A Farm Girl at Heart

I painted my first painting in high school art class.  That was the beginning of my love for painting.  Florence Delaney

Florence grew up on her family’s dry land wheat farm in North Dakota's Williston Basin during the Great Depression.  She was born during a snowstorm on an oak claw foot table in the farmhouse kitchen. From a very young age, Florence worked from dawn till dusk alongside her parents and eight siblings farming wheat and raising livestock.  Florence's father, Reginald Earl Delaney, was an immigrant and finished 8th grade.  Her mother, Ingaborg Henrietta Smilden, graduated 8th grade.  "In those days, a lot of kids were forced to quit school to help on the farm," Florence relates.  Reginald served as a Buck Sergeant in the US Army during WWI.  After the war, he returned to North Dakota to marry Inga and farm wheat.  Florence recalls, "We were poor but we had a shared sense of peace, freedom, liberty, and hope for a prosperous future. We really didn’t know we were poor because everyone we knew lived like us."  Florence was raised to believe that all Americans are united in this shared goal of universal ideals.  In those challenging years growing up on the farm, she developed a strong work ethic, enduring sense of responsibility, and unfailing commitment to family and country. Florence is a Patriot.