By David Cabela

“For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but 
whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.”
Luke 9:24

The sixth short story from David Cabela in our "Family History" series. These short stories are meant to take readers into the Cabela Family history from his perspective...

"Come on, Mary. Get up here," the pianist said.
Mary shook her head and shrunk back a little in her seat near the piano.

"Ladies and gentlemen, a good friend of mine is going to share her talented voice with you tonight. Her name is Mary and she is going to sing Edelweiss.” The pianist, Frank Penning, obviously was not going to take no for an answer.

The tentative claps from the crowd and the prodding from the friends at her table finally nudged her up to the piano at the Domino Lounge in Chicago. She was on target that night. She performed the song with perfect pitch. She held every difficult high note to its improbable and dramatic finish. She nailed it. The lounge, often chatty and indifferent to the entertainment burst from silent rapture into raucous applause.

Mary bowed her head—a little uncomfortable with the attention, but still finding satisfaction in the applauding praise. She had done well...

The fifth short story from David Cabela in our "Family History" series. These short stories are meant to take readers into the Cabela Family history from his perspective...

One quiet evening at Saint Joseph Catholic Church in Chappell, Nebraska a family gathered to celebrate the life and morn the passing of their matriarch. After the rosary the night before the funeral, this humble woman’s youngest son, Thomas, rose from his pew and made his way up front. The church was small enough that he did not need a microphone. He looked around at the faces. He saw his five siblings sitting among their own families. His saw his wife and his own children. Many eyes were already wet. This woman, his mother, had positively and definitively touched the life of every person in the church. She had also been a picture of aging health before an automobile accident took her life.

Tom swallowed once before addressing his family members. “I want to read a story that most of you have probably never heard,” he said. “But it is one that has impacted my life beyond measure.”

He slowly unfolded a paper and briefly studied it as if he were going to read it, but as he began to speak, he only glanced down at the paper periodically...

The fourth short story from David Cabela in our "Family History" series. These short stories are meant to take readers into the Cabela Family history from his perspective...

“I’ll go,” Dick said.
“No, you’re in the middle of a stack. I’ll go,” Mary said.

Rich, not yet one-year-old, belted out an impressive cry from his crib a room away. Mary stapled the plastic bag of flies she had been working on, slid it into the pile, and slipped into the bedroom hoping to stop the baby’s crying before he woke up any of the other three children.

Dick glanced at the clock—1 a.m. He had to be to work at his father’s furniture store in six hours. He still had at least two hours of filling orders—that was with Mary’s help. He rubbed his eyes and opened another envelope. This one had two dimes and a nickel taped to a folded piece of paper along with a cut-out copy of the ad he had placed in Sports Afield—“Free Introductory Offer—5 hand-tied flies free…25 cents postage and handling.”

“Dick had this positive, never-quit attitude and a belief that anything could be accomplished with determination and hard work,” Mary said. “It was irresistible. We shared a desire for a big family, a love of the outdoors, and a devotion to faith. Some people are made for each other. I believe that. And some of us are lucky enough to meet early in life.”

Dick and Mary married in 1955 and had their first child, Nancy, the following year. By 1961, they had three more children: Geri, Teri, and Rich.

Twenty-five years-old at the time, Dick made his living as manager of his father’s furniture and hardware store. As much as he appreciated the opportunity his father gave him, Dick’s passion steered him in other directions. He wanted to branch out on his own, to build a life and a career that reflected who he was. He understood the life of someone who sold goods. “My father was a merchant. My grandfather was a merchant. It’s what I knew,” he once said.

But his heart was just not into furniture and hardware—he was an angler and a hunter...

"You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh ; rather, serve one another humbly in love."

-Galatians 5:13-

 In order to understand the Cabela’s story, we need to know at least a little bit about the man who started it and about where he came from.

Dreams inspire success.

Some aspire for financial freedom. Others, spiritual enlightenment or family prosperity. We all see success from within the framework of our personal lives. But without goals, without dreams, we have little to strive for.

Dick and Mary Cabela exemplified the possibilities of what can happen when you blend a little bit of ambition with a ton of hard work, faith, and freedom. They would’ve argued luck played a part, but lottery winners don’t spend decades of toil, heartbreak, and determination molding companies that employ thousands and fuel the dreams of countless more.

By any standard, Dick and Mary were successful. They built a world-renown outdoor outfitting business from scratch. They raised nine children. They nurtured a lasting marriage based on a solid foundation of faith and love. They hunted and fished all over the globe, pursuing a passion for the outdoors which permeated throughout every facet of their lives. Then, inspired by that passion, they founded the Cabela Family Foundation to help ensure those wild places endure for generations to come.