Bruce Richard Taylor was born July 5, 1905 in Bonesteel, Gregory Co., SD. He was the youngest child of Walter Llewellyn and Mary Elizabeth O'Connell Taylor. When he sent for his birth certificate in 1969, for social security reasons, he discovered his birth certificate number for Gregory County S.D was number 5 (five). I learned later that the counties in South Dakota started keeping birth record at the county seats in 1905. Had he been born before that any record of his birth would probably been recorded in a family bible.
In 1916 an epidemic of Small Pox started on the Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation (Bonesteel is within the boundaries of the original Reservation) Bruce did have Small Pox and he had Small Pox scaring on his back 50 years later. He probably had other small pox scaring, but as a result of the severe burns in 1934, they could not be seen. He graduated from Bonesteel Public School in 1924. While in high school he worked in a bakery in Bonesteel. He learned to bake and enjoyed baking bread long afterwards. He farmed with his father until 1926, when his father retired. In 1927 he attended Barbers School in Sioux City, IA. He started barbering in Wood, SD in 1928. He barbered in Bonesteel, SD, Wood, SD. In 1929 he moved to Chancellor, SD. He returned to Bonesteel on March 9, 1930 from Chancellor, where he had worked in the Felix A. Reck Barber Shop.
He farmed and barbered for a few years in Bonesteel. He also worked for the County and State Road Departments for a couple of years. He used his own horses and both he and the horses worked. According to my mother, my father really didn't like horses. He wouldn't admit that but you could tell he didn't really think very fondly of them. I think he considered them about the same as a present day farmer considers his tractor. He told of the time he was working for the Road Department. in South Dakota, using his own horses. He had a really bad morning, one of his horses was being really ornery and mean and acting up and fighting the entire morning. When he came into camp for noon, he announced to the other workers that he would trade that horse for any other horse in the whole place, no questioned asked. Another guy took him up on it. Dad said the horse he got was the most useless animal he ever owned, but at least it wasn't mean and didn't fight all the time.
Bruce and Gladys Darcy were married on March 31, 1933 by Father Edwin J. McGonigal. Glady's sister Mary Catherine Darcy (later to be Schmitz) and Ranke G. Ohden were witnesses. I understand from my Aunt Lucille Darcy Truax ( Gladys' and Mary's younger sister) that Ranke Ohden was Mary Darcy's boyfriend, this was before Clarence Schmitz. In late 1935 Bruce was severely burned in a fire at his barber shop in Bonesteel, SD. He was working in Slagel Barber and Bath, Adam Slagel and his wife Iola the owner of the shop. Iola Slagel was a music teacher in Bonesteel. Dad was burned over about 90% of his body (his face and back were not as badly burned), and he nearly died. He was lighting the fire in a coal burning stove in the barber shop. He put in coal over the ashes from the previous day. Using what he thought was kerosene to start the coal. He put the kerosene on the coal, there must have been a hot coal in the ashes and the kerosene exploded, burning the barber shop. I'm not sure what he meant but he said the kerosene was "flashy". He spent about six months in the Sacred Heart Hospital in Yankton, SD. He was unable to work for about a year. He told of the adhesions in both of his hands. Because of the way his hands healed, he was unable to open or close either hand very well. When my brother Gordon was a little over a year old, my father was home and laying on the floor, playing with Gordon. Gordon stepped on dads left hand, breaking many of the adhesions, my father said it was very painful, but as a result his left hand healed much better than his right hand. He was unable to properly open and close his right hand for the rest of his life. He could not move the little finger on his right hand. He learned to hold a straight edge razor with his right hand, and it did not interfere with his work. His right elbow was very badly burned, and he said he had "a lot" of infection in the elbow. If fact the little bone beside the big bone in the elbow was gone, apparently it was the infection which destroyed it. Dad mentioned that had penicillin been more available his recovery would have been much faster. He was badly scarred, except for his face and back. During the time he couldn't work my mother worked as a seamstress to help support the family. It was a government work program to help those affected by the depression. Her worksite was at the Bonesteel Public School. Our family lived in Bonesteel during this time, near the Catholic Elementary School. While mom was at work during the summer of 1937 mom's sister Lucille Darcy (later to be Truax) stay with our family and took care of Gordon and Lois while mom was at work. Aunt Lucille stayed with our family that summer, and returned to Bonesteel High School in the 9th grade that fall. Shortly after that our family move back to a farm north of Bonesteel.
During the time dad was in the hospital in Yankton, one of the Benedictine sisters who in the late 1950s taught at Holy Trinity School in Hartington was working in the Hospital. Dad had a radio in his room and one evening he was listening to a boxing match between Joe Louis and Max Schmeling (German Champion). The fight was June 19, 1936 and was held in Yankee Stadium (There was no Television coverage, only radio, and lots of people didn't even have a radio) Yankee Stadium was sold out. Anyway dad said the sister was hanging around his room listening to the fight. She was cleaning and acting busy but it was obvious she was listening to the fight. Finally dad invited her to sit down and listen to the fight. She did and seemed to really enjoy the fight. Schmeling knocked Louis out in the 12th round in the first fight they had. Later in a rematch Louis won. Knocking Schmeling out in the 1st round, after knocking him down 3 times. In the late 1950s when she was in Hartington dad and she were talking about the fight one night. I don't remember the sister's name but they were laughing about it, and she told dad she was very glad dad had invited her to join him listening to the fight.
He also was involved in another fire in 1938. During the 1939 - 1940 school year, my mother taught at the Raymond School in the Starcher School District No. 20, Whetstone Township near Bonesteel. Dad told of the time during that year that he picked mom up at school and took her home. He did not have a car and he borrowed Grandpa Darcy's car. I'm not sure what year the car was but it was a Model T, and they quit making Model Ts in 1929. After picking mom up on the way home the gas tank sprung a leak. The gas tank was on top of the engine (it didn't have a fuel pump, it was a gravity feed system) the gas leaked onto the engine and the car burned up along with a "a couple of thousand acres of grass land." Neither mom nor dad were hurt but I'm sure Grandpa Darcy was not very happy about the car.
It was during this time that Dad had slot machines in his barber shop (which was illegal). Somebody else owned the machines and dad got a percentage of the profit. He had three slot machines in the shop. One day he left Kenny and me in the shop and went somewhere, probably to get a cup of coffee. Anyway when he was gone we took a dime (10 cents) out of the cash register and put it in one of the slot machines. We won and got a couple of handfuls of dimes (remember we had small hands, I think we were 4 years old, but I remember it very well). We put dad's dime back in the cash register and split the winnings. I don't think we ever told dad. The county sheriff "raided" all the businesses which had slot machines shortly after that and confiscated them, they were to be destroyed. It was late in the day and the truck which the sheriff had was full of slots machines and they didn't have room for dads. The sheriff put a chain around the machines with some kind of official sign or seal or something like that. He said he would be back to get them the next day. So dad called the guy who owned the machines. The next day when dad went to work his shop had been broken into and the slot machines were stolen. The sheriff didn't really believe dads story but couldn't do much about it. Anyway dad said in a week or so the guy who owned the machines came into the shop and gave dad his share of the profits and paid for the damage to the back door of the barber shop. I don't remember all of this, dad told me about it.
He barbered and farmed part time in Bonesteel until late April of 1947, when he moved to Lindsay, Platte Co., Nebraska. Dad used to talk about "Slick Honner" who owned the barber shop where dad worked in Bonesteel. Slick (Lewis) Honner and his wife Sern Honner owned the shop. In early January of 1947 Grandpa Walter Llewellyn Taylor died. It was shortly after that our family moved to Lindsay, Ne. He was a barber in Lindsay, NE. for about a year, or a little less. Dad said he made very little money while in Lindsay, actually what he said was "we damn near starved to death" (probably a little bit of an exaggeration). We originially lived in a basement apartment that was being remolded. We only lived there a month or so. We moved to a farm place between Lindsay and Humphary, Ne. There was a creek fairly close to the farm house, which flooded (it must have been the spring of 1948. I remember Gordy drove stakes in the yard to measure how deep the water got. It did get up to the house but it wasn't very deep. On this farm we had a well and a "pump house" where the water was pumped. Kenny and I used to go out the the pump house and we made "sugar sandwiches", we used water from the well to wet the sugar so it didn't fall off the bread.
We moved to Hartington in 1948. Gordon graduated from elementary school in May 1948 at Lindsay and Kenny and I started to school in Sept 1948, in Hartington. We must have moved to Hartington in about June 1948. He worked for Otto Christenson until John McCloud bought the barbershop in about 1956. Dad barbered in Hartington until 1959. In Jan 1959 he bought a barbershop in Coleridge, Ne. He started barbering in Coleridge, NE on Jan 12, 1959, and worked there until he retired in 1971. His first job as a barber was in Wood, SD. While in Wood the price of a haircut was $0.15 and a shave was $0.10 ("A shave and a hair cut two bits"). Playing checkers in barber shops was fairly common at that time. He was a very good checker player. I remember him and Grandma Taylor (his mother, my grandmother) playing checkers, they both used to claim that the other one cheated, and they probably did. He loved to play checkers. So do I, he taught me to play. I think I could beat him if we could play now. He said that one of his first "duties" in Wood, SD was dumping and cleaning the spittoons. A lot of men chewed tobacco and he said it was a horrible, disgusting and awful job. His next job was in Chansellor, SD
He married Gladys Mary Darcy May 31, 1933 in Bonesteel, Gregory Co., SD. Bruce and Gladys had five children. Gordon Norbert, Lois Ann, Marvin Mark and twins Kenneth Jerome & Keith Vincent. He enjoyed baseball, and was a big Minnesota Twins fan, after the baseball team moved to Minneapolis from Washington, DC.(Washington Senators later the Minnesota Twins). He liked all sports. I don't think he missed a high school sports or school activity event while his children were in school. He enjoyed gardening and working in the yard. He raised and sold lots of tomatoes to stores in Hartington. He also had a very large strawberry patch probably about a half acre. In 1974 we raised about a half acre of onions, we sold them in Hartington. We charged $6.00 for a very large bag.
He was diagnosed with cancer in 1973 and died of the disease on February 21, 1975 at St. Joseph Hospital in Sioux City, IA. He was 69 years 7 Months and 11 Days old. He was survived by his wife of 41 Years 10 Months and 21 Days Gladys Darcy Taylor, 2 brothers and 2 sisters, 1 brother (Paul) died in 1966. He had 7 grandchildren, 8 great grandchildren , 4 step great grandchildren, and as of 2009 1 step great great grandchild. (his last great grandchild Maggie Kester was born Dec 8, 2010 in Ames, Iowa to Darci and Aaron Kester.
Funeral Services were held at Holy Trinity Church in Hartington, Ne. Pallbearers were Jim Hayes, Wayne Fish, George Foulk, Edgar Bruening, Mike Olson, and James McGowen (all friends of his). He was buried at St. Michael Cemetery in Hartington, NE. on February 25, 1975, with his wife Gladys Mary Darcy Taylor and two sons, Kenneth Jerome and Gordon Norbert. Marvin Mark is buried in Randolph, Cedar Co., NE; St Frances Cemetery and Lois Ann in Minneapolis, Hennepin Co., MN, is buried at Fair Oaks Cemetery following cremation.
In 1916 an epidemic of Small Pox started on the Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation (Bonesteel is within the boundaries of the original Reservation) Bruce did have Small Pox and he had Small Pox scaring on his back 50 years later. He probably had other small pox scaring, but as a result of the severe burns in 1934, they could not be seen. He graduated from Bonesteel Public School in 1924. While in high school he worked in a bakery in Bonesteel. He learned to bake and enjoyed baking bread long afterwards. He farmed with his father until 1926, when his father retired. In 1927 he attended Barbers School in Sioux City, IA. He started barbering in Wood, SD in 1928. He barbered in Bonesteel, SD, Wood, SD. In 1929 he moved to Chancellor, SD. He returned to Bonesteel on March 9, 1930 from Chancellor, where he had worked in the Felix A. Reck Barber Shop.
He farmed and barbered for a few years in Bonesteel. He also worked for the County and State Road Departments for a couple of years. He used his own horses and both he and the horses worked. According to my mother, my father really didn't like horses. He wouldn't admit that but you could tell he didn't really think very fondly of them. I think he considered them about the same as a present day farmer considers his tractor. He told of the time he was working for the Road Department. in South Dakota, using his own horses. He had a really bad morning, one of his horses was being really ornery and mean and acting up and fighting the entire morning. When he came into camp for noon, he announced to the other workers that he would trade that horse for any other horse in the whole place, no questioned asked. Another guy took him up on it. Dad said the horse he got was the most useless animal he ever owned, but at least it wasn't mean and didn't fight all the time.
Bruce and Gladys Darcy were married on March 31, 1933 by Father Edwin J. McGonigal. Glady's sister Mary Catherine Darcy (later to be Schmitz) and Ranke G. Ohden were witnesses. I understand from my Aunt Lucille Darcy Truax ( Gladys' and Mary's younger sister) that Ranke Ohden was Mary Darcy's boyfriend, this was before Clarence Schmitz. In late 1935 Bruce was severely burned in a fire at his barber shop in Bonesteel, SD. He was working in Slagel Barber and Bath, Adam Slagel and his wife Iola the owner of the shop. Iola Slagel was a music teacher in Bonesteel. Dad was burned over about 90% of his body (his face and back were not as badly burned), and he nearly died. He was lighting the fire in a coal burning stove in the barber shop. He put in coal over the ashes from the previous day. Using what he thought was kerosene to start the coal. He put the kerosene on the coal, there must have been a hot coal in the ashes and the kerosene exploded, burning the barber shop. I'm not sure what he meant but he said the kerosene was "flashy". He spent about six months in the Sacred Heart Hospital in Yankton, SD. He was unable to work for about a year. He told of the adhesions in both of his hands. Because of the way his hands healed, he was unable to open or close either hand very well. When my brother Gordon was a little over a year old, my father was home and laying on the floor, playing with Gordon. Gordon stepped on dads left hand, breaking many of the adhesions, my father said it was very painful, but as a result his left hand healed much better than his right hand. He was unable to properly open and close his right hand for the rest of his life. He could not move the little finger on his right hand. He learned to hold a straight edge razor with his right hand, and it did not interfere with his work. His right elbow was very badly burned, and he said he had "a lot" of infection in the elbow. If fact the little bone beside the big bone in the elbow was gone, apparently it was the infection which destroyed it. Dad mentioned that had penicillin been more available his recovery would have been much faster. He was badly scarred, except for his face and back. During the time he couldn't work my mother worked as a seamstress to help support the family. It was a government work program to help those affected by the depression. Her worksite was at the Bonesteel Public School. Our family lived in Bonesteel during this time, near the Catholic Elementary School. While mom was at work during the summer of 1937 mom's sister Lucille Darcy (later to be Truax) stay with our family and took care of Gordon and Lois while mom was at work. Aunt Lucille stayed with our family that summer, and returned to Bonesteel High School in the 9th grade that fall. Shortly after that our family move back to a farm north of Bonesteel.
During the time dad was in the hospital in Yankton, one of the Benedictine sisters who in the late 1950s taught at Holy Trinity School in Hartington was working in the Hospital. Dad had a radio in his room and one evening he was listening to a boxing match between Joe Louis and Max Schmeling (German Champion). The fight was June 19, 1936 and was held in Yankee Stadium (There was no Television coverage, only radio, and lots of people didn't even have a radio) Yankee Stadium was sold out. Anyway dad said the sister was hanging around his room listening to the fight. She was cleaning and acting busy but it was obvious she was listening to the fight. Finally dad invited her to sit down and listen to the fight. She did and seemed to really enjoy the fight. Schmeling knocked Louis out in the 12th round in the first fight they had. Later in a rematch Louis won. Knocking Schmeling out in the 1st round, after knocking him down 3 times. In the late 1950s when she was in Hartington dad and she were talking about the fight one night. I don't remember the sister's name but they were laughing about it, and she told dad she was very glad dad had invited her to join him listening to the fight.
He also was involved in another fire in 1938. During the 1939 - 1940 school year, my mother taught at the Raymond School in the Starcher School District No. 20, Whetstone Township near Bonesteel. Dad told of the time during that year that he picked mom up at school and took her home. He did not have a car and he borrowed Grandpa Darcy's car. I'm not sure what year the car was but it was a Model T, and they quit making Model Ts in 1929. After picking mom up on the way home the gas tank sprung a leak. The gas tank was on top of the engine (it didn't have a fuel pump, it was a gravity feed system) the gas leaked onto the engine and the car burned up along with a "a couple of thousand acres of grass land." Neither mom nor dad were hurt but I'm sure Grandpa Darcy was not very happy about the car.
It was during this time that Dad had slot machines in his barber shop (which was illegal). Somebody else owned the machines and dad got a percentage of the profit. He had three slot machines in the shop. One day he left Kenny and me in the shop and went somewhere, probably to get a cup of coffee. Anyway when he was gone we took a dime (10 cents) out of the cash register and put it in one of the slot machines. We won and got a couple of handfuls of dimes (remember we had small hands, I think we were 4 years old, but I remember it very well). We put dad's dime back in the cash register and split the winnings. I don't think we ever told dad. The county sheriff "raided" all the businesses which had slot machines shortly after that and confiscated them, they were to be destroyed. It was late in the day and the truck which the sheriff had was full of slots machines and they didn't have room for dads. The sheriff put a chain around the machines with some kind of official sign or seal or something like that. He said he would be back to get them the next day. So dad called the guy who owned the machines. The next day when dad went to work his shop had been broken into and the slot machines were stolen. The sheriff didn't really believe dads story but couldn't do much about it. Anyway dad said in a week or so the guy who owned the machines came into the shop and gave dad his share of the profits and paid for the damage to the back door of the barber shop. I don't remember all of this, dad told me about it.
He barbered and farmed part time in Bonesteel until late April of 1947, when he moved to Lindsay, Platte Co., Nebraska. Dad used to talk about "Slick Honner" who owned the barber shop where dad worked in Bonesteel. Slick (Lewis) Honner and his wife Sern Honner owned the shop. In early January of 1947 Grandpa Walter Llewellyn Taylor died. It was shortly after that our family moved to Lindsay, Ne. He was a barber in Lindsay, NE. for about a year, or a little less. Dad said he made very little money while in Lindsay, actually what he said was "we damn near starved to death" (probably a little bit of an exaggeration). We originially lived in a basement apartment that was being remolded. We only lived there a month or so. We moved to a farm place between Lindsay and Humphary, Ne. There was a creek fairly close to the farm house, which flooded (it must have been the spring of 1948. I remember Gordy drove stakes in the yard to measure how deep the water got. It did get up to the house but it wasn't very deep. On this farm we had a well and a "pump house" where the water was pumped. Kenny and I used to go out the the pump house and we made "sugar sandwiches", we used water from the well to wet the sugar so it didn't fall off the bread.
We moved to Hartington in 1948. Gordon graduated from elementary school in May 1948 at Lindsay and Kenny and I started to school in Sept 1948, in Hartington. We must have moved to Hartington in about June 1948. He worked for Otto Christenson until John McCloud bought the barbershop in about 1956. Dad barbered in Hartington until 1959. In Jan 1959 he bought a barbershop in Coleridge, Ne. He started barbering in Coleridge, NE on Jan 12, 1959, and worked there until he retired in 1971. His first job as a barber was in Wood, SD. While in Wood the price of a haircut was $0.15 and a shave was $0.10 ("A shave and a hair cut two bits"). Playing checkers in barber shops was fairly common at that time. He was a very good checker player. I remember him and Grandma Taylor (his mother, my grandmother) playing checkers, they both used to claim that the other one cheated, and they probably did. He loved to play checkers. So do I, he taught me to play. I think I could beat him if we could play now. He said that one of his first "duties" in Wood, SD was dumping and cleaning the spittoons. A lot of men chewed tobacco and he said it was a horrible, disgusting and awful job. His next job was in Chansellor, SD
He married Gladys Mary Darcy May 31, 1933 in Bonesteel, Gregory Co., SD. Bruce and Gladys had five children. Gordon Norbert, Lois Ann, Marvin Mark and twins Kenneth Jerome & Keith Vincent. He enjoyed baseball, and was a big Minnesota Twins fan, after the baseball team moved to Minneapolis from Washington, DC.(Washington Senators later the Minnesota Twins). He liked all sports. I don't think he missed a high school sports or school activity event while his children were in school. He enjoyed gardening and working in the yard. He raised and sold lots of tomatoes to stores in Hartington. He also had a very large strawberry patch probably about a half acre. In 1974 we raised about a half acre of onions, we sold them in Hartington. We charged $6.00 for a very large bag.
He was diagnosed with cancer in 1973 and died of the disease on February 21, 1975 at St. Joseph Hospital in Sioux City, IA. He was 69 years 7 Months and 11 Days old. He was survived by his wife of 41 Years 10 Months and 21 Days Gladys Darcy Taylor, 2 brothers and 2 sisters, 1 brother (Paul) died in 1966. He had 7 grandchildren, 8 great grandchildren , 4 step great grandchildren, and as of 2009 1 step great great grandchild. (his last great grandchild Maggie Kester was born Dec 8, 2010 in Ames, Iowa to Darci and Aaron Kester.
Funeral Services were held at Holy Trinity Church in Hartington, Ne. Pallbearers were Jim Hayes, Wayne Fish, George Foulk, Edgar Bruening, Mike Olson, and James McGowen (all friends of his). He was buried at St. Michael Cemetery in Hartington, NE. on February 25, 1975, with his wife Gladys Mary Darcy Taylor and two sons, Kenneth Jerome and Gordon Norbert. Marvin Mark is buried in Randolph, Cedar Co., NE; St Frances Cemetery and Lois Ann in Minneapolis, Hennepin Co., MN, is buried at Fair Oaks Cemetery following cremation.
Bruce Richard Taylor was born July 5, 1905 in Bonesteel, Gregory Co., SD. He was the youngest child of Walter Llewellyn and Mary Elizabeth O'Connell Taylor. When he sent for his birth certificate in 1969, for social security reasons, he discovered his birth certificate number for Gregory County S.D was number 5 (five). I learned later that the counties in South Dakota started keeping birth record at the county seats in 1905. Had he been born before that any record of his birth would probably been recorded in a family bible.
In 1916 an epidemic of Small Pox started on the Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation (Bonesteel is within the boundaries of the original Reservation) Bruce did have Small Pox and he had Small Pox scaring on his back 50 years later. He probably had other small pox scaring, but as a result of the severe burns in 1934, they could not be seen. He graduated from Bonesteel Public School in 1924. While in high school he worked in a bakery in Bonesteel. He learned to bake and enjoyed baking bread long afterwards. He farmed with his father until 1926, when his father retired. In 1927 he attended Barbers School in Sioux City, IA. He started barbering in Wood, SD in 1928. He barbered in Bonesteel, SD, Wood, SD. In 1929 he moved to Chancellor, SD. He returned to Bonesteel on March 9, 1930 from Chancellor, where he had worked in the Felix A. Reck Barber Shop.
He farmed and barbered for a few years in Bonesteel. He also worked for the County and State Road Departments for a couple of years. He used his own horses and both he and the horses worked. According to my mother, my father really didn't like horses. He wouldn't admit that but you could tell he didn't really think very fondly of them. I think he considered them about the same as a present day farmer considers his tractor. He told of the time he was working for the Road Department. in South Dakota, using his own horses. He had a really bad morning, one of his horses was being really ornery and mean and acting up and fighting the entire morning. When he came into camp for noon, he announced to the other workers that he would trade that horse for any other horse in the whole place, no questioned asked. Another guy took him up on it. Dad said the horse he got was the most useless animal he ever owned, but at least it wasn't mean and didn't fight all the time.
Bruce and Gladys Darcy were married on March 31, 1933 by Father Edwin J. McGonigal. Glady's sister Mary Catherine Darcy (later to be Schmitz) and Ranke G. Ohden were witnesses. I understand from my Aunt Lucille Darcy Truax ( Gladys' and Mary's younger sister) that Ranke Ohden was Mary Darcy's boyfriend, this was before Clarence Schmitz. In late 1935 Bruce was severely burned in a fire at his barber shop in Bonesteel, SD. He was working in Slagel Barber and Bath, Adam Slagel and his wife Iola the owner of the shop. Iola Slagel was a music teacher in Bonesteel. Dad was burned over about 90% of his body (his face and back were not as badly burned), and he nearly died. He was lighting the fire in a coal burning stove in the barber shop. He put in coal over the ashes from the previous day. Using what he thought was kerosene to start the coal. He put the kerosene on the coal, there must have been a hot coal in the ashes and the kerosene exploded, burning the barber shop. I'm not sure what he meant but he said the kerosene was "flashy". He spent about six months in the Sacred Heart Hospital in Yankton, SD. He was unable to work for about a year. He told of the adhesions in both of his hands. Because of the way his hands healed, he was unable to open or close either hand very well. When my brother Gordon was a little over a year old, my father was home and laying on the floor, playing with Gordon. Gordon stepped on dads left hand, breaking many of the adhesions, my father said it was very painful, but as a result his left hand healed much better than his right hand. He was unable to properly open and close his right hand for the rest of his life. He could not move the little finger on his right hand. He learned to hold a straight edge razor with his right hand, and it did not interfere with his work. His right elbow was very badly burned, and he said he had "a lot" of infection in the elbow. If fact the little bone beside the big bone in the elbow was gone, apparently it was the infection which destroyed it. Dad mentioned that had penicillin been more available his recovery would have been much faster. He was badly scarred, except for his face and back. During the time he couldn't work my mother worked as a seamstress to help support the family. It was a government work program to help those affected by the depression. Her worksite was at the Bonesteel Public School. Our family lived in Bonesteel during this time, near the Catholic Elementary School. While mom was at work during the summer of 1937 mom's sister Lucille Darcy (later to be Truax) stay with our family and took care of Gordon and Lois while mom was at work. Aunt Lucille stayed with our family that summer, and returned to Bonesteel High School in the 9th grade that fall. Shortly after that our family move back to a farm north of Bonesteel.
During the time dad was in the hospital in Yankton, one of the Benedictine sisters who in the late 1950s taught at Holy Trinity School in Hartington was working in the Hospital. Dad had a radio in his room and one evening he was listening to a boxing match between Joe Louis and Max Schmeling (German Champion). The fight was June 19, 1936 and was held in Yankee Stadium (There was no Television coverage, only radio, and lots of people didn't even have a radio) Yankee Stadium was sold out. Anyway dad said the sister was hanging around his room listening to the fight. She was cleaning and acting busy but it was obvious she was listening to the fight. Finally dad invited her to sit down and listen to the fight. She did and seemed to really enjoy the fight. Schmeling knocked Louis out in the 12th round in the first fight they had. Later in a rematch Louis won. Knocking Schmeling out in the 1st round, after knocking him down 3 times. In the late 1950s when she was in Hartington dad and she were talking about the fight one night. I don't remember the sister's name but they were laughing about it, and she told dad she was very glad dad had invited her to join him listening to the fight.
He also was involved in another fire in 1938. During the 1939 - 1940 school year, my mother taught at the Raymond School in the Starcher School District No. 20, Whetstone Township near Bonesteel. Dad told of the time during that year that he picked mom up at school and took her home. He did not have a car and he borrowed Grandpa Darcy's car. I'm not sure what year the car was but it was a Model T, and they quit making Model Ts in 1929. After picking mom up on the way home the gas tank sprung a leak. The gas tank was on top of the engine (it didn't have a fuel pump, it was a gravity feed system) the gas leaked onto the engine and the car burned up along with a "a couple of thousand acres of grass land." Neither mom nor dad were hurt but I'm sure Grandpa Darcy was not very happy about the car.
It was during this time that Dad had slot machines in his barber shop (which was illegal). Somebody else owned the machines and dad got a percentage of the profit. He had three slot machines in the shop. One day he left Kenny and me in the shop and went somewhere, probably to get a cup of coffee. Anyway when he was gone we took a dime (10 cents) out of the cash register and put it in one of the slot machines. We won and got a couple of handfuls of dimes (remember we had small hands, I think we were 4 years old, but I remember it very well). We put dad's dime back in the cash register and split the winnings. I don't think we ever told dad. The county sheriff "raided" all the businesses which had slot machines shortly after that and confiscated them, they were to be destroyed. It was late in the day and the truck which the sheriff had was full of slots machines and they didn't have room for dads. The sheriff put a chain around the machines with some kind of official sign or seal or something like that. He said he would be back to get them the next day. So dad called the guy who owned the machines. The next day when dad went to work his shop had been broken into and the slot machines were stolen. The sheriff didn't really believe dads story but couldn't do much about it. Anyway dad said in a week or so the guy who owned the machines came into the shop and gave dad his share of the profits and paid for the damage to the back door of the barber shop. I don't remember all of this, dad told me about it.
He barbered and farmed part time in Bonesteel until late April of 1947, when he moved to Lindsay, Platte Co., Nebraska. Dad used to talk about "Slick Honner" who owned the barber shop where dad worked in Bonesteel. Slick (Lewis) Honner and his wife Sern Honner owned the shop. In early January of 1947 Grandpa Walter Llewellyn Taylor died. It was shortly after that our family moved to Lindsay, Ne. He was a barber in Lindsay, NE. for about a year, or a little less. Dad said he made very little money while in Lindsay, actually what he said was "we damn near starved to death" (probably a little bit of an exaggeration). We originially lived in a basement apartment that was being remolded. We only lived there a month or so. We moved to a farm place between Lindsay and Humphary, Ne. There was a creek fairly close to the farm house, which flooded (it must have been the spring of 1948. I remember Gordy drove stakes in the yard to measure how deep the water got. It did get up to the house but it wasn't very deep. On this farm we had a well and a "pump house" where the water was pumped. Kenny and I used to go out the the pump house and we made "sugar sandwiches", we used water from the well to wet the sugar so it didn't fall off the bread.
We moved to Hartington in 1948. Gordon graduated from elementary school in May 1948 at Lindsay and Kenny and I started to school in Sept 1948, in Hartington. We must have moved to Hartington in about June 1948. He worked for Otto Christenson until John McCloud bought the barbershop in about 1956. Dad barbered in Hartington until 1959. In Jan 1959 he bought a barbershop in Coleridge, Ne. He started barbering in Coleridge, NE on Jan 12, 1959, and worked there until he retired in 1971. His first job as a barber was in Wood, SD. While in Wood the price of a haircut was $0.15 and a shave was $0.10 ("A shave and a hair cut two bits"). Playing checkers in barber shops was fairly common at that time. He was a very good checker player. I remember him and Grandma Taylor (his mother, my grandmother) playing checkers, they both used to claim that the other one cheated, and they probably did. He loved to play checkers. So do I, he taught me to play. I think I could beat him if we could play now. He said that one of his first "duties" in Wood, SD was dumping and cleaning the spittoons. A lot of men chewed tobacco and he said it was a horrible, disgusting and awful job. His next job was in Chansellor, SD
He married Gladys Mary Darcy May 31, 1933 in Bonesteel, Gregory Co., SD. Bruce and Gladys had five children. Gordon Norbert, Lois Ann, Marvin Mark and twins Kenneth Jerome & Keith Vincent. He enjoyed baseball, and was a big Minnesota Twins fan, after the baseball team moved to Minneapolis from Washington, DC.(Washington Senators later the Minnesota Twins). He liked all sports. I don't think he missed a high school sports or school activity event while his children were in school. He enjoyed gardening and working in the yard. He raised and sold lots of tomatoes to stores in Hartington. He also had a very large strawberry patch probably about a half acre. In 1974 we raised about a half acre of onions, we sold them in Hartington. We charged $6.00 for a very large bag.
He was diagnosed with cancer in 1973 and died of the disease on February 21, 1975 at St. Joseph Hospital in Sioux City, IA. He was 69 years 7 Months and 11 Days old. He was survived by his wife of 41 Years 10 Months and 21 Days Gladys Darcy Taylor, 2 brothers and 2 sisters, 1 brother (Paul) died in 1966. He had 7 grandchildren, 8 great grandchildren , 4 step great grandchildren, and as of 2009 1 step great great grandchild. (his last great grandchild Maggie Kester was born Dec 8, 2010 in Ames, Iowa to Darci and Aaron Kester.
Funeral Services were held at Holy Trinity Church in Hartington, Ne. Pallbearers were Jim Hayes, Wayne Fish, George Foulk, Edgar Bruening, Mike Olson, and James McGowen (all friends of his). He was buried at St. Michael Cemetery in Hartington, NE. on February 25, 1975, with his wife Gladys Mary Darcy Taylor and two sons, Kenneth Jerome and Gordon Norbert. Marvin Mark is buried in Randolph, Cedar Co., NE; St Frances Cemetery and Lois Ann in Minneapolis, Hennepin Co., MN, is buried at Fair Oaks Cemetery following cremation.
In 1916 an epidemic of Small Pox started on the Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation (Bonesteel is within the boundaries of the original Reservation) Bruce did have Small Pox and he had Small Pox scaring on his back 50 years later. He probably had other small pox scaring, but as a result of the severe burns in 1934, they could not be seen. He graduated from Bonesteel Public School in 1924. While in high school he worked in a bakery in Bonesteel. He learned to bake and enjoyed baking bread long afterwards. He farmed with his father until 1926, when his father retired. In 1927 he attended Barbers School in Sioux City, IA. He started barbering in Wood, SD in 1928. He barbered in Bonesteel, SD, Wood, SD. In 1929 he moved to Chancellor, SD. He returned to Bonesteel on March 9, 1930 from Chancellor, where he had worked in the Felix A. Reck Barber Shop.
He farmed and barbered for a few years in Bonesteel. He also worked for the County and State Road Departments for a couple of years. He used his own horses and both he and the horses worked. According to my mother, my father really didn't like horses. He wouldn't admit that but you could tell he didn't really think very fondly of them. I think he considered them about the same as a present day farmer considers his tractor. He told of the time he was working for the Road Department. in South Dakota, using his own horses. He had a really bad morning, one of his horses was being really ornery and mean and acting up and fighting the entire morning. When he came into camp for noon, he announced to the other workers that he would trade that horse for any other horse in the whole place, no questioned asked. Another guy took him up on it. Dad said the horse he got was the most useless animal he ever owned, but at least it wasn't mean and didn't fight all the time.
Bruce and Gladys Darcy were married on March 31, 1933 by Father Edwin J. McGonigal. Glady's sister Mary Catherine Darcy (later to be Schmitz) and Ranke G. Ohden were witnesses. I understand from my Aunt Lucille Darcy Truax ( Gladys' and Mary's younger sister) that Ranke Ohden was Mary Darcy's boyfriend, this was before Clarence Schmitz. In late 1935 Bruce was severely burned in a fire at his barber shop in Bonesteel, SD. He was working in Slagel Barber and Bath, Adam Slagel and his wife Iola the owner of the shop. Iola Slagel was a music teacher in Bonesteel. Dad was burned over about 90% of his body (his face and back were not as badly burned), and he nearly died. He was lighting the fire in a coal burning stove in the barber shop. He put in coal over the ashes from the previous day. Using what he thought was kerosene to start the coal. He put the kerosene on the coal, there must have been a hot coal in the ashes and the kerosene exploded, burning the barber shop. I'm not sure what he meant but he said the kerosene was "flashy". He spent about six months in the Sacred Heart Hospital in Yankton, SD. He was unable to work for about a year. He told of the adhesions in both of his hands. Because of the way his hands healed, he was unable to open or close either hand very well. When my brother Gordon was a little over a year old, my father was home and laying on the floor, playing with Gordon. Gordon stepped on dads left hand, breaking many of the adhesions, my father said it was very painful, but as a result his left hand healed much better than his right hand. He was unable to properly open and close his right hand for the rest of his life. He could not move the little finger on his right hand. He learned to hold a straight edge razor with his right hand, and it did not interfere with his work. His right elbow was very badly burned, and he said he had "a lot" of infection in the elbow. If fact the little bone beside the big bone in the elbow was gone, apparently it was the infection which destroyed it. Dad mentioned that had penicillin been more available his recovery would have been much faster. He was badly scarred, except for his face and back. During the time he couldn't work my mother worked as a seamstress to help support the family. It was a government work program to help those affected by the depression. Her worksite was at the Bonesteel Public School. Our family lived in Bonesteel during this time, near the Catholic Elementary School. While mom was at work during the summer of 1937 mom's sister Lucille Darcy (later to be Truax) stay with our family and took care of Gordon and Lois while mom was at work. Aunt Lucille stayed with our family that summer, and returned to Bonesteel High School in the 9th grade that fall. Shortly after that our family move back to a farm north of Bonesteel.
During the time dad was in the hospital in Yankton, one of the Benedictine sisters who in the late 1950s taught at Holy Trinity School in Hartington was working in the Hospital. Dad had a radio in his room and one evening he was listening to a boxing match between Joe Louis and Max Schmeling (German Champion). The fight was June 19, 1936 and was held in Yankee Stadium (There was no Television coverage, only radio, and lots of people didn't even have a radio) Yankee Stadium was sold out. Anyway dad said the sister was hanging around his room listening to the fight. She was cleaning and acting busy but it was obvious she was listening to the fight. Finally dad invited her to sit down and listen to the fight. She did and seemed to really enjoy the fight. Schmeling knocked Louis out in the 12th round in the first fight they had. Later in a rematch Louis won. Knocking Schmeling out in the 1st round, after knocking him down 3 times. In the late 1950s when she was in Hartington dad and she were talking about the fight one night. I don't remember the sister's name but they were laughing about it, and she told dad she was very glad dad had invited her to join him listening to the fight.
He also was involved in another fire in 1938. During the 1939 - 1940 school year, my mother taught at the Raymond School in the Starcher School District No. 20, Whetstone Township near Bonesteel. Dad told of the time during that year that he picked mom up at school and took her home. He did not have a car and he borrowed Grandpa Darcy's car. I'm not sure what year the car was but it was a Model T, and they quit making Model Ts in 1929. After picking mom up on the way home the gas tank sprung a leak. The gas tank was on top of the engine (it didn't have a fuel pump, it was a gravity feed system) the gas leaked onto the engine and the car burned up along with a "a couple of thousand acres of grass land." Neither mom nor dad were hurt but I'm sure Grandpa Darcy was not very happy about the car.
It was during this time that Dad had slot machines in his barber shop (which was illegal). Somebody else owned the machines and dad got a percentage of the profit. He had three slot machines in the shop. One day he left Kenny and me in the shop and went somewhere, probably to get a cup of coffee. Anyway when he was gone we took a dime (10 cents) out of the cash register and put it in one of the slot machines. We won and got a couple of handfuls of dimes (remember we had small hands, I think we were 4 years old, but I remember it very well). We put dad's dime back in the cash register and split the winnings. I don't think we ever told dad. The county sheriff "raided" all the businesses which had slot machines shortly after that and confiscated them, they were to be destroyed. It was late in the day and the truck which the sheriff had was full of slots machines and they didn't have room for dads. The sheriff put a chain around the machines with some kind of official sign or seal or something like that. He said he would be back to get them the next day. So dad called the guy who owned the machines. The next day when dad went to work his shop had been broken into and the slot machines were stolen. The sheriff didn't really believe dads story but couldn't do much about it. Anyway dad said in a week or so the guy who owned the machines came into the shop and gave dad his share of the profits and paid for the damage to the back door of the barber shop. I don't remember all of this, dad told me about it.
He barbered and farmed part time in Bonesteel until late April of 1947, when he moved to Lindsay, Platte Co., Nebraska. Dad used to talk about "Slick Honner" who owned the barber shop where dad worked in Bonesteel. Slick (Lewis) Honner and his wife Sern Honner owned the shop. In early January of 1947 Grandpa Walter Llewellyn Taylor died. It was shortly after that our family moved to Lindsay, Ne. He was a barber in Lindsay, NE. for about a year, or a little less. Dad said he made very little money while in Lindsay, actually what he said was "we damn near starved to death" (probably a little bit of an exaggeration). We originially lived in a basement apartment that was being remolded. We only lived there a month or so. We moved to a farm place between Lindsay and Humphary, Ne. There was a creek fairly close to the farm house, which flooded (it must have been the spring of 1948. I remember Gordy drove stakes in the yard to measure how deep the water got. It did get up to the house but it wasn't very deep. On this farm we had a well and a "pump house" where the water was pumped. Kenny and I used to go out the the pump house and we made "sugar sandwiches", we used water from the well to wet the sugar so it didn't fall off the bread.
We moved to Hartington in 1948. Gordon graduated from elementary school in May 1948 at Lindsay and Kenny and I started to school in Sept 1948, in Hartington. We must have moved to Hartington in about June 1948. He worked for Otto Christenson until John McCloud bought the barbershop in about 1956. Dad barbered in Hartington until 1959. In Jan 1959 he bought a barbershop in Coleridge, Ne. He started barbering in Coleridge, NE on Jan 12, 1959, and worked there until he retired in 1971. His first job as a barber was in Wood, SD. While in Wood the price of a haircut was $0.15 and a shave was $0.10 ("A shave and a hair cut two bits"). Playing checkers in barber shops was fairly common at that time. He was a very good checker player. I remember him and Grandma Taylor (his mother, my grandmother) playing checkers, they both used to claim that the other one cheated, and they probably did. He loved to play checkers. So do I, he taught me to play. I think I could beat him if we could play now. He said that one of his first "duties" in Wood, SD was dumping and cleaning the spittoons. A lot of men chewed tobacco and he said it was a horrible, disgusting and awful job. His next job was in Chansellor, SD
He married Gladys Mary Darcy May 31, 1933 in Bonesteel, Gregory Co., SD. Bruce and Gladys had five children. Gordon Norbert, Lois Ann, Marvin Mark and twins Kenneth Jerome & Keith Vincent. He enjoyed baseball, and was a big Minnesota Twins fan, after the baseball team moved to Minneapolis from Washington, DC.(Washington Senators later the Minnesota Twins). He liked all sports. I don't think he missed a high school sports or school activity event while his children were in school. He enjoyed gardening and working in the yard. He raised and sold lots of tomatoes to stores in Hartington. He also had a very large strawberry patch probably about a half acre. In 1974 we raised about a half acre of onions, we sold them in Hartington. We charged $6.00 for a very large bag.
He was diagnosed with cancer in 1973 and died of the disease on February 21, 1975 at St. Joseph Hospital in Sioux City, IA. He was 69 years 7 Months and 11 Days old. He was survived by his wife of 41 Years 10 Months and 21 Days Gladys Darcy Taylor, 2 brothers and 2 sisters, 1 brother (Paul) died in 1966. He had 7 grandchildren, 8 great grandchildren , 4 step great grandchildren, and as of 2009 1 step great great grandchild. (his last great grandchild Maggie Kester was born Dec 8, 2010 in Ames, Iowa to Darci and Aaron Kester.
Funeral Services were held at Holy Trinity Church in Hartington, Ne. Pallbearers were Jim Hayes, Wayne Fish, George Foulk, Edgar Bruening, Mike Olson, and James McGowen (all friends of his). He was buried at St. Michael Cemetery in Hartington, NE. on February 25, 1975, with his wife Gladys Mary Darcy Taylor and two sons, Kenneth Jerome and Gordon Norbert. Marvin Mark is buried in Randolph, Cedar Co., NE; St Frances Cemetery and Lois Ann in Minneapolis, Hennepin Co., MN, is buried at Fair Oaks Cemetery following cremation.
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