Was that in the job description?

15 March 1985 - We usually get here to the Institute building by 8:00 a.m. and then at 11:30 we go get some lunch and take care of errands and are back by 1:00 p.m.  Then we usually have just a sandwich or a bowl of soup or something light for supper here at the Institute, and then we go home around 10:30 - 11:30 p.m.  In between times, we manage to keep busy being very poor janitors, bookkeepers, and host/hostess.  We have most of the time to ourselves in the morning, and only a few kids now and then in the afternoon on school days.

15 March 1985 - Mary L. got a letter Thursday that if she had her application in by today, Friday at 4:00 p.m. she could have a job with General Motors in Oklahoma City this summer.  So she asked if we would we pick her up at 5 a.m. and take her to the Kansas City Airport so she could get home in time to get this job which pays $10/hour.  Leona said we would.

We closed the institute at 10:30 last night and got up at 4:00 this morning and went over to pick up Mary.  But she had gone back to sleep after being called.  We left just before 5:30 and the plane was to leave at 6:40.  We thought we knew where it was, but we didn't.  Needless to say, we missed the plane!  After several calls to her uncle in Oklahoma City, we found out that she didn't have to go down there anyway; she could just mail the stuff in.  So we got back about 10 a.m., went to the trailer and had a nap and lunch.  Then we went back to the Institute in the afternoon.

Leona working her magic with the Bernina

31 January 1986 - A boy that I had never seen before brought a pair of brown pants in.  He was going to start a new job that evening, and he wanted me to take an inch off each side and hem them.  It was already 3:00, and I had to teach a class at 6:00.  I told him that I didn't have any brown thread, so he told me to use black.  My black thread was gone too, so he said for me to use blue.  I used my blind hemmer, so they did get hemmed, but the stitch was terrible.  The thread could be pulled out like a basting stitch, so I told him not to catch his toe in the hem!  There's another pair of pants here that I've go to take some out of the waist.  I don't know why these kids don't buy things to fit.  They don't seem to understand or care that I don't know how to do these things.  [That attitude] is catching too.  When Lou broke the zipper in his jacket he just gave it to me to put a new zipper in it.  I can remember the day when I would have taken it some place and had it done . . .

8 February 1986 -We have been trying not to get the flu and sore throat that almost everybody in Lawrence has had.  It has really made a lot of the Indian kids sick, but they keep coming in.  It's a wonder the authorities don't get me for dispensing medicine without a license.  The students go to the med center down the street, and then they are afraid to take the medicine they are given.  So they ask me for salt to gargle with, throat spray, aspirin, and cough drops.  They only use the throat spray once, because they don't like the taste, but I had to start buying cheaper cough drops so I could afford to share them.  Amelia has been asking for them for three weeks, and she's still sick.  I must not be much of a doctor!

Helping Madonna learn to sew

14 February 1986 - This day has not gone as I had planned it.  I had it all figured out on paper by 8:00 this morning.  I was going to make Valentine cookies to serve tonight,m take the hood off of Molly's coat and get a hair cut.  By the time we bought pop (8 cases) at the Food Barn, bought candy bars (20 packages) at Wal-Mart, mailed some things at the Post Office, ran some things off at Kinko's, and bought my dancer pads at the shoe cobbler's, I was out of steam.

". . . when ye are in the service of your fellow beings, 

ye are only in the service of your God." 

Mosiah 2: 17