Some background-Prior to moving to California in 1920 or 1921, my father was a prosperous cattle rancher, and the family, including five children lived in Enterprise, Utah. They were the first in that town to own an automobile, and the first to have electricity in the their house. That all changed upon buying “the wrong piece of property” in Tulare, California. The beautiful ranch turned to worthless alkaline soil the first winter after the purchase. I was born in 1922, in Tulare. Brother Howard was born in Fresno in 1924. Two foster brothers were added shortly thereafter in exchange for free rent on 40 acres of land from which Woodbury Dairy was started by the oldest boy, Romney, who left school in the ninth grade to help start the dairy. About 1928, Dad became the janitor at John Burroughs Elementary School. Mother, Olive McArthur Woodbury, died in 1962 shortly after the golden wedding anniversary celebrated at our house in October of 1961.
Velma Burns was my second grade school teacher at that school.
Aptos, CA November 12, 1968
Dear Velma and Dad,
Velma, I know you will understand, if this letter is written primarily to Dad. You must see in him the same things I do, or you wouldn’t be sharing his last few years with him as you are.
Dad, I have wanted to tell you many times just how proud of you I and all of the other “kids” are, and even more, how thankful I am to have been raised in your home!
We aren’t a very communicative bunch, and certainly it must seem we don’t fully appreciate you the way we visit you a half hour or so, and then are on our way again. We don’t have a lot to talk about it is true, and we are always pressed for time, and that part, perhaps, you can understand!
I can remember, as a boy, saying to myself, “I am never going to work myself to death the way Dad does; life is too short, and no kids are worth that sacrifice.” Perhaps, you believe we kids aren’t aware of the tremendous personal sacrifices you and Mother made for us. Well, we are aware of it!
Perhaps, also, you don’t know that you did such a tremendous job of taking care of us that I, at least, never realized that perhaps our family might have been classified as “poor” by many others. For instance, when completing high school, I didn’t even try for a college scholarship because in my mind those were for “poor” kids, and never did it enter my mind that I could have qualified under those terms.
Further, your example of how to take care of your responsibilities no matter how burdensome they might be was not wasted. In fact, it has always seemed to me that because of the way you and Mother faced your responsibilities that we kids just couldn’t let you down! And this has ever since made me keenly aware of the necessity for setting a proper example to others at all times. Further, if all people were aware of the “power of example,” and cared just a little bit about other people, most of the problems of the world would be solved. Unfortunately, not too many people are fortunate enough to have had parents of your caliber.
Fortunately, too, as I have grown older I have found there is pure joy in hard honest work, and that facing your responsibilities, although at times is extremely difficult, is in the end its own reward. There is no greater satisfaction to oneself than to know that he (or she) did the best one could under the circumstances forced upon him (or her.) Therefore, although I still wish you could have had happier work than your job at the school, I no longer feel as sorry for you as I once did!
I hope this is not just “too sentimental” for you, but I have thought this way for many years, and have expressed these thoughts to many people, but never to you, and it just seemed that you are the one that should hear it. To me, you and Mother are and were two of the world’s truly great people.
And Velma, you now fall into that same category!
NOTE; Velma, never previously married, found out that Dad had lost his driver’s license, and started hauling him around. This “rescued” him from intense sorrow, they were married, and had several happy years together.
