10 PEOPLE WHO IMPACTED MY LIFE - Part 1 of 2

At the beginning of each new year the newspapers (and now the internet) is rife with “Recaps” – 10 resolutions, 10 best songs, 10 deaths, top 10 books, 10 funny happenings, 10 new inventions….whatever you think of, there can be a list of 10 best or 10 worst, etc.

And so it made me think of my own personal “10” list of something – and at least for this first one I decided to think about the 10 people who most impacted my life.

Surprising to me was that I didn’t have to mull over this list as I anticipated doing; instead, the names came rolling out of my brain as if they were just standing there waiting to be written. So I’ll go with those ten, and tell you a little about why they are there. They are in no particular order of importance but more reflect the periods in my life.

1. My father, Scott Dobbins
It was my father who imprinted on my life a work ethic which I adopted for myself and which I expected of husbands. My dad was the first person at work each day and the last to leave. He took responsibility for his job and his family. He always gave 100% and expected it of others. But instead of making him a tyrant, he treated his employees with kindness, and on his 90th birthday some of those employees came to his party and honored him with their expressions of love and gratitude. He was one to emulate, that’s for sure.


2. My High School 10th grade English Teacher – Eleanor Weiherman
Miss Weiherman opened up the world of literature to me. In her class, among other things we were introduced to Silas Marner, A Tale of Two Cities, Julius Caesar, Moby Dick, a play called On Borrowed Time and poetry. We studied grammar too, but it was in reading and discussing these books that I learned there was more than science fiction books sitting on library shelves, which up until that time was my genre of choice. She moved me along the spectrum. For that I am grateful.

3. My Journalism Teacher in high school - Gary Lynes.
His constant praising of my work, recalled in my memory and reflected in my report cards of the period, gave me badly-needed self-confidence and the bravery to tackle the editorship of a weekly high school newspaper. Every kid in school should have a Gary Lynes.


4. My music professor at Pepperdine – Gaylord Browne, whom we referred to as “Papa.”
There is almost always a close connection between choir members and their conductor/teacher. Papa Browne was fun to be around and always motivated us to do "it," whatever "it" was, better than we thought we could. But for a select few of us who were not music majors, he took the time to introduce us to much more than just our choir music; he played violin in the orchestra of the Los Angeles MasterSingers Chorale in Los Angeles and he took us to their practices, where we were exposed to a much higher level of talent and a much broader range of music. It was there that I heard George Antheil’s amazing “Eight Fragments from Shelley, for mixed chorus and piano” and dates from 1950 – which I learned was actually music, and which to this day is my favorite.

5. My Sociology Professor at Long Beach State College – Dr. David Dressler.
Unfortunately I do not have a photo of Dr. Dressler. I wish I did. I had entered college intending to major in Sociology without really understanding what that entailed or what it would equip me for in life. In 1957, after marrying and having two babies, I finally returned to school, opting for Long Beach State, where I entered as a junior. It was there in Dr. Dressler’s classes I learned about social justice and social liberalism, something that none of my other sociology classes had even touched on. I must say Dr. Dressler opened up a whole new world to me, and while it took a few years for me to synthesize it into my life, it finally jelled and I have always felt that my political views were directly molded by this amazing man and his stories of the early labor movement in this country.

To Be Continued.

HORSE & BUGGY DAYS

The time is 1908. The place is at Rule Creek, just east of Las Animas, Colorado. The child is my father, Scott Walter Dobbins Jr., the second child of Scott and Susan Maud McConnell Dobbins. Called “Buzz,” a nickname given to him by his sister Dorothy, he was born in July of that year.

I began genealogy research in 1984 and I was fortunate that both my father and his older sister were still living. I knew they had both been born in Bent County, Colorado, but I sure didn’t know much about their early life. Because I lived fairly close to my father in 1984 he and I spent lots of time talking about his growing up. But I also wrote lots of letters to my Aunt Dorothy, who still lived in Colorado, asking so many questions that I’m sure I drove her nuts. She was four years older than my father, so I knew she held the key to many things that he just vaguely remembered.

Within a short period of time – maybe 6 months after I started “bugging” her – she informed me that all my questions made her decide to write down the story of her life. I’d get a copy, she said, as soon as she finished the first part, which was to be from her birth to her leaving home for nurse's training. I had a hard time waiting, but sooner than I expected her story showed up in the mail.

She told of my grandparents meeting in Colorado Springs at a band concert. She told how Grandma was a city girl and how difficult it was for her to learn to live on a ranch out in the dry land farming area of eastern Colorado. She told how they raised turkeys on the ranch and grew wonderful melons that my grandfather intended to show at the county fair – that is until the goat got into the garden and took a bite out of each one of them. Shortly before my dad was born, the family sold the ranch and moved to town.

In her story Aunt Dorothy told me that quite often the family would take horse and buggy rides out into the countryside near Rule Creek, where the ranch that my great-grandpa had homesteaded had been.

The photograph above is one that I came upon by accident not too long ago, tucked between some blank pages of an old family album. The handwriting belongs to my Grandma Dobbins. As best as I could, I cleaned the photo up a little bit. Not many family pictures of the Las Animas years exist and the few that do are in pretty poor shape. I’m so pleased that this one has survived.