A transcription of pages 195-469,
Family Histories from the Verdigre Centennial Book
Thanks to the Verdigre Library and its volunteers for making this available.
 
The index below only includes the husband and wife for each family.
The maiden name for the wife is used if listed.
For other names, use the search on the Home Page.

Index's A-I, J-P, & Q-Z

RONALD DOBRY

Ronald Dobry was born on living, during one of the frequent depths of the depression. The place of birth was his grandmother’s house in Verdigre and the physician was Dr. Melvin. He remembered the house a little, the garden, the kitchen, above all, the room in which his grandmother lay in state when she died in the summer of 1940. That was the custom; not too many people had visitation in Sam Sandoz’ funeral parlor.

The earliest memory perhaps was one of the huge snowdrifts piled up in the early months of 1937. Then in 1938 there was school, fortunately not kindergarten, which he would probably have detested. School was in a stone building almost unique among country schools in the area. It was District No. 27, right at Jelen, that is, opposite the country store which was all that was left of Jelen. It was called Cottonwood Row because in three directions the roads were lined on both sides with huge cottonwood trees. They are all gone now; they made the roads too hard to maintain. The school still stands, now a property of the township, but the store is gone. It was able to operate in the early forties because gas rationing made frequent trips to Verdigre impossible. Its ice house, filled in winter with ice cut in blocks at the nearby North Branch of the Verdigre Creek, was an added attraction - electricity did not come to the Jelen area until the 1950s but by the forties most people kept ice chests.

[pg 235 PHOTO Ron Dobry]

School was enjoyable but never a matter of great weight; no textbooks were taken home because all of the lessons were done before school was dismissed. This pattern continued through high school. The principal maxim was to use one’s time, never to give more time to an enterprise than it deserved, but at the same time to work so expeditiously that the task was nonetheless accomplished. In such a small school there was never any sense of competing with anyone as to how well one could do. One came early because one started early and one did not dawdle or daydream. Nor was one a sluggard about getting home - there were radio programs to listen to. He always said he had a better memory for voices than for faces. He could usually recall a voice when someone was doing an imitation and judge it for its degree of resemblance. Faces were a different matter. The actors one saw on the screen in the Empress Theater (he never saw any other until the outdoor theater opened at Neligh) obviously did not want to be themselves; they wanted to be someone else and clothes, hairstyles, makeup and props were obviously there to help them in the transformation.

The last year was the first post-war year. Then came high school. One went to school aboard a bus (there was only one then) and went home. Country boys were deprived of the opportunity to fully participate in school activities - at least he felt so. Then in November of 1948 began the great winter of 1948-49. The bus did not run and Ronald stayed on weekdays at the Commercial hotel, eating his meals at the local café. Members of the national guard sent to help clean up the snow stayed at the hotel. There were many unusual sights, including huge drifts and military vehicles hitherto seen only in pictures.

School was a time for writing. The school library offered opportunities to expand to new horizons. Ronald read many books but he also read all the national news magazines available; he was always interested in contemporary affairs and much aware politically. At the end of his obscure school career he received a Regent’s Scholarship and went off to the University.

Ronald went to Lincoln in 1950. He was to spend the next five years in the capital city, which then was struggling to reach 100,000. In that year the university had over 7,000 students, coming down from the post-war G.I. Bill high and declining further because of the Korean War. The city itself had several motion picture theatres and a public library which then seemed huge. The university was a center of activities, classes, theatrical productions, and lectures. There was also the opportunity to meet a great variety of individuals. The first year he majored in journalism, but the next he switched to English and in his third year to a double major of English and German. At the end of undergraduate days, there was Phi Beta Kappa. There was even an engagement, which was broken. After graduation there seemed little else to do but go on to graduate school. For no particular reason, the decision was made to major in German rather than English. It led to a scholarship at New York University after the second degree was in hand.

The next eight years were spent in New York City, which was so large it broke down into communities block by block.

In 1963 Ronald returned to Verdigre where he set to work building his library and keeping up with world affairs. In 1981 he moved into a house he had purchased in Verdigre. It too had a history: it was built in 1920 by Emil P. Schreier, who was responsible for the school, the catholic church, and the county courthouse, among other buildings. The house is situated in the heart of what had been the city’s park.

Ronald is currently a member of the Improvement Club, fifty-year (plus) member of the ZCBJ, member of the board of trustees of the Bohemian National Cemetery at Jelen, secretary of the Verdigre Heritage Museum Board, secretary of the Food Pantry, and secretary of the Centennial Committee.

Pages 234, 235