~just an old typewriter~
To some, it's just an old typewriter and an antiquated reminder of how we used to do things.
To others, old timers (just like me) who called Hutchinson, Kansas their home once, it's a memory of a time when there used to be a business called "Midwestern Typewriter Company" and the way to dial someone in Hutch was to use the now defunct prefix "Mohawk".
But to me, this old type writer represents something totally different and it's all because I know of its story. The remembrance of how it came to be is something forever seared into my memory and now at age nearly 65, it is as vivid a recollection as if it happened only yesterday.
I will forever count it a blessing to have grown up in a large family of 7 children in all. Our parents were hard working people who in reality probably never had the expectation of making a vast fortune. Mom told me once that we were actually quite poor when I was a little girl but if we were, I never saw it. My father was a farmer and a custom cutter by trade. When we moved to Haven in 1963, they began to build a restaurant and gas station at the edge of town. By the time it opened up in 1967, those of us kids still at home were the recipients of lessons in how to work at a job. Our folks instilled in us the importance of having a strong work ethic and learning to save up our own money for those things that other kids expected their parents to buy for them.
The formula for success was spelled out early for us.
Hard work + saving our earnings = whatever you wanted to buy.
In the Scott family, it was as simple as that.
Our folks expected each of us kids to graduate from high school and go on to college. They wanted more for us than they had for themselves. My sister Sherry, with ambitions of becoming a teacher, needed a typewriter in order to do some of her coursework as a student at Hutchinson Community Junior College. It was 1967 and she had already exhausted the money she had earned being a CNA at an area hospital simply by paying her tuition for that first semester of school. Long before the days of reaching into your purse and pulling out a piece of plastic, Sherry realized that the only way she was going to get a typewriter would be to find a way to earn the money herself. The way she acquired that extra cash was quite unique by today's standards.
She sold cream.
Dad always kept a couple of milk cows on the farm and every day Mom would go out to milk them. When she brought the milk into the house to strain it and ready it for use, Sherry would skim off the cream that would rise to the top and save it in the refrigerator. Little by little as she drove to school each day in Hutchinson, Sherry would stop off at the creamery that was located on South Main Street and sell it to the owners. After many stops with a small mason jar of cream, she had acquired enough money to go to the store and purchase the first typewriter she ever owned.
It cost her $25, a fortune back in those days, but it served her well as she finished up her studies at the junior college. That quarter of a hundred dollars investment went with her to Emporia and Kansas State Teacher's College as she finished up her studies to receive her teaching degree in 1970. Sherry even managed to use it that first year or two of teaching as she typed out study sheets for her students in the Salina, Kansas Public School system. The time came when the typewriter was replaced as a means to communicate, but Sherry never parted with it and kept it safe in its case in the bedroom closet at home.
I brought it home with me after Sherry passed away three years ago and just like when she had it, I've stored it in the closet of the spare bedroom at home. I am amazed at the pristine condition it remains in as a 53-year old manual typewriter. She took such good care of it, even long after its original purpose had been fulfilled.
I take a look at it from time to time.
Never do I look at it as just an old typewriter.
Instead, I see what Sherry saw in it.
I see the value in what patience, hard work, and a gallon of cream can do for you.
She's still teaching me lessons, long after she has been gone.
If you are reading this, then I have just shared her lesson with you.
To others, old timers (just like me) who called Hutchinson, Kansas their home once, it's a memory of a time when there used to be a business called "Midwestern Typewriter Company" and the way to dial someone in Hutch was to use the now defunct prefix "Mohawk".
The formula for success was spelled out early for us.
Hard work + saving our earnings = whatever you wanted to buy.
In the Scott family, it was as simple as that.
Our folks expected each of us kids to graduate from high school and go on to college. They wanted more for us than they had for themselves. My sister Sherry, with ambitions of becoming a teacher, needed a typewriter in order to do some of her coursework as a student at Hutchinson Community Junior College. It was 1967 and she had already exhausted the money she had earned being a CNA at an area hospital simply by paying her tuition for that first semester of school. Long before the days of reaching into your purse and pulling out a piece of plastic, Sherry realized that the only way she was going to get a typewriter would be to find a way to earn the money herself. The way she acquired that extra cash was quite unique by today's standards.
She sold cream.
Dad always kept a couple of milk cows on the farm and every day Mom would go out to milk them. When she brought the milk into the house to strain it and ready it for use, Sherry would skim off the cream that would rise to the top and save it in the refrigerator. Little by little as she drove to school each day in Hutchinson, Sherry would stop off at the creamery that was located on South Main Street and sell it to the owners. After many stops with a small mason jar of cream, she had acquired enough money to go to the store and purchase the first typewriter she ever owned.
It cost her $25, a fortune back in those days, but it served her well as she finished up her studies at the junior college. That quarter of a hundred dollars investment went with her to Emporia and Kansas State Teacher's College as she finished up her studies to receive her teaching degree in 1970. Sherry even managed to use it that first year or two of teaching as she typed out study sheets for her students in the Salina, Kansas Public School system. The time came when the typewriter was replaced as a means to communicate, but Sherry never parted with it and kept it safe in its case in the bedroom closet at home.
I brought it home with me after Sherry passed away three years ago and just like when she had it, I've stored it in the closet of the spare bedroom at home. I am amazed at the pristine condition it remains in as a 53-year old manual typewriter. She took such good care of it, even long after its original purpose had been fulfilled.
I take a look at it from time to time.
Never do I look at it as just an old typewriter.
Instead, I see what Sherry saw in it.
I see the value in what patience, hard work, and a gallon of cream can do for you.
She's still teaching me lessons, long after she has been gone.
If you are reading this, then I have just shared her lesson with you.
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