July 30th, 2010

Daniel M Kelly 's Story

Birth Year: 1920




Table of Contents





    Daniel M  "Max" Kelly


    I started to School in Laporte in 1932 and graduated in 1938. It was grades 7 thru 12.


    Colonel Sam Thompson lived in a little one room cabin across south from the “Ideal Mercantile” Johnny Holtz Store. CO. Thompson was in his 80’s and was in school, at Laporte, a bunch of us boys would carry our lunches down to his cabin and he’d tell us war stories and about his profession, as a civil engineer, after the war. He did a lot of survey work for the government in Colorado and Wyoming. Sometimes it seemed we learned a lot more from him than we did at school, especially early Colorado history. I remember one time he visited our home and we were amazed that an old gray bearded man, past 80, could still get on and ride a horse. I’ll always have fond memories of him.


    John Griffith was the Ag teacher, probably when I was a sophomore. He was a real good man but a greenhorn in regards to farming.  A bout once a week, the ag class would go out and help butcher a hog or a steer for someone in the community. I remember the first trip. It was his first year out of college. We went up to Oliver Kerns place, which was located near the river on the south side of the old Laramie Highway, about where the west end of that new cut off connects now. One of the Kerns boys was in our ag class. We got the pig caught and Mr. Griffith had to go look in his book, to see what to do next. By the time he got back, we had the pig stuck, bled, scaled and was scraping him. He learned quite a lot during his first year of teaching. He was a  good friend of all us students. I believe his sister still lives near Timnath.


    Johnny Holtz ran the store at Laporte, he was always good to us school kids.


    Bert Tamlin and I were class mates and good buddies. Bert and his brother ran quite a lengthy trap line up and down the river. Trapping was the way some of us made a little spending money. We’d get 35 cents for a good muskrat hide and up to 50 cents to dollar for a good skunk skin. There were lots of places then to sell hides in Collins and Mr. Ray Young, who lived just west of the Laporte school, on the north side of the highway bought hides. One night Bert and several of us decided to “bait” the school and sprinkled a bunch of skunk scent around the front entrance to the school. I don’t remember getting into any particular trouble over it, but the back entrance was used most of the next day.


     Buck Maxfield – One time, during play practice, there was supposed to be some shooting b ack stage & Buck had a big old pistol and put some regular cartridges in it. Stuck it out a window and shot some holes in the eaves of the roof.


    The Goat – One episode I was not involved in was when some of the boys drug a goat up the old fire escape tube and turned it loose on the upper floor one Halloween.


    The Bombers - Those of us who weren’t on the football team had a study hall in the auditorium on the upper floor. Frances Ver Straeten was librarian and monitor. US boys led her a merry time. We used to carry our lunches in paper bags. Someone would distract Frances and we’d go to the drinking fountain and fill our paper bag with water. There was a door out of the home ec room on the west side and there was always traffic, mostly girls in and out of that door. We’d raise a window and drop our water bombs, aiming so they hit the sidewalk and splatter right along side of a girl, What Fun!!!  Ironically , That was probably my primary education in bombing as later I wound up in a B29 Bomb Group in the Pacific, during World War II.


    My wife Ruth was not Huppe. Juanita, Walter and I were good friends and neighbors. My wife’s brother married Birdie Huppe. So that was the connection with the Huppe Family.


    Edna Ruth McConnel Tarlip is my niece as her mother was my step sister.


    Another Memory: Don Kerns was ahead of me in school. He was a real good singer and used to sing with the band “Aub’s Swingsters” that palyed for dances at the elk’s hall on Saturday night in Fort Collins.