"My Life Since 1968"~ Othelia Goossen Vacura
My, when I read everyone’s stories I realize what a small
blip on the map I was at Berean.
Nevertheliess, the one year I attended Berean was a very important blip
in my life. Northwest Kansas was my home
at the beginning of my life, and still continues to be my home.
After Berean I continued my education at Colby Community
College in Colby, KS where I earned an Associate of Arts degree in art. It was there I met my first husband, Melvin
Miller, who had recently returned from the Viet Nam war, and we married in 1969. One could almost say I have been a butcher, a
baker, a candlestick maker…. My marriage
with Melvin was difficult, and his mind was so unsettled that we moved often,
to several different places in Kansas and Colorado. About the time I would be settling in and
making new friends, he was ready to leave.
But as Corrie Ten Boom so aptly put it, "If
God sends us on stony paths, he provides strong shoes."
Together we had two children, Amberley Kaye, born
September, 1975 and Keith Vaughn, born October, 1978. In the interim I had
worked as a dishwasher, back up cook, fry cook, house cleaner, fabric store
clerk, and after the children were born I became a professional seamstress so I
could be home with the children while still providing food for the table. (I
have sewed 12 wedding dresses and innumerable bridesmaid dresses!) Eventually
Melvin went to work for my brother Vern doing construction in the Colby area,
then after a few years gave up on that and become a police officer in Colby,
KS. After the children were school aged,
I went back to college and earned my BS in Elementary Education with five areas
of endorsement at middle school level through St. Mary of the Plains College
under the auspices of Colby Community College.
My son Keith could probably tell you multiple stories of me pulling my
hair out over my frustration with calculus.
As many college credit classes as possible I tested through the CLEP
program so I didn’t actually have to take the class, and took as many as 30
hours per semester to expand my education qualification base and also to cut
down the time to reach diploma time. My
dream was that I would become an English teacher at middle school level. I had just graduated, with no teaching job,
facing huge medical problems and school debt, when Melvin decided suddenly to change
jobs and veer into going to work in the sheriff’s office, and then left
altogether. Believe me, I have heard all
the advice I ever want to hear about how to make a marriage work, most coming
from completely clueless people. After
twenty years, divorce was inevitable.
After working at Arby’s and still continuing my
seamstress work for a year, I finally was hired as a teacher at Brewster USD
315, a combination job of junior high math, algebra, junior high art and
remedial math and reading for migrant children.
I was allowed to teach art to high school juniors and seniors through
Colby Community College Outreach classes in the evenings. My days were full, eight preps for each day,
plus two evenings of teaching college art.
And then, I met Bernie Vacura, the one of a kind guy
who introduced me to the auction life of antiques and rusty junk. And registered shorthorn cattle. But he lived 120 miles away, attached to farm
ground. One of the ladies in the
Brewster area told me, ”Oh, you’re going to marry a cattleman. Always carry a
big stick, and it’s NOT for the cattle!” True, that. Cattle can certainly test a person’s
patience. I put in my resignation, much
to the chagrin of those who lived in Brewster, and my leaving was the end of
their highly prized art program. Bernie
and I married in 1994. The people in
Brewster believed without a doubt I would be hired as a teacher in the Oberlin
area in a snap, but that was not to be. I substitute taught at surrounding
schools for three years, and then I decided to go to work as a nurse aide,
which was a year round income with benefits, instead of sporadic once in a
while jobs. Then, after eight years of
back breaking lifting, I was accepted as the Public Relations Representative at
Decatur Health Systems, the local hospital.
In this capacity I wrote grant proposals that netted the hospital half a
million dollars in funding for their programs.
However, in a cutback of employees to cut costs, it was decided that the
Public Relations job was disposable, and I was once again without a paycheck
job.
All this time, my work with the cattle alongside
Bernie continued, the official shot giving, gate swinging, cattle
rounder-upper. Whoever in the world
would believe that I would learn to halter break and show cattle at age
50? Not me, that’s for sure. But I did.
However, because of Bernie’s health problems with
diabetes and its after effects, it was necessary for me to find some sort of
employment that had benefits. And so my
time at the 180 House began, in 2010.
The 180 House was a home for teen aged boys who had run crosswise of the
law, usually with illegal drug consumption.
They were sentenced by the court to serve out their sentence at the 180
House, so named in the hopes that with Christian guidance provided 24 hours a
day these boys would drastically change their way and attitude toward
life. I held my day shift job at the 180
House until it closed in November, 2013, just as Bernie was facing kidney
transplant surgery, which happened on Dec. 1, 2013.
God has all these dates and specific times written
in his plan book. It has been amazing to me how a chaotic life as mine all
along has been timed perfectly. Bernie
had various seemingly unrelated and continuous health problems for the last
twelve years of his life, and he passed away on October 23, 2017. I had joked with him that he would own cattle
till the day he died, and he would respond that we needed to cut back, but he
never did. Throughout his times in the
hospital, some of which stretched to a month, I was totally responsible for
caring for the cattle.
Oh, and yes….this, too. We started an antique and primitives store,
Old Czech Country Antiques in Oberlin.
The evolution of this store was gradual.
The going to auctions resulted in antiques which we drove to Denver to
market. One day Bernie brought home an
old bench. I took one look at it and
told him we could build a bench every bit that good ourselves. And we did.
During the summer before the 9-11 attack happened we built over a
hundred benches, as well as numerous birdhouses, shelves, etc. I finally put my foot down that fall and told
Bernie that I needed to have a place inside to build stuff so I would be able
to feel my fingers in wintertime when I was running the saw and wouldn’t be
burned up by the sun in summertime. So
we rented a retail space downtown, which gradually evolved into the purchase of
our own store building on Highway 36 in 2012.
I would like to tell Mr. Higgins, the 1968 Girl’s Woodshop teacher, “Ha,
Ha! You thought it was too dangerous for
girls to run power saws and similar power equipment. I have over my life taught myself how to run
about any kind of saw you can dig up, along with routers, grinders, and all
sorts of power equipment. And I still
have my fingers!”
Now, since Bernie has gone on to a better life,
through a blessing that came to light after Bernie went to his heavenly home,
some extra provision was made for me to build a separate studio building behind
the store building, where I plan to finally be able to concentrate my energy on
artistic pursuits, such as wheel thrown pottery, stained glass, fused glass,
dichroic jewelry, metal fabrication and some drawing and painting. And yes, as several local people have
requested, I will be giving lessons…..
I have wholeheartedly given total responsibility for
the cattle over to a local guy whom Bernie recommended to me when he was facing
his kidney transplant in 2013.
I know this is a lengthy account, but I wanted to
add a couple small side notes. Some of
you may have known about my sister. She
was born the day after my eighth birthday, and a huge portion of my childhood
was spent being a caregiver for her, which continues to this day. I am the
court appointed conservator and guardian for Erna, severely retarded, now a 60
year old person functioning with a 9 month old brain capacity. Research I have done over the years leads me
to believe that she suffers from Angelman’s Syndrome, a genetic disease which
was discovered around 1964.
My daughter Amberley Denton, divorced, has recently
met a really nice Christian man, Earl Goodman. Her future looks bright. She has two daughters and a son, Sarah,
Katie, and JT. She works as a cost accountant at a firm in Great Bend, KS. My son Keith Miller is married to Karen
(Mathison), a multiple organ transplant recipient. We are thankful for every minute she can
remain with us. They have a son,
Nathan. Keith works as a copy machine
repairman in Quincy, Illinois.
Bernie had four children, Mick, Cotopaxi, Colorado,
with two daughters, Karisma and Eva; Monty, Dingman’s Ferry, PA, with a son and
a daughter, Anton and Mimi; Marie (Michael) Hargrove, Colorado Springs, CO,
with daughter Gisele; and Merlin, who passed away in 2010.
Two boys, graduates of the 180 House attended
Bernie’s funeral, and several have been back in contact with me, just to show
me what they have managed to accomplish with their lives. In fact, today, March 15, 2018, one called me
on the phone to tell me how he is doing.
It seems as though I have become a sort of mother figure that they can
come back to and touch base. It melts my
heart. Some of them have come from
unbelievable circumstances. Of course,
some of them, I know for a fact, did not choose to change and are sitting it
out in the big house.
God has blessed me with a very sturdy pair of shoes
to walk the stony path that was ahead of me.
I have to admit, when I saw those type of sturdy shoes in the Sears
Roebuck catalogue, I hated them, but the ones I was given have continued to
serve me well. There is a reason why we
cannot see into the future. I likely
would have given up long ago if I had been granted that sight.
I look forward to the reunion in April.
~Othelia
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| Photo taken in 2016. L to R: Nathan Miller (grandson), Keith Miller (son), Karen Miller (daughter in law), Amberley (daughter), Dee (former boyfriend); Othelia Vacura, Bernie Vacura |
