Bare-Faced Messiah (PDF) - Apologetics Index

The hospital in Tilden, Nebraska, where L. Ron Hubbard was born in 1911.
His aunt Toilie, who worked in the hospital, is second from the right.
dark-haired and the Waterburys had no more than a hint of auburn in their colouring - nothing like
the impish little carrot-top who gurgled happily as he was passed from one lap to another. Sevenyear-old
Margaret, known in the family as Marnie, spoke for everyone when she proclaimed her new
nephew to be 'cute as a bug's ear'.
During that Christmas May told her parents that Hub had got a new job on a newspaper in
Kalispell, Montana, and that they would be moving there from Omaha in the New Year. She was
hopeful that it would prove to be a step up for them.
In the spring of 1912, May began writing long and enthusiastic letters from Kalispell. Perhaps
missing the family, she often hinted that they might consider joining her and Hub in Montana.
Kalispell was a fine, modern city, she wrote, with paved streets, electric lighting and many fine
houses. The surrounding Flathead Valley was famous for its fruit and at blossom time the orchards
of apples, peaches, pears, cherries and plums had to be seen to be believed. One Kalispell
farmer, Fred Whiteside, was so confident about the quality of his fruit that he boasted he would give
$1000 to anyone finding a worm in one of his apples.
May's letters gave her parents much to think about, for they both recognized that the move to
Oklahoma had not been a success. When they first arrived in Durant, Lafe bought a livery barn on
the outskirts of town and for several months the whole family lived in the hayloft above the animals.
They built a cookhouse on the property so they had somewhere to eat their meals and then started
on a house.
None of the children minded the privations in the least - indeed, they rather enjoyed thinking of
themselves as true pioneers - but Lafe found the humid summers very debilitating. It made May's
description of the blossom in Montana all the more enticing.