"My Life Since 1968" ~ Othelia Goossen Vacura

"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

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