This community is up for adoption
Eight miles east of Greeley is Kersey. Primarily a residential community, it
also serves as a service center for the surrounding rural population.
Kersey was incorporated in 1908.
The following story was submitted by Tim Hogan,
Denver.
This story was
told to me by Byron Tromble who died recently. He grew up
in Kersey and went to the one-room school house that was still there
when he and I visited the area about fifteen years ago. He noted that
there had been some "improvements" to the place, like the addition of
electricity to the building, and a two-hole outhouse replacing the
one-holer he remembered.
Byron would say, "Just after World War I there came news that a lot
of Russian families were headed this way and could be 'adopted' as hands
on the farm, if the farmer was interested." Byron's father Roy thought
that would be a good deal, so he signed up to sponsor a family. Byron
was probably about ten or twelve years old at the time. "They got off
the train in town and we figured out which ones were ours, and took them
and all their stuff back to the farm. There were the couple plus four or
five kids." Byron and I tried to locate the actual site of the farm, but
it had been too long for him. He did remember that it was on the river,
North of town.
Byron saw that the oldest boy was about his age, so he befriended
him right away. None of them spoke any English, so it was sign language
and gestures at first. Byron would say, "I thought I could sucker this
guy, so every time I saw him I grabbed his hand, shook it up and down
vigorously, and said, 'Hi, you dumb son of a bitch.' After a while he
started saying it back to me, and I thought it was going to pay off. We
hadn't asked them to do any work the first couple of days, so they could
get settled in, but on the following Monday morning, dad lined everybody
up to hand out work assignments. When he stood back to speak to
everybody the oldest boy stepped out of line and came toward him. I saw
my plan going up in smoke. The boy grabbed my dad's hand, shook it
vigorously and said, 'Hi, you dumb son of a bitch.' Dad turned to me
and said, 'Behind the barn; NOW!' I got the whippin' of my life." At
this point he would take off his hat, scratch his head "Will Rogers"
style, and say, "I never could figure out how he knew it was me."
