Reflections on a Life
by Dina Horwedel • photograph by Trice Megginson
Lillian
Hubbard gives no indication that she feels anything less than blessed as she
sits perched in her favorite chair in her Laramie, Wyoming, home at the
venerable age of 102. Hubbard, a University of Wyoming graduate (’27, A&S)
relishes in telling stories, and accepts with grace the sorrows and
disappointments that accompany a long life.
When Hubbard graduated with a double major in French and Spanish, the Great Depression was still two years away and Al Jolsen was taking the country by storm. Hubbard, who still resides independently in the home that she and her husband, Don (who died in 1981) built in 1939, remembers with joy her years at UW and how she first came to the state.
Born Lillian H. Helsberg in 1905 in Omaha, Nebraska, she had her first adventure in 1910 when her father took her family for a visit to his native Denmark. The trip revealed Hubbard’s gift for languages. “I refused to speak a word of English and was fluent in Danish after that year,” she says.
After returning to America, her uncle, who had been working at the Sheridan Inn in Sheridan, Wyoming, convinced Hubbard’s father to move his family there. “My father purchased a restaurant across the street from the depot. The railroad didn’t have dining cars back then, and he ran the cafe until 1917. Then he bought a second restaurant and ran it during the war (World War I). Dad hated Hoover with a passion, because of the restrictions during the war—coffee, sugar. He didn’t blame them [the shortages] on the war; he blamed it all on Hoover,” she laughs.
Hubbard’s parents believed in the importance of an education, but they only had enough money to send one child to college. She “made sure” she was the one by studying hard.
After graduating from Sheridan High School in 1923, Hubbard enrolled at UW. Her tuition and fees were $25, and her sorority dues for Kappa Kappa Gamma were $50. She lived in Hoyt Hall, which, along with Merica Hall, was one of only two women’s dorms at the time.
That first year at UW, Hubbard met Don at a university dance. She remembers the date without faltering—April 1924. “He was here on a football scholarship from Wabash, Indiana,” she says. They danced the foxtrot and waltzed. “We didn’t have canned music; we had real music. The university hired orchestras for the dances.”
Hellsberg graduated with “about 100 other girls” in her class and planned to teach, but “I never did do that,” she says. She and Don married in December 1926, and their oldest daughter, Patricia, was born in November 1927. In 1929, the Great Depression threw the young family a curveball. Don had completed his master’s degree coursework but had yet to write his thesis. His dream was to work as a coach, but after 14 months without work the family traveled to Don’s family’s farm in Indiana.
“We traveled by train through Kansas, and we saw lines of hungry people waiting for food. We were lucky because we could help on the farm. Then Don found a job as an assistant postmaster for $45 a month. He got a better paying job with Railway Express, so we returned to Laramie.”
In Laramie, the couple dedicated their life to raising their family and serving the community, the state, and the university. Don and several other men started the Laramie Railroad Employees Credit Union (now the Laramie Plains Credit Union) with a $5 deposit. Lillian worked there as an office manager until her retirement 26 years later. In 1942 Don won a seat in the Wyoming House of Representatives, retiring in 1968 after 26 years. “The university was his big item. He always tried to pass legislation that would do it good.” Don never lost his love of sports, and they held lifetime tickets to Cowboy football games. “We never missed a game.”
The Hubbards passed on the importance of education to their children and grandchildren. Oldest daughter Patricia (Moore), 79, is a UW graduate and rancher near Wright, Wyoming. Patricia’s twin daughters, Sharon (Porter) and Sheryl (Boroff), are both UW graduates.
Youngest daughter Nancy (Booth), now 70, married and moved to Kansas, but never gave up on finishing her nursing degree, which she completed late in life, Hubbard says with pride. Nancy still works as a registered nurse. Nancy’s late daughter, Sandra Joy Booth, and son Randy Booth both graduated from UW. Sandra was a Kappa Kappa Gamma like her grandmother. Nancy’s son Rick Booth attended UW, completing his master’s degree at the University of Missouri. Nancy’s granddaughter Kristen Boroff, now a veterinary student at Colorado State University, is a UW honors graduate.
Hubbard still reads French and Spanish, though “when you don’t use it, it is more difficult to speak it.” She confesses she uses choicer French phrases when angry.
Perhaps Hubbard’s inquisitive mind keeps her spry. She still plays bridge three days a week with friends, exclaiming, “I lost 34 cents the other day!” But she doesn’t have any advice for living a long life. “I don’t exercise regularly and I hate vegetables,” she chuckles, adding, “Don’t tell people that. Vegetables are good for you!” She confesses she also hates liver and fish.
Hubbard has been all over the world, including to Europe on the Queen Mary oceanliner and a trip to Russia during the communist era, but she says she is content with life in Laramie. Perhaps it is the knowledge that she has lived life well, as evidenced by the pleasure she takes in telling a good tale about old times.
“When I was 12 years old, my uncle bought cabins up in the Big Horns. We went up one summer after mother and dad sold the cafe, and stayed three months. My brother and I made stick horses and rode them up and down the hills all day long. We had such a good time,” she says with a smile.
“We had a cow so we could have fresh milk, and my mother saved enough cream to make ice cream for us on the Fourth of July.”
“My brother and I walked three to four miles to get ice for the ice cream. Then we came home and we churned the cream and put the ice cream in bowls,” she says.
“We started eating the ice cream and we were horrified! Our cow had gotten into a patch of onions! We were eating onion ice cream,” she chuckles.
Asked if she has any concerns for future generations, she says contemplatively, “I lived through World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and recent wars…no.”
There is more time behind Lillian Hubbard than ahead of her, but as the wind swirls snow into dust devils outside her picture window, Hubbard seems nothing but happy. “I love living here. Except I’m awfully tired of January!”
