CELBRATING 40 YEARS!
3
This has been quite a journey, but it has went by so fast! If some-
one would ask me, it feels more like it should have been 20 years.
I can remember back in the beginning years that it was stated by
one of the breed associations at that time, that the average time for
a person to be in the purebred business was seven years. That is
not what we’ve seen in the Midwest for sure. The commitment has
been for generations. My dad had purebred Charolais cows, and
we also had purebred Angus cows too. I always felt that both had a
real purpose in the cattle industry.
We were married in the summer of 1975. I owned six purebred
Charolais cows at the time. We bought our picks of the herd from
Dick Iverson of Alexander. Those cows cost us around $750 each.
From those cows, we built a herd. Sally and I both went to A.I.
school back then, and we’ve spent the time and money A.I.ing
cows ever since.
We raised four great kids, and maybe they raised themselves some
too. We were so busy building a place, a herd, a farm and a ranch
all at the same time it seemed. The kids all had a hand in building
the place as when we moved to our place in 1980, there wasn’t a
tree or post in the ground. We lived in a one-bedroom trailer house
for the first eight years. After No. 4 came along we finally got
financing to build a house. We were with FHA at the time and we
would take all four kids in there – I think they just said “sign here”
just to get ALL of us out of their office!
I know I could write a book on the mistakes I have made, but
would rather focus on the successes we have enjoyed on this
journey. Our greatest success is the friends we have made! I abso-
lutely love the cattle people. They are the best friends anyone could
find. We have made lifelong friends and we cherish that! I love the
smell of the cattle auction rings. A place where we all could get a
paycheck, some years bigger than others. Purebred cattle sales …
here’s where unless you have walked the path, it’s hard to compre-
hend the work and time it takes to put together an annual purebred
sale. But the rewards, to hear that the bull you sold a customer
worked well for them and made them money, make it all worth it.
Time to tell you where we are going! We sold a large group of
Charolais cows last year, but we kept the heifer calves and a few
good old cows. We plan to rebuild an extremely high-quality herd
of around 80 Charolais cows. We also have about 125 head of
really great Angus cows that Randy owns with us. So, God willing,
we will continue till we are told otherwise.
Speaking of God, I feel compelled to tell you about what I feel is
the biggest thing I have learned in life. In the spring of 2007, a cow
didn’t like me touching her newborn calf, and she let me know it.
She smashed me into a gate for what seemed like an hour, but was
really only a few minutes. Long story short, I spent 40 days in the
hospital, with 30 of them in ICU. I vividly remember nearly dying in
there. It was very calm, very peaceful and I could tell I was rising
up and leaving. Then I opened my eyes and I was lying in bed in
ICU with a nurse right beside me. I asked her why they didn’t let
me go, and she said we can’t do that and it wasn’t your time yet. I
saw the cart with the paddles beside me, I knew they had brought
me back, but I also know there is something for us after this life!
Let me share one more thing. This summer, our daughter Robyn
called one Sunday and told us there was a really good evangelist
at her church in Minot that morning, and he was going to speak
again that night and we should come hear him. This middle-aged
guy was from Texas and he had really gotten on the wrong path in
life. That path took him to prison. That’s where he learned about
the Bible and God. It changed his life and there he stood in front
of this church asking for people to come down and he would pray
for them. Sally said I should go, tell him your shoulder is hurting
like you tell me all the time. Nah, I wasn’t going up there in front
of all those strangers, but I did see people up there and he seemed
to be connecting with them. So my daughter Robyn jumps up and
goes up front and gets this evangelist and brings him back to me.
He asks some things and I tell him how my left shoulder hurts all
the time from the cow beating. So we prayed about it, he held my
hand and I could feel a release of pain in my shoulder like a spring
unwinding, it pushed me back in my chair. I have never had that
sharp driving pain in that left shoulder since. I believe there are life
lessons that are meant to be shared.
Thanks for listening and thanks for being our friends!
Jan L. Severance
Forty Years: Where we’ve been and where we are going!
1981
2012
