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Yellow Bird: Woman sees world with understanding
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
Filed Under: Opinion

"When I first moved to Grand Forks, a friend introduced me to the Bailey family, who live in the country near Larimore, N.D. The family lives on land where peacefulness seems to propagate from the corn and bean crops.

In the spring, open low areas in fields form temporary lakes where thousands of Canada, snow and other geese and ducks land and carry on loud conversations in honks and squawks. Some summer evenings, after picking ripe chokecherries for jelly, a family member and I would see deer in fields silhouetted against the glowing gold from evening's sunset.

It's that kind of place.

Marcia Bailey grew up there and has lived there all her life; she's now 83. She and her late husband, Adrian, and their three boys and two girls farmed the lush land.

When I first met her, I felt like I already knew her because she was so much like my grandmother - gentle, kind and wise. And in my conversations with her, it was only when she talked about her son, Richard, who died of an undiagnosed disease, that the anguish of losing a child became evident. Her other two sons are Michael and Terry; her daughters are Bonnie Butz and Ann Bailey, who works at the Herald and lives a few miles from her mother."

Get the Story:
Dorreen Yellow Bird: A N.D. farm wife and mother (The Grand Forks Herald 5/9)
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