Days On The Farm

Betty Ann was thinking as she was waiting to walk down the road, it had been 10 years since she had been home. The bus dropped her off about 1/2 mile down the road because the road was so bad going to the old home place. She set her suitcase down and just looked and she thought back to when she was a little girl.

No running water or electricity had been put in the house yet. It was tough walking to school before they fixed the road to get the bus at least half way to her house. The kids made fun of her because she lived so far back in the sticks, but she didn't care, she knew someday she was going to move away from there. Her home was okay but she had always wanted to be like the other kids. Her Dad was a farmer and that's all he knew. The other kid's Dads worked in town so she was the country girl and the other kids were city kids.

She was backward and miserable all the time, shyness was a curse and she couldn't talk plain, she would get excited stutter. She was a girl with a dream. Her Mom would have to almost shout at her at times to get her attention because she was dreaming of being somewhere else or usually being someone else. In her world she could be anything she wanted, a princess or a big business person like she would read about or better yet one of those fashion models like in Sears and Roebuck. She would cut them out and paste them in a book and dream of her wearing the clothes. She had different shoes for everyday of the week and a different outfit. She even pasted them on the walls, and her Mom would laugh and say her room looked like a catalog shop.

Betty Ann's Mom understood her dream and never said she could not be what ever she wanted. As she grew older her Mom taught her to sew and make her own clothes. At first she was embarrassed and then she thought why not make things like I see in the catalog. So she ask her Mom to teach her to make patterns, it was fun, they took old newspapers and began to cut out simple things first and then she thought to go for different things. After a while Betty Ann really got good at it, she then knew what she wanted to do with her life. She made a book with her own designs.

The kids at school beg

an to ask her to make them something, anything a skirt, a jacket, just something different. As she turned into a teenager she really got excited about the designs, but didn't know what to do. Then it happened. They were having the Craft Show in town and some big time city folks were coming to check things out. She thought 'I can't do crafts but I will sew some things and see what they think'.

She worked for days making dresses of all kinds, fancy and plain and drawing designs to put in her book. Her Mom was excited for her She wanted her daughter to be something and to be somebody. She could see so much potential in her. The big day came and Betty Ann set up her shop. At first she was told it was for craft things and baked goods and quilts and things like that, but she begged the judges to just let her hang her things out. They knew Betty Ann from a child and so they said it was okay.

The people from the city came in and the judges. They were so surprised to see what she had done, needless to say they ask her if she had any other designs and Betty Ann said, "Oh Yes" and she got out her book. "Can you actually make all these clothes?" "Yes" she said, "I can" . They asked her if she would be willing after she finished school to come to the city and design for them. Of course she did and now she had been gone for 10 years and she knew she had prospered because of her raising, because she was taught values.

She was also a little excited about maybe seeing Andrew. They had kept in touch all these years by phone and she had loved him so much but had to make a decision as to what to do with her life. She found out he had waited for her just hoping she would come back. He lived in the farm house down the road and was alone now because his parents had passed away. He was very prosperous in his own grain business, the only one in town. There was only one problem, her Father was very ill and she had to make a decision to stay here or convince her Mother to go back to the city with her. She had good memories of home but she didn't want to stay here and be poor.

The road seemed so long to the house. As she entered the gate, her Mother came running to meet her. She could see the sorrow on her face but also the excitement of seeing her daughter. She knew then as she looked at her, what ever her Mother wanted her to do she would do. Betty Ann had been home about 2 weeks when her Father passed away. After it was all over she asked her Mother and she could see her Mother didn't want to leave. Betty Ann told her Mom, "I don't see how we can make it here on the farm, there is no way to make a living." " I have an idea" said her Mother. "Why don't you open a dress shop here in Garden Grove?" "Mom" Betty Ann said "I don't have the finances to do that." "Oh that won't be any trouble, you know all the money you kept sending home to me and Pa, well we didn't spend any of it, its all here and there is plenty to open a dress shop all your own".

Betty Ann knew she had reached her goal to be what she wanted and to be able to live in her home town was more happiness than she expected. Needless to say Garden Grove was happy to have her and her fancy dress store. Betty's Boutique is a famous little store in Garden Grove .

To see a happy shopper coming out of Betty's Boutique and a picture of the farm where she grew up, Check out Amanda's Photo Album Page 5