed the requirement to be an instructor pilot in the Civil Pilot training for Annapolis cadets sent to Laramie who were quartered in Wyo Hall at the University of Wyoming. At this point I’ll turn the account over to Dorothy’s memoir:

“From the time the U. S. Postal System launched air mail service and its airplanes flew on a route where its air carriers were quite visible from the ground, as were those that flew over McFadden, Wyoming, Leonard Cecil Holloway, a boy, watched the planes go over and dreamed of being a pilot some day.

His dream came true when he had graduated from McFadden High School and was working for the Ohio Oil Company (later Marathon Oil Company). He and another young man, “bitten by the fly bug” pooled their wages and bought a small airplane. All went well until one of them had a crash landing. That was the end of the “flying dream”, or so Cecil thought, until World War II entered U. S. history.

A flight school, the Civil Pilots Training Program, was established at Brees Field located to the west of the city limits of Laramie, Wyoming.

Cecil applied for and was hired as an instructor of beginning flight students from the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. After instructing beginning flight classes for a few months using little Luscomb airplanes he was promoted as an instructor of a larger airplane, the Waco biplane. They were preparatory training for fighter aircraft.

Cecil and Dorothy, his wife, moved to Laramie from McFadden where they stayed for a time in houses owned by people called into service who had, upon completing their service, returned home. We made three of these moves during the time Cecil was on duty as a flight instructor.

Cecil’s hours were from pre-dawn until sunset so I wanted work to keep occupied and found work in the parts department of the Laramie Utilities Service Company.

We were in Laramie about eighteen months when the Navy put all the flight instructors into active duty by sending them to naval stations. Cecil was sent to Jacksonville, Florida and my brother William E. Bill West to Columbus, Ohio.

It was June when we left; beautiful weather, plenty of gas stamps from West’s store for our trip so we decided to go the “long way” down through the South, Louisiana especially, because we wanted to visit Cecil’s Aunt Nora and Uncle Pete Elmore who lived there.

That we did, and were given a personal tour of a Louisiana country store where we found the owner’s cat asleep on the meat butcher block and mice scurrying about the fresh vegetables. Aunt Nora said she never ate fresh vegetables; canned only or fruit with the exception of peel able oranges and grapefruit.

After leaving there we took a route down through the South stopping for a day to “sight see” in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I, Dorothy, had been over that route before in 1935.