"Neighbors," Lillian said.
I had asked her why she lives here. "I know everybody in the town. They probably know more about me than I know about myself."
"I don't know how many people live in Lignite any more," she said. "We have a good grocery store and a good school, so we're lucky. It's the only grocery store in this area. If you lose your school, you lose a lot."
Characteristics of the people of this area? "Friendly," Lillian said. "Honest. Trust-worthy. Maybe not as hardy as the first homesteaders - you had to be really hardy then, when this was nothing but prairie grass."
The Dirty Thirties? "I remember one night my mother made sandwiches and covered them with a dishcloth," Lillian said. "When she picked up the dishcloth, you could see the outline of where it had been."
"Dust drifted morning, noon, and night - no rain for ten years," she said. "The only thing that grew was Russian thistle. They cut the thistles and stacked them, to feed to the horses and cattle."
Lillian's father farmed, of course, and she was raised on the farm. In those days, when she still lived at home, her father farmed with horses. As far as we've come, we are not that far yet from the frontier.
"We had three horses for riding horses, just for us kids," Lilliam remembered. "We raced them every chance, especially when we got behind a hill and our parents couldn't see us."
"We could never use a saddle," she added. "Our parents were afraid we would get tangled up in a stirrup."
Lillian met her husband at a dance hall in Lignite. They married in 1939. She said that during World War II her husband was deferred "because he had the only truck in Burke County."
"I've had a good life," Lillian said. "My parents were good to us. Richard was always good, and our children were good to us. What more can you want? I've had a good long life."
"I wouldn't want to live any place else," she said. "I've lived here so long I love it here. I've been to Seattle, to San Diego, to Tijuana, to Arizona. That's about the only traveling I've done. I imagine I could find another place if I was looking for one, but I'm not looking. I always said I hope I can live in my own house until they carry me out."
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