Homecoming

My Take

DiVoran Lites

As told to DiVoran by Dora

In 1945 after fighting in the Battle of the Bulge and when the horror of liberating several concentration camps with their piles of emaciated corpses was over, Ivan came home. He was so glad to see his family. He said that throughout the fighting, most soldiers thought for sure they’d die on the front and never make it home at all. But though many, many of them did die, quite a few came back. Jobs were scarce. We had to look around for a way to make a living; so when the opportunity to buy Min’s Café in Westcliffe came up, we bought it. 

We worked hard in that restaurant. Dave and DiVoran learned to work too. We all did some table waiting, and the kids washed tons of dishes as did everybody else. Dave was in charge of carrying wooden pop cases. He brought in the full ones from the garage where they’d been unloaded and brought them back out empty for the delivery truck from Canon City or Pueblo to bring back full again, and we always told him it was a good way to build muscles. 

One day, Ivan took the kids to buy a puppy from a farmer. They paid thirty-five cents for him, which was all they had kept from their small wages. They named him Brownie. He was a mixed breed, mostly sheep-herder. He was a good dog. When it came to looking after the kids, he took his shepherd duties seriously.

Shepard Brownie

The kid’s Dad also bought them a Shetland pony who was already 23 years old. His name was Yankee and he was wise in the way of children. When Dave was learning to ride, he fell off a few times, but as soon as Yankee felt him leave the saddle, he stopped and waited for him to get back on. DiVoran was treated differently. The minute she settled in the saddle, Yankee took off running full tilt for his feedlot with DiVoran hanging onto the saddle horn and screaming all the way. Her Dad soon put a stop to that by instructing her in the fine art of being the boss with a horse.

Yankee and the boss

When the kids got older and better at riding, we got two bigger horses—Dixie and Derby. These two were used for hunting and fishing trips into the mountains with Ivan as guide, but the kids rode them for fun too. They liked to play rodeo out at the rodeo grounds on the horses. Dixie taught Dave how to fly by throwing him 27 times. He spent so much time in the air that when he grew up he felt right at home as an airline pilot. 

Besides being a lot of work, Westcliffe was fun for all of us. It was a town of about 320 people and the kids were favorites with the other storekeepers on the one block main street. They liked to pop into the drugstore and see if the pharmacist, Cope had any comic books with the covers torn off. He did that to get a refund of the ones that hadn’t sold. Other children in the town got stacks of them too. 

We were finally home. 

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.”

Tags: Starting over, WW II