The clothes and hairstyles changed through the years, bu the life lessons are timeless.

Welcome to another edition of Hattebergs People.

And coming up.

If you got a dream in life, do it to it, you can't do worse than fail.

You'll see how that philosophy led to an amazing and fulfilling life for Johanna Wilson.

We'll start in the 1970s when she was just getting started.

Then fast forward to today.

It's a lesson in what you can experience and accomplish when you have the courage to actually live out your dreams.

Also, Jim Warren had one of the largest tractor collections in Kansas, and it was a big deal when h finally decided to sell it off.

You'll see why all this farm equipment was so special.

And then find out what happened next.

Hi, everybody.

I'm Larr Hatteberg.

And I'm Susan Peters.

Those are just some of Larry's stories that are dusted off, cued up, ready to roll.

A half hour of Hattebergs People starts now.

These stories are like old friends.

Their lives radiat from the screen, like prophets of the past.

They were teachers, but not in a classroom.

Instead, they taught about lif to those around them who cared to listen.

And I was their student.

On a good day we don't think much about time.

It just passes at its own pace without any help from humans.

But then we look at our calendar and all of a sudden we're older.

Our lif experiences are passing us like millions of sunrises and sunsets.

Almost 50 years ago.

And this is hard for me to say.

Almost 50 years ago, I met a young woman named Johanna Wilson.

Now she was doing a job that only a handful of women were doing back then.

She was a long haul truck driver.

Well, today, still, only 7% of truck drivers are women.

In the intervening decades, Johanna, though, has now traveled the world, earned a master's degree and had experience that very few will ever enjoy.

First, here's the story I did about Johanna in 1978.

For Jo, each morning is just another adventure on the road of life.

You see, Jo has been driving for over seven years now and this rig has seen a lot of miles.

This particular da was no different than any other.

Joe's load might have been wheat to a gulf port or refrigerators to the West Coast.

Instead, it was washing machines to Newton, Kansas.

Originally from Wichita, Jo is now a solo, cross-country independen truck driver based out of Omaha.

But there's something else unique about Jo.

Jo is one of a handful of women cross-country truck drivers.

Her full name is Joanna Wilson.

[Radio:]So don't mess around If you're looking for a race, to be wiped out by a girl would be a disgrace, Cut my bab teeth on a set of Spicer gears, I'm a gear-swapping mama and I dont know the meaning of fear.

Everybody wonders who would drive such a rig like that.

All the truckers are asking whos the girl?

Got ‘em wondering, eh?

Would you believe?

All the truckers are asking who's the gal?

Bugs me in the morning to have any dust up here.

This truck has won the Good Housekeeping SEAL of approval.

I like the challenge.

I like the variety.

All day.

Every day.

Is different.

I like the freedom.

There's no one breathing over my shoulder.

They give me a load in Minneapolis and say take it to L.A. and if it's in the middle of the winter, it's up to m to decide which route to take.

To make the decisions.

Challeng when the truck breaks down and being confronted with problems all by myself out in the middle of the boonies, it's up to me to come up with a solution.

It was extremely difficult the first three years.

Recently, social attitudes have changed so drastically and changed so rapidly that all day long all I get is good response, good vibrations.

It's a lot of fun all day long.

It used to be most of my response was negative, but now it's it's a kick.

I envy any woman who gets out here now.

[Man singing on CB Radio] I think that man ought to sing solo.

So low we can't hear him.

[Man talking on CB radio] With a voice like that, he ought to go far, like Far away.

Arriving in Newton.

This leg of her journey is over.

Still, receipts need to b signed and the cargo unloaded.

29 year old Johanna Wilso is a woman who knows who she is and where she's going.

And her outgoing personality coupled with her job, makes her a topic of conversation no matter where she's at.

Boy, this place is set.

You always have this many guys out here in the morning?

The last guy that was in here unloaded the whole truck by himself.

Johanna Wilson is a free spirit in a regulated society.

Although she loves the trucking business.

She understands there' a lot more of this planet to see than just the United States.

In a few months, Johanna plan to hitchhike around the world.

When I ask why, Joanna says simply.

When I get old, I want to be able to say that I had the world at my fingertips and I didn't let it slip through.

If you got a dream in life, do it to it.

You can't do worse than fail.

Well, after rediscovering this old story, we set out to find Joanna.

I wanted to know whether she ever followe through on all of those dreams and lived up to what those dreams meant to her.

Turns out she did.

I like the challenge.

I like the variety.

All day.

Every day is different.

I like the freedom.

There's no one breathing over my shoulder.

I learned not to care wha anybody else thought about me.

I learned that I could rise to an occasion.

I learned that the world is big, exciting, beautiful place.

And most people are good.

Johanna Wilson Then and now, those old images are from 1978 and those truck driving days when she was 29.

Now she's 73.

And almost 50 years later, I learned the rest of her lifes story.

I wanted to see more of the world.

And when you and I met, I'd had about a year long pla to hitchhike around the world.

First I took a year off to hitchhike around America and say goodbye to all my favorite places and my favorite people.

With that done, it was off to Mexico.

Took me a year and a half to backpack and hitchhike through Mexico.

In Mexico, she remembered a story she read in high school abou a man taking in orphaned boys.

But I finally got to visit the orphanage, and I've been deeply involved since then.

Sometimes I go down for overnight, for Christmas, sometimes nine months at a tim to volunteer as a housemother.

I've serve on the board for about 30 years.

I just resigned from the board about three years ago.

We don't accept any government money, any church money.

It's all just word of mouth.

And it's been going on for a lot more than 50 years now.

Still in Mexico, the ocean called.

She made plans for two trips on a sailboat to Hawaii.

Taught myself celestial navigation, taught myself Polynesian navigation.

And that's what the littl sailboat I was on was 30 feet.

And the skipper let me use a spare sextant and we used my navigation and my Polynesian navigation to get us through the gate of the harbor at Hilo, Hawaii.

One of my proudest achievements because I'm not a math person.

Another trip to Hawaii via sailboat almost ended in disaster when they met a hurricane.

Went through the day.

And that night we were sinking.

And by the grace of that skipper, it was just him and me that he was able to get that sailboat turned around.

And it was like being in a washing machine and he'd go up and see where the next waves were coming from until he was finally able to surf up one wave, let another one hit our tail, turn us round and surf down that wave and get trying to get back to land.

We did we were able to circle around outside the harbor.

We spent quite a bit of time rebuilding that boat.

She had a big hole in her side.

We were sinking.

I what I learned then is if you're breathing, you can take it from there.

Rebuilding that boat could have been a metaphor for her life.

Earlie while she was driving that semi, she knew eventuall she would need more education.

It took me about 20 years to get my education because I was traveling so much.

I've been to eight different universities and you start at the bottom every time.

Got the equivalent of a master's in teaching English to speakers of other languages.

I was luck to be brought on to the faculty as an adjunct professor at the University of Utah.

Really loved working with the refugees and the immigrants at night.

But there was even more travel in her life.

Oh, I know, Alaska.

Oh, Alaska.

Yeah.

I went up there in one of th little cracker box Honda Civics.

The little short ones, and slep in the back of it, went up and camped in the winter, got a job at Denali National Park with and then got a jo with the flight seeing service.

Got a job that takes mountain climbers up to the mountain.

Oh, Alaska.

Everybody needs to go to Alaska before they die.

Talk about a variety of adventures.

Teaching Stone Age Survival School.

Loved it.

This was in southern Utah in the last little bit of America to be mapped.

Meeting the people that signed up for this course on purpose and it lasted a month is the best thing I've done in my life.

And the thing I learned from that, Larry was we're all in this together.

Nobody gets there till we all get there.

Coming back to Wichita in 200 to take care of elderly parents, she endured another adventure, but not of her choice.

But I was diagnosed almost 20 years ago with a cancer so aggressive that they had nothing for me and were just going to give me comfort care to the end.

But her oncologist found a breakthrough study that he thought might help her.

But to qualify Johanna had to go through rounds of the most aggressive chemotherapy.

People said, Oh you're going to lose your hair.

Well, I lost my hair.

I lost my fingernails and toenails.

All the skin on my hands and feet, it was a mess.

But what I learned is how many good people there are.

What I learned is what you can endure.

The trial drug saved my life.

I have had no sign of cancer for 20 years now and every year is a gift and every day is a gift.

A lot of people know that.

I was lucky to learn it, too.

And as if her life wasn't unusual enough.

At East High School, she dated this guy, Gordon Brown.

I say courting.

He says dating in high school.

Vietnam came along.

We didn't mesh anymore.

I had plans that he didn't want to participate in.

And he dropped me like a hot potato.

Broke my heart.

I carried a torch for him for 50 years.

And then a few years ago, Johanna answered the phone at her home in Utah.

It was Gordon.

We started traveling back and forth between his house here in Wichit and my house in the wilderness in Utah for a good three years.

And I finally sold my house.

I left paradise.

But he's worth the paradise.

Good man.

Easy to live with.

And I'm not.

I got lucky.

In my 1978 story with Johanna, her life was exceptional, then full of dreams and unfulfilled adventures.

I ask her, why, then?

That was important.

Johanna says simply: When I get old, I want to be able to say tha I had the world at my fingertips and I didn't let it slip through.

If you got a dream in life, do it to it.

You can't do worse than fail.

I just got lucky that I was rebellious enough to follow my heart.

Ok, that's incredible.

What an incredible woman.

I mean, she everybody says everybody has a story.

She has one, two, three, four, five, six.

She has a lot of stories, right?

She does.

Unbelievable.

I cannot even imagine or I could not even imagine meeting her again after 50 years.

And our wonderful producer found her.

And the interesting part to m is, you know, where she lives, where she can live anywhere in the world.

Where does she live?

A mile and a half from me.

No way.

Yeah.

You know, out on Tyler Roa on the West Side, she's been all over the world, done all of these things.

And she was right here.

Right here.

In Wichita.

But she is a wonderful woman and most of her dreams came true, I think.

And then she's reunited with a guy.

With her first love!

First love, you know.

So it' a wonderful little love story.

And I'm so happy tha we have a happy ending for her.

I'm happy that we found he and that it has a happy ending.

And I think someone should make a movie out of her life.

There we go.

That's all I'm saying.

Mr. Spielberg.

Exactly!

What?

Larry is on the phone.

Alright, dreams come in a lot of different forms.

One of the dreams of Royce and Alice Mattson was to create their perfect family home out of an old, dilapidated church.

And when I visited the Mattsons way back in 1977, that dream was starting to take shape.

They were out to create a warm, loving place where they could make decades of family memories.

Built in the 1880s it was known as the old Triumph Church, located north and west of Sterling, Kansas.

The church fell vacant ten years ago but did not go by way of the wrecking ball.

The old Triumph Church is now a tribute to a young couples dream.

A house that they could afford.

Purchased two years ago for a little over $3,000.

Alice and Royce Mattson have renovated the structure's interior to a family home settin that matches their personality.

Royce Mattson did much of the work himself with the help of his wife's father in law.

He had no experience at carpentry work, but had simple determination.

Well, I really believe that anyone can do what we've done and given a good book and the desire to do it, I think anyone can do it.

I've bent a lot of nails.

In fact, I'm probably the best nail bender around, but it's not too tough.

It's just a lot of hard work.

Schooled in Wichita the Mattsons longed to get out of the city and back to the country where they believe life really is.

They do not have fond memories of the hemmed in closeness of city life.

So close, in fact, they could almost see in their neighbors window.

In fact, it was my neighbor's bathroom window and another ten feet o the other side of the house was our other neighbor.

And we had traffic ten feet in front of us and a little tiny postage stamp of a backyard.

And so you can you can se how much we appreciate this now.

We have squirrels that jump around the trees and they walk across the front of the windows.

We have all kinds of birds to watch.

It's just fantastic.

You could never, never see this in the city.

The home has an open, rustic look and most of the materials used are recycled.

Alice Mattson, utilizing her art degree, has tastefully turned the old church into a reflection of the family's personality.

Yet to be completed is the basement and the exterior of the structure.

The Mattsons anticipate that the entire renovation project utilizing recycled materials will cost $30,000 and will take them five years to complete.

It is a success story, but the Mattsons made it that way because they took a chance.

Believed in a drea and trusted their own abilities.

From Sterling, this is Larry Hatteberg.

Now, that old church building would prove to be every bit as special as Royce and Alice had hoped.

Now their daughter, Katelyn, says her parents went on to make it a truly grand and beautiful house.

Now, she says, the place is filled now with many wonderful family memories.

Can you imagine?

I bet there's so many memories.

Absolutely.

How cool that they found-- They saw that and they go, we can make this our family home.

Creat lots of memories in this church.

That's right.

And that they did.

Okay.

We're going to show it to you.

Yes, here it is now.

Royce and Alice lived the rest of their lives in that house.

In fact, they each passed away there surrounded by their loved ones.

He passed away in 2020.

She passed away in 2021.

So it all goes full circle.

That's right.

It does.

And, you know.

Now their son, Benjamin and his family live in that home.

And it's just down the roa where his sister Katelyn lives.

And many people may recognize the name Katelyn Mattson.

Katelyn is the morning host on Radio Kansas, introducing and discussing classical music each day.

You know... when I was there, I don't remember many kids an now they had the entire family.

And their kids are close by.

Okay.

Katelyns dad Royce, who we referred to, who lived in the house originally, wa a music instructor for 36 years and played the trombone in the Wichita and Hutchinson Symphony Orchestras.

He even played with Sonny and Cher and Alice was highly acclaimed art instructor in the elementary through college levels and was a strong supporter of the arts in Rice County.

So their legacy not only lives on through their children, but in the support of the arts and their music and their artistic ability.

That's incredible.

It is.

And when I went there originally, I just wanted to do a story on this old churc that they turned into the house.

That was the original story.

And now it has been magnified many, many times over.

And we see what living their life and we have their whole life, there.

Living their life and what happens after death.

Unfortunately, they've passed away, but, you know their children have taken over.

Their children are proud of what their parents.

It's a it's a great little story.

The imprint still there.

It's everything still.

Their lives are still there.

They're still alive.

They are still alive.

Well, Larry's done many stories about people who collect things.

A ton of storie about people who collect things.

And as we've seen in most cases, those collections end up being broken up and sold off at some point.

They do.

But such was the case in 2005 when Jim Warren of Galva decided it was time to have an auction and sell off his entire collection.

And what is it?

International Harvester Tractors.

We're about 700 or 800 people here.

We're all pretty friendly.

In the quiet farm community of Galva, Kansas.

Jim Warren is a local legend, a banke and collector of farm equipment.

Warren decided to sell it all at a gigantic farm sale.

I think that it's probabl one of the largest international harvester collection in the state that they all run.

Warren has been collecting for a couple of decades.

He said his children weren't really interested and it was taking up space.

So 90 International Harvester tractors all in running condition, plus scores of collector farm equipment is hitting the sale block.

So many of those items, I bought them at auctions just to keep the from going to the scrap pile and just to preserve the particularly the International Harvester History.

Well, I just hope that somebody, all the buyers are people that have the same feeling that I do and want to take care of that equipment and preserve it for years to come.

It's an incredible amount of farm equipment, tractors, plows, you name it.

He's got it.

And this quiet Main Street in Galva on sale day will be lined with everything he's got.

Itl be 45 on each side of the street and well close the street and have the auction right out there.

Oh, I guess I just grew up with them and they're so dependable and they all have their own personality Every one of them is different.

Oh, there are some of the that I'm really going to miss.

I like some of them better than others, and I've worked on some of them pretty hard, but I think it's time to let them go.

It's time to go.

Now, Jim says he didn't sell everything off in 2005.

There were still a few more auctions over several years.

But finally, by 2022 his entire collection was gone, with the exception of one small tractor and a couple of antique cars.

Got to hold on to a few things.

He decided to hold on to those.

Yes.

So he still has them.

He's still alive and having fun.

And after selling his tractors.

I'm guessing, though, he's collecting something else.

I bet he is.

The man in this next story built motor homes-- six in over a 20 year period.

And that in itself is amazing.

His name was Ted Roth.

I visited him back in 1979.

Roll the film.

Ted Roth of Whitewater, Kansas, has what he calls a little hobby.

You see, he builds motorhomes like this 37 foot Roth liner all by himself.

Well, it's all steel construction frame.

It has thick aircraft type aluminum skin for hail, resistance, has the diesel engine, which has longevity and lots of miles before any major overhauls or anything.

The Roth liner might be called the Rolls-Royce of the motor home field.

Its solid steel frame, boasts 1200 welds.

And quality and safety were two items Ted Roth didn't spare.

Well, I want it to last a lot of years, and too many of them are built far too fragile.

So not being an engineer, I don't know when to quit.

So I just put all the strength in i I thought it could possibly use.

The only thing Roth didn't build was the motor and chassis.

The interior of the Roth liner includes a television, a double sink, oven, radar range, refrigerator, freezer, and even an icemaker In the rear, Roth's daughter, Julie, finds the accommodation as comfortable as a living room.

Building the motor home was not a short term project.

Well, there was about 60 hours a week in 18 months time, so that would amount to quite a few hours.

Oh, there's a lot of pride i driving something that you built yourself, you know, that you created yourself.

It's just kind of fun.

So if you're wondering where your checkbook is.

Stick around.

You could own this hand-built, one of a kind motor home.

All Ted Roth would like is $80,000 to cover materials and labor.

From Whitewater, Kansas, where Ted Roth now drives his dream, this is Larry Hatteberg.

Ted and his wife and his three younger girls logged 183,000 miles, 183,000 miles in their homemade motor homes over the years.

His daughter Fritzie, who lives in Burns, still has two of them.

And she says both are still in great shape and she and her family still use them.

Her dad passed away in 2019, just 18 days shy of his 95th birthday.

Now, I can't even imagine building a motor home.

He built six.

And then traveled 183,000 miles.

Exactly And they're still in use.

Yeah.

And what a legacy for the family.

Oh, absolutely.

You know, your dad is still with you.

Mm hmm.

You know, and every time you get in that Motor home and he probably built them better quality than Chevy or Ford could do.

Oh, I'm sure he did.

Chevy or Fords wouldn't still b running if they were that old.

They could learn from him.

Absolutely.

This journey through the decades has come to an end for this week.

In the meantime we want you to send us an email.

We love your questions and comments.

Until next week, I'm Susan Peters.

And I'm Larry Hatteberg.

Thanks for spending time with us.

We'll see you again soon.