Getting an Education

I added to my base knowledge of the cowboy world by working from age 12 through 17  as a summertime cowboy for local ranchers. Despite my age, I was paid a man's wage of a dollar a day plus found (a rural word for "room and board." ). That $90 summer  wage was enough to buy clothing for attending high school in town. 

 On my own economically, I also found work in town during the school year to pay for room and board. All four years of high school, each in a different town where I could find work, I had a weekly income of $7.50. That was enough to pay $5 a week for board and room and allow a third of my salary to be used for other expenses. The jobs generating that income were varied: clerk in a general store, Nebraska licensed cream tester, school janitor, printers devil for the county newspaper, telephone operator, and coal delivery driver. 

In all of that, I was very fortunate...had there been today’s Child Labor Laws, I might not have received the educational opportunities which I had ..I just could not have afforded to go to school! 

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