The Hotel Kids

An old Nebraska hotel was a magical place to grow up, with creaky staircases and secret passages, expansive party rooms and a huge, mysterious basement where we played for hours and, of course, we met so many interesting people! We were just kids, but hotel living was our everyday reality.

Our upbringing was not typical. My brother and sister and I were raised in two different hotels. We moved into the first, the Oxnard, in Norfolk, Nebraska, the week I started Kindergarten, and we moved out of the second, the Mary-Etta, in Fairbury, just two weeks before I graduated from Fairbury High School.

I was 4 1/2 when Mom and Dad had a farm sale, bought the Oxnard, and moved to Norfolk. At first, Dad relied on a manager to oversee the hotel business while he worked for Nash Finch, loading and unloading freight that was being shipped to grocery stores all over northeastern Nebraska. It wasn't long, though, before he and Mom made the decision to move into the hotel and take over managing it themselves.

The Oxnard Hotel was built as a showplace in the late 1800s.

I had barely turned nine when we moved to a bigger, better hotel, the Mary-Etta, in the southeastern Nebraska town of Fairbury. It was there where our adventures really began. There, we were finally old enough to roam throughout the entire building, and invite our friends to come over to explore.

The Hotel Mary-Etta was built in 1907, although the fourth floor, where our apartment was, wasn't added until several years later. We moved there on May 1, 1964.

Mom always said she should write a book about our family's experiences in the hotels, but she never got around to it. Because she remembered so many unique experiences and people, I'm sure the thought of writing a whole book about our family's hotel history was too overwhelming. (I must admit, there have been times when I understand that feeling.)

I am equally sure that my memories differ significantly from hers, since I saw things through the eyes of a growing child. My brother, Dan, has assured me that his memories are not always the same as mine, either, so I talked him into writing the Foreword for this book, just so he could mention a few things from his perspective as a younger, male child.

Like Mom, I didn't start out to write a book about our hotel life. Instead, I wrote a few blogs about my memories of growing up in the old hotels, so my children and grandchildren, and nieces and nephews, would know about our uncommon childhood. After several years, I realized I had enough stories in my blog to make a good beginning for a book. I just had to organize and revise and fill in the gaps with some newly written material.

It took some time, and a battle to overcome some inevitable procrastination, but I finally finished the book, called The Hotel Kids, in August of 2025. It's available for purchase on Amazon. Like my other books, this one is written from a Christian perspective, because we were a Christian family living in predominantly Christian communities. However, as I wrote this book, I made a concentrated effort to not preach!

I've been told that The Hotel Kids is easy to read, and that "readers with rural or small-town roots should find the story interesting and entertaining." 

If you read this book, please go to Amazon and/or Good Reads and leave a review.

And please recommend it to your friends!