From the Farm, Railroads, Sewing Machines & Beyond.

Dorothy Nelson, oldest sister of my mother, Deloris Pickens, passes away at age 98.

2011-12-28T10:24:00.000-08:00

Here is an article done on Dorothy Nelson, soon after her 98th birthday. She passed away this week. Lovely woman.

Dorothy Nelson doing great at 98, article by the New Richland Star

Wednesday, 27 July 2011 11:41

98 AND COUNTING — Dorothy Nelson of Ellendale celebrated her 98th birthday July 1st. She still lives alone in her house, with very little help, and can recollect many moments in Ellendale history. (Star Eagle photo by Kathy Paulsen)

By KATHY PAULSEN
Staff Writer
"Dear Lord, So far today, I am doing all right. I have not gossiped, lost my temper, been greedy, grumpy, nasty, selfish or self indulgent. I have not whined, complained, cried or eaten any chocolate. I have charged no money on my credit card, but I am getting out of bed in a minute. I think that I will really need your help then."

So sayeth the label on Dorothy Nelson’s refrigerator.

Nelson turned 98 years old on July 1st, another year for others to be blessed by this sharp, witty little woman. She is a great woman, and deeply loved by many.

The oldest child of seven children in the family of Lafayette and Irene Cress, Dorothy was born in 1913. Her sister, Daisy, was born in 1918. Lawrence, a brother, was born in 1921. Another brother, Donald, was born in 1922, and later died in World War II. The family tree also includes an infant brother, who is buried in Geneva; and a sister, Deloris, born in 1927, and living in Oklahoma. Another brother, Richard, was born in 1935 and killed in a car accident in 1957. Dorothy and Deloris are the only two living.

Dorothy was just a baby when she and her family moved to Minnesota. Her father was a farmer. The day he sold $600 worth of hogs, she entered the world. Ninety-eight years ago, $600 worth of hogs was a lot and a great deal of money.

The Cress family, of Danish decent, moved to the Lerdahl area in Southern Minnesota, when she was less than 2 years old. It was a big change for Dorothy and her family. The family moved two miles west of Geneva in 1918.

Back in that day, high school girls usually boarded with townspeople because of transportation issues. So, Dorothy lived with Andrew Muri. Dorothy later left high school when she was only a junior, as she had an ill mother who needed care.

She also needed to care for her brothers and sisters. It was hard for her to leave school, but that was expected back then; people had to accept the responsibility.

Dorothy later met and married Iver Larson. They were the parents of three children, Warren Larson, who lived in Michigan and is no longer with us; Mary Sullivan of Emmons, MN and Roger Larson of rural Ellendale. She is also a grandmother of 11 and great grandmother of 23.

Dorothy later married Henry Nelson after Iver passed away. In 1973, she moved into town from the farm and has lived in the little house on the corner north of Lerberg’s in Ellendale ever since. Her son, Roger, and his wife, Joyce, live on the family farm.

When Lerberg’s Foods delivered her groceries on Friday, July 1st, there was also a big, bright birthday card, signed by many friends, neighbors and relatives, included in the grocery bag. Many more cards were sent her way that week as well, from many corners of the world.

She also enjoyed birthday phone calls and messages, including a phone call from her son Warren’s wife, Thelma, who lives in St. Augustine, Florida. Dorothy remarked that Thelma has a sweet little white dog, Snickers. Dorothy also said she received a birthday card and snapshots from her grandson, Matthew.

We can't forget a beautiful bouquet of flowers, completed with a nest of robin eggs, from her grandson Brad Larson.

Dorothy has always loved flowers and enjoyed working in her gardens. Last fall, she received a helpful hand from the Healthy Seniors group. The group came and cleaned Dorothy’s flower gardens before the snow flew. Interestingly enough, Dorothy often dreams of working in her garden and waking up feeling as tired as if she had worked all night.

Dorothy lives alone with very little extra help, and does so very well. She experiences some difficulty with her eyes, which limits her from doing some things she loves to do, like reading books. Her memory is as sharp as a tack.

She remembers an incident when her family lived on the Doc Ertel farm, near Ellendale. One of their sheep had fallen in the water tank. With no one home, she had to call her Grandpa Richard (Hanson) to come and get the wet, soaked beast out of the water tank. She felt so sorry to have to ask for help, but getting the sheep out of the water tank was more than she could do alone.

Another recollection was of a school picnic when her niece, the teacher, marveled at her home-baked beans, cooked of course in a cast iron Dutch oven.

Held in the old Lutheran church in Ellendale, the church ladies often had lutefisk and lefse suppers. The ladies had to get cream cans of hot water from the creamery to wash the dishes, as they didn't have a water heater.

Dorothy received cards from all over the country, including one from a Marine grandson who lives near Troy, New York; a niece, who lives near Nederland, Texas; and a grand niece who is in the Peace Corps in Mongolia, to name a few.

Her grandson, Brad, the one who sent her the flowers for her birthday, teaches in Chicago. She was proud to say he loaded a school bus with volunteers recently en route to Alabama to help with the crisis there.

Neighbors and businesses up and down Main Street in Ellendale brought memories and giggles to Dorothy. She recalls "Speed" Nelson’s grocery store on the southeast corner of Ellendale, which was later moved to the northwest corner of town. Then there was Norris Thompson, who had a shop on Main Street. He once sold Dorothy a tractor.

Cecil Campbell ran the Ellendale Eagle; Anderson, Butcher Brothers, had the meat market; Miller brothers ran the hardware store, and also worked on wells, windmills and sold appliances. Little Joe Margaheck, had a beer joint; and Sander Jellum, a barber shop. There was also Nelson Meland’s hardware store; Olson Implement; Sande’s Bank and Aronson’s Garage.

George Jorgensen, along with his wife and two girls, had a cafe; Art Thorsen had a barber shop and beauty salon, and Johana Jensen and her husband ran a restaurant. Tillie Lerum sold hamburgers for a nickel and had boarders in the old hotel. Dorothy also mentioned that Ellendale used to have outdoor free shows.

"Gus Jacobson Gas Station,” which is on the corner across the street from the old creamery, now Al's Body Shop in Ellendale, was the first gas station in town. She commented that it might not have been built by Jacobson but by Harvey Mohs.

A highlight of Dorothy’s life — shortly after Helen and Warren Sawyer built their new home — was when Helen and her daughter, Julie, invited many of the older ladies in town to Helen’s home for lunch. The guest list was as follows: Nina Olson, Helen "Speed" Nelson, Edythe Ellingson, Mrs. Joyce Aronson, and Louella Thompson.

Dorothy then commented that she enjoys reading the Whatever Comes To Mind column in the Star Eagle. It gets her mind thinking. When asked how she stayed so smart, she remarked, "I'm always thinking, even when I'm sleeping. You'd be surprised what I know. I play mind games. I'll start with the beginning of the alphabet and name cities or people etc., that go with the letter A and work my way to the end. I think about all the things we did when we were young; my, how the times have changed over the years. Oh, if television had such ‘reality’ shows now."

Filled Ice Box Cookies - recipe for a wood/coal burning stove.

2011-12-22T12:42:00.000-08:00

So here is the recipe for the Date Swirl Cookies, as I came to know them as a child growing up. My mother, Deloris Pickens used this recipe from her sister Mrs. Daisy Wilker, which was passed down to her, from their mother, Irene Cress.

It was known as Filled Ice Box Cookies

Filled Ice Box Cookies

1 C. butter
1 C. sugar
1 C. brown sugar
3 eggs
4 C. flour
1 tsp. soda
1 tsp. cinamon
1/4 tsp. salt
Roll 1/2 " thick (like jelly rolls) and fill with following mixture. Chill, slice and bake 12 minutes in hot oven

Filling
1 lb dates or raisins
1/2 C. sugar
1/2 C. water
1 C. finely chopped nuts
Cool in double boiler until a thick paste. Cool and spread.

Now to put this into modern terms, probably be best if one chills the dough, like one would for sugar cookies, before putting the date paste and rolling. Also one could use just a pan, instead of a double boiler, in order to cook down the dates/raisins. Also, this was originally a recipe for a wood/coal burning stove. Preheat the modern oven for 375 degrees. Watch and bake for 12 minutes. Take a look at 12 minutes to see if golden brown, if not, contnue to bake at 1 1/2 minutes to 2 minute intervals. Can be variable upon your cookie sheet and oven.

Now this is a tasty old fashioned danish cookie recipe. Enjoy! Gail Pickens-Barger

Christmas in my childhood in the 1930's

2011-12-21T08:29:00.000-08:00

Christmas in my childhood in the 1930’s

    I will try and remember some of the things that we did at Christmas when I was a child. The main thing I remember is that my parents told us that if we not good that Santa would not come to visit us. That kept a lot of commotion from popping up as the Holiday Season drew near.

    The first Christmas gift that I remember was a little Red chair that Santa had left in an upstairs closet for me. I always wondered how he knew to put it in that closet. The next gift that I remember was that I received a doll for every Christmas. Each year the doll that I received was larger. I had 5 dolls ranging from a very small doll to a large doll and I played with the 5 dolls all at the same time as I got a little older.

    I remember that my brother Don bought me a little tin tea set and I kept that until I was about 25 years old and then I let my son Hugh play with it and it was lost. I even had the box until I was that old. Another gift that I really enjoyed was a little cast iron Model T Ford. I liked that toy car . We also received marbles and we played marbles on a crocheted rug.

    Now some of the traditions that we celebrated at our house. We usually went to the Christmas program at the Methodist church in Geneva and I remember one year that we went to church in the sleigh which was pulled by the horses. It was 3 miles to Geneva from our house and the roads must have been blocked with snow and we were unable to go by car. Think we heated rocks to keep us warm and wrapped up in blankets for the ride into town.

    My Mother always made her famous date filled cookies at Christmas time and I have continued to do that every year also. The receipt was brought from Denmark by her Mother and they are very delicious cookies . We usually had goose or duck for our Christmas dinner and Mother made oyster stuffing or her stuffing made with bread, raisins, apples, onions and an egg. I still make the dressing with the apples and so forth. We had mashed potatoes and gravy and cranberries and probably creamed peas and carrots. Maybe jello with whipped cream .

    As there were 6 of us children in the family we drew names after we were a little older and usually had only one gift. We did have a Christmas tree and decorations.

    We always had a Christmas program in the country schools where I grew up. The children put on plays, we sang Christmas carols and one year I learned how to clog and we danced for the parents. Two children were assigned to draw the curtains and we were out in the hall until our turn came to recite in the plays or sing. Of course all the parents came and I can’t remember if we had refreshments or not but I think that we did.

    I can remember being in a church program in Ellendale after we had moved to the farm south of Hope. I would have been about 9 years old at that time. I can remember my Mother saying that I had the lightest blonde hair of any child in the program.

    The folks used to send out a lot of Christmas cards and the postage on the cards was one and one half cents. They heard from all the cousins and brothers and sisters in Iowa and their nieces and nephews. It was a time when families kept in contact with each other before the day of long distance telephones.

    There was not much money to be spent on gifts but we all had a good time anyway. Remember that this was in the Great Depression and money was very limited. This is a little about what I remember in the 1930’s.

Farming in the 30's and 40's

2011-09-17T08:02:00.000-07:00

Farming in the 30’s and 40’s

I will try and tell you about what I remember about farming when I was a child. Bear in mind that I am now 84 years old and I hope these memories are correct.

When I was a child in the 30’s we were in the middle of the Great Depression and the first 8 years of my life was spent on a 80 acre farm 3 miles west of the village of Geneva Minnesota. This farm had a house, barn, chicken house, hog house, machinery shed, summer kitchen, brooder house and a small building next to the windmill with a water tank on top of it. The house had a kitchen, dining room, living room and a bedroom down stairs. I think there were 3 bedrooms upstairs and the girls slept in one bedroom and my brothers slept in the other bedroom. We had running cold water in the house but the outhouse was outside. In the winter we used the pot and also at night if we had to go to the bathroom. We did have electricity in the house at one time but we couldn’t pay the bill and the electricity was cut off.

I don’t remember my Mother using the summer kitchen but it was used for storage and I remember that there was a table in it and clothes lines to hang the clothes to dry in the winter. In back of the summer kitchen and outside was a huge bin that we dumped used tin cans and bottles. South of the summer kitchen my Father had planted about 6 black walnut trees. We had a large garden and think we had berry bushes in it. I picked up a white wasp nest one time and never did that again. I thought it was a ball.

Inside the water building we had a large whet stone mounted on a bicycle sort of body. You peddled it and then some one else held the axe and sharpened it and it was also used to sharpen tools. Outside the tool shed was an old buggy that wasn’t used any more and I used to play in it. Inside the tool shed was a gleaner that was used to clean up seeds. That was used to get the chaff out of oats and so forth. Suppose my Dad cleaned some of the oats after harvest and picked out the good seeds to plant next years crop. I remember my Dad going through the best looking corn ears and picking out the best looking seeds. This was before the days of hybrid corn.

My Dad had a small herd of dairy cows and I think it was about 15 or 20 milking cows. He raised mostly Guernseys as they produced a richer milk than the Holsteins. My father had a Model T Ford at that time and I think he used it in good weather to take the cream to Geneva. If you didn’t have gasoline all the time you could use kerosene to run those cars. Her bought it new for $400.00 and that was sometime in the 20’s. The creamery in Geneva sold ice and in the winter they cut the ice out of Geneva Lake and packed it in saw dust in the ice house. Think the ice lasted all summer and my Dad would bring a cake home ever so often. I don’t remember if we had an ice box on that farm or not.

My older brothers and sister used to be dropped off at Geneva Lake when my Dad went to the creamery and grocery store in the summer. They had fishing poles and would fish until my Dad came back to get them.

We had 4 horses on that farm to pull the machinery for plowing and harvesting. I remember the name of the roan horses and they were called King and Pet. We also had 2 dark colored horses but I can’t remember their names. The dark colored horses did most of the farm work. Pet the female roan horse was ornery and a piece of work. She didn’t like to work. One time my Dad had to go to Iowa and Larry and Don were probably 12 and 14 years old. They had to hitch up King and Pet to haul the manure out to the field. King and Pet always stomped their feet and raised cain for my Dad but the boys put the harness on them and they never moved a foot. They hitched them up and never gave the boys any trouble but they loved to devil my Father with their actions.

Now I want to tell you about the farm implements that we used for farming. We had a walking plow that you hitched one horse to and it was used mostly for plowing a garden. You walked behind the plow and guided it in the furrow. They made several different kinds of walking plows depending on the soil that you were working with. Every small village had a blacksmith and he sharpened plows and worked on other implements and made implements. The blacksmith was a very important person in the farming community. Then you had a sulky plow and it was a riding plow. One wheel was larger than the other as the small wheel ran in the furrow. Then you had the two bottom plow, which was also a riding plow and it used 2 teams of horses. You controlled the horses by pulling on the reins either left or right. To start the horses you said getty up and to stop the horses you said whoo.

After you had plowed the field you then had to disc it to break up the soil. I think the disc were all riding implements and were pulled by two teams of horses. That was to further prepare the soil to make it ready for planting. The discs were round metal pieces probably about 20 inches tall. You had levers in front of the hard metal seat to lift and lower the discs. I think my Father also had a cultivator which was also a riding implement with levers to lift and lower the small cultivators. There was probably about 16 small cultivators on this implement. It was used for summer fallowing, weed-eradication and mulching. I think my dad had one called a spring tooth cultivator. This covers the implements that were used to get the ground ready for planting.

Now I will try to tell you about the implements that we used to plant corn and oats. We had a riding corn planter that had two seed boxes on it. The boxes had a plate in the bottom that let the corn come out to be planted. If I remember right they had a wire running through it so that the corn would be planted evenly. There was a tiny plow in front of the seed box to open up the seed bed and then there were a couple of small discs in back to cover the seed up. The wire had a knot in it and worked the plate in the bottom of the seed box so that your corn was planted evenly. You had to move the wire after you planted every row. The corn was planted so that you could cultivate the field both ways after the corn came up.

The implement companies made corn and cotton seed planters depending on how we wanted to use them. We also had what was called a drill. It was a large implement with a big seed box that we used to drill in oats. It could also be used to drill in clover, flax, sedan grass, wheat, rye or even corn, peas etc. without clogging. This probably also used two teams of horses. I think the drill had discs of some kind to cover up the seeds.

There were several different types of corn cultivators. We used one that was powered by a team of horses and you had to ride on the hard metal seat. I don’t remember if ours was a disc cultivator or had something like a small plow to cultivate the corn. You had to plow the corn at least 4 times to get the weeds out and you plowed it both lengthwise and crosswise of the field. The old saying in Minnesota was that your corn needed to be knee high by the 4th of July. So there was a never ending job to be done in the summer time. When the corn was mature we picked it by hand. You put a corn husker on and went out in the field with a wagon and a bunch of kids and picked the corn off the stalks and threw it in the wagon. You husked the corn in the field and then took it to the corn storage building. The corn storage building was not all enclosed, if I remember right it had boards that were a few inches apart and you stored the corn in it. I think we used the corn to feed the pigs and we took some to the mill in Geneva and had it ground up for chicken feed and maybe fed some to the cows. We also had it ground up fine so that we could make corn bread out of it. Every small village had a mill as they didn’t have power grinders on most farms in the 30’s and early 40’s.

We also drilled corn in sometime in June or July and we didn’t let that corn mature. We used that corn to make silage for the cattle. Some farmer in the area had a silage cutter that was used to cut up the corn and put it in the silo to feed the cattle in the winter time. They had a corn binder that cut the immature corn and wrapped some kind of cord around the corn so that you could shock the corn. It was then shocked by hand and then taken into the silo with a team of horses and a wagon. It had to unloaded by hand and pitch fork and put into the ensilage cutter and then was blown up into the round silo.

We also had a hand operated corn sheller that you put the corn in and turned a handle and shelled the mature corn that was then used to feed the animals. That sheller was kind of fun to run and the children could do that. That’s about all I can think of in connection with raising corn. Now we will go to oats.

The ground was prepared for oats the same as for corn and the oats was drilled in with the drilling implement. We didn’t have to do any cultivating of the oats but I remember we used to have to pick the wild mustard out of the oats fields by hand. Now we will go to the harvesting of the oats. We had a team driven oats binder that cut the oats and then wrapped the binder twine around the oats so that it was in bundles. After it was cut you then had to shock the oat bundles by hand. You put about 5 or 6 bundles in a shock which was shaped like a pyramid. This was so when the men came to the fields to put the oats in the wagons you didn’t have to pick up each bundle separately. This was also hand work with a team of horses and a wagon and probably one person drove the wagon and the other pitched the oat bundles in the wagon. This was done by all the neighbors who came in to help harvest the oats and take it to the threshing machine.

One neighbor would have a threshing machine and then 5 or 6 other neighbors would help each other get the threshing done. This usually happened about the first part of August. The neighbors would come in with their wagons and teams of horses and go to the fields and pick up the oats by hand. They would then bring the oats to the threshing machine and it would be run through the machine and the oats would go in a wagon the straw would be thrown out the chutes. My father was the one who would usually make the straw stack and so I don’t think he helped pick up the oats. There was a real art in making a straw stack and he was probably the only one who was good at it in our neighborhood. The oats would then be taken to the building called the grainery and unloaded by a scoop shovel. That covers the oats quite well, now I will try to tell you about the machinery we used for hay and what we did with it.

We had prairie hay and alfalfa hay on our farm. When the hay was the right height and you had some sunny days and it was dry it was cut by a mowing machine. This was also a horse driven machine and it had sharp blades on it and we were warned as children to be very careful around the mower. After the hay was cut we then used a side delivery rake to pile up the hay in rows. That was also horse driven and you ran the rake over the hay and dumped it so that it made a nice even row. We did not have a hay baler on our farm so we handled the hay in a different way. The barns in Minnesota had a hay mow. After the hay was put in rows it was picked up by another machine called a hay loader. We had a hay wagon with board on the sides and you put rope slings on the bed of the wagon. You then ran over the row of hay and pitched the hay to cover the sling evenly. When you had the right amount in the sling you then put down another sling and put hay on top of it. You usually had 3 slings loaded in your wagon.

You took the hay to the hay mow and attached the sling to a carrier that ran on a track into the hay mow. You then attached the horses to the sling with a double tree and the horses pulled the hay up into the hay mow and then you dumped the hay and spread it out. You had one person in the hay mow and the other pulling the hay up into the mow. You had to spread out the hay evenly in the hay mow and then in the winter you pitched the hay down to the cattle and spread it out in the barn so they could eat it.

Now I will tell you about the manure spreader. It was a machine that was pulled by horses and it had some kind of a belt that was attached to something so that it would move. It also had rotating bars on the back to spread the manure evenly on your fields. In the barn you had a container that ran on a track to the manure pile. You had the scoop the manure out every day and put it in the container and then run it outside to the manure pile and dump it. I think they let it sit there for a while and dry out some. Then you had to put it in the manure spreader and take it to the fields and spread it on the ground. This was before the day of lots of commercial fertilizer and so the farmers were doing organic farming at that period of time. I think I have covered the machinery that we used quite well and remember I am going back 75 years and kids didn’t pay that much attention. So there may be some errors in this stuff.

I will now try to tell you about taking care of the animals and girls weren’t supposed to know that stuff. All the boar pigs had to be castrated and the farmers did that themselves. They didn’t call a vet to do that. So if you had 20 or 30 little pigs to castrate they did it when the pigs were small. My father sold the male calves as veal and didn’t keep them and I don’t know if he did anything to them or not. We always kept a registered bull and we kept him locked up in the barn. When a cow would come in heat the bull would do his duty and we usually kept the good heifers and I think we took some to market.

We also raised chickens on the farm and when I was big enough I picked the eggs and got them ready for market. We raised ducks for several years and I helped take care of them. The chickens had to sit on the duck eggs as the ducks are worthless on sitting on their eggs and raising their young.

The farm was a lot of work and you had things to do every day and there was not much to do after the work was done but to play cards in the winter and go to the free shows in the summer time. The county fair was the big thing and my Dad would try to take us every day. The fair was the third week in August after the oats was harvested and before the corn was ready. We used to have a Harvest festival in Ellendale and they would Barbecue a pig in a pit and all the farming families would come to town and visit and some of them would drink a little.

On the farm south of Hope where we moved in 1936 the man who owned the threshing machine would have a settling up party after the oats was harvested. The farmers exchanged work and they kept track of the hours that they worked on each farm. Then Pete Motz charged them for harvesting the oats and I think everyone brought food and Pete always had a keg of beer. He was Bohemian and most of our neighbors were Bohemian and they let the little kids drink a little beer.

We would go to the Bohemian wedding dances when one of the neighbors children were married. My folks didn’t dance but they visited with the neighbors and the little Bohemian girls taught me to do folk dancing when I was about 8 years old. Well I think I have rattled on long enough and this is a little bit more about what I remember in the 30’s and early 40’s… I was lucky to have a Massey Harris catalog dating in the 1930’s that had pictures of all the farm implements so I was able to describe them better…

This Really Happened

2011-05-22T10:48:00.000-07:00

This Really Happened

    I will tell you about a few funny things that really happened to myself and other people.   I will start out with some things that happened in my early years. One time my father went on a bus trip to Winona Minnesota where the Watkins Co is located. Watkins had sponsored the trip and it didn’t cost the people anything to go . They handed out all the passengers a bottle of Watkins Liniment. One of the men on the trip decided that the liniment would be good to drink so he took a big swig of it. My Dad came home laughing about it. I think he said the guy had been drinking before he got on the bus.

    My uncle Ernest had a farm in South Dakota and for some reason or another my Dad went out to where his farm was located on the pretense that he was interested in buying the place. Uncle Ernest had been having some trouble with the tenant. So my dad went out there and starts talking to the tenant. The tenant did not know that he was Uncle Ernest’s brother in law. He proceed to tell my Dad how he had cheated his landlord. Seems he divided up a hog with Uncle Ernest and instead of giving him a good hog, he gave him one that had died of some disease. My dad of course came back from South Dakota and told Uncle Ernest about it. I don’t know what he did, but probably cancelled the rental contract. More than one way to skin a pig.

    Uncle Ernest had owned that farm during the dust bowl days and guess it was a pain to take care of it. Uncle Ernest retired in about 1941 or 42 and he and my cousin Verna went to South Dakota and decided to farm that land. Everything Uncle Ernest did turned out well. They raised wheat and had good crops for a year or two and he sold the farm with a handsome profit. He had never farmed in his life but did well with that investment.

    I started working on the railroad and was called a green horn and the first thing they pulled off on you was to send you out to the house track and get the seal off a flat car. Of course the flat cars could not be sealed like the regular cars and you could spend 30 mins looking for the seal and then you realized that it was a joke. More fun.

    I was working 3rd trick here in Ponca City and at that time we had a local train that went to Blackwell and came back every day. They spent the day switching the smelter in Blackwell. The crew on this local were from the Panhandle division and they slept in the caboose at night. Well one morning about 3 a m one of the crew showed up at the ticket counter and wanted to cash a check for $40.00. Seems 4 of the crew got in trouble with the law. They had started on a small drinking spree after getting in here about 9 p m. One of the crew got away before the police could pick him up and he was in the caboose under the covers. The police knocked on the door and asked him where he had been. He said, ” Oh I have been sleeping.” The policeman said…”Well do you always sleep with your boots on?”

    In the late seventies I along with some other drivers transported the High School Band to Okla City for a state contest. We had been in the city for a couple of days and were getting ready to come back to Ponca City. There were several girls sitting in the bus and I was sitting in the drivers seat. I had been looking straight ahead just killing time and the girls started to twitter in the seats behind me. It was a real funny kind of laugh. Soon they started doing that again and I looked out the window and a station wagon with a load of boys went by and one of the boys mooned us. I was shocked out of my head and said ‘Oh my g I don’t believe this.’ One of the girls had been on my route when she was in fourth grade and she went home and told her Mother. She said I thought Mrs Pickens was going to have a heart attack.. Never a dull moment.

    In 1980 four of us decided to go to the national bowling tournament in Seattle Washington. We were in Seattle for a couple of days and decided to take a tour of the harbor. About the same thing happened. We were out on a tour boat and a small boat went by and everyone started to laugh. We were mooned by 3 people on the small boat. For several years we had a running joke about when you were mooned last…

    In the early eighties we had several rent houses and that will really give you an education. People show up to rent a place and they are so good at lying. They have been lying all their lives and you have a hard time catching them at it. It took me about a year to get smart to them. I joined the retail credit and when you ask for a credit check before renting they do not come back.

    You can not believe the mess that some of the renters leave. Dale rented a house one time to some people and he failed to ask it they had any animals. Turns out that they had 6 pit bull dogs of all different sizes. This particular rent house had a small fenced back yard but they didn’t keep the dogs in the back yard, they brought them into the house. They failed to pay the rent so were only in the house about 3 months. Well the house was carpeted and I had to steam clean the carpet. Steam cleaning did not take the odor out and there was a small screened in back porch that had been used as a toilet. The stench was terrible. I went down to the farm supply place and bought a bottle of creosote dip. I remembered using it on the farm in the barn so I mixed it with water and gave the porch a good cleaning. Well it killed the smell but you could smell the creosote for ever. Now the carpet was another story…I dumped baking soda on it, I dumped coffee on it, and neither did much to kill the smell. Finally I went down and bought a couple of gallons of vinegar and I mopped the carpet with it. That almost killed all the smell. What a mess.

    We had another renter that was not paying the rent and it was summer time. The air conditioning went out and they wanted it fixed. We refused to fix the air conditioning and they moved out owing us rent money. That seemed to be the only way to get them out.

    Most of our rent houses had stoves, refrigerators and dish washers. When they moved out I usually had a nice big job cleaning up the stoves. I found it was easier to buy new liners for the heating elements than it was to try and clean up the mess. The bathrooms were almost always dirty and I had to spiff them up also. Sometimes it was easier to repaint than it was to get the walls clean.

    The first day I drove the school bus the kids shot paper wads all over the bus in the evening. The next day I told the kids that who ever was the last person on the bus that they had to pick up the mess. Needless to say I didn’t have any more trouble with that. One day I was substituting on a route and a senior high boy brought a small animal trap on the bus and was snapping it in the back of the bus. I called him up to the front and made him give me the trap and when he got off the bus I gave it back to him.

    One of our drivers was taking kids home and she looked up and a boy was choking another child with a bolo tie. The child was starting to turn blue and of course she stopped the bus and took the tie away. You could drive the bus for 6 weeks and know that a child would be poking other children with a pencil but it was heck to catch them in the act. You can’t see everything and drive safely. But usually you knew who was doing that kind of stuff. And then of course parents don’t think their little angels do that kind of stuff.

    One day one of my former students came up to me in a restaurant and said ‘Mrs Pickens how did you ever drive that bus and keep order. I have 3 children now and they almost drive me crazy.’ She had been one of my favorite students but she had twin sisters that were always trying to sneak a coke on the bus.

    I served on the board of the Okla State Quilters for several years and I was secretary when this happened. Two women came up to the President and were complaining about something they didn’t like. The President told them she had 2 vacancies on the board and she wanted to know which vacancy they wanted to serve on. End of discussion and complaining as they didn’t want to do that..

    One thing I like about caller I D is that people used to tell me that they called about something and I wasn’t home. They can’t try that old story any more and get away with it. I feel sorry for the young people now. I guess it is a good thing that their parents can keep close tabs on them but sometimes a person needs to get away from the telephone.

    Now I am going to tell you about one of the people on our bus route. This happened in the early seventies and this woman was a little bit slow. Dale had been driving the route for a few days and she had a young son that was a bit retarded riding the bus. Well I happened to be driving the bus that morning and she came out to the bus in her robe and it was partly open and she had nothing on underneath. I had a couple of 4th grade girls sitting up near the front of the bus and they just rolled their eyes.

    Then we found a woman to drive the route and the electricity went off one night and her alarm clock didn’t go off. She got up and was a little late on the route that morning. The next morning this same woman brought her an alarm clock so she would be there on time. Wow.

    We handled part of the handicapped children the next year and a good friend of ours had the other handicapped route. The first day of school we had a new principal at one of the grade schools. The other bus contractor called me that morning as he had been to the school getting children’s names and addresses so he could know where to drop off the children on his route. Lo and behold this woman was in the office and she had brought the new principal some after shaving lotion. He didn’t know what to think and the bus contractor was sitting there when it happened. So as soon as he got home he called me and said you should have seen the principals face, Well the principal had to call me that afternoon about some problem and so I asked him ‘How did you like you gift this morning?’. He couldn’t figure out how I knew about it. We laughed about that for a long time. Never know what goes on in school…

    Dale had another complaint about some children not getting on the bus. He asked the bus driver about it and she said that the children stood on the front porch and would not ever be out at the bus stop even though they could see the bus coming for a mile. She had told them to be out there and they still would stand on the porch. Well Mama called one day and complained again and Dale told her ‘Well you can’t catch the bus standing on the front porch.’

    Another time a child on one of the routes called the bus driver a nasty name. The driver called Dale and told him what had happened. That evening Mama called and complained about the bus driver mistreating her son. Dale asked her if her son had told her what he had called the bus driver. She said ‘No.’ Dale then proceeded to tell her and he had to tell her about 3 times before she believed him. You never know what the little angels will do and parents don’t believe you.

    Then we had another parent that would get drunk and call Dale up at ten o clock at night and give him a blessing out over his child getting mistreated. Of course the child had done something and had to be corrected.

    The best one happened about 35 years ago and you would get fired now for taking care of problems this way. Dale was on a out of town 10th grade football trip and was driving home from the game. He looked out his left side mirror and a boy in the back of the bus was giving all the cars the finger. Dale told the coach who was sitting behind him to watch this boy. The coach saw him do it again and he got up, walked to the back of the bus and hit the boy on the top of his head with his clipboard, didn’t say a word and came back and sat down. End of problem…

    That’s about all I can remember right now. Enjoy

The War Years 1941 - 1945

2011-05-01T17:39:00.000-07:00

The war Years 1941-1945

I need to tell you some things about World War 2 as I remember that period of time. I remember the day the Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. We had a battery operated radio in our house and the only time my folks turned the radio on was for the world news.

My brothers Lawrence and Don had taken the 1941 Plymouth out that Sunday. They were probably out on dates or just driving around seeing friends. They came home about 4 p.m. on that Sunday afternoon and said that Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor that morning. I was 14 years old at that time and in 10th grade at Owatonna High School.

    The next day or the day after President Roosevelt made a speech to everyone in America on the radio. I think it was a declaration of War against Japan and Germany. The speech was in the High School auditorium and it came over the radio. An assembly was called and all the students in school listened to that speech. Our life as we knew it would never be the same again.

    My brother Don enlisted in the navy and was sent to boot camp at I think Great Lakes. He was tested and then went to a training camp in Pennsylvania. He was tested and he learned the Morse Code and later he was selected to be the radioman on the submarine Robalo. He was also trained at New London Conn. I have a picture of him and the whole crew of the Robalo.   The submarine went down the Mississippi river to New Orleans and went through the Panama Canal and ended up at Freemantle Australia. The submarine either hit a mine in the South China Sea or a torpedo from a enemy destroyer hit it. Three men escaped and were later taken as prisoners of war. No one survived from that submarine. The submarine went down between June and August of 1944.

    My brother Lawrence stayed on the farm as he was also eligible to being drafted. Lawrence had a 2 C draft deferment. There were a lot of farm boys with that classification as they were needed on the farms to help the war effort. I remember that the farm boys around Owatonna formed a 2 C club and they sponsored dances to raise money for the War effort.

    We collected bacon grease for the war effort and it was turned in and I don’t remember what it was used for. Everybody pitches in and the car manufacturing plant were making jeeps and tanks and Boeing at Wichita was making airplanes. Every one that was able bodied begin to help with the war effort.   Josten’s at Owatonna was making the Nordic bomb sight and they were hiring16 year old young people to work in their plant. When I was a senior in High School some of the boys were working part time at Jostens. Young people of 16 were also working as fire fighters. I remember one young man that would leave school whenever there was a fire. The fire truck would come by the school to get him.

    Within a short period of time we were given ration books. They had small red cardboard coins that said O P A and numeral 1 and red point printed on it. I don’t remember how much meat you could buy with that but it also included butter. My Mother bought a butter churn and churned cream for us so we didn’t have to use the OPA point for butter. We also butchered our own meat and chickens.

    My father could do almost anything and I remember how they butchered a hog. First you had to shoot it and let it bleed out. Then you had a contraption that you fastened the hogs legs to and then you dumped it into boiling hot water. You then had to scrape all the hair off and then you had to cut it up just like butchers do. My Mother rendered the lard by heating it and then she stored it in a 5 gal crock.

I don’t remember if she used that lard for making soap or if she went to the butcher shop and got the suet after beef had been butchered. There was a frozen food locker in Hope and my folks rented a locker and stored chickens and meat and strawberries in the locker. When they went after groceries they would get the meat out of the locker. The locker was located in the creamery at Hope and that creamery is one of the few in Steele County that is still in operation. Hope butter is really something else. They have their own label and also they sell butter to Land O Lakes.

    We also had gasoline rationing and you had a book for that. The farmers got the best rationing books and they also were able to get gasoline for their tractors.   Tires were another thing that it was difficult to obtain and I think they were also rationed. For you speed nuts that think 55 miles per hour is slow, well it was the law of the land that the speed limit on highways for everybody was 35 miles per hour. It saved our precious tires and saved gasoline.

    Other things were also hard to obtain. Material for clothing was difficult to find as well as many other products. My Mother made a skirt for me out of light weight curtain material of some kind or other. New sewing machines were non existent and so older machines were reconditioned and sold to people. Almost all women at that time knew how to run a sewing machine. I learned at 12 to start making clothes on my Mother’s 1912 Minnesota treadle machine.

    We were fortunate that my folks had purchased a new 1941 Plymouth car and so we had dependable transportation. My Dad also had a 1937 tractor and he had the plow and other attachments for it. I don’t remember if he ground oats with that tractor but I think that he did. You had a belt that attached to the tractor and then it ran a small grinding machine. We fed our cattle silage and then we top dressed it with ground oats, the cattle really liked that in the winter time. You planted a late crop of corn and did not let it mature. Some one in the neighborhood had a silage cutter. You cut the corn green and then hauled it to the silo . The silage cutter had long spouts on it and it put the silage in the silo. The cutter was ran by a tractor. The silos were about 10 to 15 feet in diameter and were probably about 25 feet high.   The silo had doors and the doors had rungs on them. In the winter you would climb up the silo and pitch down the silage. Then as you got silage out you would take that door off and be on the next level. Their was an outside chute on the silo and you would pitch the silage down it into a cart of some kind or other. Then you had to take it to the barn and feed the cattle.

    I was young at this time and didn’t pay all that much attention as to what went on at the farm. I was helping Mother and watching Dick and picking eggs from the hen house so was plenty busy.

    People in town also raised victory gardens and they canned the excess and ate very well during this time. We always had a big garden on the farm and part of my work was to pull weeds out of the garden. One time my Mother went down to help my sister Dorothy with her new daughter Mary. The tomatoes were ready to be canned and so I went down into the garden and picked the tomatoes and canned them. I was 15 years old at that time. My Mother came home and couldn’t believe that I had accomplished that.    I had helped my Mother can tomatoes and peaches and pears so I knew what had to be done.

    I remember cooking for us at that time also. I can’t remember what I cooked but it was done on the cast iron wood burning cook stove and maybe a little on the two burner kerosene stove that we used in the summer time. That kept me out of any mischief that I might have been thinking about.
    I want to tell you a little about chickens now. We always bought baby pullets to raise for laying hens. We had what is called a brooder house especially for the baby chicks. The brooder house was a octagon shaped small building and had a door going into it and then a small trap door that you opened to let the chicks out when they got about 3 weeks old. There was a kerosene heater in the center of the brooder house and it had a large lid on it. When you brought the baby chicks in they had a warm place to stay under this lid. You took the chicks out of the box that they came in and the first thing you did was to dip their bills in some water so they could learn how to drink water. We had little feeders with little round holes on the top of them so the chicks could eat the feed. The watering jars were fruit jars which had a pan like contraption fastened to the top of the jar. You filled the jar with water and then turned it upside down and the baby chicks could then drink the water. You had to keep the jars clean and that was one of my jobs. You checked on the chicks several times a day and removed any that had died. You usually lost a few chicks.

    We also bought 100 roosters. The funny thing was if you bought 100 roosters they were all roosters but if you bought 100 pullets you always got 5 or 6 roosters. Roosters were not considered that valuable back in the 40’s.   When the roosters got about 8 weeks old we would start eating them. My Mother killed the roosters by cutting their head off with an axe. We then let it bleed out and then my job was to pick the feathers off. You dipped the bird in very hot water and then picked it. My Mother then gutted the bird and cut it into pieces and then soaked it in salt water for about an hour and then fried it. We ate lots of fried chicken in the summer time. We also took some of the chickens to the locker in Hope and then could use them later on.

    Later on when I was working for the Supt of our High school, the art teacher who was an avid hunter brought two pheasants by one Saturday afternoon when the Burt’s were gone and I was taking care of the little boys. Now I had never cut up a chicken but I heated up the water and got the feathers off the pheasants and then I had to gut them and cut them up. I had watched my Mother do it a hundred times and I just cleaned them up but didn’t cut them up. Mrs Burt was so surprised when I told her about the pheasants and she asked me what I did. I told her they were all cleaned up and ready to be baked. We didn’t fry pheasants, we usually baked them and stuffed them. They were real good eating.

    The other job that I had on the farm was to pick the eggs and get them ready to go to the grocery store in exchange for other groceries. Some of the hens were mean and they would like to peck you when you went to get the eggs. I just slapped them lightly on the head and then they wouldn’t peck you any more. I brought the eggs up to the house and cleaned them with vinegar water if they were dirty and then packed them in the egg case. I think the big egg cases were 12 dozen and the small ones were 6 dozen.   We kept the eggs in the basement in the summer time as it was cool down there.

    By the time I was 13 I was doing all the ironing for the family. We had came up in the world as we had a gas iron. You had to buy white gasoline for it and then there was a pump of the back of the iron. It was so much easier than using the old sad irons that you heated on the stove. My Mother hated to iron so the job fell to me. She would iron the silk things and I would do the rest. We had silk clothing and silk stockings in the early 40’s. The silk blouses had to be ironed on low heat and the silk had to be completely wet when you ironed it. Oh ,yes we had lots of starched things to iron. You made the starch and dipped your clothes in it. Then you dried the clothing outside and then you had to dampen the clothing. A coke bottle with a top with holes in it was the favorite way to dampen clothing.    Automatic washing machines and steam irons were a few years in the future.

    This is just a little more about life in the good old days.

More About Life in the 1940's

2011-02-23T04:55:00.000-08:00

More about life in the 1940’s

    I will go into a little more depth about what life was like in the 40’s. In March of 1940 my parents moved from a farm 2 miles south of Hope MN to a farm 5 miles south of Owatonna on the Lemond Road. This farm was large and had 360 acres. I was in 8th grade at this time so here we go attending a new school where I didn’t know anyone.

    The school was located 2 and ½ miles from the farm. One of the neighbors came over and said that they had a car pool going to school and we were welcome to be in the car pool.   Once a week each family drove the children to school.   There were 5 families involved and 7 children. So 7 children were in the car and off we went to school. Remember this was before the days of seat belts and the cars were a lot smaller than they are now.

    I was the new kid on the block and was in 8th grade but I had no trouble getting along in this school. I think we started at 9 a.m. and got out of school at 4 p.m. We had an hour for lunch and then had a morning recess of 15 minutes and an afternoon recess of 15 minutes. The 7th and 8th graders helped the teacher with the first graders and I think there was 6 children in first grade. Only a couple of them had learned anything about learning to read. So we helped them with their reading as best we could. I remember listening to the first graders recite.

    At the end of school we had a school picnic. All the neighbors brought food and drinks for a nice mid day meal. The older children in the neighborhood came to the picnic and some had already graduated from High School in Owatonna. It was a good way for my folks to get acquainted with the neighbors and suppose my Dad made the connection with neighbors about harvesting oats.

    There was a small creamery about a mile from the house and my brother Larry went to the creamery every third day. Two other neighbors exchanged days and they hauled the cream in the cars. Steele county was known as the Butter Capital of the United States at that time and there were small creameries scattered all over the county.

Hope Creamery building

    This new farm had a small woods on it. Suppose the woods covered about 10 acres. I was always off exploring and in the summer there were several patches of wild raspberries. There were also small patches of wild strawberries on the farm and they were very small but good to eat. There was a huge hip roofed barn on this place and you could drive a team into it on the second floor or hay mow. We used to go up in the hay mow and jump off the beams into the hay. One time my brother Dick jumped about 10 feet but he didn’t get hurt.

    I was the only girl at home so I helped my Mother around the house. By that time I was doing some cleaning by myself and always wiped the dishes after a meal. We had a nice flat lawn in front of the house and I kept the lawn mowed. The folks bought us a croquet set and my brother Dick and I played croquet every nice day that we had in summer. Now remember I mowed that yard with a push mower by hand.

    At this time I was also milking cows. We had been able to purchase a small milking machine that was run by a Briggs and Stratton motor. There was no electricity on this farm. After we washed the cows teats then my brother would put the milking machine on and milk the cows. We always had to go back in with a pail and do what we called the final stripping to get all the milk. We put the milk in a bowl on top of the cream separator and then turned a handle by hand to separate the milk from the cream. There was 2 spouts on the cream separator and the cream came out one and the milk out the other.

    We put the cream in a can after the evening milking and then we put it in a cold water tank to keep it cool until the next morning. Then we put the morning cream in and took it to the creamery early in the morning. The separator had to be carefully washed every day. We had a bench outside the pump house and I washed the separator every day.

We always ran cold water through the separator after we had finished separating the milk and the cream. That came in handy to know when I had children as I rinsed the bottles out after feeding the babies.

    In the winter time we kept the cows in the barn and would let them out to drink water. We had a cast iron stove of some kind or another and we had to light a fire in it to melt the ice on the water tank. My Dad took the skim milk down to the hog house and he mixed it up with grain for the hogs. We called that stuff slop. In other words we slopped the pigs. We didn’t have an ice box until the summer time. My Mother would make home made ice cream in the winter as we would get the ice out of the cattle watering tank. She used pure cream and made a custard for the ice cream base. Boy was it good.

    In the fall of 1940 I moved down to east of Ellendale with my sister Dorothy and family. This was so I could start High School at Ellendale. My nephew Warren was about 4 years old at that time. I helped Dorothy the same as at home. She was a terrible hard worker and she was out milking cows every morning and evening. I didn’t do any milking there but I watched Warren and I picked up eggs and was just generally useful as a 13 year old can be.

    My clothes for High School weren’t to classy but then no one else had anything that looked much better. I remember that Dorothy made me a nice wool skirt out of some things that Uncle Ernie had sent to us. I caught the bus into High school and they had two routes to cover. I was on the late route going to school and then I was on the late route coming home. In the winter we had about 45 minutes after school and so the boys and girls would play basketball . We would get up a team from various classes and I played forward. Got half way good at shooting baskets. We usually got on our bus to go home about 4:30.   Wouldn’t the teachers today have a fit if they had to watch a bunch of kids after school for 45 minutes. But we probably acted better. I also read and did home work in that period of time.

    I remember the terrible blizzard that we had on Nov 11 1940. I went to school that day and it was a real warm day for November. About 11 a.m. it started to snow. I remember our High school Supt looking out the window at the snow. The Supt’s office was right across the hall from our home room. A little while later he called for the early morning bus riders to get ready to go home. He had called the bus drivers early and decided it was best that we get home. I of course went home on what we called the 2nd bus. By 2p.m. we had a raging blizzard on our hands. My sister Dorothy told me that we had to go out and round up the chickens and get them in the chicken house. The chickens had been out all morning scratching around for seeds and bugs and whatever. The blizzard lasted for about 3 days and a lot of people died. They got caught out away from home in their cars and couldn’t get to shelter.

    My brother Don was a Senior in High School while I was in 9th grade. He worked on a farm that year and rode the bus to school. Don played football, basketball and he was a baseball pitcher. I think he pitched a no hit no run game in High School one time. They wanted him to play on the Legion team but World war 2 started and he was off to the Navy.

    While I was in school in Ellendale I sold candy at noon to the other students. Most of the kids didn’t want to sell candy, they wanted to walk up and down the halls and flirt with the boys. If you sold candy at noon you were able to eat one candy bar without paying for it. I sampled every kind of candy that we sold. We had to make change and turn it in and all that good stuff.

    We had the starting of a hot lunch program in our school at that time. I think it cost 5 cents. A woman came in and made stuff for us to eat with our lunch packed from home. Sometimes we had macaroni and cheese and sometimes hot soup and sometimes hot chocolate. At Ellendale we all took our lunches to school in a lunch bucket. The next year when I went to Owatonna all the kids packed their lunches in a paper sack. A lunch bucket was a no no in Owatonna.

    In the winter time when I was staying with Dorothy I used to go up the road and Eugene and I would go ice skating on a frozen pond close to his house. Would just do that on Saturdays. I think we probably played some games with Eugene’s step mother.

    I remember some of kids problems that were on my school bus. One of the neighbor girl’s Mother had died and she was in 10th grade. I think she was going to school and doing most of the housework and helping take care of her younger sister who was in 7th grade. Another family on the route had lost both parents and there was 5 or 6 children in the family. The oldest boy was about 22 and he had a sister about 20 and he did the farming with the help of some uncles and managed to put the rest of the kids through school. Some of the younger children were just in second or third grade. I think that maybe some of the other farmers in the area helped out with the farm work and advise. But they kept the children together and they turned out all right.

    People were more inclined to help their neighbors back in that time. Farmers exchanged work back and forth so that they could get harvesting done and also haying and other chores. But you didn’t take advantage of your neighbors and try to get by without returning favors.

    I enjoyed the library that we had in the school at Ellendale and was always checking books out to read and take home. Dorothy liked to read so we would both read the same books. I probably left the books home and she read them in the day time in winter when there was not much you could be doing outside. At that time there was no electricity in the house and your heat came from a wood cook stove and then another heating stove in the living room. There was a wood pile outside and someone had to bring the wood in and think it was stored in a small entryway.   I don’t remember if we used much coal or not. It came in real handy when I went to work for the railroad to know how to start a fire in a pot bellied stove and how to bank a stove in those cold railroad stations so that all you had to do was add more coal in the morning.

    Dorothy had a big garden and when I was first there in September she had an ever bearing strawberry patch. I remember her going down and picking a dish pan full of strawberries. She made shortcake and of course we poured pure cream over all of it. We did eat good on the farm. Dorothy was an exceptionally good cook and I enjoyed that.

    Most of the farming families where I grew up got by in the depression quite well. We didn’t have anything to spend on stuff we didn’t need but we were always able to have good shoes and clothes to wear and we never went hungry. Things begin to get better about 1938 and then after the War started there was more money available to buy things.

    I went to Owatonna the next year and stayed at home and car pooled with 2 other neighbors. My brother Larry said that all he did was car pool at that time. He went to Owatonna twice a day every 3 days. Then Dick was in grade school and he had 2 trips to grade school once every 5 days. Then he went to the creamery every 3rd day. He said he spent a lot of time in the car getting all the running done.

    When we lived on the farm south of Owatonna a terrible fire happened to one of our neighbors about a mile south of us. Their 5 year old little boy went out in the barn with some matches and started a fire. The barn burned down and the little boy was in it. It was a terrible windy day and pieces of the barn came into our pasture which was about ¾ of a mile north of the barn . My parents never left any of us alone in the house if they had to go out at night. We used kerosene lamps and they just didn’t trust us to be careful around those lamps. We had a healthy respect for fire. We used kerosene lamps when we were milking in the evening and we were so careful with them. To this day I do not want a lighted candle in my house.

    My tenth grade in school was the last year that I stayed at home all year. The neighbors that we car pooled with graduated from High School and so I worked for my room and board and stayed with the Supt of our High School in my 11th and 12th grade. A lot of girls that lived on the farm did that and the Dean of Women in our High School kept a list of people that wanted a girl to stay and help them and she picked out the girls who she thought would make a good fit with some one on the list.

    I answered the phone and helped with the house work and watched after the two little boys when they had to go at night. I could go out if they weren’t going anywhere and I had to be in at ten on school nights and at twelve on Friday and Saturday nights. I sold them about 3 dozen eggs when I would go home every other week and used that money to go to the movies. The movies were fifteen cents and that was for the shoot em up westerns. The better movies were twenty five cents. There were three or four movie theatres in Owatonna. At that time the population of Owatonna was 5000 people.

    I did go to the football and basketball games at that time. I also went roller skating and did some ice skating in the winter time. Mrs Burt sold me her ice skates for two dollars and the city in Owatonna had a ice rink on the Straight river. They had an attendant at the rink that kept a bonfire going so that we could warm up when we got too cold. It was high school age kids that went skating and think it stayed open until about 9 p.m.

    This is just a little bit more detail about my life in the forties for a couple of years.

Stories my parents told me.

2011-02-07T05:21:00.000-08:00

    I was fortunate in that I would go see my parents in Minnesota and would usually stay with them at least a week and we did a lot of visiting in that period of time. I have been working with genealogy for the past 30 years and have found out a lot more information on my own.

    I will start with my Mother’s family as I know very little about them. Her father’s name before coming to America from Denmark was Mads Goldfelt. We think he was Jewish. He came from the part of Denmark which was next to Germany and I suppose he was looking for a better life in the States. My Mother’s mother came from Copenhagen and her name was Anna Thompson. They were married and came to the States in about 1865.

    My grandfather changed his name to Chris Madison when he came to America. He had been trained as a barrel maker and they came to Linn County Iowa. He was one of the first employees at the Wilson-Sinclair packing house and was employed as a barrel maker.

Wilson-Sinclair was later changed to the Wilson Packing Co. My Mother told me that everyone in Denmark was trained to do some kind of work. Isn’t that amazing that people in Europe were trained for a job and we still do not do that here in America.

English: Cooper's workshop, Open air museum Roscheider Hof, Konz, Germany

Deutsch: Holz- und Waldmuseum, Küferwerkstatt, Freilichtmuseum Roscheider Hof, Konz

    There were 6 children born in this marriage. George, Carl ,Ernest, Tillie , a girl who died at 6 years of age and my mother Irene. My grandfather worked at the packing house and he also did some fishing in the Mississippi River. They lived in Marion Iowa. My grandfather was crippled as a result of an accident. He was out cutting wood and his axe hit his leg somewhere. It was a terrible wound and he started a fire and think he cut off his leg and he put the leg in the fire to keep from bleeding to death.

    My grandmother died when she was 57 years old as a result of an operation to take out her gall bladder. I did not know my Uncle’s George and Carl as they moved to Washington state years before I was born. I did know my Uncle Ernest. He was a depot agent for the CNW Railroad at Fox Lake Minn and lived about 100 miles from us. We went down one time and stayed about a week. I was about 9 years old at that time. Uncle Ernie raised his 3 children by himself as his wife had died a few years before.

    Uncle Ernie never got upset about anything. I could play with the typewriter in the office and helped him carry the mail up to the post office. They had a turntable at Fox Lake and I could go out and play on it and think he let me fool around climbing on the baggage wagons. Of course he knew there were not any trains coming while I was doing all that messing around.

    Uncle Ernie had a grape arbor and I remember the grapes were ripe and I think I got sick eating all those grapes. He used to send my Mother clothing so that she could remake things for our family.   My Mother and Ernie were real close and my two older sister’s used to go see him. I know my sister Daisy caught the train at Albert Lea and went out to Fox Lake at least one time.

    My Mother graduated from Marion High School in 1907 and she worked as a school teacher for 4 or 5 years. She met my Father when she was teaching at rural School No 9 and was staying with my Great Uncle Jim Hagerman. She taught my cousin Everett Cress when he was about in first grade. Everett and Erma were visiting my folks in Sandstone Minn one time when I was there and they were talking about the old days. Seems that dist No 9 had ran off several teachers. My Mother had been teaching for a while when she came out there and the first day a 17 year old boy sassed her and she proceeded to grab him by the shoulders and sit him down in his seat and said “There will be no more of that.“ She didn’t have any trouble after that.

    Everett told another story about a teacher. He said this woman was small and some child gave her fits and she took the broom and smacked him a few times. She then got up in front of the class and said ”Now if anyone else wants to sass me, just come on up” Everett said there was no more trouble in that school.

    Mother met my father while she was teaching at No 9 as I think my father was working for his Uncle Jim. They were married in 1912 and my Mother didn’t know how to cook. My folks laughed and told the story about how my Mother made biscuits and they were hard and my Dad couldn’t eat them. He said ”Irene I think I better go down to Toddville and get my Mother to teach you how to do some cooking.” So his Mother came out and stayed a week and my Mother’s biscuits were the best.

    My folks also talked about how my Dad’s grandmother Angelina Hagerman came out and spent a week or so visiting with them after they were married. She always waited about a month after any of her grandchildren were married and then she would come out a visit for a week. I remember my father telling me about that when he was past 80 years old and he said” Oh, how I would like to have those days back.”

    My folks were married in 1912 and they farmed in the Marion Iowa area for about 5 years. They then bought a farm about 5 miles north of Albert Lea Minn and farmed there for a few years. Dorothy was born in Iowa and Daisy was born in Minnesota. They moved their household equipment and their livestock from Marion to Albert Lea in a immigrant car. That is you went down to the railroad and arranged to get a car to put all your stuff in it.    You loaded your stuff and then the railroad took you to your destination. Remember there were not any trucks or roads to move you around in 1917. Most of your traveling was by train and there were passenger trains everywhere. My dad went ahead and got settled and then my Mother came later with Dorothy.

    When they moved to Albert Lea my Dad had to take cream to the creamery and there were a lot of Norwegian farmers in that area. My Dad went home and told my Mother that they were making fun of him and he didn’t like it. So the next time he went to the creamery he took my Mother and she could speak all the Scandinavian languages and she told the Norwegians something and they didn’t bother my father again.

    My folks later moved to 3 miles west of Geneva Minn and I have told you some other stories about my life on the farm at Geneva. We did have a nice orchard and a huge garden on the farm at Geneva. It was just an 80 acre farm and that is about all one farmer could take care of using horses and no mechanical equipment to do the farming.

    Now I will tell you about my fathers family and it is a long story as his family had been in the states as early as 1630. My great great grandmother was a Howe and her family goes back to the early families in New England. She was related to the Hibberd’s and the Walden’s and the Gardiner’s and the Fuller’s. My great grandmother Angelina Gray Hagerman claimed to be related to the early White family and also to Lady Jane Gray in England.

    The Gray family showed up in Sharon Conn early on and then they went to Oswego New York and then they bought land in Tioga County Pa about 1798. I have a post card that my great grandmother wrote to my grandmother Sarah Hagerman Cress that says she was born in Gray Valley Sullivan Twp Tioga County Pa in 1825. Now you need to remember that my Father knew his grandmother very well. He was born in 1882 and my great grandmother died in 1914. Now I will tell you about that families trip westward.

    Hosea Wilson Gray was in Iowa about 1838. He was a young man and I assume he rode horseback from probably Bradford Pa to Linn County Iowa. I have no idea who else came west with him. My research shows that he went back to Pa and told the family about the good land to be had and so several of the Gray families got together and formed a wagon train to move west. Included in the wagon train was George White Gray and his family and Silas Gray his brother and his family. Silas Gray had several sons that were probably in their late teens or early twenties. George White Gray brought 4 children west with him. They were Angelina Gray,, Parthenia White Gray, Calista Gray and William Wallace Gray.

    I have the obituary of William Wallace Gray in Sarah Hagerman Cress Sparks bible. It tells of the trip west and the difficulties that they encountered. I think they stayed in Ohio for a year and then came on to Linn county. At that time they must have crossed the Mississippi river on some kind of a ferry. Now here comes the interesting part. Amariah Hagerman came west with the wagon train. He was about 21 years old at that time. He did not have a wagon and probably rode horseback all the way. He was very important to the wagon train as he was a trained wheel wright. That is he knew how to fix the wheels on the wagons.

    Angelina Gray was a comely 15 years old at that time and Ameriah probably took a shine to her as they were married in 1845. Ameriah came from near Williamsport Pa and his father James and grandfather Aaron came into that area soon after the Revolutionary War. There is a creek or small river in the Williamsport area named Hagerman’s Run.

    My father, Rob Hagerman and Mary Beggs made a trip by train to Williamsport Pa in 1907 and I have a picture of them in my possession at their great grandfathers grave at Newbury Jct Pa. This is close to Williamsport. Dale and I tried to find the grave and we found the church and some older people said there used to be a grave yard near where the church was located but that the headstones had been taken down several years before. That was about 25 years ago.

    My Father used to get letters from one of his cousins Anna Hagerman into the 30’s. I have my fathers letters that were saved and some go back over 100 years. Dale and I went into an antique shop in Williamsport and were asking around about the Hagerman’s and an elderly lady in the shop knew about Anna Hagerman. She said she had been a school teacher.

    While in Williamsport we went to the library and did some research. They have a wonderful genealogy section in the library at Williamsport. At that time I didn’t know much about the Gray’s except what my Dad had told me. So I found a history book in the library and it was the history of Tioga County which is the next county north of Williamsport. Lo and Behold the Gray’s were in the book. Now my dad’s name was Lafayette Gray Cress and I have a picture of Lafayette Gray who my father was named after. Well here Lafayette Gray shows up in that book along with some other Gray’s. I copied that stuff off and then Dale and I decided to go to the county seat of Tioga Pa which is Wellsboro Pa.

    We went in the library and they had 40 pages of information about the Gray’s including the info about the Gray family burial ground. We photocopied off that information and then head out in the country south of Mainesburg Pa trying to find the family plot. We had a map where it was located and stopped at a farm near by and asked about it and if it would be all right to go check it out. The young man at the farm didn’t know about the burial ground but he knew where to take us. We walked across a field of tall grass and found it.

    Parthenia White Gray and James Gray were there as was Angelina Gray Hagerman’s mother Sarah Howe. There was a flag at James grave indicating that he was a Revolutionary War veteran.   We also read Sarah’s stone and it read Howe. So my grandmother Sarah Hagerman Cress was named after her grandmother. Sarah Howe died in 1834 before the family came west.

    My Father was named after Lafayette Gray and I think he was probably a favorite cousin of my great grandmother’s. I do have a picture of him and his wife in my collection of things.

    The family came west about 1840 or 41 and I think George White Gray settled in the Marion area. You could homestead at that point in time and the land probably didn’t cost anything except the filing fees. Ameriah Hagerman and Angelina Gray were married in 1845 and they settled in Otter Tail Twp close to Toddville Iowa. They had 10 children and raised 5 of them to maturity. Angelina lost 3 little girls before my grandmother Sarah was born in 1850.

    The whole family lived close to each other after they were grown. Jim Hagerman, Robert Hagerman, George Hagerman, Billy Beggs who was my Aunt Ellen’s husband and Jacob Cress who was my grandmother’s husband all lived close to each other. My grandfather Jacob Cress died in 1895 when my father was 13 years old and his brother John was 15. The boys had to do the farm work and my Father talked about hoeing corn by hand.

    I will now tell you a few stories about life on that farm. My grandmother was a very religious woman and they all walked down the railroad tracks to church on Wednesday night and then they walked to church twice on Sunday. This was after my grandfather died and I suppose my grandmother was lonely and farm work was hard. I think her brothers helped with the farm work as they were living close to each other.

    My Aunt Mina, my dad’s sister told me about the children swimming in the Cedar river and my dad told me about catching catfish in the Cedar River. My aunt Mina said all the kids were down at the river one time and the boys had gone in swimming and left all their clothes on the bank. The girls came down and took their clothes and she said Uncle John just stayed in the water but my Dad came out naked and got his clothes. Aunt Mina was probably about 80 at that time and we laughed and laughed about that. Her granddaughter Ann told me just about a year ago that Mina never talked about any of her sister’s and brother except my Dad.

    My Dad brought a deck of cards home once and his Mother took them and burned them in the cook stove. When my Dad was past 80 he would say ”My Mother would turn over in her grave if she knew I was playing cards.” He loved pinochle and 500 and think he used to play gin rummy at the tavern in Hope for money. When Dale and I would go to Minnesota we wouldn’t be in the house 10 minutes before my Dad was getting the card table set up.

    My grandmother remarried in 1905 and the boys were grown so they were out on their own. John married at 18 but my Father married when he was 30. He left Toddville for a while and went to Duncan Ariz with someone who was going to farm in that area. He said they left El Paso Texas on the train coming back to Iowa and it took all day for the train to go from El Paso to Ft Worth. It’s about 550 miles.

    Now I need to tell you about his other grandparents who also came to Iowa about 1840. His grandmother Lydia Neighbor died in 1864 and her family had been in the States since 1738. Her Mother Margaret Weise Neighbor came west out of Newcomerstown Ohio in about 1840. Margret had 8 children with her when she came to Iowa. The Neighbors or Nachbar’s had settled in and around Dover New Jersey in 1738. They came west in 1815 along with several other families and settled in what was later called Newcomerstown Ohio.   I know quite a lot about the Neighbors that I have found out on my own as not to many stories were passed down to my Father. They did come by wagon train and I think they spent a year in Ohio and then came on west and settled in the same area that the Hagerman’s settled. The Neighbors and the Oliphants were good friends and my Great grandfather John Cress and Lydia Neighbor and my Grandmother Sarah Hagerman Cress and Jacob Cress are all buried in the Oliphant Cemetery near Center Point Iowa.

    They were farmers and teachers and preachers and were in every kind of business close to Center Point Iowa. My Dad said at one time that he was related to almost every one in Center Point Iowa.

    Lydia Neighbor and John Cress had 6 children and I have family information on all of them. Lydia died in 1864 and suppose it was child birth fever. I do know that her sister Mrs Thomas and her husband raised 5 nieces and nephews including my Great Aunt Mary Cress who later married a Mounce. About 20 years ago two of Mary’s daughters were still alive and living in Center Point and I visited with them a couple of times. The oldest Maude Price could remember my grandfather Jake Cress as she was 97 years old at that time and had been about 10 years old when my grandfather died.

    John Cress my father’s grandfather came west about 1841 or so with several brothers. He had came out of the Richmond Virginia area and they were probably looking for land to homestead out west. He and Lydia were married in 1845 and he lived until 1888. My Dad said he was always afraid of him as I guess he had red hair and he was just a small child at that time. They had changed their name from Grass to Cress and they were also of German stock and I have information on that family all the way back to Germany into the 1600’s. It was a tradition in that family that the Fathers name would be John and that his oldest son would be Jacob and then Jacobs oldest son would be named John.

    Many of the daughters were named after their grandmother’s. Sarah Hagerman was named after her grandmother Sarah Howe Gray. My Aunt Angie was the first born child of Sarah and Jacob Cress and her given name was Angelina Lydia Cress. She was named after both grandmothers. You will find that a lot when checking through the old records.

    I remember one more story that my Dad told and that was when he was working for someone as a hired hand and his employer got into a squabble with a neighbor about a cow. They had to go to court and spent a lot of money getting this settled. My Dad always said to stay out of troubles with the neighbors and save your money for something else.

    My Father also told about the time he went to Cedar Rapids for something and decided that he would do a little drinking. He went down and bough a bottle of Peach Brandy and got a little tight on it. He said he got up the next morning and took a drink of water and he got tight again. He said that cured him from drinking. He never smoked or drank and lived to the ripe old age of 95. This is a few of the stories that I remember.

Trips on the trains throughout my life.

2011-01-09T13:27:00.000-08:00

Trips on the Trains

When I was growing up the best way to get around was by trains. The interstate Highway system had not yet evolved and you could go everywhere on the trains for a small cost. The first trip that I remember was on the RI railroad out of Minneapolis to Owatonna Minn. My friend Myrtle were living and working in Minneapolis and we want to go to Owatonna for one day of the county fair. We went down to the Union station in Minneapolis and purchased our ticket to Owatonna. We were really country bumpkins and we sat in the station and missed our train. We went to the ticket counter and they told us we could catch another train to St Paul and then catch our train to Owatonna. We got into St Paul and had to run to catch the other train to get to Owatonna. This was in 1944 and the train was filled with young men from around Waterloo Iowa who were joining the army. Myrtle met the love of her life on that short trip from St Paul to Owatonna.   In a couple of weeks Herman showed up in Minneapolis to see Myrtle and she married him after the war.

My next trip on a train was when I was hired by the Santa Fe Railroad and 17 of us from the Radio School were hired by the Santa Fe as telegraph apprentices and we went to Chicago to the Santa Fe Headquarters and were assigned different states as our final destination.

We stayed in Chicago one day and I had picked Oklahoma as the state where I wanted to work. We all left out of Chicago on Santa Fe No 5 from the old Dearborn Station. The train was crowded and the seats were horrible. The Santa Fe and other railroads had to get out all their rolling equipment to take care of their increase in traffic on account of the war. We were able to get a seat and didn’t have to stand up. But it was uncomfortable, the train was crowded with servicemen and young mothers with their crying small children and the mammas were cranky and fussy. We finally arrived at Arkansas City Ks after 18 hours on the train. We ate the dry sandwiches that the porters brought through the train. Think it was mostly lunch meat and cheese, not much choice.

We arrived in Arkansas City and stayed overnight and then started out the next morning on Santa Fe No 27 to get to our destination. We came through Ponca City Okla about daylight and the train went right through the Continental Oil refinery. That was a interesting sight. I and my friend Betty Soper arrived in Guthrie and we had to wait their for the doodlebug that ran from Guthrie to Kiowa Ks. If I remember correct it was No 54.   Betty detrained at Crescent Okla as that was where she would take her training. I went on to Cherokee Okla as that was the town I had picked out to train for my job as a telegraph operator. The train was a small gas powered train that had one car. In the front of the car was the mail section and just behind that was the Railway Express section and behind that was the passenger section. At that point in time mail was transported from one part of the country to another by train. They also sorted the mail and you could mail letters at the train station and it would be sorted on the train.

I went through Crescent, Marshall, Douglas, Enid, Hillsdale, Nash and Jet before arriving in Cherokee in the afternoon. The train went through the south edge of the Salt Plains and I thought I was going to be living out in the desert.

The next train trip I took was probably going up to Wichita Ks and back on the same day. This was also a doodlebug that came out of San Angelo Texas and went into Wichita. This was the old Orient line that the Santa Fe had bought out.   The train numbers were 45 and 46. This train came into Cherokee early in the morning loaded with railway express for small business people in Cherokee. They were often down at the depot to meet the train as they had ordered parts and stuff that they needed to get to their customers. I helped write up the express bills and give them to the delivery man. The railroad at that time in 1944 was handling a lot of the small package business as we did not yet have our interstate highway system.

When I moved from Cherokee to Newkirk I had to go into Wichita and then catch a train south out of Wichita to Cherokee. The railroad gave us a pass to get from one destination to another. We did not get a pass on the streamliners just on the other trains.

I rode trains getting from one place to another while I was working the extra board relieving operators and agents for a couple of years. When I was able to bid in the swing job between Newkirk and Ponca City I lived in Newkirk and rode the train back and forth all the time.

When we had vacations we were able to get passes on other railroad, so when I went to Minnesota I would get a pass on the Rock Island out of Kansas City to Owatonna…After World War 2 ended the trains
were no longer crowded and it was nice to ride the trains again. I went home to Minnesota in Aug of 1946 to spend a few days. Caught the Rock Island out of Kans City to Owatonna. I stayed about a week and then started back to Oklahoma. We had a cold front come through Minnesota and was wearing a wool suit and it was comfortable. Didn’t wear it on the train and when I got into Kansas City on the way back it was 11 p m and the temperature was 105 degrees. I knew I was back in the south.

I made another trip home before I was married and this was probably in February of 1946. The younger operators on the extra board had to take their vacations in the off months so that was why I was vacationing in February. On that trip I decided to take my brother Richard on the train to Minneapolis in the morning and come back in the afternoon. He had not been on a train before and was about 13 years old at that time. We went into Minneapolis and went shopping downtown. The station was only about 6 blocks from the downtown area at that time. Decided to eat a meal on the way back to Owatonna and that was a special treat for Dick. All the larger passenger trains had a dining car and the food was very good. The silverware was very nice and the plates and cups and saucers were real heavy duty so that they would stay on the tables and not shift around. The tables had cloth tablecloths and cloth napkins and you really ate in style.

In 1947 after I was assigned to the Newkirk-Ponca swing job I made a trip to Amarillo Texas with my friend Helen Alford. We were both able to get passes and so we went to Amarillo. We left Newkirk and changed at Wichita and caught 23 out of Wichita to Amarillo. We went out there about a week after a deadly tornado had started up the Santa Fe tracks near Pampa Texas and kept on going all the way to Waynoka Okla and then some. Everything looked like it was damaged at Waynoka and I think over 200 people were killed and some were found that were never identified. It also hit Shattuck and other small towns along the railroad. At that time no 23 was not air conditioned and this was the last part of May. The windows were opened on the train and the dirt blew in and that was something else.

We stayed with Helen’s fried for about 3 days and drove around Amarillo. At that time in late May the Paul Scarlet roses were blooming in Amarillo and it seemed like every house had some beautiful rose bushes. We made a day trip down to Canyon Texas and went down into the Palo Duro Canyon. You are just driving along and here comes the canyon. I have never been back and I understand it is quite developed for campers and such now. This is where the Native American people holed up in the winter time. We came back to Newkirk after staying in Amarillo for about 5 days.

When I worked in Edmond in the fall of 46 I used to catch the interurban trolley down to Okla City a couple of times a week. At that time the interurban ran from Guthrie to Okla City and then there were other connections down to Norman and then west to El Reno. I don’t remember when the interurban was abolished but think it was in the late 40’s or early 50’s. People were not able to purchase new cars until about 1947 and I think you had to be on a waiting list to get one.

When I lived in Minneapolis in 1944 the only way to get around was on the street cars. There seemed to be one going every 5 or 10 mins on the lines that were close to where you lived. That same thing exists today in Lima Peru but it is busses and vans and taxies that you see there. You can stand on a street corner in Barranco Peru for 10 mins and see 50 busses, vans and taxies go by.

The next train trip that I made and remember very vividly was the trip to Minnesota that I made in Dec of 1950. My parents had not seen our son Hugh and so I decided to go to Minnesota the first part of December in 1950 as I had a two week vacation. So off I go ,went to Kansas City on the Santa Fe and then took the Rock Island to Owatonna Minn where my brother in law met me and took me to their house for a couple of days. I visited with my sisters and then made a trip to my folks who lived at Willow River Minnesota at that time. The train was late into St Paul and I missed the connecting train to Willow River. It was storming at that time and I had to telegraph my Dad at Willow River and tell him that I was coming on the bus. He was sitting in the depot at Willow River so the agent was able to tell him I would be on the bus. Dad and Richard met me and we drove out to the farm. A blizzard came in and we were stuck out there for 5 days. Hugh had a cold and my Mother fixed up her onion cough syrup and it cured his cold.

We started back to Oklahoma when the weather cleared and the trip was uneventfull until we got to Kansas City. The Rock Island train was late for my connection, but I knew that No 23 should still be sitting in the yard with a Pullman car that switched out at Newton Kansas and came through Ponca City. So off I go and get some milk for Hugh and I found a porter to carry my suitcase and I had Hugh. I ran down the tracks and got on the Pullman car. The cost for a lower berth at that time was $3.50. So I paid the porter and we got in the berth, undressed and went to sleep. The porter would come by and wake you up at about Winfield so you would be ready to get off the train. A man in the upper berth also got off at Ponca City and I remember him saying that my baby slept well after getting on the train at Kansas City. Can you imagine traveling that way now?

I would go back in forth to Minnesota a couple of more times on the train while Hugh was small. Dale and I never got our vacations at the same time so I would go see my family once a year. Hugh and I and Gail went to Minnesota when Gail was 10 months old. I think that time we went over to Caldwell Kansas and went direct to Owatonna without changing. Dale could get us passes on the Rock Island at that time as I had resigned from my job on the Santa Fe.

The last time we went to Minnesota was in 1966. At that time the railroads had lost the contract to haul mail for the post office and they were beginning to cut out passenger service in the states. We caught the train at Caldwell and I left my car over there for a week or so while we were gone. The trip was interesting and it got a little more interesting after we left Des Moines Iowa on the way back. Gail and I were in the coach car and Hugh went back into the lounge car for a while. You could buy drinks and candy in the lounge car and the seats were a little more comfortable.   Well several women got on at Des Moines and they were going to Kansas City for some kind of a convention. Seems they got to drinking and telling jokes and Hugh was having a great time listening to them. He was 16 at the time and said those women were so funny.

That pretty well ends my trips back and forth to Minnesota. I will now tell you about trains in foreign countries after 1970. We went to Peru in 1972 and drove from Huancayo to Cusco and then we took a train from Cusco to Machu Pichu. We got on the small train in Cusco and went through several small villages on the way to Machu Pichu. At each small village people would come on the train selling everything imaginable, but mostly something to eat and some crafts. The people were dressed in their colorful clothing and most were barefooted. You were considered wealthy if you owned a good looking pony. I can still see a man about 40 years old on his white pony at one of the small stations. He was really King of the Road. The train stayed at Machu Pichu and we went down and back in one day.

In 1980 I went to Peru with Betty and stayed in Huancayo with her family for a couple of weeks. We decided to go from Huancay to Huancavlico one day on the train. It was a couple of hours trip on a train similar to the doodlebugs that we used to ride in the states. We arrived in Huancavlica and I had felt a little under the weather on account of the altitude of 14000 feet. So off we march to the Tourist Hotel to get a cup of coco tea. After drinking that I was all right and we walked around town looking to buy some leather goods which Huancavlica is famous . We couldn’t get seats on the train back so we had to go to the bus station and buy tickets. Well we got our bus tickets and reserved seats and got on the bus. The bus travels one block and then fills up with people standing all the way to the back of the bus. It was really crowded and I remember one incident after all these years. A man got on and he was a little bit or a whole lot drunk and he took the liberty of trying to fondle some of the women. He got a hold of someone about 30 years old and she slapped the heck out of him and he then sat down and went to sleep. Nothing like traveling to get an education…Wow

The next train trip was in the United States on a narrow gauge railroad. We had taken a bus load of boy scouts from Enid out to Cimmaron New Mexico and left them there for 10 days. We had also taken one of our vans and so we decided to stay in New Mexico and look around for 10 days. We went to Taos and Santa Fe and then decided to go to Farmington across the northern part of New Mexico. We stopped at the small city of Chama and decided to stay overnight and catch the narrow gauge train up to Antonito Colo the next day. This was in the early 80’s and the area around Chama had not been developed much at that time. We went up to Antonito on the train and then came back to Chama the same day. This was in July or early August and it was snowing a bit at Antonito. The scenery was very good and it was a neat trip. We went through Chama in 1997 and it had really built up and lots of tourists go there now. Glad we went when it was still sort of undeveloped.

In 1985 I went to London with Gail while she was teaching a class for Conoco. Steve couldn’t go so I was happy to go on the trip. We decided to go to York from London while we were there. I forget what station we departed from but think it was Charing Cross. In London you all line up in neat lines to get one the train. No messing around and pushing and all that good stuff. We went to York and stayed over night, toured the area of york and then came back the next day as Gail was teaching the following Monday. There are trains going almost every hour to many of the large cities in England and they are very nice trains. It was interesting to see the countryside and see the old churches and such in York. We came back and finally got some of the English people to talk to us and had a nice visit on the train. Of course while in London we rode the trains in the tube. It’s not called the subway in London, it’s the tube.

In 1993 Dale and I went on a tour to Australia, New Zealand and Fuji. We were on a couple of train trips during this vacation. We left Hawaii and arrived in Cains Australia about 9 hours later and were very tired. We went to the hotel and deposited our luggage and then we went off on a tour of the surrounding area by train. This was a narrow gauge railroad and the cars were open as the climate is very hot. We probably went about 10 miles from the main part of the city and we saw some native dances and some native artifacts and then came back to our hotel in the evening to rest.

We then went to Sidney and later to Melbourne and then we flew from Sidney to Christchurch New Zealand. The plane was late out of Sidney and we arrived in Christchurch about 1 a. m. We had a room in an old fashioned Victorian hotel but were only able to sleep about 3 hours before getting up the next morning to catch the train. There was a big old fashioned deep bath tub and I filled it up and soaked for a while as I was very tired. Got up early the next morning and went to the train station. This train was used mostly for tourists and it ran from Christchurch up the mountain and the trip was about 4 hours. Saw a lot of the New Zealand countryside and then we detrained and traveled by bus the rest of the time in New Zealand.

The next and last trip that I have made on a train was into the Copper Canyon in Mexico. I went on a tour in 1999 and for part of the trip we traveled by bus. We went to a large city in Mexico and stayed overnight and the next day we started west on the bus. We went into the part of Mexico that had been settled by Mennonite people in about 1920. The Mexican government allowed them to settle and have their own schools and own language and with the understanding that they would never have to serve in the military. The Mennonite people have very nicely developed farms and orchards where they live. Our guide told us that when they know a hail storm is coming that they cover their apple trees with plastic to stop any damage to their fruit. We had a meal at a Mennonite restaurant and was the typical good German food. After leaving that part of Mexico we caught the train for our next stop. We would travel for part of a day and then get off the train, see the local sights and then catch train the next day for a few hours. We stayed one day down in the canyon at a tourist hotel. Quite a place, lights out at 10 p m and they had a water shortage and water had to be hauled in by truck. From this hotel we took a 2 hour bus ride further down into the canyon. The native people that live in the canyon come up near the top in the summer time and then in the winter they move back down into the bottom of the canyon as it is warm down there. The scenery is unbelievable and it was a trip that I had looked forward to for many years. Dale and I had always talked about making this trip but he was very ill and died before we were able to go. This concludes some of my trips made by trains over a period of 60 years.

Late 20's into my 30's

2010-12-24T10:06:00.000-08:00

Late 20’s into my 30’s

    I had major surgery when I was 28 years old. I had an egg break in my ovary and the pain was horrible. Dr. Gilbert operated and my recovery was easy. That same year dale bought a boat and a 25 H P Evinrude motor. We started to water ski and became fairly good at it. Eddie rode the surf board and he liked to ride in the boat. I learned how to drive the boat and pull Dale around the lake. We used the cabin and water skied until Gail was born. We went to Grand Lake with bob and Emily record and also to ten killer and the Salt Plains. We were burned out on skiing after a while. Too many good time friends liked to come out and use the cabin and us.

    My brother Richard was killed in an auto accident in May of 1957. Five young men in 2 cars were killed near Willow river Minn. Such a sad time. I was grief stricken about that for a longtime. Dick had been in Okla the year before and stayed with us for about 3 weeks. We were the two youngest in the family and had a special relationship. Need I say more. I still cry when I think about it. First Don and then Dick.

    Gail was born Oct 13 1959 and I did not go back to work after she was born. She was a good baby and the apple of her father’s eye. She had dark red hair and blue eyes and a very fair complexion. I had to change my whole life around and make new friends and find other things to do. I did start to sew more for Gail and myself but the quilt making was 10 more years down the line.

    Hugh went to Washington school after Gail was born and continued to do well in school. Miss Hoffman the principal said to me that they expected him to be a hand full because he was so bright but he was a normal and well mannered child. He started to play the Cello in 5th grade and then transferred to the double bass in the 7th grade. He started piano lessons with Mrs. Chisholm. I bought community concert tickets and exposed him to good music. We also bought a piano and he took lessons for several years. His last piano teacher Moe Anderson later became extremely successful in selling real estate and working for Merrill Lynch.

    I started bowling when Gail was about 2 years old and Hugh baby sat for me. One day I made a lemon pie and put a piece in Dale’s lunch and left the rest on the table. When I came home from bowling the whole pie was eaten. So at 8:30 at night I just made another lemon pie. Guess Gail and Hugh were full.

    When Gail was 5 and Hugh was 15 he would still baby sit for me. He told her that if she didn’t bother him he would let her sit on the bed and listen to Beatle record while he studied. When Gail started school she knew all the Beatle records. Hugh rode his bike to Junior High part of the time. He was in SMSG algebra in 9th grade and did very well in school. Think he was in the 99th percentile on the Iowa test in Junior High…

Danny comes to Ponca City

2010-12-23T09:55:00.000-08:00

Danny comes to Ponca City

Our son Hugh had enlisted in the Peace corps in 1969, he then went to Brockport NY for his training and was sent to Peru in 1970. He married a Peruvian girl named Betty Manrique Galvez and two children were born in this marriage. Carolina in 1972 and Daniel in 1974.

Betty and the children came to the States in 1979 and stayed 4 months in our house until they could speak and understand English. Hugh was in Saudi Arabia at this time working for Collins Radio and setting up the telephone system out in the desert. Betty and the children then moved out of our house to a house of their own at 408 E Emporia. Betty and Hugh divorced and Betty and the children returned to Peru in 1981. Dale and I maintained a good relationship with Betty’s family.

My husband Dale and I traveled to Peru about 7 times between 1972 and 1989. In 1989 the Shining Path Guerillas were very active in the countryside and smaller cities. Their favorite tactic was to blow up the high line towers in the mountains and you never knew if you would have electricity or not. The regular police also stopped you on the roads and examined everything in your car and purse using a sub machine gun to keep you from protesting.

Betty had called Hugh in the fall of 1989 and asked if he would like to have Danny come to the States and live with Hugh and Sunday. Carol was finishing High School so I and a friend went to Peru Dec 12th 1989 to see Carol graduate and to bring Danny back to the states. Danny was 16 and Betty did not want him getting interested in the guerrilla movement.

Betty met us at the airport and we then went to a friends apartment close to the old market. We had to be careful with our purses and we watched very carefully getting in and out of the car. We did stay one day in Lima and went into the central part of the city. We encountered tear gas and a large marching group of people. We rushed inside a store so as not to be seen.

The following day we drove to Huancayo Peru where my grandchildren lived. Huancayo is located about 180 miles from Lima over the first range of mountains then down into the Mantero valley. It is a city of about 100,000 people. We left Lima and started up the mountain. We reach an elevation of 16000 feet in 80 miles of travel. Then we drop down to the Mantero Valley which has an elevation of 12000 feet. The road was partly gravel at that time and there is a lot of traffic on the road. The trucks look like our gravel trucks and are loaded with produce from the high jungle. These trucks are carrying oranges, bananas, avocados and other tropical fruit. These trucks also bring lumber, other vegetables, grain and potatoes to Lima. There are 5000 different variety’s of potatoes in the International Potato Institute in Lima. Peru’s Quecha Indians developed most of the vegetables we use in Western Civilization. You can go to the market in any small village in Peru and see many different vegetables that we are unfamiliar with in the states.

We arrived in Huancayo and did attend Carol’s graduation ceremony. We did not go out at night. We watched on local TV the funeral of a high city official. He had been murdered by the Shining Path Guerrilla's. It was an uneasy time in Huancayo and I was glad when we returned to Lima to fly home.

The plane lifted off the runway and I could breath easy again. Danny went to Baltimore for a couple of weeks and then came to live with us in Ponca City for 5 months and attended Po-Hi. The first thing he wanted was a flashlight and I bought one for him. I got curious about why he wanted a flashlight. Well he found the tunnel under 7th St that goes all the way to Poplar and had been exploring it. Think he found some bats in it and we had to warn him about being in that tunnel.

We bought as mountain bike for him sometime in April or May and he enjoyed riding it. We were so sorry that we hadn’t bought the bike when he arrived here. The 5 months went by real fast and then we took him to Baltimore to live with his Father and Sunday. He was able to be accepted into the Baltimore School of Arts and stayed in Baltimore 2 years with his Father and Sunday.

While in Baltimore he entered a contest and won a prize on a picture and on a collage that he had made. He had been drawing and painting since he was a small child. He stayed in Baltimore with his Father for 2 years and then went back to Peru as conditions were better then. He entered college at San Marcos and studied there for 3 years.

Danny's sister, Carolina attended college in Lima and her major was Marine Biology. She later came to the States with her husband Jaime and recently earned her Doctorate from the University of California at Irvine, in Marine Biology

Dee's Trip to Alaska - 1961

2010-12-22T09:34:00.000-08:00

Trip to Alaska

In 1961 Dale, Hugh and I went on a trip to Alaska. Dale had bought a pickup camper and started selling campers in the day time. He had a 4 week vacation at this time and we started on this trip.

Sat July 22 1961. Left at 1030 a m. drove through to Des Moines and stopped at a closed filling station. Gail real good.

Sun July 23. Arrived at Dorothy’s. Daisy Don and kids came down for dinner and spent the day visiting. Gail liked everyone.

Mon July 24. Left Dorothy’s about 11. Took Dale W with us. Drove to Northfield across to Canon Falls to Hastings and then up the St Croix river to Taylors Falls and into Grantsburg Wis. Got to the folks about 630 p.m.

Tues July 25. Left the folks at 840 a.m., drove to International falls and went through customs. Crossed the Rainey river on a railroad bridge. I drove for about an hour and stopped at Nestor Falls the first resort for gas. Dale took over and we lots of beaver and deer. Got to Kenora about 730 p.m. and ate supper. Drove through the woods for 250 miles. Got to Winnipeg about 11 p.m. People still up walking around. Looked like a real interesting city. Parked the camper at at truck weighing station and it rained about 4 a.m.

Wed July 26. Left Winnipeg at 730 a.m. but I stayed in bed until 930 a.m. Hit prairie country after leaving Winnipeg and was quite flat all the way to Regina. Regina sits in the middle of the prairie. Had some pretty building and a big oil refinery. Also doing some road building there. Sun set at 9 p.m.

Thurs July 27. Stayed in a roadside park about 20 miles from Saskatoon Sack. .Dale got up and started driving at 5 a.m. Got up and fixed breakfast about 9 a.m. Stopped in a Safeway Store in Lloydminister and got our groceries. Called Dorothy and Gail was fine. Arrived in Edmonton about 530 p.m. Drove 100 miles beyond Edmonton and stopped at a roadside park. Beautiful scenery. Saw 2 deer cross the highway while I was driving. Talked to some people from Emporia Ks.

Fri July 28. Left roadside park about 10 a m. been in a lot of forest country. Lots of ducks on the ponds. Came across the Smokey river about 1 p.m. real high hill. Got to Grand Prairie and doing wash here. Dawson Creek 73 miles. Got to Dawson Creek around 5 p.m. and decided to go on up the highway. Beautiful farming country here. Went to Ft St John crossed the Peace River bridge around M.P. 79, came on to Pink Mountain camping grounds at M.P. 143. Sun set around 930 p.m…Dark around 1045 p.m. Lots of wild flowers along the highway.

Sat July 29. Left M.P. 143 areound10 a.m. drove on up and had a good dinner at a roadside café. Got into Ft Nelson around 4 p.m. oil country up there and not a bad place. Hit mountains about M.P. 345 and then the scenery starts. Drove about 50 miles and really thought we were seeing things but then it keeps getting more interesting. Got into the hot springs at Laird River about 1030 p. m. went down washed my hair and took a bath. Water was real hot. We ran into a lot of dust yesterday. Sure gets the camper dirty. Lots of places to camp up here but they are a little bit messy. Couldn’t see what time the sun set but it wasn’t dark at 1115 p. m. don’t get up in the morning early enough to see what time it is daylight. Saw a man painting the mountains at a pull off place.

Sun July 30. Just piddled around all day, drove about 200 miles, camped at M.P. 674 at Big Creek campground. Eddie went swimming in a lake. Dale and I chickened out, was to cold.

Mon July 31. Got some fresh Lake trout at MP. 781 also some Indian moccasins for Dale, myself and Gail. Drove on into Whitehorse and had a good meal. We went and looked at the riverboats and the museum. Also to the High School to see some movies and to a gift shop. Camped at M.P. 967 at Mendenhall creek.

Tues Aug 1. Drove down to Haines today. Beautiful scenery. We drove through a game preserve and saw lots of chipmunks, grouse and later two moose. Nothing much at Haines and came on out and parked at customs 43 miles north of Haines.

Wed Aug 2. Came on out but cloudy and rainy. Eddie had his picture taken close to a snow bank. Had lunch at Haines Jct. We had a blow out at M.P. 1193. Dale fixed the flat quite easily. We drove on to Tok Jct where we went through customs and were greeted by a pretty blond who had just had an Alaska snort. We got a hot shower for 50 cents and we camped at Lelas overnight.

Thur Aug 3. Started for Anchorage about 715 a.m. What a road, it was paved but was like a washboard. Saw our first glazier at Tazalina and ate dinner at the Lodge. We arrived at Anchorage around 730 p.m. and went to wash clothing. Clean sheets tonight. Had 4 loads of wash. Talked to a girl from Odessa at the laundry. We went downtown and it looked like the main street of Minneapolis in 1944. Neon signs-wide open-excitement in the air. Quite a place.

Fri Aug 4. Got a new tire and sourdough pancakes. Not so hot, we left Anchorage around 1 p.m. and drove to the Portage Glacier. What a sight. Blue and big. It rained on us all day. Tried to drive to Hope but the road was so bad so we came back and started to Soldatna. Came through Kenai Natl. forest, we saw some moose and started to Homer but we camped 17 miles south of Soldatna.

Sat Aug 5. Went to Kenai and drove around Soldatna then on up the road and down to Seward. We looked over the small boat harbor, brought some strawberries and parked out north of town. Beautiful drive and Seward is a nice small city.

Sun Aug 6. We left Seward around noon and drove on into Anchorage. We arrived in Anchorage around 6 p.m. We ate supper at the airport café. Really a good meal. We couldn‘t make up our minds whether to stay and see if we had any mail or not, but decided to stay. We had a tube put in our tire and went out to the International airport and saw 2 big jets take off. Then we drove over and watched the seaplane land on a lake. We saw about10 seaplane land. We parked at a trailer court or alley don‘t know which it was..

Mon Aug 7. Fixed speedometer cable and had a letter from Dorothy. Left Anchorage about 10 a.m. and drove to Palmer and about 13 miles out into the Mantanuska Valley. Lovely farms, looked like Minnesota or Wisconsin. We came on up to Glenn Allen Jct. and at supper at M.P. 80 right at the edge of Worthington glacier. Will see it better in the morning.

Tues Aug 8. We drove down to Valdez and did some mountain driving, we went downhill for10 miles We saw Bridal Vail Falls and went through a tunnel. We saw the glacier at Valdez. We had dinner and was more than you could eat for $1.85. We came out and started up the road to McKinley Park but we drove 12 miles and chickened out. What a road, so we came to Donnelly camp ground and spent the night.

Wed Aug 9. Drove into Fairbanks and looked around. We went out to the college, through the museum and saw the stuffed animals. Big Kodiak bear and Doll sheep. Real interesting, went to the Chamber of Commerce and saw slides of Indo-China-Japan-Hong Kong and Australia. Then went out and camped overnight.

Thurs Aug 10. Washed clothes and started for Dawson city. Arrived at Tetlin Jct. and drove 74 miles into the mountains. What scenery. We camped at a lodge and it rained. Paid 66 cents a gallon for gasoline.

Fri Aug 11. We drove on top of the mountains into Dawson City. We managed to get our camper on a small ferry with another truck and we crossed the Yukon river to get into Dawson City. There was not much to see but it looks like all the pictures of it. Like a town of the late 1800’s. There was an old paddle wheeler parked along the river. The campers were still coming north to Alaska.

Sat Aug 12. We drove to Whitehorse today. It was flat country and not to interesting. We ate supper at Whitehorse and drove in rain to John Jacksons at M.P. 731.

Sun Aug 13. We went fishing and was the lake ever rough. I had a bite but was not able to land the fish. Ed got a pair of moccasins and Dale had some moose meat given to him. Thought we could make it to the Hot Springs but were to tired. Camped at Whirlpool Canyon M.P. 544. Still scared from the boat ride.

Mon Aug 14. We saw a forest fire at Laird River and came on to Summitt Mt. where had hanger welded on the spring on the truck. We came to Ft Nelson and supper. We drove to M.P. 200 and stayed overnight. Lots of dust, worse than before and lots of smoke in the air.

Tues Aug 15. Came to Ft St John and washed and showered and stayed at Little Smokey River overnight.

Wed Aug 16. Came on to Edmondton and drove 50 miles south of Saskatoon and parked just off the highway. Had a flat and made 577 miles today.

Thur. Aug 17. Had 4 more flats today. We pulled off the highway and a man took Dale and I into Regina and got a new tire. They came out 335 miles with their truck and fixed the tire. I went shopping in Regina and bought some real nice bon china. We drove beyond Minot North Dakota after flats were fixed.

Fri Aug 18. Drove to the folks and were tired when we got there. Saw Paul Bunyon at Bemidje. Beautiful lake country. Everybody all right.

Sat Aug 19. Drove to Dorothy’s and were anxious to see Gail. She sure has changed in a month. This is the Alaska trip that I took notes on.
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Life in my 30's

2010-12-21T09:34:00.000-08:00

Life in my 30’s

Will talk a little bit about my life in the 30’s now. Hugh was in 5th grade when Gail was born and I quit my job on the railroad. I was busy with Gail and Hugh as he started piano lessons and also started playing cello in the grade school orchestra. Dale was going to work at 6 p.m. and home at 2 a.m. every morning. He owned a couple of school buses and would get up and drive in the morning and come home and take a nap.

I started bowling when Gail was about 2 and sometimes bowled in the summer and would take her to the nursery at the lanes. She came home with chicken pox one time and think she exposed all the children in the nursery. I made different friends after quitting work on the railroad and begin to get involved with some volunteer work. I enjoyed it up to a point but I did become to involved and didn’t have much time to myself.

I made most of Gail’s clothes and also quite a few for myself. Dale become involved in selling pickup campers and he wasn’t home much. Mr. Day and Dale did quite a lot of camper repair. We also acquired the Ponca City Military bus business. So we always had a little extra money to spend. We had3 bus routes and the PMA business.

When Hugh was a Sophomore in college I went to work for the Rock Island railroad as a billing clerk. This was in 1969 and I continued to work until my job was abolished 18 months later. Dale’s job was also abolished at the same time. We had 4 school bus routes and had almost finished building a new home at 442 Fairview.

I talked Dale into staying in Ponca City and told him I would learn how to drive a school bus. This was in 1970 when I was 43 years old. I had driven a large truck with a camper on it so I figured I could drive a school bus. Driving the school bus wasn’t that difficult, it was keeping the kids halfway quiet and not moving around. I developed a firm attitude and a loud voice.

The first morning I drove the bus we had a dense fog and I was scared out of my wits. That evening one of the kids in the back seat opened the door and I had to stop the bus and close the door. I really got strict with the kids and got them under control. I drove the route for 2 years and then I begin to drive when someone called in sick and the I started doing activity trips to Enid, Stillwater, Ark city Winfield and Blackwell. Mostly Jr. High football and Basketball. I continued doing this until 1986 when we sold our buses to the school.

Gail was in the 5th grade when I started to drive the bus. She rode the bus to Jr. High when I started driving activity trips and she sometimes had to go over on 14th St. and buy her supper at a hamburger place. She also ate at the Taco Shop in grade school and she liked a Taco Burger.

I begin to sew for Gail when she was very small and I was very active in the community. I was President of my bowling league, was social chairman of the Schubert Music club and was Spiritual Life Chairman of the Methodist’s Women Society and also program chairman of my church circle. I caught myself coming and going every day. One month I remember going to 28 meetings. Needless to say I got out of most of it in a year or two.

Green Stamps and other prizes

2010-12-20T09:50:00.000-08:00

Green Stamps and other prizes

During the great depression in the 1930’s and into the 40’s and 50’s and 60’ merchants gave away many prizes to get people to trade with them. During the thirties I can remember my Mother buying oatmeal and she would get a cup or a saucer in the box of oatmeal.

I remember trading eggs for groceries and then depending on how many groceries you purchased you would get a dish with chickens pictured on it. My Mother traded with Wesley Bros in Hope Minn and think she got at least 4 sets of dishes. She gave me a complete set of dishes when I married Dale and I later gave them to Dale’s Mother as she needed them.

The depression glass which is so highly collectible was given away as prizes at movie theatres and also as you purchased groceries. My mother must have collected that also as she gave me a pink set which included a large sauce bowl and 6 sauce dishes. Needless to say I used the set and they broke quite easily. My sister Dorothy still has some of the depression dishes that she received as shower presents when she married in 1935.

Later on when I married green stamps were very popular. A lot of merchants gave green stamps, the grocery store, the shoe store, service stations and almost every kind of business. You got one green stamp I think for 10 cents of purchase. You then had a green stamp book in which you pasted the green stamps. There was a green stamp store in Ponca City and when you got enough books filled you could go down to the store and buy things with your stamps.

I have a nice card table and 4 chairs that I purchased with green stamps and it is probably 50 years old. I had gone to an auction one day and brought home 4 oak chairs that I had bought for a dollar each. One of our bus drivers wanted a couple of the chairs and she gave me a whole bunch of green stamp books for them. I had some other green stamps books filled and I went to the store and was able to get a nice oak butcher block table for Gail. That was probably about 27 years ago.

Leonard’s grocery store gave away a prize every week for trading with them. One time I won the weekly prize and it was a nice large set of Corning Ware. I still use that almost every day and that was over 40 years ago that I won them.

One of the drug stores here in town had a sign up sheet and they gave away a weekly prize. You had to sign up the week when the drawing was held. Got people in the store shopping. These a just a few of the things that were given away to get people to come in the stores and buy merchandise. Really don’t see much of that anymore. Probably the modern day coupons have taken the place of the give aways.

Sewing Machines throughout my life.

2010-12-01T05:35:00.000-08:00

I first started sewing when I was in 4 H club when I was 12 years old. My Mother had a treadle Minnesota sewing machine that she had received as a wedding present from her father in 1912. I started using that machine when I was 12 years old about the last of 1939. My first project was an apron and I did all right with that. My next project was a cotton dress that I had to make for a 4 H club project. I made the dress with a little help from my Mother and then had to go to the County fair and model the dress.   Didn’t win anything on it.

My next project was in my freshman year in High School in Ellendale. A lot of the girls didn’t know anything about sewing and I knew a little bit. I made another cotton dress and think I got a B on it. We had electric sewing machines at Ellendale and they were easy to work with. I didn’t take any more Home Ec classes the rest of the way through High School.

After I had made those 2 dresses I was ready to tackle some more sewing. I remember making a sharkskin plaid dress when I was in 10th grade and I made bound buttonholes all the way down the back of the dress.   Then in my Junior and Senior years in high School I would come home from working at the Burt’s and I would sit down and make a blouse over the week end. The kids in school couldn’t tell that the blouse was homemade. Was getting better at sewing.

I didn’t do much more sewing except keeping my clothing mended by hand the first 4 years that I worked on the railroad. Dale and I were married in 1948 and he bought me a Domestic 153 sewing machine for Christmas the first year that we were married. I made a skirt and I made a most of the baby clothes for Hugh the first year I was married.

I went back to work when Hugh was 8 weeks old and I didn’t do much sewing except sewing buttons on and mending and altering some of my things. When Hugh was about 2 years old I made him several pairs of shorts out of slacks that Dale could not wear any more. I did make a dress or two to wear to work and I had Mrs Smith’s mother help me put a zipper in.

When Hugh was a little older I remember making him a nice pair of pajamas but I didn’t really have time to do much sewing for any of us. I did make a throw out of old pants of Dale’s and took it out to the lake and someone took it. That was my first attempt at doing some piece work.

After Gail was born in 1959 I started doing quite a lot of sewing for her and made a lot of her clothing after she started school.

The next sewing machine that I purchased was a White Sewing machine and that was in 1970. This machine was all metal and had a zig zag and had cams to make fancy stitches. I really started a lot of sewing with that machine. In about 1972 I joined Extension Homemakers and took at tailoring course that they offered. Then I started making coats and slacks and skirts for Gail and myself. Also was beginning to do some quilt piecing at that time.

In 1982 I went to a Quilt Show and classes in Albuquerque New Mexico and that was when I saw the little Singer 221 sewing machines being used. I had seen the first 221 sewing machine in 1947 but thought they were very small at that time.

I didn’t get real interested in the 221 machines until about 1992 when I saw Andy fields in Ark city at a quilt show with several machines and they were priced in the $400.00 range. I already had one with a table that we had bought at an auction for $60.00...I came home from Ark City and said to Dale “I think there is a market for those little Singer sewing machines, why don’t we try to find some and resell them and see what happens”..

That was the start of our selling the 221 machines. We went to garage sales around here and found a few and then we went to Texas and stopped at Canton and found some and then we started stopping at all the sewing machine shops looking for the 221 machines. We stopped at Palestine Texas and bought 18 of those machines at one time. Dale said “How are we ever going to get rid of these machines?”    I subscribed to several quilting magazines at that time. I put adds in about 5 quilting magazines and we begin getting calls with people wanting to buy the machines. This was before the internet and we had lots of business.

I had my sister in Minnesota put adds in the newspapers up there just before we would go up for vacation and we found machines there. We had one friend in Minnesota that went to garage sales and she would buy one every time she had a chance. We stopped at every sewing machine shop coming and going across the country and we found machines that way.

Dale had been diagnosed with cancer and we had to go to Baltimore to Johns Hopkins several times a year and we would put an add in the Baltimore Sun and I think over the years we picked up about 150 machines in the Baltimore area. We always came back home with a van load of machines.   One time on the way back from Baltimore we came through Cookeville Tenn and they had a 68 table and a sewing machine together in a small repair shop. We had 38 sewing machines in our van but we made room for the table and the machine.

We were very busy with our small business and the last year Dale lived in 1998 was the best business year we had. We had calls from all over the country just about every day. There were some avid collectors at that time and they were always on the lookout for new machines and accessories.

When Dale died in 1998 I had over 50 sewing machines on hand. He had told me a few weeks before he died that if I didn’t want to mess with them to just throw them in the river. He felt like he had had the fun selling and working on them and that it had prolonged his life by several years. Dale had talked Nancy Johnson-Srebro into writing another book about the 221 machines and several of our machines and accessories are pictured in the book. (Editor note: One of Gail's machines is also in the book, the Crinkle Singer Featherweight.)

While Dale was alive we went to quilt shows in the Oklahoma and Arkansas area and we made a lot of contacts that way. We always did quite well at the quilt shows. Gail had come up with the idea of having a web page on the internet in 1995 and we got a lot of business that way. She also came up with the idea about selling care packages and then I included a dust cover in some of the packages. As of 2010 I have made over 1000 dust covers.

I started cleaning up the machines that we had on hand and selling them one by one. I bought a few more machines also and sold them. It kept me quite busy wrapping the machines up and all. I learned how to rewire the foot controls. Dale had either purchased or had given to him at least 60 old foot controllers. Mostly they were all right and all they needed was new wiring. I still have a few left and fixed up a few in the last month.

Dale had bought out a bunch of parts from someone here in town and they were about 20 of the 221 bobbin cases in the box of parts. The cases needed to be reconstructed and I looked at those cases for about a half a year and decided that I could fix them. I had the parts to fix the bobbin cases and I fixed up 11 of them and sold them . I also had about 20 of the wooden cases that needed repair and I order material and latches and locks to fix them. I had a man fix them for me and sold the reconditioned cases. They went real fast.

I still sell some parts and manuals and accessories and Gail still has the web site for the machines. About 2000 I begin getting interested in other old singer machines and so off to the garage sales I went. I picked up several 401 machines a 500, 403 404, 185, two 301’s, a Necchi, a couple of White machines, and several others. Some I gave away and some I sold. I have in my collection a couple of Wilcox and Gibbs ,a Singer 24, two Elna grasshoppers, a 66 treadle, a little worker, a Pfaff 362 , 1069 and my worker horse Pfaff 1471.

Over the years I have collected almost every Singer accessory that was manufactured. I also have a nice collection of old Singer books and a lot of written material that goes with the accessories. I collected a lot of that stuff over 30 years ago. I like to look at every old sewing machine out there, so I go to garage sales and see what they have to offer and sometimes I buy a machine and sometimes I just look. Most of the machines that I see just need a good oiling and grease job and off they spin. Some people do not take care of their machines and others look good after 60 years of use.

At the present time I sell buttonholers and accessories and oil and lube and patchwork feet for the 221 machines. I work on the buttonholers and test them out before I sell them and that is interesting. Gail has created a web site about the Singer Featherweight at http://singerfeatherweight221.blogspot.com/

This has been an interesting hobby and I am out in the workshop every day doing something with the sewing machines.

Invention that changed my life the most

2010-11-10T11:40:00.000-08:00

When I was a child in the mid 1930"s the hardest job for the average homemaker was washing clothes. We lived on a farm and did have cold running water in the house. But after we left my birth place we did not have running water on any of the rent farms and water was carried to the house from an outdoor well in cold Minnesota.

We used a cast iron wood cook stove for cooking and heating water for washing clothes and for Saturday night baths in the wash tub. My Mother had a copper bottomed boiler in which she used to heat water and boil the white cotton clothing and sheets. Mother made her own lye soap and I remember her shaving the soap which she added to the water in the boiler. After the white clothing had been boiled the clothing and soap were transferred to the washing machine.

The washing machine had a round wood tub and an agitator and a wringer. The agitator was powered by hand by whatever child was around the kitchen. Sometimes me. The clother were removed from the tub and put through the wringer to the rinse water which had blueing added to it. We rinsed the clothes and then put them through the wringer again to another tub of cold water. We did the second rinse and then put the clothes through the wringer again and then hung the clothes outside to dry. In winter time we hung clothes outside and they froze almost dry and then we brought them into the house and hung on lines stretched across the dining room to finish drying.

We wore the same clothes to school for several days and changed into old clothes when we returned from school. I remember wearing long underware and a garter belt to hold up my long cotton stockings. This was in Minnesota and the winters were cold. I did wear a snow suit to school as I had to walk 1/2 mile to school 10 below or whatever the temp. My mother had 5 children at home and she tried to save on washing clothes.

I remember a few years later when my Mother bought a washing machine powered by a Briggs & Stratton motor. Mother was so proud of that machine.

I married in 1948 and our son Eddie was born in 1949. I returned to work on the railroad when he was 8 weeks old. Dale noticed how hard I was working and decided to buy us a Western Auto automatic washing machine. It was the one thing that enabled me to go back to work and not spend half a day washing clothes. The automatic washing machine as we know it was in general use in the late 1940"s. To me it was a miracle invention and I was so happy to have it.

Making Quilts

2010-11-04T11:00:00.000-07:00

Making Quilts

I had wanted a hand quilted quilt for many years and in the 1960’s I checked out every book that our library had to study about making a quilt. I was still busy at that time working on the Rock Island Railroad as a billing clerk so didn’t have time to get started on one.

In September of 1969 my job as a billing clerk and Dale’s job as a telegraph operator were abolished. At that time we had 4 school bus routes and I told Dale I would drive a school bus if we could stay in Ponca City . We had almost finished a new house at 442 Fairview and we had our old house at 437 Fairview to sell. We decided to stay in Ponca City and go in business for ourselves.

Dale went to the Supt of Schools and applied for a job and he was going to work in maintence, but then other things happened. The Federal Govt started the school lunch program and Dale got involved in that. He went to Bartlesville and checked out their program and came back to Ponca City and told the Supt how their program worked.   The off shot of that was that the schools had 2 central kitchens and they made all the school lunches for the grade schools. Dale proposed that he purchase an insulated truck and that the school purchase insulated carriers for the food.

Dale was a school employee and the truck was leased to the school. This allowed us to have health insurance and so Dale started that and so he had a job again.

In the meantime I started driving a school bus route for grade school students going out north of town and east of town. I think that same year I drove a route for native American children going out south and west of town and then into White Eagle.   Part of my pay was lunch at liberty School.

I continued driving that route for a couple of years and then Dale found someone else to do it. At that time we were beginning to get a lot more sport activity trips and so I did the Junior High sport trip driving. I found that I had lots of time waiting for the teams to get over playing football and basketball and so I started to embroidery table clothes while waiting for the games to be over.

About 1972 I decided that I was going to start making a quilt. I had a McCall’s magazine that had a picture of a Grandmother’s Flower Garden quilt in it. I though that was so neat and decided that I would make it. Now I had been sewing since I was real small so didn’t think I would have any trouble with making it. I had sense enough to cut my material on the grain line and didn’t run into any major trouble. I would cut out enough pieces for one or two blocks and then I would hand sew them while waiting for the children to finish their games.   There for I made most of the blocks on the school bus. Well I got the 29 blocks made and then put the quilt together. By the way it was made out of cottons that I had used for making blouses and dresses for Gail. Now those were 1960 prints.

Now I had to quilt it and bear in mind I had never quilted or put a quilt in a frame and didn’t have anyone to ask about it. Well I bought a quilting frame from Sears and I put that sucker together and started quilting it. Don’t remember how long it took but probably the better part of a year. Gail helped by drawing all of my quilting designs. Well I finished it up and took it to the Blackwell Fair and won a 4th place on it. I brought it back home and Gail said “Mother that ought to be my quilt as you used my dress material in it.” Well she got the quilt.

Now since I had made one for Gail I had to go ahead and make one for Hugh. I found an appliqued quilt pattern on the outside cover of Family circle magazine so I decided to make it. Now this was around 1976 and we didn’t have much choice in cottons. When I would go on a out of town trip I would look for different cotton material for this quilt. I found different cotton material in about 4 different towns. So I sat down and did this Maple Leaf quilt. Think I finished it and the quilting in about 1978. I took it to the Blackwell Fair and won a 2nd place on it.

Then I got interested in making a star quilt. I though, well I have conquered the hexagons so now I will try the diamonds..I made a small diamond wall hanging and it turned out fine. It was all hand pieced. I thought ‘There has to be a better way to do diamond quilts”

I looked and looked at how the diamond quilts were put together and came up with the idea to strip piece lengths of fabric together. I made a sample and saw that it would work. Then I had to make 6 different strips and cut them at a 45 degree angle and be sure that my cutting on the angle was accurate. I started on Sunday evening and had a nice large Lone Star put together by Saturday.   I didn’t get all the squares and triangles sewed on for a month or two. Think I just admired my handiwork for a while. Well I took that top to the Blackwell unquilted and it won a blue ribbon.

I made a couple more diamond quilts and then I saw a picture of a Sioux Diamond quilt in a magazine and the picture was about 2 inches square. So off I go and decided to design that into a full sized quilt. I made a sample wall hanging and quilted it and think Gail still has it. I made the big quilt and it is still waiting to be quilted.

Then in 1979 I was asked to teach a quilting class out at the Marland Mansion. This was before the craze for quilts had begin. I think I had 6 students and I taught some and we all taught each other. I had to keep ahead of the class , so had to have something new every week.

In 1982 or 1983 I read in one of the magazines that there was going to be a quilt show and classes at the University in Albuquerque New Mexico. I knew that I needed to learn a lot more so I made reservations to go. Bought my round trip ticket and changed at Denver and then on the way back changed at Dallas-Ft Worth. Was carrying two suitcases and made it fine. I took a class from Diane Leone on doing Fine Hand Quilting as asked if I could use her instructions. She said ‘Yes’ as long as you tell the students that it was her instructions.

At that time there were several nationally known teachers that gave speeches. We had Pat Morris, Judy Matthiessen, Ginny Beyer and Helen Young. I was fortunate that I was able to hear them at that stage of my quilting. They had a dress show and I wore my black dress with the diamonds around the bottom or the skirt. Had lots of good comments on that dress and I later took it to the State Fair at Okla City and won a blue ribbon on it.

I then begin to teach other classes in the area. I taught at Stillwater , Blackwell, Bramen ,Ark City, Enid and back to Stillwater again. I also taught classes out at the bus shop and later taught at the Senior High two or three times. Also worked with Camp Fire girls and had them do simple piecing.

Probably in the mid eighties I begin to work on Log Cabin Quilt as you go quilts. I made one in Christmas colors that my son and daughter in law have. I took it to the fair in Okla City and won a Blue Ribbon and a pkg of batting   I made a small Log Cabin baby quilt for Amber and that would have been in 1985. I also made a full sized Seminole Cross Log Cabin Quilt and it won a Blue ribbon at the Okla City Fair. Amber has that quilt and I saw it on Derek’s bed in June.

I made a blue colored Log Cabin for Gail and she used it on her King sized bed for many years.

For several years I gave programs on quilts and probably did at least 20 programs. This was in addition to helping Dale run the school busses and doing the book work for the business. I gave a program out at Westminster and one of the women showed some very unique quilts blocks to the group. I said ‘Lucille if you ever want to find a home for those blocks I would take them’ I was just joking but at the end of the program she said “Deloris, I am so happy to find a home for these blocks and someone that will appreciate them” I made some more blocks out of that material and then I made patterns for 14 of the 25 blocks that were more accurate.

I made a quilt just using one pattern for the whole quilt. I made it using an applique quilt technique.    That is, I fused the applique pieces to a block and then I put it together with the batting and backing and then I satin stitched around all of the design. That was in 1992. I took that to the Fair in Okla City and won 3rd place. That was the quilt I made for Dale. I gave that to Derek last year as I hadn’t made a quilt for him.

In the early 90’s I entered a tatted piece and a woven necklace in the Okla City Fair along with a counted thread embroidery piece. I won Blue ribbons on all the pieces.

In the 90’s I joined the Okla State Quilter’s Guild and was on the board for 6 years. 4 years as money raising chairman and 2 years as secretary of the State Guild. That was an interesting experience and I met women from all over the state. We had a retreat every fall and I taught embroidery at one of the retreats. I had to resign in 1997 as Dale was becoming more ill. The last time I had a quilting class was in 1989 out at the Vo Tec. I had about 8 women in the class and it was for 2 hours and ran for about 6 weeks. Decided it was time for me to quit.

After Dale died in November of 1998 I continued making quilts and quilted clothing and other things. In the early 90’s I had several of my garments shown in The National Quilting Magazine. I also had won a first prize ribbon on a jacket that I had machine pieced at the Okla State Fair in the early 90’s.

I started making Love Quilts to be given to children and adults. I just made the tops and they were tied by women out at St Paul’s Methodist church. I probably made over 100 of those small quilts but the day came when I was tired of doing that.

I had finished a hand appliqued and hand quilted quilt about 2004 and had also finished a machine pieced and machine quilted diamond quilt the same year. I took the two quilts along with a Seminole skirt and a tatted ornament to the Blackwell Fair and won Blue ribbons on all the things.

I have continued to make quilts and other things up to the present time. I have made some nice utility quilts and I have made two six pointed star quilts. One of the 6 pointed star quilts was completed two years ago. It was probably the most fun to make of any quilt that I have done.

At the present time I am working on an applique quilt that has some Pennsylvania Dutch designs in it. I had bought the blocks about 18 years ago and then I had to design two other blocks and find material that was like the original blocks. Just have one block to go. I also am working on a hand applique block that I designed and just have about 3 blocks finished. Have another 17 to go.

I started a hand pieced quilt several years ago and am now trying to get the blocks pieced together for it. Am working on the 8th block now and hope to finish it this winter of 2011. I had to draw the block and it will be an interesting quilt.

In February of 2010 I made 3 prayer shawls out of wool. I gave two of them to the church and I kept one for myself. I have a lot of 6 inch wool pieces cut out and will try to get some more of them made. Can usually make one in less than a week.

This covers part of the things that I have done with my quilting and I have a never ending supply of material and ideas.

Peru in 1974

2010-11-03T11:18:00.000-07:00

We came home to Ponca City after our trip to Peru in 1972 and begin to get ready for our school year. Dale had purchased 6 school bus routes and we needed to find drivers and get the buses shape for the school year. Gail was in 7th grade that year and this started our long days when school started.

    My granddaughter Carolina was born in Dec of 1972 and we didn't get to see her until June 1974 when we went back to Peru for the second time. Daniel was born in April of 1974 so we got to see him when he was a baby We were busy with our buses the rest of 72 and 73.

In 1974 we went back to Peru and welcomed our new grandson Daniel who was about 2 months old. Hugh & Betty were living in a house on Cusco Street which had a lot more room. Hugh met us in Lima and we went to Huancayo. On this trip we went back to Lima and then made a trip to the Hot Springs at Churine. Dale ate some food at a restaurant there and got sick with food poisoning. The next day we started up the coast to go to Trujillo and on to Chan Chan, the mud city ruins. We bought a sack full of oranges and after Dale ate 2 or 3 he begin to feel better. We stayed at Trujillo overnight in a hotel and we were in the second story. Down below were several produce trucks carrying produce and they all had a mean dog on the top of the truck.

    The next day we spent looking at the ruins at Chan Chan. This city was built a long time ago and has many ruins that still look good as the climate is dry in that area. We went on back to Huancayo and stayed a few days and then decided to go to Tingo Marie. This is a nice small city in the high jungle and the climate is wonderful. It was a long and beautiful drive and we went from an elevation of 12000 feet to an elevation of 2000 feet. In the 1980's until now you can not go to Tingo Marie safely as it is the headquarters for the coco trade. We stayed in the tourist hotel and then went back to Huancayo for a few days.

    There are several good restaurants in Huancayo and one served good hamburgers. I liked to go where they served fried trout. There were several trout farms in the mountains and the trout dinners were inexpensive.

    On Sundays in Huancayo we would go to the Sunday Fair. This was a flea market with new and used things for sale. Clothing, shoes, jewelry, sewing machines,auto parts bicycles and hardware and anything you might want. A whole street was used and the stalls were 4 across the street and 2 miles long. It is the largest open air market in South America. We would see tourists from all over. Young French people were there as well as people from all over South America.

In 1976 Dale and I went to Peru again. Gail stayed with Brady and Caroline for a week and then went on a back packing trip to Colorado. They were having some political problems in Peru and we were unable to go by car up the mountain to Huancayo so we were met in Lima by one of Hugh's Peace Corps friends and stayed at a Hotel overnight. Hugh's friend took us to the airport and we flew up to a tiny airstrip at the beginning of the Mantero Valley. Hugh met us and we drove about 30 miles to Huancayo.

    Betty and Angelica had started a small store selling clothing, they were both teaching and Betty had Carolina and Danny and was expecting a baby, so everyone was extremely busy. On this trip we made a day trip to Satipo and we also went into the mountains where JoSues had painted the inside of a church with Biblical personalities. The people in this small village had not seen many gringos or foreigners. All the children gathered around us and wanted to see us. The priest met us and he was a young man from France. He talked to the children and we went inside the church and afterward around the square where it was market day. There are still many isolated parts of Peru in the high mountains where people live like they they did before the Spanish Conquest.

First Trip to Peru - 1972

2010-10-31T17:43:00.000-07:00

In 1970 Hugh graduated from college in Brockport New York and went to Peru in the Peace Corps. He married while in Peru and we went to Peru the first time in 1972.

We drove our pickup camper to Miami and caught the Braniff Airline to Peru. We went down east of Dallas and bought some peaches at a roadside stand. It was about the 10th of June when we left and we planned to be gone 3 weeks.

We went through Philadelphia Miss and we could feel the tension there. This was about 8 years after the civil rights movement and this was the place where the civil rights workers were murdered and buried in a field or pond.

We drove on and our next stop was Gainesville Florida where we spent the night. We didn’t think it would take long to drive to Miami but it took all day. We stopped at a small motel in the heart of Little Cuba. No problem, and we ate out at a Cuban restaurant. We did go to several attractions in Miami and was it ever hot.

The next night we stayed at a Howard Johnson Motel near the airport and parked our camper in their lot for the 3 weeks that we were out of the country. We left Miami in the evening and I think we flew direct to Lima. We had never been up in a big jet before and ran into a storm on our journey to Lima. The plane went up and down and it was a roller coaster ride. We didn’t know any better so were not unduly frightened. We arrived in Lima and you always come to the airport in a dense fog.

Hugh and Betty met us at the airport and we stayed overnight in Lima. We were amazed at how dirty it was around the airport. Leaving the airport by car one passes miles of slums coyly hidden behind adobe curtain walls that frame the highway. And then the miscellany of homes that announce the residences of the rich California bungalows, turreted castles and colonial posada’s.

One third of Peruvians live in Lima, but there is little Peruvian about the place. It begin as a beach head of foreign power and has never learned to change. Lima looks to Europe and America as models, and the rest of the country for the wealth to indulge the resulting inferiority complex-a complex evident from the lack of original style and the uncritical imitation of others.

We left Lima the next day for the home of our son in Huancayo. Huancayo a city of 100,000 population is located about 180 miles southeast of Lima. We started up the mountains towards Huancayo. We followed the Rimac river for many miles. June is winter time in South America and it is cloudy all the time on the coast. We saw native women washing clothes including hotel linens along the river. The sun shines a few miles east of Lima and therefore your clothing will dry fast.

We started up the mountain and stopped at a restaurant on the way. We ate lunch at a cafe about a 2 hour drive from Lima. They did have a modern restroom and we enjoyed our stop. You have to be careful about eating and I ate papas huancani-which is potatoes with a cheese sauce and boiled egg and it is served cold. Very good.

I saw a man relieving himself in the open and that was common placer. I went to the bathroom at the restaurant and it was modern. The scenery was so unusual and beautiful. We followed the river for many miles, at that time in 1972 the roads were mostly graveled. We kept driving and climbing and arrived at La Oroya which was about half way to Huancayo. The elevation there is 13000 feet. We probably stopped to eat and may have drank some coco tea. Coco tea helps you feel good in the high elevations. We continued on to the highest spot on the road which is called Ticolo which has an elevation of around 16000 feet. Then we continued to Huancayo. The elevation of the Mantero Valley is about 12000 feet and is called the breadbasket of Peru. Lots of grain and vegetables are raised there on small plots.

We continued on the graveled road and stopped again at La Oroya. This is a mining city at an elevation of about 13000 feet. We had driven over the pass at Ticolo at an elevation of 16000 feet. La Oroya is a very polluted city and the people that work in the mines have very poor housing. The mine pollutes the Mantero river for many miles and fish can no longer live in the river. From La Oroya we followed the Mantero river to Huancayo in the Mantero valley. This valley is located at an elevation of 12000 feet and is called the bread basket of Peru.

In the Mantero valley are many small farms which raise potatoes, cabbage, beans, carrots and all other kind of vegetables. The native people of Peru developed most of the vegetables that we are familiar with. There is an in the international Potato institute about 5000 different varieties of potatoes. I saw and ate many different vegetables and fruits that are unavailable to us in the states.

Huancayo you will find potato sacks made of wool as that is what is available to use. I can see the small villages on the road to Huancayo with the checkerboard farms stretching to the mountains on both side of the Mantero river. The people live in the villages and go out to work to their farms to work in the morning.

The busses are full of people and animals and on market day you can see men on bicycles pulling a cart, heavy laden with produce coming to Huancayo to sell the fruits of their labor.

The men mostly dress western but the women dress in their traditional clothing. Black skirts, a bright blouse and a large shawl which is used to carry babies and other things. The babies peek over their mothers shoulders and watch the activity and they never seem to cry.

We arrived at Huancayo and Hugh and Betty gave us their bed which had a full sized mattress. The temp dropped to almost freezing every night and got up to about 65 degrees in the daytime. We had about 3 heavy wool blankets on our bed and it was cold up there. I asked Hugh about taking a shower and he said he took one about once a week and waited until about 3 in the afternoon. The shower head had a little electric heater attached to it and it just barely put out warm water. Once a week was enough. We ate lunch at the house every day about 1 p m and the food was good but strange. We could not drink water out of the faucet so we drank lots of coffee and soft drinks. We went out to eat down the street and they had very good hamburgers and French fries. It was cold at night but the stores were open. We met Hugh’s friend Mr Meyers who owned a hardware store. His sister owned a place where they wove fabric and hand knitted sweaters. Her store was called Kami-Maki. The Meyers had arrived in Peru from Germany before the Holocost. They and lots of Jewish people could see what was going to happen so they came to South America in the 30’s.

We stayed with Betty’s Mother in Huancayo for over a week and made day trips to small villages in the area. There is no heat in the houses so you wear a sweater all the time . When you go out at night you dress with hat, gloves and a warm coat. the temperature at night is almost freezing and in the day time in winter it may reach 65 degrees. Huancayo is 12 degrees south of the equator and the elevation is 12000 feet.

I was 45 years old and did not have any trouble with the high altitude. I did lose about ½ pound of weight every day as your body burns more calories at a high altitude and the people ate more food than we were accustomed to eating. We took at shower about once a week and we waited until about 3 p m. the water came out of a small electric heater attached to the shower head and it was bitter cold in the bathroom.

There was a maid in the house who did the cooking and cleaning. Another maid came in every week to wash clothing by hand and do the ironing. The food was good but very different from what we were used to.

We took day trips around Huancayo and went to one village where artists carved gourds for the tourist trade. We were able to purchase gourds much cheaper at the artists homes than at the markets in Lima. We also went to a village and purchased hand woven rugs. Another manufacturing shop on the outskirts of Huancayo sold hand woven cloth and hand knit sweaters and hand spun yarn. The owner of the shop was a German woman who had arrived in Peru from Germany before the Holocaust. Her brother Mr. Meyers owned a hardware store in Huancayo and was a friend of our son.

Many German Jews came to Peru in the 1930’2 and are citizens there. They could see the problems coming and they left Germany. My Grandaughter Carolina husbands Grandmother knew the Meyers family when she lived in Huancayo over 50 years ago.

Every Sunday in Huancayo there is a Fair or what we would call a flea Market. Huancayo is a very important business center, being the point of convergence of all the nearby towns and many business transactions are made at the Sunday Fair. The Fair starts on Saturday afternoon, when all the vendors come from everywhere in the region. The Fair is truly wonderful for it’s leather goods, ceramics, gold and silver jewelry, textiles, used sewing machines, automobile parts and almost anything you could want or use. The Fair stretches almost 2 miles and the stalls covered with cloth are 4 lanes wide. It is the most famous fair in all South America and people come from all over the region to buy and sell.

We made another day trip to the convent of Santa Rosa de Ocapa founded by the Monks in 1725. They have a famous library with thousands of books printed in the 15th century many of which are journals which tell of the early occupation of the Spaniards. On the outside walls covered by roof are paintings done by the natives about the life of St Francis of Assaisi. There is no sense of proportion in the painting and they painted the Peruvian devils instead of what we think of as devils. The climate is dry and the paintings have not changed in appearance over the years. What an interesting day that turned out to be.

We went out in the country to various homes and purchased gourds and a rug and some wool blanketsomes and purchased gourds and a rug and some wool blankets. Hugh, Dale Gail and I made a trip to Huancavlica and also one trip to Lircay where Betty was born. Then Betty had a vacation and we started to Cusco which was 600 miles from Huancayo across the mountains.

We made another day trip to Huancalvica, a mining city about a 3 hours drive from Huancayo. We stayed in a tourist hotel overnight and then went to Lircay the next day. Lircay was the small town where Betty was born . We were surrounded by children as they seldom see white people. Gail was with us and they came up and touched her red hair. Lircay had an open sewer and the town was dirty and the children had open sores on their faces. We only stayed about an hour and then drove back to Huancayo.

The roads in the mountains are very narrow and the cars go one way one day and the other way the next day. You are not able in the high mountains to pass another car. You see people riding small horses or walking on the roads along with cattle, sheep, llamas and alpacas.

We left Huancayo at night as the road was one way one day and the other way the next day. The road was narrow and graveled with a lot of bumps. The car we drove was a Volkswagon and Dale and Hugh sat in front and Gail, Betty and I in the back. The luggage was behind the back seat and one piece under the hood. We had packed a lunch and the first day we stopped in a small village to eat. Hugh and Betty could eat the food but Dale, Gail and I went to the market and had bananas and soda crackers to eat. We traveled in a Volkswagon,. It took all day to reach Ayacucho which was a distance of about 200 miles. We saw people and animals on the road. The road would go up one mountain and down and up again. We passed some small villages but no cities of any size during this leg of the journey. Our top speed was 22 miles per hour.

We arrived in Ayacucho in the evening and went to the tourist hotel to spend the night. Ayacucho is a city of colonial flavor, which between the 16th and 17th centuries enjoyed a great splendor for the wealth and nobility of its dwellers. Even today the city preserves a colonial atmosphere, as if times has stood still. It has numerous colonial mansions and beautiful churches. Ayacucho is a very attractive city to visit and it offers all the services expected in a modern city. Ayacucho is famous the world over for its sought after Ayacuchoan Nativities and its carvings on the Piedra de Humango a kind of soft alabaster.

We stayed at Ayacucho the first night, which is a fair sized city in the mountains. We stayed at the tourist hotel and the food there was safe to eat. The mountains were beautiful and we saw pastures at the high elevations that held cattle, sheep, llama and alpaca in them. The huts were made of straw and the native people were dressed in bright clothing. Almost all were barefoot, some with sandals made from auto tires. When we left Ayacucho the hotel people checked our luggage thinking we had taken a blanket.

The tourist hotels in all the fairly large cities in Peru are owned and operated by the government. The hotels are a safe place to rest and the food is safe to eat.

We left Ayacucho the next morning going south past the gorge of Huanimo at 4100 meters. We continued south through the small Andean towns of Urcos and Chincheros. We continued on and stopped at a fairly large city named Andahuyles. We stopped there to eat but could not find a suitable place. Hugh and Betty ate soup at a cafe but they said it would be best if we didn’t eat there. So we went to the market and purchased bananas and soda crackers. This was about noon time and we left Andahuayles on our way to Abanacay.

We went past some other gorges and beautiful mountains and on the road we passed a wedding party. The bride was dressed in traditional finery and was riding a small stout pony. The groom was walking besides the horse. What a beautiful young couple.

We continued on towards Abanacay and it became dark. We could see the lights of Abanacay and thought we would arrive soon, but we went up one mountain and down another and finally arrived at 10 p.m. We stopped at the tourist hotel and all they had to eat was bean soup and it was very delicious.. We did not see many people. I think we drove 14 hours that day and reached the small city of Abancay late that night. We could see the lights for many miles before we arrived there. We were hungry and all they had to eat was bean soup and it really tasted good.

The next morning we left Abanacay on the road to Cuzco and made a stop at the ruins of Saywite. We stayed a couple of hours at the ruins which consist of a gigantic rock shaped like a cougar, on whose back are hundreds of figures corresponding to animal and vegetal species of the kingdom of the Incas. There are also carved buildings and inhabitants of the four sections of the empire with their typical dresses. It was probably the most impressive artifact that we saw in Peru. I think that was the day we saw the ruins in the mountains and the rock carved with a model of a city. Betty could understand some of the Quecha language but I don’t think she could speak much of it. We arrived at Cusco the next day and distance from Huancayo was 600 miles. Many years later I read in a magazine that only strong people should attempt that journey. I was 45 years old and Dale was 47 at that time.

We arrived in Cusco and stayed at the John Kennedy Hotel. It was off the beaten path but was clean and O.K. We took in the sights around Cusco and saw an interesting Catholic Church with some intricate wood carvings. We also went to the old rock wall which was built to withstand earthquakes. We visited the old fortress called basewoman. We stayed a couple of days in Cusco and then we boarded the train to go see Machu Picchu. That was a very impressive sight. We spent a day on that trip and then came back to Cusco and prepared to go back toward Lima via the Pacific Coast Highway.

We continued on to Cuzco and arrived there on the 3rd day of our trip. Years later I was reading in a magazine that only healthy and strong people should attempt this trip by car over the mountains from Huancayo to Cuzco. We stayed at a small hotel in Cuzco and drove out to the fortress at Sacsayhuaman. The fortress is a huge work of granite rock of a colossal size and was built to serve the palace of the Inca Temple of the Sun and War Square. It is formed by three defensive walls where huge rocks weighing many tons have been placed with mathematical precision. When the Spanish arrived in Cuzco they could hardly believe their eyes when they saw the fortress. It’s construction remains a mystery to this day. No one has yet come to understand how the enormous rocks over 30 feet high had been moved to this place.

The square in the center of Cuzco embodies the spirit of Empire more than any other in the world. Built on an enormous scale 5 Imperial palaces surround the square. Like the street near it, the Plaza retains the format that its founder , Inca emperor Manco Copac gave it.

We spent 2 days visiting the various cathedrals and palaces and then made our trip by train to Machu Picchu, the lost city of the Incas discovered by Hiram Bingham of Yale University in 1911.

The train ride to Machu Picchu was quite interesting. We went past some small villages and stopped at one of them. Vendors came on the train selling crafts and food and people were outside on the tracks selling things. Every time you stop your car in a city there will be someone selling bananas, oranges, candy, newspapers and some one will want to wash your windshield.

We looked at the terraces climbing up the mountains along the railroad. These terraces are no longer in use. We arrived in Machu Picchu after about 3 hours and we took a bus up the mountain to see the ruins. It was overgrown with vegetation when first discovered and the government cleaned and repaired buildings and made it a tourist attraction. We spend about 3 hours looking at the ruins and we had a guide explain all about the terraces and lookout towers. We returned to Cuzco by train and the next day we started for Juliaca.

We traveled from Cusco to Juliaca and it seemed a long ride. We stopped at a small mountain village and they didn’t have much to eat. There were some other travelers also at the small cafe. They had cheese with them and we had bread, so we just exchanged and were both able to eat cheese sandwiches. We drove on to Juliaca and were not able to find a good place to stay so we stayed in rooms over a beer joint. There was loud music and drinking downstairs all night but no one bothered us. It was so cold there and the beds were dirty. I slept in all my clothes to keep warm that night.

The next morning Dale, Hugh, Betty and Gail went to the outdoor market. I decided to stay in the car quite close to a building. Seems I picked the favorite spot for people to use the toilet. The men did it up against the wall and the women spread their wide skirts and squatted . They would get you for indecent exposure in the U S , but in Peru that was common place. We left Juliaca in the morning and drove on trying to get to Airquippa by evening. Aerquippa is a large city but it was vacation time and so we could not find any rooms. We drove on past Airquippa and went all the way to the coast. We found rooms at the tourist hotel, Betty, Gail and I had a single bed each and Dale and Hugh had to sleep on a pool table. The next morning a great big dog woke them up by licking their faces. That works..

We started driving on up the coast and the next night we stayed at another tourist hotel. It had hot running water and so we washed clothes and stayed there another night. There are small towns along the coast and they are located near where the rivers come out of the mountains. Otherwise the coastal area is completely dry and nothing grows in the desert. We continued on up the coast towards Lima and we stopped at one small cafe and ate fresh fish from the ocean. The flours were dirt and dogs came to your table to beg for food. We continued on to Lima that day and then we had to got out to the airport to pick up a record player running water and so we washed clothes and stayed there another night. There are small towns along the coast and they are located near where the rivers come out of the mountains. Otherwise the coastal area is completely dry and nothing grows in the desert. We continued on up the coast towards Lima and we stopped at one small cafe and ate fresh fish from the ocean. The flours were dirt and dogs came to your table to beg for food. We continued on to Lima that day and then we had to got out to the airport to pick up a record player that was in customs. Dale dressed up in his best clothes and bribed someone and we got the record player out for Hugh.

We were going to drive to Puno but had heard from travelers on the road that there was an uprising in that area. The road toward Puno was in the altaplano and the countryside was desolate. We stopped at a small village to eat and think all they had was coffee and eggs. We had bread with us and some other travelers had cheese. So we shared what we had and got by that way. We drove to Juliaca the first day and found a room over a beer joint. The beds were dirty and it was bitterly cold. That was the one and only time I slept with all my clothes on. The music blared all night and was glad when morning came. We got up and every one went to the market except me and I sat in the car. The native people used the area close to the car as a outside bathroom. The women squatted and let it go with their skirts covering them up. The men pissed against the side of a building. Quite an education for me.

We continued on up the Pan American highway and the next night we stopped at a tourist hotel where they had hot running water. Betty and I washed clothes by hand that day so we had clean clothes for the rest of the trip. 38 years ago in Peru keeping your clothes clean was a major job. I remember eating at an outdoor cafe near the ocean. We had fried fish and it was delicious. The floor was dirt and the dogs came up to our table to beg for food.

We drove on into Lima and went out to the airport and we were able to get the record player out of customs. Dale dressed up in his best clothes and I think he bribed someone to help him. That is a way of life in Peru. You need to grease some ones hands to get anything accomplished.

We went back to Huancayo and then a few days later we came back to Lima and stayed at Luchos house for a few days. Lucho was living in the North with his family and the house was vacant. I think Nelson, Angelica and Rodrigo were with us. We went to the museums, the zoo and a futbol game. We had traveled 2800 miles and had seen a lot of Peru in 3 weeks.

We arrived back in Miami and started back to Oklahoma. We drove up the east coast of Florida and saw St Augustine. Then we went to St Cloud and rented a furnished house for $11.00 per night and then we visited Disney world. It had been opened a week and we were not impressed with it. We drove back to Ponca City and settled down to getting ready for school again. It was quite a trip.

The Great Depression

2010-10-25T07:49:00.000-07:00

We are now in a downturn in our economy that is being compared to the Great Depression which started with the stock market crash in 1929 and didn't really end until World War 2.

We of that generation were not able or did not prepare our children and grandchildren for this event. The bankers and credit card companies were extending credit to people that did not have the ability to pay their bills and a lot of manufacturing jobs have gone overseas. We are now in the process trying to get our economy and our lives back to what we have perceived as normal.

For those of you who are a generation or 1/2 generation younger than I, let me tell you what I remember about my childhood in the Great Depression.

I was born in 1927 and when I was 1 1/2 years old my Mother contacted TB and was sent to spend 2 1/2 years in a sanatorium. My oldest sister Dorothy was 16 and a Junior in High School. She quit school to help take care of the rest of the family. My sister Daisy was 11, my brother Lawrence was 8, my brother Don was 6 and I was a year and a half old.

We lived on an 80 acre farm 3 miles from the small village of Geneva Minn. My father was 47 years old at that time. He paid one of the neighbor women to do the washing , but otherwise saw that the children had clothes, went to school and of course had to take care of the Dairy herd and the farm work. All the children pitched in and helped.

At that time farmers in Minn where I grew up bartered farm work as there was not much money. We bartered eggs for groceries, had a large garden, an orchard and we raised pigs to be sold to Hormel's in Austin MN.

After my mother came home it was easier on the family. My Mother made most of our clothing and some from flour sacks and some of our clothing was made from things my Uncle Ernest sent to us. Uncle Ernest was a depot agent for the CNW Railroad and had a good job during the depression.

In 1935 my brother Richard was born. My Mother was 46 and my Father was 53 years old. That was the year my parents lost the farm. In 1936 we moved to a rent farm about 10 miles from Geneva. 1936 was a terribly bad winter with a lot of snow. The neighbors came with their sleds and moved us to our rent farm and they had to shovel the snow for half a mile to get the sleds to our new home.

1936 was the same year that my brother Donald broke the snow ahead of me so that we could walk the half mile to school. My brother Lawrence and a neighbor boy took a horse driven sleigh to the small high school in Geneva. They left the horse at the livery stable and this was a 3 mile trip morning and evening. This was 1936

We moved to a farm of 120 acres that was located 2 miles south of Hope MN. My brother Don finished 8th grade at Dist 76 and I was in 3rd grade. My brother Lawrence and sister Daisy walked across the fields to catch the school bus into Ellendale.

I was a mile from school and I remember during spring thaw that the creek came up over the road. My Dad met Don and I and told us to go back to the railroad and walk the track until we got over the creek. We had to come in the back way and at one point we had to walk the barb wire fence to keep from getting our feet wet.

Things begin getting better starting in 1937. We had a large garden and I helped with picking vegetable, shelling peas, helping around the house and watching my little brother so that my Mother could get the never ending work done. I also started milking cows when I was about 9 years old.

My father was able to purchase a Farmall tractor and plow and he did it on credit using 1/3 of his cream check to pay off the tractor.

We helped our neighbors, we did without a lot of material things, made our own fun by playing cards with neighbors and survived quite well. I learned to sew, embroidery, tat and have always been able to entertain myself without spending money.

I can remember when Franklin Roosevelt was elected President. We went to a neighbors house and listened to the radio. The government at that time started a program called WPA and also the CCC. The WPA helped people earn some money so that they could survive and the CCC took young men without jobs and made bridges, lakes and other things. Three things come to mind in our community. Lake Ponca,the High School North stadium and the Bridge over Black Bear Creek going to Stillwater. These programs put people to work and helped us come out of the depression.

Despite the hard times all the children in my family except my oldest sister Dorothy were able to graduate from High School. Don worked for another farmer his Junior and Senior years in High school and I worked for the Supt of Owatonna High School in my Junior and Senior years.

Many of my friends whose families owned their farms did not finish school but having a High School education was a high priority in our family. My Mother had been a High School graduate from Marion Iowa in 1907 and had been a school teacher for 5 years. My father born in 1882 finished grade school and his last English book was McGuffys

This is a strong country and we can put our minds to our problems and come out of this with a better knowledge of how to take care of ourselves. But we have to get back to helping each other and getting our priorities right.

How we lived in the 1940's

2010-10-23T07:34:00.000-07:00

    We were talking yesterday Nov 30 2007 about how we lived in the 40's on the farm. I remember living 5 miles south of Owatonna on a 360 acre farm and how we had to do some of the work. First off the water pump was at the bottom of a small hill and we had to carry water up the hill for use in the house. I think my father used to bring a couple of pails of water to the house when he finished milking in the morning. One probably went into the resevoir in the wood burning cook stove and the other was used for drinking water. We drank water out of the pail but we always used our own cup.

    I think we had a cistern on this farm and we probably pumped water by hand into the kitchen sink to wash our hands. We all used a common linen towel to dry our hands. We did not have any way to drain the water out so we had a slop bucket under the kitchen sink and you had to watch that it didn't overflow.

    When wash day came around in the winter time the water was heated on top of the wood burning stove in a large copper bottomed boiler. The white clothes were put in to boil and then later the water was dumped into the washing machine to wash the rest of the clothes. By this time my Mother had a washing machine powered by a Briggs and Stratton motor. Some times in the winter the clothes were hung outside to dry. They would freeze almost dry and then were brought into our dining room and hung up to finish drying. If I remember correctly my Mother had a iron that was powered by gasoline instead of the old sad irons that you heated on the stove.

    The next farm we lived on which was about 5 miles from the farm near Owatonna had a cistern under the house. When it started to rain you would let the water run out of the gutters for a few minutes and then you had a little lever that you pushed and diverted the clean water into the cistern. I did not live with my folks on this farm as I had finished High School and was on my own about 3 months after they had moved there.

    That was a way of life that is gone now and I thought I had better write it down so that my children and grandchildren would know a little bit more about life when I was young.

Telegraph operator and Tricks - 1944 - 1946

2010-10-20T18:14:00.000-07:00

    In June of 1944 I graduated from High School and found my first job working for a hide, fur, wool and tallow company as an assistant bookkeeper. I did some filing and there were people in various small towns in Minnesota that were buying wool. I had to check their papers to see that they had the figures right on the amount of wool that they were buying. My pay for the job was $14.00 a week. My room and breakfast was $2.50 a week. I would buy a food ticket at a restaurant for $5.00 and my noon meals were $.40 and that was a big meal. I saved $10.00 a week and after working 8 weeks my job was over. I then borrowed $150.00 from my parents so that I could attend radio school in Minneapolis and obtain a better paying job.

    My mother went with me and Myrtle Olson to Minneapolis on the train, rented a hotel room for one night, enrolled me in school and my friend and I found jobs that day to support ourselves . Myrtle went to work running some kind of a machine in a defense plant and I found a job at a cafe located at 6th and Hennepin in downtown Minneapolis. The hours were from 5 p.m. to 10 p m. seven days a week. My pay was 40 cents an hour plus a few tips. It was a combination cigar store and lunch counter but we did serve meals. Mostly it was ice cream and sodas and coffee and sandwiches. But we did also serve meals or so called plate lunches.

    We found a room at 2433 Emerson Ave South and it had a hot plate in it so we could do some cooking. The sink was out in the hall and the bathroom was down a flight of stairs. So we did a little cooking. There was a washing machine in the basement and we had to put a quarter in to make it run. Also had an ironing board in the basement so was easy to take care of our clothing.   The room was located a block from the street car line and was 24 blocks south of downtown Minneapolis. I went to school 5 days a week from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and would come home and study for an hour and then go to work and then come back home and study some more. Myrtle was working nights so our paths didn’t cross much.

    We learned the international code in school, how to use teletype machines, typing practice and practiced making airline reservations. We also studied radio theory and took a test to obtain our amateur radio license. Had to over to St Paul and take the test in a Federal Building and I passed it.

    In Oct of 1944 seventeen students in the radio school were hired by the Santa Fe Railroad to learn railroad telegraphy. Our tickets were paid for and off we went to Chicago. We went through Madison Wisconsin and came into Chicago in the early morning hours There was miles and miles of industrial area on the way into Chicago. We went to the Santa Fe headquarters in Chicago and were hired and given a choice of states that we could go to. I picked Oklahoma as I wanted to see some of the country and I had an Aunt living in Elk City that I had never seen. We spent the day in downtown Chicago and we saw Lake Michigan and we went through the art institute and walked around downtown.

    We found our way to the Dearborn Station and boarded Santa Fe train no 5 on our way to Oklahoma.   The train was crowded with sailors, soldiers and young mothers with crying children. After 17 long hours on the train we arrived in Arkansas City Kansas the Okla Division headquarters for the Santa Fe. We went to the Train dispatchers office and Maurice Fultz assigned us to the town where we would take our training. I picked Cherokee Okla , the county seat of Alfalfa county and it was located in the heart of the wheat country.

    The next morning we left Arkansas City on train No 27. We came through Ponca City and a lady on the train said this is Ponca City. We went right down through the refinery on the train and that was an eye opener. Betty Soper and I de-trained at Guthrie and had a 3 hour layover. We walked uptown and it was dirty and red dirt all over.

    We boarded the doodlebug going from Guthrie to Kiowa Kansas and that was another education. The doodlebug was a gasoline powered train that had a place for express and a mail section and the rest was passenger seats. My friend Betty disembarked at Crescent and I went on to Cherokee. I went through Marshall, Lovell, Enid, Hillsdale, Nash , Jet and then Cherokee. The train traveled through the south edge of the Salt Plains. It looked like the middle of a desert and the Native Americans used to come to the Salt Plains to get salt in the old days. I arrived at Cherokee about 3 p.m. and the depot agent took me to a small hotel. I started work the next morning which was Oct 18th 1944.

    I was able to purchase some new shoes and some nice winter clothing and made some friends while in Cherokee. I stayed at the hotel for about 3 weeks and then found a room in a private home. I stayed there for a couple of months and then found a different room. Then the last month or so had a nice apartment with a friend and we had a stove and a ice box and did a lot of our cooking. I stayed in Cherokee about 5 months and then was sent to Newkirk Okla on the main line so that I could learn how to copy train orders on the company telephone and how to run the interlocking plant. The interlocking plant was used to move the trains from one set of tracks to another. You pulled a lever inside the depot and then you pulled another lever to let the train know that the switch was pulled the right way.   Stayed in Newkirk about a month and then was promoted to be a telegraph operator.

    My first job was as third trick operator at Ralston Okla. Ralston was down on the old Second Dist and had a branch line going to Pawhuska and onto the Southern Kansas Division. We were working the stock rush and cattle trains came into Ralston and then went into the small towns in the southern part of the Flint Hills to be unloaded. These trains came out of Texas and the cattle were fed on the rich bluegrass before going to market. Let me explain about tricks. First trick was from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Second trick was from 4 p.m. to 12 p.m. and third trick was from 12 p.m. to 8 a.m. On the main line most of the towns had 3 tricks as they had around the clock coverage for copying train orders and messages. The operators also sold tickets, wrote up the ticket ledger and depending on where you worked you would also write up freight bills and abstracts.

    My next job was a Red Rock Okla on the third trick and I copied train orders and cleaned the depot and caught mice. I stayed there for a couple of months and the main reason I was there was to copy train orders. The train orders were put out so that trains could meet each other at specific places. One train would take the siding and the other would be on the main line. There were siding tracks on the main line where there was not any town at all. Kildare did not have an operator nor did Otoe , but they had sidings and trains met there.   Starting in about 1955 the Santa Fe installed Centralized Traffic Control and the switches and green boards were controlled by the dispatcher in Arkansas City. A green board says you can go and a red board says stop. Just like on the street signals. This speeded up the trains and did away with the telegraph operators.

    My next job was third trick operator at Cherokee Okla for the wheat harvest. It was a job for about 2 months and then was back on the extra board again. The extra board was for operators that didn’t have a permanent job and we relieved operators and agents for their vacations. Vacations were for 2 weeks at that time so when I was on the extra board, it was moving every two weeks. The wheat rush at Cherokee was very busy. Custom combines came into Cherokee from the south and stayed for about 10 days harvesting the wheat. The combines then moved on north all the way to Montana for the wheat harvest. Wheat trains one after the other came into Cherokee on the way to the wheat terminal at Enid Okla. That still goes on to this day but not so much as it was 60 years ago.

    I next went to Shawnee Okla on first trick for a two week vacation and had to sell a lot of local railroad tickets there. Then I came back on the branch line and relieved the Agent at Hillsdale for her vacation. Didn’t have much to do there but bill out a car of wheat ever so often and meet the doodlebug and take off the cream cans and express and mail. I next went to Nash and relieved the agent. It was about Oct and had to keep the pot bellied stove supplied with coal and   had to be sure and remember the combination to the safe. I think I had to take the mail uptown and of course the usual express and cream to be unloaded.

    I then went to Burlington Okla and relieved the agent there. Burlington was a small busy little town and they got a carload of stuff in every week and so had to get the box car unloaded and the man came with his truck and hauled the stuff to the small business places. Had to get the freight bills typed up in a hurry so he could collect the money on the freight. The good thing about the small towns was that you just worked 6 days a week and didn’t have to work on Sunday.

    I had learned my bookkeeping well and the agents soon begin to ask for me to relieve them as I didn’t mess up the books. Will tell you more next time as I just got through 1946 on this report.

My Twenties - 1946 - 1958

2010-10-17T17:40:00.000-07:00

    I bid in a job on second trick at Shawnee OK probably in Dec 1945. The yard office was located about1 ½ miles from the south part of Shawnee at that time. Trains came in from Pauls Valley on the GCSF portion of the railroad. I worked with the dispatcher out of Ark City and also out of Ft worth. Trains crews came in and laid over until they had another train load to go back north or south. There was a railroad hotel at south Shawnee and a restaurant. The GCSF train crews came up from Gainesville Tx. I could listen in on the dispatchers phone and hear the train orders put out between Purcell and Gainesville. At that time they had helper engines located at Davis and Ardmore to take the trains over the mountains located south of Davis Okla.

    I had to call train crews to go to work and I copied lots of messages both from Ft worth and Ark City on the telegraph wire. There were 2 types of messages, one was a preferred message and the other a day message. Some things were more important than others.

    I roomed with Mr. and Mrs. Jeff Thomas a 221 S Philadelphia St in Shawnee. They lived about 2 blocks from downtown Shawnee. I went to work at 3 p.m. and finished at 11 p.m. except during stock rush. I helped Mrs. Thomas with the washing and ate Sunday dinner with them. She was one fantastic cook. The job was easy until stock rush and then we were really busy. I copied consists of trains and where the cattle were going and when they needed to be watered. Shawnee was the place they unloaded the cattle to be watered. The cattle had been in stock cars about 30 hours when they arrived at South Shawnee. They were shipped from various places west of Ft worth and were destined to go to the Flint Hills in southeastern Kansas to be fattened on the native bluegrass. I did not see the little towns in Kansas until a few years ago. Moline, Matfield Green, Burden and Cottonwood Falls are among the small towns where the cattle were finally unloaded. I have always thought the Flint Hills in Kansas are one of the most unique places in the United States.

    I finished working in south Shawnee about the first of May and then went to Ralston to relieve the agent for his vacation. After working in Ralston for 2 weeks I went to Marshall for about 3 weeks and then went to Cherokee to work the wheat rush again. I finished at Cherokee in August and then went back to Minn for about 10 days. I had not been home in 18 months and was glad to see my family and my new nephews. I had not seen Daisy’s boys. Dale was about 3, Dean was 2 and Dennis was a baby. Daisy had her hands more than full. Think they lived by New Richland at that time.

    This was late August when I was in Minn and a strong cold front had came in. I was wearing a wool suit and it felt very comfortable. However I started back to Oklahoma and when the train arrived in Kansas City at 11 p.m. the temperature was 105 degrees. I knew I was back in the south again. My first job back was the Ponca City first trick. I had an apprentice helping and it was a busy job. Sold tickets for 3 passenger trains and the phone rang all the time. I went out to Wentz pool and got wet. There were station wagons going out from downtown every hour to the pool. Very convenient because young people didn’t have cars in 1946.

    Then I went to Guthrie on 2nd trick after working at Ponca City and then over to Enid yard office for a couple of weeks. Came over to Perry and worked about a month and then I worked at Marshall again. I ended up on third trick at Guthrie that winter and stayed for a couple of months. Guthrie was a killer of a job. Copied about 40 train orders every night and then I had to write up the ticket ledger and usually had about 35 messages on the teletype. I sold tickets for 2 passenger trains and people came from Stillwater at the last minute to buy tickets going every where. On top of that I typed up about 30 freight bills after 5 a.m. in the morning. The next operator that came in told the agent there was no way he was going to do all that work and he didn’t have to do it.

    After finishing work at Guthrie I was due a two week vacation and so went to Minn again. The folks were living about one mile north and east of Hope at that time. I received a letter from my friend Helen Alford that the Newkirk-Ponca City swing job was up for bid. I sent my bid in on the job and I was the high bidder. I came to work on the job April 7 1947. I met Dale the first night on the job and he asked me for a date the following Sunday evening. He was wearing fancy cowboy boots and was tall and skinny. Think he weighed about 145 pounds.

    The summer of 1947 the Santa Fe railroad was doing a lot of repair work to the tracks and to the signals. They had a huge work crew and also a signal crew at Newkirk. The men lived in converted box cars while working on the track. I went out with Dale ever so often but also went out with some other guys. A group of us roller skated about 3 times a week at the Newkirk skating rink. Had lots of fun that summer and I worked hard at my job. I begin to learn the ticket tariffs and I sold lots of tickets at Ponca City going every where in the United States. Ponca was a town of about 16000 at that time.

    I worked on Saturdays first trick Ponca. Sunday first trick Newkirk, Monday Newkirk evening shift, Tuesday Ponca evening shift, Wednesday Newkirk third trick and Thursday Ponca third trick. I worked this job until I took maternity leave in July of 1949.

    Dale and I dated for a year and a half before we married on Sept 5 1948. We were married in Pauls Valley Okla at his sister Lelda’s. Dale and Lelda’s Aunt Francis and her husband George Forrester showed up unannounced at Lelda’s house about 11 a.m. on the day we were married. They had been on a toot and Lelda and her Mother were pissed off good. Here I was 21 years old and I made small talk with Francis until she left. She was expecting a baby and I heard all about how she was the black sheep of the family. Found out years later that one other Aunt and one other Uncle and a couple of Dale’s cousins liked the sauce very well. They all tried to hide it from me..How funny

    We bought a house at 437 Fairview in August of 1949 and lived at that address for 21 years. It was a new two bedroom house with a covered breezeway a one car garage and a acre of ground. We were told what a horrible mistake it was for us to buy that house but it was a good decision. I had a garden and Eddie had lots of room to play in. the Kay County Health Center sits on that piece of ground now.

    I went back to work when Hugh was 8 weeks old. I didn’t drive a car at that time so Dale took me to work or I called a taxi. Dale was working from 6 p.m. until 2 a.m. and he would feed Hugh when he got home from work. It was very hard but I had an automatic washer and that helped. My job was very demanding and seems like I was short of sleep all the time. I learned to drive a 1951 Packard with an automatic shift when I was 25 years old. Then in 1954 we had an Oldsmobile 98 Holiday. That was a very nice car.

    I would go to Minn on vacation and take Hugh with me. We went in the early part of Dec when Hugh was 14 months old. We arrived in Owatonna and stayed with Daisy and Don for a few days. Then we got on the train to go to St Paul and the train was late. I missed my train out of St Paul so I sent a telegram to my Dad at Willow River telling him I was on the bus. I don’t remember how I got to the bus station in St Paul but I was familiar with the cities. My Dad and Richard met me and we drove out to the farm. We were snowed in for 5 days and then it was time to go back to Ponca. We arrived in St Paul and caught the Rock Island to Kansas City. The train was late into Kansas City and I knew there was a Pullman car on No 23 still out in the yard. I got some milk for Eddie and found a porter. We ran down the tracks , me with Ed and the porter with my suitcase. I bought a lower berth from the conductor and undressed Ed and put him to bed with his bottle. He had cried a little but then went off to sleep. We woke the next morning, dressed and were in Ponca City. A man in the upper berth remarked about how well Ed slept. Can you imagine traveling that way? We were a better country years ago in a lot of ways.

    .We both enjoyed Hugh and watched him grow up strong and sturdy. He was a bright little button and he used to sit by his record player when he was 3 years old and play one record over and over. I didn’t realize that he had a good ear for music. His singing voice was deep and strong by the time he was 8 years old. We enrolled Hugh in Lutheran School KG when he was 5 years old and he attended Lutheran School until the end of 4th grade. Mrs. Smith was his baby sitter until he was 9 years old. Gram and Peggy helped also.

    Dale’s family thought I should stay home and not go back to work after Hugh was born. Dale and I didn’t pay much attention and lived our life the way we wanted. They gave up trying to control after a few years but they would express some critical opinions from time to time.

    I learned to drive a car when I was 25 years old and that made it so much easier for me to work and do my shopping. Dale had 2 buddies that he went quail hunting with in the fall and sometimes he would go trout line fishing in warm weather. One morning I got up to go to work and Dale and Ralph Brown had been down on the Red Rock creek running bank lines. I looked in the bath tub and there were 2 large catfish.   They had gone down after getting off work at 2 a.m. and there was no time to clean them. That was an unusual surprise.

    Life rocked along through my 20’s. I had major surgery when I was 28 years old. We bought a boat and did some water skiing. We were partners in a cabin with Walt and Jean Cobb. Dale and Walt built a cabin out of lava bricks and it is still out at Lake Ponca in good condition.

    My brother Richard was killed in a car wreck in 1957. He was 21 years old at that time. I went to Minn for the funeral and still get upset thinking about it. I was still working as a telegraph operator for the Santa Fe but CTC had been installed and train business was falling off. I could see that it would be a matter of time and my job would be abolished. Dale owned a couple of school bus routes and had messed with a freight hauling business and a Fairmont milk route. Will write about my 30’s in the next installment.

High School Memories - 1940 - 1944

2010-10-16T09:16:00.000-07:00

    In March of 1940 my family who were dairy farmers moved to a different rent farm that contained 320 acres. My brother Larry had finished High School and we needed a larger farm as our dairy herd was much larger. I had skipped 4th grade and finished 8th grade at age 13 in 1940.

    My parents decided that I would live with my sister Dorothy and her family and attend school in Ellendale, a consolidated school with about 30 students in each class. The school had a good library and electric sewing machines in the Home Ec department. I was happy to be in a larger school as I loved to read and would check out every new book that came in. I read gone With the Wind that year and took it home so my sis could read it.

    Some of the girls were a little bit mean and cruel but I just ignored them and stuck my nose in a book. I already knew how to sew clothing and how to cook simple things. Some of the mean girls really messed up in Home Ec and I had the last laugh. The first year of High School was a little bit miserable.

    My second, third and fourth years of High School were spent in our county seat town of Owatonna. It was a small industrial city with a population of about 5000. I stayed home my second year of High school and car pooled with two neighbor to Owatonna. Elaine, the neighbor girl was 18 years old and a senior in school. Elaine took me under her wing and helped me make some new friends. I really liked Owatonna High School.

    On Dec 7, 1941 Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and the world as we knew it changed forever. My brother Donald enlisted in the navy and was placed in radio school. He was assigned to the submarine Robalo. He spent 2 years in service before being reported missing in action in 1944. His submarine the Robalo left Freemantle Australia on a mission and did not return. Don’s death was a terrible loss to our family and me at 17 years of age.

    The next 2 years of high School were spent working for my room and board and going to school. I was fortunate in that I worked for the Supt of our High School. They had two small boys in the family that I helped take care of and I helped with the cleaning, cooking and ironing. At that time I was introduced to classical music which has been a life long pleasure to me.

    One of my favorite teachers in high School was Mr Eder. He was my Latin teacher and a tough taskmaster indeed. He would not allow you to come to class unprepared. The boys who would mess with the other teachers came to Mr Eder’s class and were real gentleman. Mr Eder was probably a master teacher and Mr Burt the Supt of Schools would mention at home how well he liked Mr Eder. I think he would use Mr Eder as a sounding board when he had problems as Mr Eder was probably 60 years old at that time. He could and did teach French, Latin and Spanish.

    I liked High School and learning new things. I have continued to learn all my life and still enjoy reading and learning.

    These are a few stories about High School days.

Our Neighbors Where I Grew Up

2010-10-15T09:06:00.000-07:00

I am now going talk about some of our close neighbors. Emma and Chris U had a retarded son Laurie who was able to do farm work but was not able to do school work. Emma’s Mother Mrs Peterson lived upstairs in the house and none of the neighbors ever saw her. That is except me. When I stopped at Emma’s house on the way to pick up mail Emma would take me upstairs to see grandmother Peterson. I was 6 or 7 years old at the time and think Grandmother Peterson must have liked small children. I told Mother that when I was an adult and she said none of the neighbors ever saw Mrs Peterson. Chris U would see cars coming to our house and he liked to quiz me about who my sister’s boy friends were. Little as I was I knew better than to tell him.

    Mettie the other neighbor that I visited had come over from Denmark about 1913 or 1914. Her husband in Denmark had abused her and somehow she saved enough money to come to America. She knew she had a sister living at Ellendale Minn and she came to New York and then to Ellendale by train. A lot of people spoke Danish so finding her sister was no problem. She married Chris Hammerholt and the one thing I was instructed not to ask was why her son’s name was Chris Lindorf and her husband’s name was Hammerholt.

    We had another neighbor who had 5 boys and I can still hear Mrs Paulson’s voice in my head. She had such a distinctive voice. Her two oldest boys Vernon and Maurice used to ride horses to our house and visit with my brothers. They were in the same grade in school as my brothers. One day Russell the middle son told his Mother he was sick and couldn’t go to school. Mrs Paulson made him stay in bed all day. She didn’t put up with any foolishness. The neighbors all laughed about that.

    One day our teacher Miss Vaughn had to go somewhere and she had a neighbor girl substitute for her. She warned us ahead of time that Roberta Carr had to go to the outside toilet frequently and we should not say anything. That was in the day before antibiotics and suppose she had a bladder infection. Roberta’s brother was in the Philippines at the start of World War 2 and he survived the Bataan death march.

    Our school Dist 64 was a one room school with a basement. One day the teacher noticed honey bees in the basement. They called my Father and he came to school wearing a straw hat with a curtain over it and something to smoke out the bees. He opened up the boards in the basement and took out the honey. Each child went home with a lard bucket full of honey. We used lard buckets for our lunch pails. Nothing fancy for us.

    I started school when I was 6 years old and learned to read almost at once. The teacher had flash cards with words on them and after she had gone through the cards one time I had the words memorized. I would then tell her the next word before it came up. How funny. I was a little upset in first grade because I could do the third grade math and I thought I should be something more difficult. A one room school is quite interesting to a small child because you are able to listen to the upper grades recite and you really learned fast.

    My brother Donald was in 6th grade when I started school. He would delight in making faces at me if I turned around to look at him. Of course I would laugh and the teacher would scold me. I shared 3 years of grade school and one year of High School with him. Little did I know that I would never see him after I was 16 years old. He never returned from a submarine mission in 1944.

    When there wasn’t anything better to do in school we practiced penmanship. We made circles and ups and downs and all kinds of interesting stuff. Think it was called Palmer Penmanship. It didn’t help my writing much and I was tired of it after 10 minutes.

    My brother Lawrence was in 8th grade when I started school. He was the protective older brother. About 12 years ago we were eating in a cafe in Hoper Minn and he introduced me to someone as little sis. I was about 67 years old at that time.

    My Mother was probably the best educated farm woman in our small community. She had graduated from Marion High School in Marion Iowa in 1907. She had normal training and taught school for 5 years. She met my Father when she was staying with Uncle Jim Hagerman and teaching school at No 9 Dist. They had run several school teachers off but not my Mother. She was 5 ft 10 inches tall and the first day of school she sat a 17 year old boy down in his seat hard , when he was stupid enough to sass her.

    My Mother and Father had both traveled by train in the United States. My Father had been back east to Williamsport Pa with his cousins Rob Hagerman and Mary Beggs to visit cousins in the area. My Mother had been to Hot Springs South Dakota to visit her Aunt and cousins. Their last names were Englebert. My Father had also worked at Duncan Arizona and when he came back to Iowa he said it took all day on the train from El Paso. Mads Goldfelt and we think he was of the Jewish faith. He came to America and changed his name to Chris Madison. This is a little more about my childhood.

Working for Gran Wilker - 1941

2010-10-15T08:57:00.000-07:00

Working for Gran Wilker

    Gran Wilker was not related to me, she was my sister Daisy’s mother in law. The summer I was 16 Gran Wilker fell and broke her arm. She and her son Melvin farmed and Gran was unable to do her work as usual.

    Melvin came over to my parent’s house to see if I could come over and help them out for about 6 weeks. The pay was $4.00 a week. I went upstairs to pack my clothes and then went with Melvin to their farm east of Owatonna. I probably helped cook supper and washed dishes that evening.

    The next morning at 6 a.m. the work begin. First I got up and helped fix breakfast under Mrs Wilkers supervision. Then I washed the dishes and swept the kitchen floor. The next job was to go outside and was the cream separator. Each little disk had to be washed in order and put back in order or the separator would not work.

    Mrs Wilker has 1000 baby chickens so my next job was to clean all the watering jars and fill them with water. The water jars were quart fruit jars with a special bottom on them. You turned the jars upside down and the water came out slowly as the chicks drank from it. Every few days I cleaned the brooder house and every day I removed the dead chicks.

    The next job outside was to gather the eggs from the adult chicken nests preferably without getting pecked by the hens. I then brought the eggs inside, cleaned if necessary and put the eggs in the egg crates. Most all the farmers wives had small flocks of chickens and the housewife brought groceries with the egg money and whatever money was left over belonged to the housewife. Hence the words egg money. After gathering the eggs I had to clean the chicken house and fill the feeders and watering cans.

    I THEN CAME INSIDE AND SOME DAYS I CLEANED HOUSE, SOME DAYS I IRONED CLOTHES AND I ALWAYS HELPED FIX DINNER AND THEN WASHED AND DRIED THE DISHES. About every other day I helped Mrs Wilker take a bath and I always helped her get dressed in the morning. After I finished the dishes at noon Gran would say. “Don’t you want to go upstairs and take a nap?” Gran Wilker has immigrated from Norway and learned English after coming to America. Gran’s favorite reading material was True Stories, True Confessions, and True romance. My Mother a former school teacher thought those magazines were trash and wouldn’t let me read them. But Gran Wilker said” Don’t you want to read my magazines Deloris?” Gran had a stack of these magazines about a foot tall and I spent my nap time immersed in those magazines all summer. I never told my Mother about the reading material.

    We went to town shopping once a week and Gran brought home a new magazine every week along with the groceries. I spent 6 weeks helping out and learned how to cook a lot of good things including how to make dumplings without a receipt. Gran’s daughter Helen came out every Sunday and did the washing. I hung the clothing outside on a line and then brought them in, folded and dampened the things to be ironed. I ironed with a cast iron sad iron. You had a set of 3 with a removable handle. You ironed with one while the others were getting hot on the cook stove and you had to change about every 10 minutes.

    I went back home about 3 weeks before school started. I had made enough money to buy my school clothes and had spending money for about 3 months. I decided at that time that I would never live on a farm and work that hard. I guess I was chickened out.

My First Home - 1925 - 1936

2010-10-14T08:23:00.000-07:00

My first Home
    I remember more about how we lived in my first home than the appearance of the house. My first recollection is sitting on a chair in the kitchen with my feet in a pan of hot water. I had stepped on a nail embedded in a board. My sister Dorothy was soaking my feet in hot water, then she proceeded to pour kerosene into the open wound. Kerosene was used as a germ killer in my childhood.

    The next thing I remember is getting a spanking from my Father. I had watched my Mother break an egg and pour the egg back and forth between the two shells of the egg. We had chickens on the farm and I had gone down to the chicken house and cracked several eggs and mixed them up like my Mother did. I think I did it once and received a scolding. The second time I broke the eggs I was spanked. That was the last time I tried breaking eggs.

    One of the fun experiences I had as a child was sneaking off to a small slough close to the road. I very carefully removed my clothing, hung them on a willow tree and jumped up and down in the cold murky water. I never did get my hair wet or get caught in the act.

    I had 2 brothers, Donald was 4 years older and Larry was 8 years older than I. My brothers were experimenting with smoking corn silks one day. They would send me to the kitchen to get matches and I would bring the matches back outside to the summer kitchen. My Mother must have been taking a nap. We didn’t get caught messing with the matches either.

    The farm we lived on the first 8 years of my life contained 80 acres. I had the run of the farm along with my dog Cindy. In the summer time I checked out the robin who had built her nest in a worn out grain binder. I watched the baby Robins grow to large for the nest and mama taught them to fly. One day I found a pheasant nest with baby pheasants in it. The Mother pheasant chased me, but I picked up the baby birds in my skirt and took them to the house. My Mother put the baby birds with a sitting hen and she raised them. In the fall the pheasants flew away to the cedar trees.

    When I reached the ripe old age of 6, my job was to go after the mail. The mail box was ½ mile from the house. Russell the neighbor boy would meet me at the road and we walked and talked all the way to the mail box and back. In later years I told my sister Dorothy about going to the mail box with Russell.   He was the youngest in a family of eight children. Only two ever married as their Father was very controlling and the children were shy. In High School Russell would not visit with the other students. My sis was surprised that Russell talked to me.

    We didn’t have much money or material things as my childhood was in the middle of the great depression. However we always had good shoes and good food to eat. My Mother made my dresses and snow suits. My Uncle Ernie was a depot agent and he would send my Mother clothing and she would remake clothing for us.

    In 1936 we had a winter with a lot of snow. Donald would break the waist deep snow so that we could go to school. Sometimes we skied with wooden skies that fit over our overshoes. My sister Daisy who was 17 years old contacted pneumonia that winter and laid in bed for 6 weeks with a 104 temperature. The Doctor came to the house every day and cupped her on the back to break up the congestion. He lived in a small town 5 miles from us and because of the deep snow used a horse and sleigh to get to the farms. That same winter my brother Larry and a neighbor boy drove a single tree sleigh to the High School in Geneva that was3 miles from the farm. They put the horse in the livery stable until school was dismissed. The High School had one teacher and the students were there until their senior year. The last year of High School was spent in a larger school at Ellendale which had about 30 students in each class.

    My Father lost the farm in 1936 and we moved to a rent farm about 10 miles from us. The neighbors came with their horses and sleds and moved us. The snow was so deep in March that they had to shovel out one road for almost half a mile. This finishes a few of my stories about my first home.

High School, Radio School & Railroad Assignments - 1944 - 1946

2010-10-13T20:48:00.000-07:00

1944 to 1946
    We lived in some of the coldest houses when I was a child. I could use an axe and split kindling from the time I was about 9 years old. The stoves were cast iron and we had a cooking stove in the kitchen and then a heating stove in the living room. We also used coal in the stoves. I wore long underwear at least until the 8th grade and also wore long cotton stockings held up by a garter belt. What a contraption that was. I did wear snow suits in the winter when I walked 1 ½ miles to school. I think my mother made one snow suit and then I remember one that was store bought. My shoes were ordered from Mont Ward catalog and sometimes they fit and sometimes they didn’t. When I worked that summer for Gran Wilker when I was 16 years old I was able to go to town and buy some nice shoes that fit my feet. Think they were about $4.00 a pair.

    My mother made most of my clothes in High School. I remember one nice red skirt with pleats all the way around and also 2 corduroy outfits with a skirt, vest and slacks. We were allowed in 1943 and 1944 to wear slacks to school as it was cold walking to school. I lived with the Supt of our High School and he probably noticed that I was walking to school with only ankle socks in the bitter cold weather.

    Now lets get on with what happened when I went to Minneapolis to go to Radio School. My Mother myself and my friend Myrtle Olson went to Minneapolis on the train. Mother rented a Hotel room and then we went down to the Radio School on Lake St and finished my enrollment. We found a room a 2433 Emerson Ave South which was one block from the street car line. I found a job that day at a cafe on the corner of 6th and Hennepin in the entertainment dist of Minneapolis. That is where the movie theatres were located. There was a bowling lane located directly over the cafe in which I worked. The bowlers would come down for a quick snack and two women that worked for the CNW railroad would come in on their break as well as newspaper people that worked in the area. One of the bartenders who worked in a bar close by always came in for a chicken sandwich every evening when I worked there. The men who operated the movie projectors in the area also came in. Was a real homey bunch. The street car went by on 6th Ave on its way to St Paul and those people came in for coffee and a snack. My street car went right down Hennepin Ave to within a block of my room in the third story of the apartment house.

    I went to school at 9 a.m. and finished at 3 p.m. with an hour off for lunch. My room was about 6 blocks from school and I walked to school and back every day. I then went downtown on the streetcar and went to work at 4 p.m. until 10 p.m. On Saturdays and Sundays I worked from 4 to 10 and sometimes filled in for someone that wanted off work. I learned the international radio code and improved my typing and practiced teletyping. We also learned Radio Law and theory so that we could receive our Amateur radio License. I was busy going to school and working. On Saturday we washed our clothes in the basement. They had an electric washing machine that you put quarters in to make it buzz. That was an easy way to do washing.

    In Oct of 1944 after spending 7 weeks in radio School a large group of girls were hired by the Santa Fe Railroad as telegraph apprentices. We were provided tickets to Chicago. We arrived in the morning and then went to the Santa Fe Headquarters where we were assigned to the state that we wanted to go to. We spent the rest of the day in downtown Chicago and I remember visiting the Art Institute and we were close to lake Michigan. I and three other girls picked Oklahoma as the state to work in.

    I told another story about coming to Cherokee Okla as a telegraph apprentice. I worked at Cherokee from Oct until about the middle of February. I was then sent to Newkirk to learn how to copy train orders over the phone and how to run the interlocking plant at Newkirk. I was promoted to telegraph operator in April of 1945. My first job was at Ralston Okla on the third trick. Ralston had a branch line of the Santa Fe that came in on the old southern Kans Div from Caney Ks. In April back in those days cattle were shipped from Texas to be fattened for market on the rich grass of the Osage hills. They were shipped to Pawhuska and Bowring and unloaded at the ranches in those areas. The cattle trains came off the old second dist of the Okla div of the Santa Fe. They came through Pauls Valley to Shawnee and then to Ralston. They tried to keep the cattle trains off the main line as this was a seasonal business that lasted about 4 weeks. They had to unload the cattle trains every 36 hours to water the cattle. Shawnee was the place where lots of cattle were unloaded and watered.

    I worked at Ralston about 3 weeks and then went to Red Rock for about 2 months. They needed a third trick operator to copy train orders whenever a train got stuck for time waiting for another train. There were 4 classes of trains on the railroad. The passenger trains were 1st class trains and had the right of way over all other trains. The 2nd class trains were the red Ball trains with loads of important things like refg cars with meat, fruit and vegetables ,lumber steel and so forth. Next were your drag trains without a number that carried wheat, gravel chat and non perishable commodities. The last classification were the local trains they switched the elevators and dropped off cars at the house tracks at the small towns along the line.

    I next went back to Cherokee Okla in June of 1945 to work the third trick job during wheat harvest. Cherokee is in the middle of the wheat country and in 1945 custom combines came in from the south and worked their way north to Montana. They would stay in one community about 10 days and then move on. There were 2 big elevators in Cherokee and I can’t remember how many car loads of wheat they shipped out but it was sometimes 25 cars a day. Cherokee had a branch line coming in from the south that started in Presidio Tx. We received car loads of wheat from Thomas, Fairview, Carmen and Yawed by the train load going to the Enid terminal elevators. Also had wheat trains coming out of Kiowa Ks. Wheat harvest was indeed a busy time.

    The war ended in Aug of 1945 and the night the war ended the armory in Cherokee opened up for a dance and all the people came to listen to the music and dance. I guess we thought all our problems in the world were over. At that time we did not know what happened to the Jews in Germany or how terrible the conditions were in Russia.

    I finished working in Cherokee in the middle of August and was sent to Shawnee to relieve the operator in the uptown station. There was a doodlebug train running from Ark City to Pauls Valley Okla. The train came into Shawnee about 9:30 a.m. from Pauls Valley and the other train from the north came in about 1:00 p.m. There were a lot of people coming in from the south to shop in Shawnee and I sold a lot of tickets every day. It was a busy job with a lot of office work.

    The next job I worked was the third trick at Cushing. I had to learn how to operate the teletype machine. Mostly it was just learning the forms that I had to learn to send messages. I also had to write up abstracts, but that was easy thanks to Joe at Cherokee who had taught me that.

    If I remember correctly the next jobs I worked were at Hillsdale ,Nash and Burlington Okla. These were on the Enid dist and I relieved the agents for their vacations. I worked those jobs in Nov or Dec and the important thing to learn was how to start a fire in a pot bellied stove and how to bank it so you didn’t have to start a new fire every morning. I had to sweep the depot and carry out the ashes and bring in coal from the coal shed. I think I dumped the ashes in the middle of the tracks. The jobs were easy and I didn’t have much to do. I sat around and tatted and embroidered and taught myself to knit. I would maybe bill out a car of wheat and take mail off the doodlebug and take it to the post office. I was learning more and think my next job was at Edmond Okla on the main line.

    I worked at Edmond Okla for several weeks and would take the trolley to Okla City almost every day and look around. The trolley went right through Nichols Hills and am glad I was able to do that. I had to type up freight bills and do some accounting work at Edmond. I did copy a lot of train orders at Edmond as it was mid way between Guthrie and Okla City. There was one passenger train that stopped at Edmond. It was No 27 and came in about 7 a.m. There were lots of mice in the Edmond depot and I spent some time trapping them. From Edmond I bid in a job at So Shawnee yard office. Will tell you about Shawnee in my next writing.

My Mother Keeps Me Busy - 1936 - 1940

2010-10-12T13:56:00.000-07:00

My Mother Keeps Me Busy

    We lived on a rent farm called the Johnson place 2 miles south of Hope Minn from 1936 to 1940. I was 8 years old at the time we moved to this farm.

    I was about 9 years old when my Mother taught me to tat. Tatting is a lace made with a small shuttle and your left hand is the loom. Oh what a difficult skill it turned out to be. You wrap the no 30 crochet thread around your left hand and then by using the shuttle you make what is called in macramé a larks head knot.   The knot have to slip on the thread that you hold in your left hand or you have a hard knot that has to be picked out or it won’t work. I made lots of hard knots that had to be taken out and worked in the correct manner. Finally I learned how to make the lace and from then on would make a little of it every year.

    I was about 58 years old when I was urged to teach a tatting class. An elderly woman lived nearby my daughter on Virginia Ave and I felt certain that she was an expert at creating tatting. She told me to come to her house and she would share her expertise with me. I visited her about 6 times and my skill level and knowledge increased ten fold. I taught the class and I had one student that learned, practiced and became proficient at tatting. After teaching the class I decided to design a small piece of tatting and take it to the Blackwell Fair. The small piece of tatting consumed about 100 hours of my time. However I won a blue ribbon at the Blackwell Fair.

    The following year I entered the tatting in the Okla City Fair and came home with a Red ribbon. This came about by learning a difficult skill as a young child.

    I started another project when I was about 10 years old. If I remember correctly I read an article in the Farmer’s Wife magazine about how to weave a rug. The instructions were in the magazine and I proceeded to make my loom. I grubbed up 4 lath boards, which were used behind your walls as a base to which plaster was applied, for my loom. I put nails into the short sides so I could string my threads around the nails. I used binder twine for my warp threads and my weaving threads.

    I don’t remember how many days I spent making the rug but I did finish it and my Mother used it in front of the kitchen door to help keep dirt out of the house.

    Binder twine was used in our oats binder machine to wrap around the golden oats when it was cut in the filed. The wrapped oats were called bundles. We then had to gather the bundles together and make them into shocks. We used about 6 bundles for each shock and they were shaped into the form of a pyramid. The reason we shocked the oats was so the men could pitch the shocks into a high sideboard wagon and bring to the barn yard to the thrashing machine. The golden oats straw was belched out of a long metal spout to the straw stack and the oats fell into the grain wagon. When the grain wagon was full it was taken to the grainery and unloaded by muscle power with a long handled scoop shovel.

    The straw was made into a stack with a wooden platform as a base. I remember pigs rooting the straw out of the stack and using the straw stack as a resting place.

    The binder twine was made out of hemp and the twine was also used to make ropes by twisting 2 lengths together and dropping it to the ground to twist. Enough about binder twine oats and the rug.

    When I was in my mid 60’s I read an article in Threads magazine about weaving a small necklace. I bought some Styrofoam tile and pushed bankers pins in it to make a loom. I used linen thread for my warp and I used embroidery thread for my weaving. I inserted beads into my warp threads and also did a little tatting with beads inserted in the tatting. I also entered this necklace in the Okla City Fair and came home with another blue ribbon. The things I learned and persisted at as a child turned into enjoyable hobbies when I reached adulthood. I think you can do almost anything if you keep working and try to finish your projects.

The Johnson Place - 1936

2010-10-11T19:08:00.000-07:00

The Johnson place
In March of 1936 we moved to a rent farm called the Johnson place 2 miles south of hope MN. I was in 3rd grade and Don was in 8th grade..This was a smaller school than dist 64, one room with a coat and lunch pail room at the entrance, a pump for water and a sink. A coal furnace and a coal shed outside, also 2 out houses, one for boys and one for girls.

Our teacher was Elaine Eggers and my brother Don was up to his usual teasing and gave her fits. This is the winter we had so much snow and when the spring melt arrived there was water every where..One day Don and I started our usual route home and our Father was coming up the road to meet us. The creek was running over the road under the melting snow pack. He told us to go back and walk the railroad tracks so we could get over the water. Then we had to come home over a muddy field. At one point we had to grab the upper wire of a barbed wire fence and walk on the lower wire to get over some water.

I remember that we were able to go bare footed on the 5th day of May. Our favorite activity at school was playing work up soft ball. We played before school, at recess , during the noon hour and afternoon recess. Think school started at 9 a m and we were out at 4 p m. We also played anti I over and run sheep run.

The boys brought in the coal and carried out the ashes. We also had to go to a neighbor’s house with a pail to get water when the well ran dry. The house was about a quarter mile from school and two children carried the pail. We were assigned jobs like sweeping the floor and cleaning the erasers and blackboards. In the spring we raked the leaves, built a bonfire and had a weiner roast.

The next year I was in 4th grade and had a new teacher Bernice Thompson. She was 19 years old and this was her first school. There were 2 students in 5th grade and I was in 4th grade. The teacher talked my Mother into letting me skip 4th grade. Boy did I ever have trouble with long division. Up until this time I had brought home straight A’s but that changed. I always felt a little uneasy with my social skills the rest of the way through school.

In the summer we went to the free movies at Hope on Tuesday night. Popcorn was five cents and a single dip ice cream cone was also five cents. Money was a little bit easier to come by and I always had a nickel for an ice cream cone. The movies were all cowboy movies and then there were all those old cartoons and a serial. The owner of the movie projector was the industrial arts teacher at Ellendale. We sat on telephone poles that were put on top of other telephone poles. The poles would roll with a little encouragement but the adults kept the kids from getting into to much mischief.

At Christmas time we always had a school program and songs. We worked hard memorizing one act plays and I also learned to clog for one program.
We had 3 or 4 rent families move to Dist 76 the same year 1936. At that time it was an 8 month school and all the families wanted a 9 month school. So they all went to the school board meeting and got that changed. So surprised the board members that so many people turned up at that meeting.

There were several families about the same age in the school dist. They all liked to play pinchole and so on Wednesday night in the winter they would meet at someones house and play cards. The kids all came and ran around inside and that about 10 p m refreshments were served. When you were about 12 you could play cards with the adults. We learned to play pinchole at a young age.

In the summer we raised gardens and I helped take care of my little brother Dick. We had a red wagon with a box on it and I would haul him around a box elder tree in the front yard until he went to sleep.

I raised ducks one year and they used to go down to the creek and bring back bullheads alive. They were to big for the ducks to swallow. I put the fish in the stock tank and guess they surprised the cows when they came to take a drink. Ducks could not sit on their eggs and raise their babies so you put the eggs under a sitting hen. One day a hen with 8 little ducks was in the back yard. It had rained so there was a mud puddle close to the house. The little ducks rushed to the water and the sitting hen went after them. She walked into the water carefully lifting one leg and then the other trying to get her babies out. That was so funny.

I had my own bedroom in this house in the summer and then in the winter I slept with my sister Daisy. She was dating Don at this time and she would come in late at night and put her cold feet one me. My brothers would get my little brother Dick and take him to bed with them. My Mother was 46 when Dick was born and she needed all the help she could get. Dorothy was married and my nephew Warren was born Oct 31, 1936. Dick and Warren were good playmates all through childhood.

Don and I went to our neighbors, the Zak’s and played on Sunday afternoon. Hubert was about Don’s age and Margaret was my age. The boys rode their bikes and Margaret and I played dolls and games. They had a pump organ in their living room and we fiddled with that and Hubert had a concertina and could play a little.

When someone was married in the Bohemian community they celebrated by having a wedding dance. All the families came with their children including my parents who didn’t dance. The girls taught me to dance when I was about 9 years old. The bands were the polka bands and I love that music to this day.

The highlight of the summer was out county fair with all the midway rides. My Father would take us every day. The Fair was held after the harvest and before school started in the fall. We would eat hot dogs and ride on those wild rides and sometimes get sick. Was a good chance for the adults to visit with their neighbors.

One day I was down at the creek that ran through our farm and I saw 2 huge fish in a shallow pool. I ran to the house and told my Dad and he went and caught the fish. I remember my Mother cutting them up and frying them. They were so good to eat.

We always raised about 100 roosters and we would eat them in the summer and then put the rest in the frozen food locker . My Mother would cut off their heads with an axe and I would pluck the feather off by dipping the chicken into almost boiling water. Mother then soaked the chicken in salt water, cut it up and fried it for dinner. I did not taste white meat until I was out on my own and working. If you want chicken to taste real good soak in salt water overnight or at least 2 hours.

We also picked strawberries on the halves and took them to the locker for winter time use. Mother canned our garden produce and she also canned meat for winter use. I helped her from the time I was 10 or 11 years old. I had small hands and my job was to inspect and wash fruit jars. I also helped can tomatoes and peaches. My sisters were away from home by then so I was a big help to my Mother.

School went well for the next few years. On Friday afternoon we would work all afternoon on projects. I learned to embroidery and we made door stops out of wood using a small coping saw to cut out our designs. Also did a small purse by doing some basic weaving. I could also darn stockings at this time

I joined a 4 H club when I was about 11 and made my first dress when I was 12. After that I could take any pattern and make my blouses and dresses. I learned to sew on a treadle machine and I still use my old treadle once in a while.

My brother Don at this time was in High School and he liked oatmeal cookies. Mother didn’t have time to mix them up every day and so Don would come home from school and mix up a batch of cookies. He liked about 10 oatmeal cookies and a orange for lunch.

When I was 12 we moved to another rent farm 6 miles north of Hope. I finished my last 3 months of 8th grade in a different school. Had to make new friends again but that didn’t bother me. Weill talk about that in my next story.

Life with Dee - 1940 to 1944

2010-10-10T20:11:00.000-07:00

1940 to 1944

    I want to tell you about a few more experience that I had on the Johnson place. I met and still have my life long friend Myrtle Olson. We were school mates for 4 years and when I finished high school we went to Minneapolis for about 3 months. I went to study at radio school and Myrtle went to work for a manufacturing company running some kind of machine. Myrtle and her two sisters Violet and Helen rode with our family to the Methodist Church in Ellendale for a while. I think violet and Helen rode in our Model A ford to high School in Ellendale along with Barbara and Virginia Webb and Robert Bedney.

    The other chore that I worked at was making school lunches. Daisy was taking a business course after graduating from High School and Larry and Don were in High School in Ellendale. I prepared lunches for the 4 of us. The good thing about that was I got the best food for myself. We had a kerosene stove at school and we brought left overs from home to be heated in a pan of water on the stove. I remember we brought food in little glass jars. Some of the students had thermos bottle and brought soup or hot coco in them.

    I learned to ice skate while living on the Johnson place. Daisy gave me a pair of riding boots and some where I latched onto a pair of clamp on skates. I fell and fell but finally learned how to skate. I also learned how to ride Don’s bike and one time I tumbled over the handlebars and had the wind knocked out of me. Boy did that hurt. I also learned how to milk cows and think I milked two or three. I milked the easy cows as some are really hard to milk. I think that is why I have always had so much strength in my hands.

    We moved in March of 1940 to a farm 6 miles north of Hope and 5 miles south of Owatonna. This farm had 360 acres. My father was getting back on his feet money wise and we had a nice herd of dairy cows.

    I spent the last 3 months of 1940 in a new school which was 2 ½ miles from our house. We car pooled with our neighbors and think there were 7 children in the car. Each family drove one day a week. There were about 25 children in the school and the teacher was overwhelmed. I helped teach the first graders how to read and this was a different experience. I passed my state exams and graduated from 8th grade. This was all the education that a lot of the children obtained. My family wanted all of us to obtain a High School education and this was quite a problem during the great depression.

    The house we moved into was a huge house. There were 5 bedrooms upstairs and downstairs consisted of a kitchen, dining room, living room and a bedroom. We used the bedroom for the piano and some chairs. This house also had a basement with a wood and coal burning furnace. My Mother stayed down in the kitchen most of the time. Our bathroom was an outhouse and was it ever cold in the winter time.

    The first year we lived in this house my Mother bought an ice box. The ice man would deliver ice to the house at least once a week. I think it was 100 pounds of ice. This made it easy to keep milk and cream and other food cold. The water well was at the bottom of a small hill and had to be carried by hand to the house. We had a cast iron stove with a reservoir which we kept filled with water.

    In the summer time we had a shower on the back porch. It was a pail filled with water and a small rubber hose with a brush on the end of the hose. You turned the spigot and out came the water. I believe it was a fuller brush invention. This was such a joy to use. About the same time my Mother acquired a washing machine with a little four cycle gasoline motor. Mother really liked that as it made washing clothes so much easier. At about the same time we bought a milking machine ran by a small gasoline motor. I remember one time during harvest that I milked all the cattle by myself and turned the cattle back to pasture.

    I started high school in Ellendale in the fall of 1940. I stayed with my sister Dorothy and went to school one year in Ellendale. Don was a senior and he worked for Dr McIntire who had bought the old Johnson place. Dr McIntires father in law was running the place and he needed help with the chores. Don played football, basketball and baseball. I was 13 at that time and a year or two younger than my classmates. I still liked school and especially the library but I did feel out of place which is probably typical for that age group.

    In the fall of 1941 I entered high school at Owatonna and car pooled with two neighbors. Elaine Beattie was a senior and she introduced me to her friends and then I made a couple of more good friends, Marie Dusek and Vera Linn. Owatonna was a more challenging school and offered more subjects. I enrolled in latin and Geometry in tenth grade. I thought at this point in my life that I would enter nurses training and so studied academic courses.

    High school in Owatonna went well and I enjoyed what I was studying. World War 2 broke out on Dec 7 1941. My brother Don enlisted in the navy. Lawrence stayed home on the farm as a good number of farm boys were needed on the home front to produce food.

    My junior and Senior years at High School were spent living with the superintedent of our High School. They had 2 little boys, Jimmy was 2 and Billy was 4 years old. I helped take care of the children, did the dishes, did some ironing and watched the boys when they played outside. I walked to school in the morning, home for lunch and back to school and home in the evening. I walked a total of 4 miles a day. I weighed about 140 pounds when I started to work in Sept and 3 months later I weighed 115 pounds. I ate different food than at home and the exercise helped me lose weight.

    I went home every other week and I sold Mrs Burt 3 dozen eggs every time I came back. This was my spending money. Movies were 15 cents, a hamburger 10 or 15 cents. We didn’t have French fries at this time. Vera and I would play the slot machines in a service station back room. Slot machines were all over down town. I think Don Laughlin had the machines and he would later develop Laughlin Nevada.

    Vera and I also went to wedding dances out at the Monterey ballroom. The dances were free and it was usually someone we knew. The bands were polka bands and I still like Polka music.

    Sometimes I would go home on week ends and make myself a blouse. I had to take care of my own clothing and mend my socks when I was 15 years old. Didn’t go out with boys very often but had some that I visited with in school.

    I graduated from high school in June of 1944 and immediately got a job with a Hide, Fur and tallow Company. They had raw hides stacked in the warehouse and did they every smell. I worked for them a couple of months and saved my money. I stayed with Annette Denker’s family and paid two dollars a week for my room and breakfast. I bought a meal ticket for five dollars and that would last about 2 weeks. A good plate lunch cost 40 cents. My wages were 25 cents a hour and I think I made 14 dollars a week. I saved some money and with my savings and 150 dollars that I borrowed from my folks I was able to go to radio School in Minneapolis in Sept of 1944...More next time