“The Spare: Part 2” by Marsha May Fairchild Sumpter is now available for purchase
“For some unexplained reason, we decided to elope to Sturgis, about forty miles from Rapid. We got to the courthouse and bought the license, then were advised that we would have to have a telegram from parents before any ceremony could be performed because we were both underage.”
– an excerpt from the book
Author Reputation Press is honored to publish “The Spare: Part 2” by Marsha May Fairchild Sumpter. The book is now available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and the ARP website.
Part 1 and Part 2 of this book are just to give a glimpse into life on the farm when I was growing up and carry you through the trials and tribulations encountered along the way.
In many ways, her story is very insignificant because she realized there are many people out there who encountered way more difficulties and survived them. Each and every person has a story to tell, and it is unfortunate they don’t write about it and let others know what it is like to be a survivor.
Author Marsha May Fairchild Sumpter was born and raised on a working ranch twenty-eight miles north of Philip, South Dakota. As young people, they worked hard and played hard, and events that occurred caused considerable pain to her both mentally and physically.
Her choices were not the best, and at seventeen, she was very much on her own. The saying “I was the only hell my mother ever raised” was probably very accurate. She writes this to tell you what it was like growing up and to let others know their choices are important to their future.
She has had many life experiences, both good and bad, over the years. Growing up in the 1940s, every farmer/rancher in South Dakota was dirt poor, trying to produce a crop when there was no rain, or the grasshoppers took over or hail came and wiped out all.
The hard work left its mark on this young person. It was always the next year’s country. Did she want to live and work at this all her life? That wasn’t a question that she asked herself, but she stayed away from that lifestyle at an early age.
After marriage, at a young age, it was “you made your bed, lie in it,” and she was destined to finish high school and care for a baby before knowing anything about babies other than lambs, calves, and pigs. Poverty was a way of life for this young couple, scrimping to make ends meet. Work consisted of being a bus driver at age eighteen, a short-order cook, and finally going on to get more education and work in offices.
“The Spare: Part 2” chronicles their marriage, which was given about two weeks to two months to survive. They stood two chances of making it work out—slim and none. But through commitment and stubbornness, they hung in there.
The name Sumpter is in the dictionary and says, “a packhorse,” which she relates to a mule, telling Bill he was stubborn as a mule. This book tells a little about the years they lived in Rapid City and how they grew up. She’s sure there are others who have endured more turmoil and grief, but this is her tale of those formative years of marriage.
Thank you for taking the time to read these books, and may you feel the urge to sit down and write your own story for at least your family to know you better.
“The Spare: Part 2” by Marsha May Fairchild Sumpter is now available for purchase via ARP Bookstore: https://authorreputationpress.com/products/the-spare-part-2.