DOWNING, DONALD JOE AND GAYLE (DALY)

by Gayle Downing

Entry F112 from the History of Hooker County Nebraska
with permission of the Hooker County Historical Society

The Joe Downing family. Joe, Gale, Jillana, and Nancee.

Donald Joe Downing was born
1950 to Marion and Olena (Pat) Downing. He
grew up on the "Flying A" Ranch, located
between Arnold and Dunning, Nebraska. Joe
graduated from Halsey-Dunning High
School in 1968. Joe enlisted in the United
States Army and reported for duty in Sep-
tember of 1970.

May 21, 1971 Joe was united in marriage
to Gayle Elaine Daly, daughter of Byron and
Wanda Daly. Gayle graduated from Staple-
ton High School in 1971.

We spent almost a year in Germany,
returning to the United States in April, 1972.
Joe took an early leave from the Army,
exchanging the rest of his time for duty in the
National Guards.

We lived in Dunning and Joe worked at
Mike McGinns and I worked as a bookkeeper
at Van's Ranch Service. In September of 1972
we moved to the "Flying "A" Ranch. Here our
first child was born; Jillana Jodell on
1975.

In November of 1976, we left the ranch and
moved to Rapid City, South Dakota where
Joe trained horses under Roy Yates and later
trained for Stan Barthel in Kearney, Nebras-
ka.

On July 7, 1977 Joe became foreman of the
Dumb-bell Ranch, located in Cherry County
at Hyannis, Nebraska. Here our second
daughter, Nancee Jo was born on
1978. Jillana started kindergarten at Redmill
School in 1980. While on the ranch we
purchased some leather sewing machines and
tools and began making tack and chaps and
repairing boots in February of 1981.

We made a decision to go into boot repair
full time and moved to Mullen, Nebraska in
June 1983. Joe's Leather Shed opened on
June 13 for business and was located in the
back of the Johnson-Vinton Feed Store.
During this time, I worked at Pioneer
Memorial Hospital as an assistant in Medical
Records. Later I started working at the
Hooker County Tribune.

In June of 1985, Joe and I attended a boot
making school in Vernal, Utah. A little while
after that, Joe designed a lace-up cowboy
boot and moved into the Lowe building in
February of 1986, to begin promoting and
producing what we called the "Original
Sandhills Packer". In June, I left the Tribune
to work full time at the boot shop.

The name was changed in May 1987 to "D
Boot Shop" where we still do boot repair and
build custom boots, both the traditional
western boot or the lace-up packer.