Grave Digger's Daughter - growing up rural is a collection by Debra Raye King of her short stories and essays based on actual events. Stories about her Little Elk Creek community, nestled in the hills and valleys of west central Wisconsin, tell of a tight knit community of Norwegian immigrant farm families assisting one another at harvest time, bringing equipment and skills so all could succeed. Imagine fresh oats being thrashed, the enjoyment of walking in for lunch to aromas of pies and bread baking, and the reward of a hot bath after a day in the fields. Trek two miles each way with her sister and neighbor boys to the one-room, eight-grade schoolhouse where King and her twin sister were the only first graders. Attend Farmers Union Camp studying cooperatives, soil conservation, sustainability, social justice, active citizenship and leadership. Enjoy homemade camp food, play softball, swim, act in plays and sing around a campfire at Camp Kenwood. Join 4-H projects that teach leadership and individual skills, enabling King's selection as honored Dunn County representative to the Wisconsin State Fair. Participate in making pizza in the century-old Lutheran Church basement so youth can attend the National Luther League Convention in New York City. Smile at hijinks that happened when friends and family got together. Climb the windmill, race shingle boats across the cattle water trough, play King-of-the-Mountain in the haymow, and dig a swimming pool for goldfish. Bring your pots and pans for a shiveree, grab bats and mitts to play softball, and snowsuits and mittens to toboggan, skate, and play in the snow. Watch as King works alongside her father, John, learning to care for their dairy herd, to grow and harvest crops, and to save a calf named Honey. See how to teach calves to drink out of a pail, bring hay into the haymow and become a summer hired hand, while learning a strong work ethic and appreciation for persisting through hard physical labor. Drive into nearby Menomonie to shop at the Farmers Store, eat at the Dew-Drop-Inn, and guess when the junker car will fall through the ice in early spring. Spend time at the Froen Cemetery, the final resting place for members of her rural community, where King's father spent decades as Grave Digger, and where King had her first job as caretaker of cemetery grounds, a role she occupied for fourteen years. Readers will find innocence and grit in King's stories of the community and people she loved that shaped her young life. Her vibrant joys and trials of farm living during the 1950s into the early 1970s tell of years when King was the Grave Digger's Daughter as she grew up rural.
Debra Raye King is a retired college dean and university administrator. Daily, she cares for her flock of registered Icelandic sheep, and takes long forest trail hikes with her loving husband, Tom. Debbi has been assisted by their Sheltie-Border Collie mixes, Sonja Snow Dog and Scotty Boots. In February 2022, their newest family member, Sunny, a smart, polite, and durable three-year-old Shetland sheepdog, also joined their pack. Debbi, Tom, and their active critters live in a five-acre paradise of old growth forest in Douglas County in northwestern Wisconsin. She and Tom are also busy every day at their Sunny Cove Farm on high South Range hills, overlooking Lake Superior. Debbi and Tom have two grown sons, a daughter-in-law, and two granddaughters. When not writing, Debbi is active with complex knitting and sewing, and creating new wearable fiber art. She and also creates and bakes new delights, and enjoys the outdoors every day in all seasons. Debbi sings and plays percussion with the folk group HALLBJORN, is a karate black belt, an active skier, and an enthusiastic skater on glistening clear ice of Upper St. Croix Lake, just down their front slope.
