Welcome to beautiful downtown Otho, South Dakota, population: three humans, 29 cats, and 3 9/10 horses.
“The cats and the horses are Mary’s projects,” says Dallas Dietrich, Otho’s self-appointed mayor, historian, and jack-of-all-trades. He points out the window at a very pregnant mare in a wooden stall below their barn-turned-home. “She’s expecting sometime in May.”
“Well, we think May but we’re not sure,” Dallas’s wife Mary interjects from the nearby kitchen, with that half-teasing, half-chiding tone characteristic of couples who’ve been together for years and are used to correcting one another.
She explains that they rescued the malnourished, already-pregnant mare in November, and that the owner predicted she’d foal “in a month or two”—which was at least three months ago.
Dallas, dapper in a royal blue shirt and matching kerchief, smiles and shrugs. “Anyway, we’ll have a new baby in the spring,” he says, his trademark matchstick dangling from the corner of his mouth.
Sitting in the Dietrich’s kitchen, I’m grateful for this story of the now-healthy mare and the expected foal, bolstered by this symbol of Spring, new life and hope, within the context of the story I will soon hear about Dallas’ life. Paradoxically, it is a story I am both honored to be told yet dread to hear. But as Dallas says, it is what it is—his life, his personal history, his journey. It’s the story of an intelligent and driven man who likes to make things happen in ways that help others; who persevered amidst unimaginable tragedy and loss; and who continues to dream and to do even as physical challenges continually threaten to bring him down.
To learn more about Dallas and Meeting the Need, visit their website, www.meetingtheneed.com.
(Read the rest of this story in Spring ‘09 FACES)
