My Take
DiVoran Lites
As told to DiVoran Lites by Her Mother, Dora Bowers
In May 1939, my father, Roger Bedell, died in our home town of Canon City, Colorado. Since Ivan, and I; and our baby DiVoran were living in Lovelock, Nevada, we headed home in our 1921 coup for the funeral. Because our trip took place on Decoration Day, every cemetery we passed had bouquets of flowers on the graves. I saw them through tears, knowing I would not see my Dad again this side of heaven.
Photo credit Pixabay
Once home in Canon I dug in and didn’t want to leave, so Ivan drove back to Lovelock and packed up. Back in Canon City, he got a job with the gas company, where my Dad had worked.
In time with a loan of $100.00 from my grandmother Dora Bell Hunter, we were able to buy a house on River Street. The house cost $900.00 and our payments were $20.00 a month.
Photo credit Pixabay
In those days, part of our income came from Ivan’s job and part of the old cars he fixed up and sold for $35.00 or so. We had a boarder and that helped. Also we raised chickens. We had many fusses about the chickens. I thought I knew more about taking care of poultry because I was raised on the farm. He thought he knew more because he’d helped his parents with the chickens in a pen out back of their apartment house on Greenwood Avenue.
Of course, our fusses were nothing compared with the big fight the whole world had fallen into in Europe. Before he died, my Dad said there would be another war. In December 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and the United States declared war.
About that time, I kind of figured I was pregnant so I went to the doctor and he took a sample of my water then had the lab inject it into a young female mouse or rabbit. If her ovaries were enlarged that meant you were expecting.
Those were turbulent times for all of us: but I was pleased to be adding to the small family I loved. Since we already had a girl, we prayed for the baby to be a boy.
In June it was hot and I was big. Everyone told me I was carrying a boy because my stomach stuck way out rather than filling in around me as stomachs were believed to do with girls.
I must have looked pretty pitiful, because when the man came to collect the last installment on the pots and pans he’d sold us, I told him I couldn’t pay him. I needed the last $3.00 for a magazine subscription I’d ordered. He took one look at my condition and then, to my surprise and delight, gave me a “paid” receipt and left.
DiVoran has been writing for most of her life. Her first attempt at a story was when she was seven years old and her mother got a new typewriter. DiVoran got to use it and when her dad saw her writing he asked what she was writing about. DiVoran answered that she was writing the story of her life. Her dad’s only comment was, “Well, it’s going to be a very short story.” After most of a lifetime of writing and helping other writers, DiVoran finally launched her own dream which was to write a novel of her own. She now has her Florida Springs trilogy and her novel, a Christian Western Romance, Go West available on Amazon. When speaking about her road to publication, she gives thanks to the Lord for all the people who helped her grow and learn. She says, “I could never have done it by myself, but when I got going everything fell beautifully into place, and I was glad I had started on my dream.”
Old Things R New 
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