Home Delivery... with Betty Nelson

                                                               Betty Nelson with her beloved doll.

On cold, winter days like we are having now, there are many warm and cozy babies wearing little hats made by Betty Nelson. She has been knitting since she was very young “when the minister’s wife taught me.” Betty has four or five patterns that she knows and she  tells me “it’s easy to do to keep busy” while watching ball games on TV. She enjoys both football and baseball. Betty gives the caps to the Bethel Buttik for Christmas, and of course, makes them for her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She uses left-over yarn and makes up the Packer, Badger or random color combinations as she goes along, “to make the best of what you can.”

Betty Lou Johnson was born in April of 1928 and has “always lived in Coon Valley.” Her parents were Lloyd and Olga (Lindvig) Johnson. When Betty was seven years old, her mother died so you know she learned early to make the best of things. As a young girl, Betty would ride with her grandpa to deliver Johnson’s Dairy milk to homes in the Coon Valley area. “We went door-to-door to deliver milk. For just 7¢ a quart.” The glass bottles were heavy and they had paper “stoppers” on the top.”  Every day they delivered eight to nine dozen bottles that were packaged at night and delivered early the next morning. Her grandpa had a horse-drawn wagon. She would jump down to “get a ticket stub at each house for how much milk they wanted and I’d keep that stub.” A few years later, Betty knew a young man, Layton “Boob” Nelson, who would help her deliver milk. She remebers one time, by then she was using a car, when Boob fell on some ice. “He slipped in the street half way under the car,” she laughed. She drove and he “peddled,” as she called it. 

 

Back then, in the late 1940’s, kids would go ice skating and sledding in the winter. They were sledding “in a pasture close to where Dairy Supply is now. That’s where Lester Gilbertson got a scar – trying to get under a barbed wire fence and missed” she told me. They would play croquet in the summer, or watch the boys play baseball. Betty can remember when “Boob” played third base, three times a week! “The bleachers were filled and people were even sitting on the hillside” around the diamond. Lots of kids, so many families, were there to see the games. 

 

On a hot June 1^stevening in 1948, Betty married Boob in a candlelight ceremony. She carried white carnations and sweet peas. They honeymooned in Devil’s Lake and then went to Kenosha to visit Boob’s sister. She told me that in a successful marriage, you “give a little and take a little.” Betty and Boob raised two children in Coon Valley.  She now has four grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. Boob died five years ago and her son passed away in 2014. The biggest change that Betty sees from when she was growing up, and even from when she was raising her children, is that both parents are working now. “I think they could do with a little less” because it seems that everyone has so much. Betty still has a doll that she had when she was five years old. 

 

Betty’s story is typical of people growing up in the Coon Valley/Westby area at that time.  She hasn’t done anything special like fight in a war, or march for women’s equality. What she did was marry a man she loved, and stayed with him for 63 years, until he died. She raised 2 polite and productive children. She worked hard for her church and has contributed countless hours of volunteer service to many organizations in her community. Just hearing this witty 88 year old lady tell stories brings up my own  memories – the warm smell of grandma baking dinner rolls, the clink of the milk shute door opening and closing, the sight of neighbors on porches on warm summer nights, drinking a pop, or maybe a beer, as we kids played in the street. Keeping a marriage, a family, and a community together is special. Keeping babies warm is special. Betty is special.