She Doesn’t Mind at All

Delores Jones doesn’t mind waking up at 4 a.m. each day.  After all, she’s had the same routine nearly every morning for 72 years. Starting her day while the stars and half-moon play hide and seek behind drifting clouds in a cold January Kansas sky is not out of the ordinary for this farmer’s wife, mother of four, and grandmother of seven.   No, Delores Jones has long accepted the life God gave to her. After all, her momma once said “there are worst places to live than on a farm.” Especially if it is a family farm that has been nestled in the Flint Hills of Central Kansas for 168 years—surviving drought, depression, border wars, insects, and of course the occasional banker who tried to foreclose after a year of failed crops.  But Delores hasn’t seen a banker visit the farm since she was 12 when her grandpa, Ed, introduced Mr. Madison of Shawnee National Bank to Smith & Wesson. Of course, Grandpa was introduced to Sheriff McKinley and after a few days in Topeka, grandpa returned home after this “misunderstanding.”

Delores Jones doesn’t mind the cold wind that seems to never stop blowing snow across cattle-trampled pastures in February and dirt and dust across her old wooden porch in the scorching hot days of July. There is a certain sense of fulfillment and accomplishment when you work the land, tend to livestock, and have the good fortune of watching amber waves of grain dance in your back yard while a setting sun pushes your day to a close. No, living here—raising a family, working side by side with the man who at the age of 13 asked her to share a bowl of homemade vanilla ice cream on the back steps of Rifle and Bugle Lutheran Church following the 4^th of July picnic—had not been too bad.

Delores Jones will tell you she has not minded the ups and downs of her hard life on the Kansas plains. Well, she didn’t mind until six months ago when a photographer from National Geographic showed up on her doorstep and asked if he could take a few pictures of her old silo; of the windmill that her daddy and his brothers built in 1947 after a spring storm blew the other one down; of the small family graveyard where her husband was buried three years earlier; and if possible, would Delores mind if he took pictures of her, in her cotton dress as she tended to her three dairy cows, four goats, and numerous chickens that scattered across her front yard? No, she didn’t mind then. After all, he seemed nice and said he was doing a story of family farms that dotted the Midwest, still competing with the corporate giants that seemed to be taking over the country.

But today, after a 3^rd request for an interview and the 5^th phone call, this shy, down-to-earth woman who could barely spell publicity did mind, and longed for the days of knowing the only person she might see was Emma Baxter who delivered her mail and occasionally sat in her kitchen reminiscing about children, church hayrides, drive in picture shows, and life on the plains. Always over a cup of hot coffee.

Delores Jones doesn’t mind being alone. Delores Jones doesn’t mind the life God has given her.

Nope, Delores Jones doesn’t mind at all.