Your Earliest Memory

 

Your Earliest Memory?

• by Dixie Dawn Miller Goode on May 19, 2022

I have scattered childhood memories, a dog, an airedale, that we lived 
next to in Cheyenne that “guarded me from my parents in our front yard, 
until the owner came home. We moved from there when I was two. 
I remember going to the house I mainly grew up in in Cody, when 
it wasn’t our house yet, and playing with a boy and girl who lived there, 
and I remember a blue plastic pool filled with stuffed animals in the red 
house we rented in between Cheyenne and home owning in Cody. 
But those are brief and tied only to places or times I can use to anchor
 when the memory is from.
Do you ever remember, remembering something and yet, 
no longer remember the actual event?
 When I was very young, my grandfather’s brother, Clarence,
 was grilling chicken on a backyard BBQ grill and we smelled it 
as we arrived, and instead of going through the house as we usually did, 
I ran around to the side gate and entered the backyard 
with wet laundry billowing on the clothes line, and he turned
 from the Smokey grill and shouted, “it’s the birthday girl!”
Years later, watching my moms silent, black and white 8mm home movies,
 “You won’t remember my Uncle Clarence, because he died when you 
were too young.”
 I argued with her, describing all those details I just mentioned, while her
 little movie only showed him bringing a platter of chicken over
 to the table. But a couple years after that, I remembered watching
 the movie, and the words I had used to tell her about that early birthday, 
but I no longer actually remembered that backyard picnic,
 or that strong man who I knew was happy to see me.
Now my only memories of him are of the fast moving cancer. 
I remember riding along when Mom picked him up and drove him to Dr. appointments. I remember when he was too weak to shift his legs and he asked my Dad to cross his legs for him because he’d been in the same position too long and was hurting.

Thinking back, from this aged place of 58, to that early, probably about age three, birthday, and the people who always have surrounded me each year, with love and fun times and celebrating my birth. I realize that I’ve been so blessed. My family members here today, and those back then are all different people, but that thread of family that connects us, is a thread of love generations long.

Priscilla June Slack Miller. Goodnight Mom.

She was born on June 30, 1939, Priscilla June Slack; daughter of one of the three sons (Lawrence Slack) born to Francis Slack, a stage driver who worked for Buffalo Bill Cody, and his Wife, Emma Belle Lafferty Slack. Priscilla told stories of how she grew up riding a white cow and creating Jackalopes and running on the bank of the Greybull River in Meeteetse, Wyoming. Her parents ran Slack Salvage, in Cody for many years. She had four male cousins who were more like brothers to her, their Dad (Clarence Slack) was another of the three sons raised up along Trout Creek above Cody, Wyoming in the 1890’s before the families moved to Meeteetse in 1902. Their Mom, Clara and her Mom, Grace Beightol were sisters from Illinois who came out to Wyoming because of an ad in a Chicago Newspaper looking for someone who could love both a Wyoming winter and a Wyoming cattleman. 

When she was eleven she moved to Cody, and spent most of her life there. She went to college in Powell and in Laramie. In 1960 she got married To an Army Veteran from Pittsburgh, PA named Paul Miller. He worked and she taught second grade in Cheyenne, Wyoming but when they had children they moved back to Cody and raised their daughter and two sons there where they could be close to her parents and cousins. Along with Paul, she spent a lot of time exploring the area around Yellowstone and the Beartooths. They loved the rugged beauty of the Park and surrounding mountains. Whenever they could get a few weeks off, they loved to travel, usually to places where they had family and friends, so often it was to Pittsburgh, PA or Anaheim, CA both places where Paul’s large family lived, or to Illinois to visit her Mother’s extended family. 

She was a Philanthropist, Priscilla Miller. Most often the name attached to the descriptive word "Philanthropist"will be found for a prominent family or well known wealthy individual. Priscilla Miller learned from her parents, Lawrence and Grace the true meaning of philanthropy. I call it being "other oriented" and putting others welfare above your own. Priscilla very quietly gave far more to community, family, friends and strangers than she ever kept for herself. It is very important to me that her community remember her for those silent acts of kindness and generosity beyond description.

She was a nurse who nursed so many people through sickness, although she never received training as a nurse, she was one by nature and compassion. She cared for friends, uncles, parents and her husband through cancer and other difficult times, and though it was brutally hard at times, she did it out of love. After Paul died of esophageal cancer in Feb. of 1997, she and her youngest son, Lance - traveled to California to visit grandkids, and to Guatemala on a mission to help build cinderblock homes. She took Lance to Washington DC to visit her son, Brett and his family and she reached out to friends and kept both herself and Lance active in the church, the senior center and in the community. 

As she grew older and health issues slowed her down, she and Lance moved to Middleburg, VA where they could be close to Brett and his family. She had many good times there even as her health continued to decline. Right to the end she could enjoy a good meal or a visit from friends with a welcoming smile. She is survived by her daughter, Dixie (Greg Goode) and Her son, Brett (Emily Richter Miller) Her son, Lance and Five Grandchildren; Austin Goode, Lacy Miller, Emerson Goode, Luke Miller and Elise Miller, as well as two Step- Grandchildren, Caitlin Tabachka and Patrick Tabachka. She also leaves behind four Great-Grandchildren, Daisy Goode, Gavin Goode-Pitt, Trinity Goode-Pitt and Lincoln Tabachka. She is also survived by three of her close cousins, Roger Slack (Louise), James Slack and Donald Slack (Marion) and by the wife of her cousin Terry who preceded her in death (Patty), as well as by many well-loved cousins, nieces and nephews.



She will be interred at Riverside Cemetery in Cody, Wyoming as she wished, joining her husband and Parents and many family and friends within view of Heart Mountain.  

I'm really going to miss you. Goodnight Mom. 

Feeling Homesick

 Having taken my youngest to college and dumped him out  400 miles from home, and left him there to have his own adventure, I find myself missing him.  I also find myself missing my own Mom and Dad and Brothers and the State of Wyoming which I left behind at the age of 21, yes 27 years ago.

 My husband's family is from Newcastle, on the North East side of WY where the Black Hills, Devil's Tower, Custer State Park and Mount Rushmore are easy drives for an afternoon of exploration and where coal trains rocket through repeatedly each day.

Newcastle, WY

Custer, SD

Where we worked the summer we got married

Evan's plunge

 There is a lot to miss about Wyoming.  The scenery is diverse, the wildlife is amazing and the people are wonderful.  I am so grateful to be from Wyoming.  But I don't miss the extremes in weather, or the constant wind (Oh yeah, that's because the wind never stops gusting here either.)

Buffalo Bill Dam

 I love the Buffalo Bill Dam, and the Cody Night Rodeo and the area around where I grew up too.  Cody has Yellowstone and the Beartooths and the hot pools of Thermopolis and the spectacular Bighorns and Horseshoe Bend to enjoy.

TeePee pool in Thermopolis

Heart Mountain

Cody, WY

On Chief Joseph Highway to Beartooths

Mom and me

 But of course what I miss the most is my family, and one brother now lives in Virginia, and my cousins have moved away and my dad has been dead since 1997.  Only Mom and my brother Lance still live there.  And a few precious school friends.  And home is here in the solar-free and ginger approved Redwood coastal fog belt.

My Brother, Lance

 But I would not be who I am without the Rocky Mountains having formed me.  Without the smell of sulfur still permeating my hair and lungs from the hot springs, without knowing what it feels like to stumble into a bull buffalo in the dark or find a bear sharing your campsite.

 Without the Cody view of Heart Mountain, not the internment Camp side, painted eternally on the inside of my eyelids.

The old Bronze Boot

Heart Mountain

Tower Falls, Yellowstone

Wherever else I have traveled, wherever else I still may go, Wyoming defines me and calls to me and laughs at me when I admit I may no longer be tough enough to endure the smokey summers and the freezing blizzards.  When My Great-Grandparents married in 1892 and drove their stage from Hot Springs, South Dakota and came to help Buffalo Bill establish a town with his name on it, They may not have realized that they were deciding right then who I would become, but they were.