In the spring of 1904, the family moved back to the United States, after William and Kate fell ill. The family spent the summer of that year in New Hampshire on a farm with Kate's sister before they relocated to Des Moines, Iowa. In 1908, the family moved to Farson, Wyoming where they settled for the next five years, living in a small three-room house. During the five years in Farson, Rambo and the family planted crops and raised chickens for food, often struggling to produce enough for all members of the household. When Rambo was sixteen, he began working as a water boy to earn money for the family. He soon got a more permanent job driving a Fresno scraper, a metal basket that dumped dirt into an irrigation ditch, but was subsequently fired after he joined a group of workers protesting the wage. He then worked as an orderly in the local hospital and caught the attention of the resident doctor, who began to teach him common procedures such as catheterization. After the doctor left the hospital, Rambo performed many of the former doctor's duties, assisting in the operating room and helping out with emergencies at midnight. He learned to recognize and use different surgical knives and other tools and started handling the catheterization of paraplegics. He attended a nursing class and was two months short of graduating with a registered nurse's certificate when the family suddenly moved to Idaho after William was asked to preach in Emmett. In March 1914, the family moved again to Chehalis, Washington, where Rambo remained until September 1915, graduating from high school at the age of twenty-one.
