My Dad's Big Family

This formal family portrait of the Schultz clan was also taken in the early '30's. Dad is the guy on the right in the center row, the oldest of seven sons and one daughter. L. to R., top row, Urban ( aka Slim) and Bill, center, Lehman, Lloyd, Delbert, Elton (Dad), bottom row, Elda, G'pa Emil, G'ma Emma, and Calvin, the youngest. Dad outlived all his siblings except for Calvin. Calvin Schultz was an artist, teacher, and musician. He contracted polio as a young boy which left one of his legs weak and needing a brace to be able to walk. There is a celebration in Mitchell, South Dakota every August - The Corn Palace Festival. A community building resembling a palace has murals inside and out with scenes designed and then covered with ornamental ears and kernels of corn, and grains and grasses to give them color. Uncle Calvin was commissioned to design these scenes, which can be viewed year round, from 1977 through 2002. Visits to South Dakota as a child were always fun filled -- with all of these uncles, there was never a dull moment.