This is Roberta Gregson (on the left) with Mom, probably on the McClain farm in Tallman, about 1925.

Mom was not nearly as large as she appears in this photo, of course. Not sure what was going on. The way Mom is smiling and Roberta is looking at her, I would guess they were joking around somehow.

I don’t know how Mom came into contact with Roberta. Perhaps through high school or church. She was a couple of years younger than Mom, so about Uncle Barney’s age. She was the second child and oldest daughter of Hiram and Saidee Gregson, who had a farm in the Providence area between Lebanon and Scio. They had moved there from South Dakota in 1920.

About ten years after this photo was taken, Roberta married Luther Shanks and they also farmed in the Providence area for a while. Eventually they moved to a farm in the Tennessee area north of Lebanon. They had a son Gary with whom I was acquainted decades later. (I didn’t have any idea of that when I started working on this post. So you never know how things are going to be connected.)

Incidentally Roberta’s younger sister Ione married Luther’s brother Burl. I don’t know whether they also farmed in the Providence area, but I know they remained in the Lebanon area somewhere. Ione passed away in Lacomb in 2011. I couldn’t determine when Roberta passed away, but it was before her sister.