"Verona started first grade in Iowa, then her folks moved to different townships in Minnesota. From 5th grade on she attended Marshall, MN schools and graduated in a class of 64 students. She never lost a day of school during her senior year and even during a blizzard her father took her to school with horses and a sled. During one terrible blizzard her father said it wasn't fit for a horse to go out, yet Verona bundled up and walked the two miles to school and then when school was out her father was waiting for her. She won a free trip to St. Paul as First Prize for the white geese she raised at 4H at the County Fair, then won 4th prize for Minnesota.
She graduated highschool in 1932. After high school she attended Normal Training at Lake Benton, about the time her folks moved to a farm in Fairmont. There was a country school right across from where her folks lived, so her mother talked to a neighbor on the School Board to see if Verona could teach there. So she stayed at home and taught school (K-8th grades) from 1934 to 1936. Her salary was $40.00 a month - she made her own fires and carried her own water. She walked to school, about a half mile a day and gave her mother $10.00 a month for room and board - so her mother bought her first Speed Queen washing machine with the money. With some of her first money, Verona bought a 1929 Ford Roadster convertible with a rumble seat and had that until she married Ray Schaper on 21 Mar 1936 when she sold the car for $79.00 and bought a Speed Queen washing machine that cost $79.00. Then they went to live on 159 acres they bought 12 miles east of Blue Earth, the store in Brush Creek is now on their property. After she had 6 children and they were all in school, Verona managed the kitchen at the Blue Earth Country Club and ran the restaurants at the sale barns in Blue Earth and Truman for five or six years. The Jaycees at Waldorf, north of Wells, have long enjoyed the prime rib dinners Verona prepares - so do many churches and weddings she caters. Her hobby garden is enjoyed by the many people who buy her wonderful cabbages, peppers, and tomatoes. When her children were in 4H, she was an adult 4H leader for 25 years. In 1953 won second prize in tractor pulling contest at Frost, MN. She has boxes of ribbons from County Fair winnings for canning and baking.
Their six children were all born at home in their old house and in 1950 the Schaper's had Weiderholt and Ankeny Contractors build them a new large rambler with four bedrooms. Verona does her own painting (outside and inside). She paints the house outside about every four or five years. Last summer she just painted the outside again. The red house you all can see as you travel east on old route 16. She attributes her long, healthy life to hard work, good home cooked food, and not smoking." (text obtained from the Faribault County Register)