Lyle Link (LL) and Carly Dreher (CD)

LL: My father believed that any man that needed a vacation should get a different job. Because for him, those hundred-and-ten acres was the whole world and he needed nothing else. But farming wasn’t for me. I wasn’t happy picking corn or shoveling manure. Although milking cows was good because I could sing opera in the farm milking cows and that was great.

CD: It sounds like you were the black sheep.

LL: Yeah, I drove my poor father nuts. He couldn’t understand me. I remember his saying one day, ”Son, you cannot think the thoughts you think.” My brother was totally a farmer. He never made another footstep that my father hadn’t made before and I couldn’t walk in my father’s footsteps to save my soul. So the day came I left.

CD: Tell me about how you met grandma.

LL: She came to the church that we attended and I said to her, ”Someday I’m going to ask you to marry me.” And I took her hand and it went from there.

CD: You have grandma had so many adventures in your lives.

LL: You bet.

CD: Your honeymoon was just driving across the country.

LL: Yes. I had a ’36 Chevy and I was able to lay a mattress in the back seat. And we spent our first night in that car on a bluff over the Mississippi River. My father by the way did not approve of that kind of outrageous living. But I was willing to break new ground. And your grandma really was ready to break new ground.

CD: Yes. I know that, um, it’s hard to talk about grandma but what made you love her so much?

LL: I don’t know. I don’t know. It was something I couldn’t help.

CD: Hm.

LL: We have been in love for almost 70 years. And she now died and all I can say is that life was so beautiful.

CD: Is.

LL: It is so beautiful. I’m terribly, terribly lonesome.

CD: She was pretty amazing.

LL: Very. Yeah.

CD: Do you have any regrets, Grandpa.

LL: No. Well, no. We lived a wonderful life. I think when we got married, we’d made all new tracks. And we never stepped in any old tracks. I want you to do the same thing. Live with courage.