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Show 10 found a new love interest. The family lived on little more than radishes, carrots a,nd lettuce from their wind-whipped garden and the cottontails and young jacks the eldest boy, Gary, shot. After a proud, gallant struggle Mrs. Lait gave up and moved away. We learned that in California she divorced her husband and later remarried. Pressures exerted by the Escalante were severe. The economic one caused many temporary separations as men went away to earn money "to keep the homestead going." The wonder is not at the broken marriages but at the number that survived. Most did. Father couldn't endure seeing people starve, especially women and children. He gave many homestead families credit for months, even a few for years. But this must be said: we lost almost nothing on these people we trusted. We might have to wait a year or two but the check usually arrived with a grateful letter. That's more than Father could say about some of his Nebraska patients. We left Norfolk with a small fortune owing to him, even though he was not at all well when we left. But I fear many doctors lose a great deal in unpaid bills, since a physician cannot afford or cannot bear to refuse to treat an ill or injured person. |