Doris Osterman was born Aug 4, 1920, to James Royal DeLong and Clara Edith (Jackson) DeLong at Crookston, Neb. She was the third of four sisters. Her sisters were Mary Beatrice (Bea), Ruth Alice and Ethyl Ferne (Ferne). When Doris was young her family moved to a ranch south of Kilgore Nebraska on the Niobrara River. She had many memories of living there such as: attending the ABC School (which still stands today), her father’s fruit orchards, fishing in the pond and spending Sundays on picnics and searching the sand blow outs for Indian Arrowheads of which they had an entire bucket full of.
On Aug 14,1937 Doris was united in marriage to Walter Nile Osterman. A son and daughter were born to this union. Nile Walter (Sonny) & Alice Elaine (Elaine).
Doris was never afraid to work hard. She was a cook for hired men on several ranches. She owned and ran a café in Mullen, Neb.. She worked at the Buttercup Café in Valentine Neb. She also worked for many years at the Pine View Good Samaritan Home in Valentine. When she retired she decided she wasn’t ready to quit working entirely. She loved to read books so with the help of her daughter and son-in-law, John she opened a used book store and named it Rainbow Book Exchange. It gave her a purpose to get up and get out of the house everyday. She was in the public and while there she made many friends who would just come in and set and chat for a while. She ran her book store until she was 80 yrs old.
Doris was a good seamstress and quilter. She would embroider or cross stitch blocks of fabric and when she had enough for a quilt she would put them together and hand quilt every stitch by hand.
Doris’ love to cook was shared with the family that she cherished so much. Many a holiday or Sunday were spent at her house enjoying good old fashioned meals. When the dishes were all done it was nothing unusual for her to bring out the Scrabble board or her deck of cards so a rummy game called “May I” could be played.
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