Submitted photo Pictured is Karen Drury Rafson’s parents and three oldest siblings, circa 1930, before Karen and her next oldest sister, Marian, joined the family.

Karen (Drury) Rafson was born to Bertha (Weidauer) and Edwin A. Drury at the Anna Maria Memorial Hospital on the corner of 6th and Lyon Street in Marshall, on Nov. 23, 1940. Karen was the youngest of the Drurys’ five children. George, the eldest, was 20 years her senior. Grace, her oldest sister, was 18 years her senior. Ed, Jr. was 14 years her senior. Even her youngest sibling, Marian, was 7 years older than Karen.

Karen shared her parents’ backstory.

“Dad grew up in the Tracy area and my mother was from Iowa before she moved up here. We think it was relatives that got them together. He was 15 years older than my mother. Then they got married and rented the Herring farm.”

She explained where that first farm was located in Stanley Township, Lyon County.

“When you go down Highway 19 east, at the 9 mile there was that country store, Alex’s. Then you go north a mile and on that west corner was the District School 75. At that corner, you’d turn west and go about a mile. The farm was on the south side of the road.”

The original farm living quarters, which lacked indoor plumbing, were above a machine shed. That was the family’s home for over 20 years. That changed with Karen’s birth.

“I was born and they built a brand-new house out there (with indoor plumbing). So, I grew up in that two-story house. You’d come into the living room and kitchen. It had a staircase that went upstairs and there were three upstairs bedrooms. I mostly slept with my brother up there. My mom and dad must have had a bedroom downstairs.”

Karen described what she recalled about that farm operation.

“It had a regular, old barn for milking and I think they had pigs. We had a ton of cats. I probably took care of them. (Karen chuckled) and I’d go out and fool with the cows. Mother milked the cows, but I knew how to milk, so I’d go (Karen chuckled) and squirt (milk) for the cats.”

Karen’s mom held major roles in the farm operation.

“She helped with all of the farm work. She grew up doing that because she and her three sisters had to do farm work. So, she thought when she got married, she wouldn’t have to do that. But her role continued. She did farm work in the summer with the crops and driving the tractors. They had horses then, too.”

She described an accident involving those draft horses and her sister, Marian.

“I remember when they’d pull hay up into the barn. They had the belt that the horse would pull on to lift the (loose hay) up. I would have been young and (don’t remember) it, but they told me. Mother was driving (the horse-drawn lift). Marian came along and started fooling with something and got her thumb hooked in there. If it had been George driving it, she probably would have lost her thumb and hand, but Mother was driving it. So, it was going slow and she was able to stop. She took Marian and worked with that thumb and then took her to the doctor. They said if it hadn’t been for what Mother did, she would have lost it. Marian’s (thumb) looked good, but it was kind of (stiff).”

Karen remembered her own brushes with medical crises as a young girl.

“When I first had tonsilitis Dr. Hedenstrom came to see me. That’s when the docs came out to see you on the farm. They gave me penicillin. I think I got tonsilitis almost every year — every spring or fall. Mother always called the pills that you had to take ‘gold nuggets’ because they were like a dollar apiece. But Dr. Hedenstrom never would take out my tonsils. He said they just don’t do that. (Karen chuckled) So, I still have them.”

With so many older siblings, most of them much older than Karen, her role in the farm operation and with household chores was limited. But this freedom also held a downside. She sometimes played by herself in the grove among the trees.

“I could do whatever. I was spoiled. But when you don’t have any young siblings, it’s a little different growing up. Marian was pretty good until she got a little older, married, and left. (Karen laughed) It was really two different families.”

An incident in the basement taught Karen that playing alone could even be risky.

“We had an old washing machine where you had to put the clothes through the wringers. I was doing my doll clothes once and got my arm in it. It went up into my armpit. (Karen chuckled) I was able to pull out the cord and then holler up, ‘Help!'”

Fortunately, that turned out to be a “no harm — no foul” situation.

Karen explained that the Drurys had extended family in the neighborhood whom they would see on occasion.

“I didn’t have any grandparents, so it would be aunts and uncles like the Weidauers — Bill and Lucille Weidauer, August and Lil Weidauer, and Mother’s sister, Emma Anderson. But we didn’t really see each other too much. They were people who went around and played cards, but Mother and my dad never went around visiting like that, so that was just one of those things I grew up with. I didn’t know any different.”

One of Karen’s social outlets was attending church and another was attending the District 75 school when she was old enough.

©2026 William D. Palmer.