Home on the Range
Memories of Okaton, South Dakota

In this memoir James E Roghair recalls growing up as a South Dakota farm boy in the sixth decade after statehood. He, his parents and three younger siblings shared a small house without indoor plumbing, electricity, or telephone, near unincorporated Okaton, with its small school and church. The summer he was twelve, he drove a farm tractor preparing soil for the next season’s cash crop, winter wheat. He tended a variety of animals, a garden, and other crops—the variety of a typical family farm. As you read his story, you can observe farm life in the 1940s and 1950s and imagine the contrast to typical life today. Join the author looking back at the lessons he learned—and a little mischief he was involved in—on the farm, in school, in church, and in the 4-H club. It was all preparation for adult life and responsibilities.