By her daughter, Margaret O. Kerns

Lora Olive Cooley Kerns was born May 1, 1873 in Osceola, Iowa.

When she was a young woman, her parents sent her to a school in Adrian, Michigan to study music.  She soon realized she had little musical talent and less interest in music, so without her parents' knowledge she studied bookkeeping instead.  Her parents were disappointed, but they later appreciated her "good business head" when she worked in her father's office when he was county treasurer.

She was very quick with figures and she could add up a column of numbers in no time.  She never trusted adding machines and even in later life she had to double check an adding machine total against her own mental calculations.  When she talked about her job as the assistant county treasurer she often laughingly commented that she kept her father out of jail.  I was never sure what she meant by that statement, but she said she ran the office because her father was no business man.

The only song she remembered from her brief musical training was "Isn't the Duck a Happy Bird."  In later life she would sing this song on rare occasions and only after much begging and pleading from her children.

She met Jim Kerns at a box social.  She said she was attracted to him because of his dry wit and gentle humor.  She was a good looking young woman who had several "beaus" before she married Jim on Feb. 9, 1896.

As a young woman she had a zest for life and fun.  She had many friends, some became life-long friends.  She had that special quality of making and keeping enduring friendships.  Olive S., who she met while a student in Adrian, was a lifelong friend who often visited her at the Gay Creek Ranch in Wyo.

Her early married life was spent in Osceola, Iowa where Jim Kerns owned a hardware store with her brother, Bert.  Her three older children John, Josephine and Katherine were born in Osceola.

Jim Kerns sold his share of the hardware store to Bert Cooley, and along with Lora's oldest brother, Bill, went to Parkman, Wyoming.  Jim's original idea was to open a bank, but instead he bought the ranch which was later named the Gay Creek Ranch about 15 miles from the small town of Parkman, Wyo.

Lora with her three small children went by train from Osceola to Parkman to join her husband in early April of 1901.  She frequently talked about the cold, long ride from Parkman to the ranch in a buggy.  John, who must have been about four years old, refused to snuggle down with his sisters on the floor of the buggy, but insisted on sitting on the top of the trunk in the back.

In those early days, life on a cattle ranch, far from any stores and with none of our modern conveniences was very rough on any woman.  Water had to be drawn from a well.  Winters were long and very cold.  The kitchen also became the living room and bath room during the long winter months.  Lora learned to "make do" with what little she had, and to save everything.  Nothing was discarded.  Even in later life she could not throw away string, paper or anything because "you never know when you might need it."  She learned how to make over clothing, and how to cook native plants.  In the spring it was dandelion or lambsquarters, picking and canning chokecherries, buffalo berries and plums.  She was an excellent cook, for she learned how to make the simplest foods taste good with her own special mixture of spices.  Her specialties were cottage cheese (there was always a sack of cheese curds draining on the clothes line) and angel food cake.  The angel food cake, of course, was made from scratch, whipping the egg whites with a wire whipper.  To get the old wood cook stove at the right temperature took diligence and ingenuity.  I can still see her with a stick of wood in one hand and a pot holder in the other while her angel food cake was cooking.  If the oven was too cool, in went another stick of wood, if too hot—the oven door was opened slightly.  Whenever there was a neighborhood party or picnic, she furnished the angel food cake.

Mother loved to have parties and she would spend days cleaning the house and cooking for the occasions.  She loved to try out new dishes or invent her own specialties.  She would fix carrots to look like shrimp and serve them as a "shrimp cocktail."  Her family rebelled against her green tomato pie, although she insisted it was delicious.

Although she never had money for new furniture, she had a knack for making a house attractive and comfortable.  She loved the challenge of making something attractive out of very little, whether it was fixing up an old house, making over a dress, making rugs out of rags or whatever.

Mother and Dad both loved to play cards.  Every evening in the winter there was some card game going on—whist or cribbage.  She and Dad had a cribbage game every night.  They played for a cent a point but did not pay up until one was $1.00 ahead.  It took 3 years before Mother finally won $1.00.

Throughout her adult life she was completely dedicated to her husband and her children and her grandchildren.  She never hesitated to make a financial or personal sacrifice for her family or her friends.  She was truly a giving person.  It was difficult for her to receive or accept gifts and she always had to give something better in return.

In later life she could devote time to her gardening which she always loved, as did her mother.  In the early days on the Wyoming ranch the garden meant vegetables for food for the family, but she could only spare brief periods weeding or picking vegetables.  In the late 1920's when the family moved to Eugene, she really learned the joys of gardening.  For the first time she could grow tea roses and all the other lovely perennial plants.  There it often became important to her to plant a tree each Arbor Day in April.  In her last years in Hardin, Montana her strawberry patch and her flowers and trees made the little farm a show place.  Once she started to weed her garden she could not quit, until every weed was gone.  Her poor old, aching back would finally drive her to the house in exhaustion and pain.

In later life second to her gardening she loved her chickens.  They became her major source of income.  She had about 300 laying hens and she sold eggs to friends and to a local restaurant.  She carried water and feed, cleaned the nests and chicken house, gathered and graded and boxed the eggs.

In her late 80's it almost broke her heart to give up her chickens.  She could no longer take care of them.  A year earlier she had to give up her prize 1/4 acre of strawberries.  She could no longer weed nor pick the berries.

One of her interests after her children were grown was antiques.  She loved browsing in antique stores, and of course for bargains.

After our father died in 1933 (she took care of him through his long illness) she went to Missouri to take care of her mother.  Both she and her older brother Bill took care of their parents until their deaths.

It was not until she was in her late seventies that she had a semblance of a modern home, with inside plumbing and electric lights.  She and her brother, Bill, bought a little farm out of Hardin, Montana and fixed up an old house to make it modern.

She died on August 15, 1964 at the age of 92.