My parents—Alva Bayard Cavett and Erabel Richards Cavett—were both English teachers and had landed better-paying jobs in Lincoln. We moved into a plain three-story house on an elm-lined street.

I was an only child and could never imagine my parents wanting more than me. My father had taught in nearby Comstock for about $700 a year, and the idea of another child was probably unthinkable. I can still hear him say about those times, “Your mother and I had to decide whether to spend a dime on a movie or buy bread.”

Then in 1946 (sic), when I was 10, my world turned upside down. My mother died of breast cancer, and I couldn’t figure it out. No parents of the kids I knew died. They didn’t know much about breast cancer then, and my mother was young—36. Her death made me feel betrayed by life and embarrassed.

About a year and a half later, our house had three people in it again. My father married Dorcas Crawford, a teacher who lived next door.

Author- Dick Cavett

Cavett Elementary School was named for Alva and Dorcas Cavett. Alva was a teacher at Lincoln High School; Dorcas was an LPS elementary school teacher and a University of Nebraska-Lincoln teacher.