Phone call rekindles 74-year friendship

Two elderly Hordville natives, who first went to work together nearly 75 years ago and haven’t seen each other in decades, met again by phone recently and, according to their children, for the next few minutes it was like all those years just melted away. Ninety-eight-year-old Shorty Hahn and 101-year-old Maynard Ortegren had a phone conversation from their homes in Central City and Brookings, S.D. on Feb. 5 and talked about old times when both men worked at the Farmer’s Co-op Elevator in Hordville, their military service in WWII and other commonalities. 
Hahn, chronicled here in December of 2023 as Nebraska’s oldest active deer hunter, now lives in Central City with his son, Doug, and still enjoys hunting, splitting firewood and spending time at their lodge at the top of the bluff just west of Hordville. Fellow Hordville native Ortegren now lives in Brookings with his daughter, Jane Michael, and, although he suffers the affects of a mild stroke two years ago, he still gets around with the aid of a walker and remains mentally sharp. Neither man looks his age. 
“My folks began their life together living near Hordville and in 1952 Dad started working for Shorty Hahn (at the elevator),” Michael said. “Shorty helped jumpstart Dad’s lifelong career, working for cooperatives.”
Ortegren was already working at the coop’s stockyards in 1952 when Hahn was hired as manager of the elevator and, in addition to being co-workers, the men became friends. 
The coop started out as the Farmer’s Grain & Livestock Association and was originally formed in 1906 with the involvement of Shorty’s grandfather, E.W. Hahn. It is Nebraska’s third oldest cooperative. Hahn would go on to work there another 38 years until his retirement in 1990, but after a short time in Hordville, Ortegren moved on to manage other coops in the region until he retired himself over 50 years later. 
According to Michael, Ortegren’s career took him next to Staplehurst in Seward County where he worked at the elevator in the nearby village of Bee. He next went to the coop in Holdrege from which he would eventually retire.   
“After his retirement he did troubleshooting for various elevators around the Midwest,” Micael said. “Dad has always provided well for his family and is a wonderful father.”
Michael said when her father moved from Lincoln to South Dakota to live with her three years ago, he was 98 and still driving, but has been slowed down some by the stroke. 
Commenting on the Brookings side of the Feb. 5 phone reunion, she said, “It’s been a lot of years since they had seen each other but when I showed Dad Shorty’s picture, I could tell right away that he remembered him. Lots of good memories. They chatted about people and places and Dad knew right away where everything was located. Shorty was a good and kind leader and Dad said he learned a lot from him.”  
From his side of the conversation in Central City, Doug Hahn said the two old coop managers talked about a range of subjects, easily accessing memories more than 70 years old. 
“They talked about those Hordville memories during 1952/1953 when they worked together,” he said. “Maynard talked about his time at the stockyards loading fat cattle into the railcars to send them to the Omaha Stockyards. They reminisced about people and their families who have come and gone. You see, they have outlived most of them, but their special memories of them are still fresh in their minds as if it was just yesterday!”
Hahn said the men also talked about how agriculture has changed, such as crop yields growing from corn yields of 50 bushels per acre when they started in 1952 to currently on average more than 270 bushels per acre. They also discussed how both were involved in increasing the storage capacities of their coops through the decades, recalling how the Union Pacific Railroad required unit trains to have a minimum of 25 cars, noting that the Hordville Coop leased the cars and painted them blue, adding the name of the coop to the name of each grain hopper car.

‘Greatest Generation’
During conversation both men were wearing their WWII veteran caps and spoke of their service. 
“They mentioned their Heroes Flight day trip to Washington D.C. for WWII veterans and the historic sights they saw!” Hahn said. “They also talked about how they both received the WWII 80 Years of Victory Medals they so proudly accepted from their governors!”
“They are truly the Greatest Generation!” Hahn concluded. “They dedicated their lives to the farmer-owned local cooperatives, held many patron dinners/annual meetings and always showed profits to pay back patronage dividends! They also attended many funerals for many friends through the decades!”
According to Michael, her father was born on Feb. 3, 1925 in Hordville to Iver and Nina Ortegren. After graduating from Hordville High School in 1942 he enlisted directly in the Navy Air Corps and was sent to Farragut, Idaho and then took the military train to Florida. 
“At that time the war was calming down and instead of going overseas they were all sent to different locations stateside,” Michael said. “Dad was assigned to Brooklyn, N.Y. and his job was the radioman in flight. He and his pilot flew up and down the East Coast looking for subs. He was in active duty for three years.”
After his discharge from the Navy, Ortegren attended the University of Nebraska on the GI Bill and it was there he met his wife. She was also attending the university on the GI Bill as her first husband had been killed in the war only nine months after their wedding. 
Shorty Hahn also grew up in the Hordville/Polk area. Like Ortegren, most of his life has revolved around agriculture. Son Doug relates that his grandfather, Harvey Hahn, was a local farmer and cattle feeder. During the Great Depression he shipped a load of fat cattle from the Hordville Coop Stockyards to the Omaha Stockyards. The elder Hahn vividly remembers the shock and disgust his father expressed when he received a bill from the stockyards charging him for feed for cattle for which had gotten paid nothing. 
“Shorty, the third oldest of nine siblings, watched his father weep after reading the invoice!” Doug said. “Shorty cried the first time he told this to me.”
When Harvey died in 1945, Shorty was just 17 and in his senior year at Polk High School. The day after his graduation he joined the Army and was soon headed for the Pacific to join the occupation forces at the end of WWII. What he actually did there remains to this day a mystery to his family, as he has been tight lipped as far as his experience there. 
Following his discharge from the Army, Hahn helped build the first concrete headhouse at the Hordville Coop in 1948. (The coop paid $90,000 cash for the structure.) He then went on to build others throughout Nebraska, Iowa and Minnesota until he was hired as manager in 1952 and began his nearly 75-year friendship with Ortegren.
According to Michael, while the Feb. 5 reunion conversation between the two old friends may have been the first in many years, it hopefully won’t be the last. 
“Next time they chat we are going to use FaceTime as I think that will help them to see each other speaking,” she said.