WE WERE CALLED

GAIL AND DANA HEMBRY

GAIL

I was born in Wayne County, Iowa, in 1941, to a farm couple, Leonard and Hazel Hembry. I had nine brothers and sisters. There were actually 11 children, but one was stillborn. I was in the middle — my brother, Doyle, was 10 years older than I, and the youngest child in the family was ten years younger than I. I think we learned a lot about life from the fact that the older children took care of the younger ones. I don't recall an issue was ever made of it. We just did it. That was particularly true on Sundays when Mom made sure we went to Sunday School and church. The older kids made sure the younger ones were dressed and ready,

Our parents believed in discipline. When we sat down at the table to eat, that is what we did without fooling around. When we went somewhere, we didn't speak unless we were spoken to. We were taught to respect our elders. That is the way children were raised in those days, and I think it was good.

Whether or not the farm was large enough to support a family of that size, we made it. None of us ever was hungry or aware there was anything we lacked. Everybody had chores. We milked cows — we may have had 15 at the most. We also had stock cows, raised hogs, chickens, sold eggs, raised crops, and butchered hogs for our own meat. Our mother baked bread, which was always fresh from the oven when we got home from school. Our after-school snack was hot bread and butter. The cliché "living high on the hog," fit our family quite well. After we kids were raised and gone from home, the name of our mom, Hazel Hembry, became widely known for her great cooking. She made the best fried chicken! People would call Hazel to ask her to fry chicken for them. She cooked at the Country Club not many years ago.

We went to country school through the 8th grade, which gave us a good basic education. I went to Leon to high school, which after consolidation became Central-Decatur. I graduated from there in 1959. In 1962, we moved to Clarke County and I got a job on the pipe-line. It was important in those days to keep up to date with draft registration, so I reported to the Draft Board my change of address from Decatur to Clarke County and suddenly was Number 1 on the list.

I was drafted into the Army in 1963. I was on landing crafts from ship to shore, hauling troops and supplies. I was paid for combat duty but in my MOS (Military Occupational Specialty), we were pretty well secured because of the need of supplies and troops coming in. I was never out in the jungle, in danger of being face to face with the enemy, bombed or targeted by snipers, I spent two years in Vietnam, received my discharge and returned home in Sept. 1965. Some of the fellows were harassed for fighting in an unpopular war, but I had none of that.

I went back to work for the same company I had been working for before I was drafted. This time my job entailed traveling in five different states. In 1984, I married Dana, which helped bring me off the road. and I continued my work with the pipeline until 1986, at which time we bought the Family Table restaurant and a farm.

DANA

Gail and I met at the restaurant, when he started coming in for coffee. He always wore cowboy hats and all girls love cowboy hats. He was the real deal.

I was born in Osceola, delivered in Dr. Stroy's hospital, which was in the 100 block on South Fillmore. My parents were Kenneth and Jeanne Winter. Dad is deceased now, and Mom lives in town. She will be 83 in December, 2010, and goes like a house afire, My grandparents were Perry and Flossie Edwards, and Renn and Minnie Winter. Gail and I live on my Grandpa Winter's faun, which we bought from my parents in 1986.

Having been born January 4, 1950, I was the first baby of the year. It was a big deal at the time because my folks won gifts given by the merchants in town. One of the prizes was gasoline to get them to the hospital, which wasn't as helpful as it would have been for others, because they lived across the street from the hospital. When I was a baby, my folks moved to a farm they owned. It was on highway 34 near Murray, Later we moved from there to what was known as
the Gerald Davis farm, which was also near Murray. My dad rented it and farmed his own farm.

I started to school when I was about five and I went to two country schools. I had two of the best teachers — Eula Sieikas was my very first, and she was awesome. Then I went to Ward Center, where I had Amye Ramsey. I consider we had the best teachers in the world in country school. I was in 5th grade when we moved from the farm Dad rented to our farm along highway 34 within the Murray school district. So I attended school at Murray and graduated in 1968.
Gail told about 1986, when we bought the Family Table Restaurant and a farm. We lived in town and decided to move to the farm and build a house. That is where we live now and hope to live there forever. Our property is along the Interstate, directly behind the restaurant. Our address is Warren Avenue, past Muellers and Osceola Foods, and we live at the end of the road.

I have two daughters, Kelly Stelter, who lives in Maryville, Missouri and Darbi DeVore. She and her husband, Chris, live here in Osceola. We have three grandchildren.— two grandsons — Alex who is 16, Devon will be 9 — and a granddaughter, Madison, who will be 13.

I knew what I was getting into when Gail and I bought the Family Table. I had worked there and loved it. I loved that kind of business and had always thought if it ever came up for sale, I would like to have the opportunity to buy it. In 1986, we had the opportunity and snatched it up. We owned it for 17 years and have lots of great memories. We became acquainted with wonderful people, both customers and employees.

The interstate was there when we took over, but the development of industries, and establishment of businesses had barely begun. We bought Family Table in February; McDonalds had opened in January. They and Li'l Duffer were the first fast food places. Clarke County State Bank had established their Drive-in in 1976. Bob Byers' was the only motel. We were busy all the time. In the summertime it was crazy from 6:00 in the morning until 10:00 at night every day of the week. We hardly had time to breathe for 16 hours a day — actually more because we had clean­up after we closed. I don't actually know how we did it and I couldn't do it now.

At one time we had about 30 part- and full-time employees. It was, of course, more than 25 years ago when we started, and at that time, we were one of the top 10 employers in Osceola. Miller Products and Furnas Electric were here and had far more than we, but in our category, we were the top.

I always thought we were blessed with people that were outstanding. We had some of the best pie-makers and people who prepared food for the buffets. So many times buffets are made up of food out of cans and dumped there — nothing special. We had people who took too much pride in their work to be satisfied doing it that way. All around, we had a lot of good people. Of course, there were some there for the paycheck. They didn't last long. They came and went, here one day and gone the next.

We were newlyweds when we took over the place and it occupied all our time. I was there day and night, seven days a week. I didn't take any vacations or free time. Gail was farming so he didn't have much time either, and said, "I saw Dana at mealtime because that was the only place I had to eat." But it was one of the most pleasant experiences we've ever had and honestly, if I had been married to anybody but Gail, the marriage wouldn't have lasted. Occasionally I planned some time with family members, but it never worked out. Somebody always got sick or hurt or didn't show up or quit. Nothing of that nature ever worked like we planned.

I saw my mom because she worked for us as cashier. She may have been in her late 60s or early 70s at the time, and she thought it was the greatest thing in the world. She was out in the public where she saw people and had something to do. Gail worked there and I probably fired him more than once. Both girls worked for us. My oldest daughter graduated from high school the year we took over. I think I fired my youngest daughter, Darbi, at least twice. Darbi was actually my partner for a few years. She thought she would buy me out gradually and I would just fade away; but after about six weeks she said, "I will never do this myself, Mom. I've watched you do it all  these years and now I know why you are crazy. When you get out, I want to get out, too." I am sure our employees didn't think I was a great employer, but we had a reunion party in Murray awhile ago, and it was wonderful to see everybody gathered and happy to see one another.

We had a kitchen fire on June 17, 1995. It put us out of business for three months. Kim Persels Braby worked for us and a couple days after the fire, I heard a sound and here was a little kitten underneath the debris the firemen had thrown off to the side. I palmed it off on Kim and Rus. They had the kitten about 15 years and just about a month ago the kitten died. I sent them a note on Face Book and said I was so sorry to know the kitten died and they confirmed it was the one they'd gotten from the fire.

We were very thankful for lots of things. The deep fat fryer caught on fire but it happened early in the morning. We had a meeting scheduled for later that day so I had asked the morning crew to come in an hour so later than usual. Only three of us were there when it happened. If circumstances had been different, there would have been a larger number of people involved.

The operation of our business was more complex than simply serving food. There was always a health inspector, although we never had any problems getting along. We did what we could do and kept things as clean as we could considering the amount of traffic we had. They were very understanding about it. They knew we always stayed on top of things as much as we could. And there was payroll and payroll tax, unemployment insurance and the rest, but we hired all that done. I didn't mind frying hamburgers and mashing potatoes but I did not like book work. There was food ordering, delivery trucks coming and going every day except Saturdays and Sundays. There was a lot of activity "behind the scenes." It was all part of operating the business.

Finally we decided enough was enough. We sold out in December — in February we would have been starting out 18th year. We bought the restaurant in February 1986, and we sold in 2003 to a young man by the name of Doug Smith. Doug was originally from St. Louis, and had part interest in a restaurant called Cosi Cucina on 86th Street in Des Moines. Doug was accustomed to a little different clientele than we had here, and he wanted to buy a restaurant in Osceola. He and his young wife, Amber, with their nine children moved here.

Gail and I have officially retired. Gail's farm work is light because our farm is mainly pasture. He does some custom hauling of cattle. He does a lot of work with farmers in Lamoni and Leon, particularly for Amish people, if they need livestock hauled or a ride. They come on the train or need to go to the bus station. "In the summertime," Gail said, "I play with my horses. I have pulling horses and go to some of the horse pulls on weekends at State Fairs and other exhibitions. I went to the Missouri State Fair at Sedalia yesterday. I left at 7:00 in the morning and got to bed at 2:00 this morning. My horses are big and make a good showing in horse pulls."

Dana continues: After I was through at the restaurant, I knew sometime I would be going back to work. I took a year off and in April was hired by Great Western Bank and taught to be a teller. When I heard about the Freedom for Youth Center, I felt a calling to go help with that. I talked to my boss and he said they wouldn't terminate me but give me a leave of absence until the end of August or September, and I said I thought that would work perfectly.

The way I heard about the Youth Center was about 15 years ago when I met Gale Juhl, who was the pastor at my church, Christs'way in Osceola. He was from Des Moines, and came down on weekends, but did about 30 hours work for us in between. I became close to him and his wife, Denise. She became involved with a youth outreach for homeless kids, which soon went from homeless to a more general ministry with inner city kids, I kept dropping in and this summer (2010) I met a young man, Neil Bunn, who had been brought on board to start Freedom for Youth Center in rural America,

He and I talked and agreed that kids in the city have problems but so do kids in rural areas. He became interested in Osceola and I told him if he wanted to get something started here, give me a holler. This must have been about July or August and by October we had our first meeting here with a group of people. It took off. By April we had a building and I felt I was called to get this up and going. That would be my part in it.

So I have done that, and we've had other people come aboard who are teachers and mentors to the kids, which I am not. We have been going six or eight weeks now and it's been a success story, which I think is going to get better and better after school starts. I feel this will have a big impact on the community. The kids have participated, and we've had lots of support from adults. We are off and running It will be so exciting to watch this develop!

I have seen how it has affected not only kids but adults, too. There is one man, John Taylor, who is "hot to go" with this program. He thinks it is the most awesome thing he has ever seen, and his wife, LeeAnn has become involved. John is so excited about this. He has a statistic that 31% of the women in Clarke County are single parents. He said, "That means we men must step up and make an impact on these kids that have no men in their world." No argument from me. His wife is in awe of how it has affected him. When he talks about the center, he says "we." It is awesome to see these people who didn't even know one another six months ago, grow close because of their enthusiasm for this program.

The first meeting LeAnn came to she was kind of in awe of the program but she said the other day, "I think this is what God has been preparing me for these past years. I look back over what has happened to me, the places where I've been sent. I feel this is where I am supposed to be," and I told her I this way as well.

There are so many stories, other people involved, too. MacKenzie and Patrick O'Hair are two. They take hold of situations. They dive right in. She has such a way with these kids. She has the biggest heart. There is a family here in town — we already want to take the kids home with us. We are finding there are hungry kids in this town. There is a family — not brothers and sisters but all live in one house — who come in every time we are open. They don't have anything to do with the place or with us grown people — they come in to get something to eat. Now they are beginning to interact with the kids, and interact with us. This is making a difference in their lives.

The other day, one little boy was mesmerized when LeAnn was telling a story. You can see a change in their eyes. Lots of these little kids are in a self-preservation mode. You can tell the parents are not doing their job. As another little guy was leaving, he said, "Gotta' go. I love ya." That's touching! More lives have been touched than we can tell. Someone told me there are little kids who, from the moment their feet hit the ground, don't know where they are going to be or what is going to become of them. For those who become successful, balanced adults, it is obvious there has been a good influence sometime in their lives — somebody spent time with them and let them know they are important. The best thing we can do is let little kids know they are special.

One little girl told us that when her mom and her boyfriend get to fighting, the kids go to the Laundromat because "people are nice to us there and it is quiet and safe." We can provide that. We don't have any doubt, if we feed their hunger physically and feed them God's word, and if we continue to do what Jesus told us to do — reach out to people — they will keep coming back and eventually we will win them to Christ.

Our program will change somewhat now with school beginning, but we will include WOW, Worship on Wednesday after school from 3:00 to 5:00, when Neal will come from Des Moines and we'll have music, a little worship service, then Neal will have a lesson on their level. There will be crafts. We have been emphasizing to the children they are God's, and because God is King, that means they are royalty. So we had them make crowns for themselves and they enjoyed that. We will feed them, of course. That is very important. On Fridays we plan 7:00 to 9:00 free time. We will offer them a place to go and hang out. We will provide snacks and something to drink.

There has been lots of support. I want to mention a few of the people who have been very instrumental in the Center. One gentleman has paid 10 months rent for us. We have a paid up insurance policy. Mike Sitzman and all his volunteers at Cross Ministries have been terrific. Thanks to them we have chairs, tables, a ping pong table, TVs and a stereo just to mention a few items. Leann Taylor puts the lesson, crafts and games together for the Sonshine kids programing, and does a terrific job! And then there is MacKenzie O'Hair who is our marketing and computer genius. Whatever we need her to do, it's done before we finish asking. And she has such a heart for the kids. We've had many volunteers who have brought food, helped with the kids and I don't know how many people are actively praying for us. There are just too many to mention. And several people have been very faithful with monetary contributions (thank you, Norm Skinner!) to keep the program running thus far. It takes everyone's efforts to get the job done and everyone is valuable and appreciated.

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Last Revised December 14, 2014