Radio School in Minnesota in 1947 - A telegraph Operator's journey....

Radio School in Minnesota in 1944 - Telegraph Operator.

 I went to Minneapolis in 1944 to go to radio school and learn some things so I could get a better job. My Mother went with me and my friend Myrtle Olson came along and she was going to find a job and I also needed a job so that I could support myself and go to school.

   We went up on the train and then I think my Mother rented a hotel room and the next day we went down to the radio school and paid them the rest of the money and then we went out for a job search.  There were jobs all over town and my friend got a job at a defense plant running a machine and I go a job at at cafe  located at 6th and Hennepin right down town.  We then found a place to room at on the third floor of an apartment house.

     The room had a bed and a closet and a hot plate.  The bathroom was down on the second floor and the washing machine and iron was down in the basement.   Myrtle's job was at night and we did not see each other very often.  I went to radio school from 9 until 3 and then I came home and changed clothing and went to work at the cafe from 5 to 10 in the evening. I caught the street car home and the apartment was just a block from the street car line.

     The cafe work was quite interesting as it was located in the entertainment dist of Minneapolis.  There were movie theatres close and the men who ran the projectors would come in to get a bite to eat.  Upstairs was a bowling alley and the guys would come down a get a cup of coffee and sometimes pie a la mode.  I also had a couple of women who worked for the CNW railroad that would come in on their break and get a bite.  There were also people that worked on the newspapers that would come in.

     I had a bartender that came in every night and ordered a chicken sandwich.  We always saved a piece of chicken for his sandwich.  The cafe was also a tobacco store and outside the cafe was a newstand.   I can still hear the man who owned the newstand saying  Extra Extra Read All About It.  He was of the Jewish faith and he ordered a milk shake with a raw egg in it.

     The cafe was close to the street car line that went to St Paul and so would get some people waiting for the street car and they would come in for coffee or cherry cokes and we also had ice cream and I made sundaes and milk shakes.  I also washed the dishes as they came off the counter.

     I went to a movie one time with friends and Duke Ellington had a show there.  Think it cost about 50 cents.  Minimum wage at that time was 40 cents an hour.  I could live on what I made at that part time job and was able to save about 40 collars in 9 weeks. We would some times get on the street car and go over to St Paul as it cost about 15 cents.  We would get a transfer ticket and ride all over on Sunday afternoon and see the sights.

     I left Minneapolis the first part of October as had secured a job on The Santa Fe Railroad. I had learned to type much better at the school and also learned how to use a teletype machine which came in hand on the railroad.

They also taught us radio theory and I got my amature radio licence.  We had to go to St Paul to get that at a court house.  Never did use it but that was one of the requirements and we had to pass that test.

     Was an interesting time in my life and helped prepare me for the business world.

My thoughts and memories of the flu of 1918

My parents were alive when the 1918 flu hit near the small village of  Ellendale Minnesota.  I do not believe that they had the flu but a lot of the neighboring  farmers did have it..  I was born in 1927 and people were still talking about it when I was young.

     Dr  Erytl was the Doctor living in Ellendale at that time and he was a young man.  Bear in mind that in 1928 people were not using cars and it was the dead of winter.

 Dr  Erytl would start out in the morning with his horse and sled and he would stop at every farm that had a case of the flu.  There was very little medicine at that time and some of the farmers developed pneumonia.  The Doctor would stop by every day and cup the farmers on their backs to loosen the congestion.  When he had finished his rounds he would tie the reins up and go to sleep and the horse would carry him home.  Then he was up the next morning doing the same thing.  He did not lose one patient. 

     The same thing happened in 1936 to my sister Daisy.  She developed pneumonia at the age of 17.  I was 8 years old and my little brother Richard was about 6 months old.  My folks sent me over to my sister Dorothy who was married and richard and I stayed with Dorothy until Daisy was well.  She ran a 105 fever for a long time and she said Dr Erytle cupped her on the back to loosen the congestion.

     When I went to work for the railroad in 1944 the telegraph operator who were working in 1918 said that they sometimes had to work around the clock as so many people were sick.  The ones that were well stayed in the depot and the dispatcher would tell them to take off and go to sleep and he would call them when he needed them. 

We are facing a worse case now and we need to isolate ourselves as best we can. 

Hope Minnesota when I was growing up - 1930s & 1940s

In 1936 we moved from 3 miles west of Geneva Minnesota to two miles south of Hope Minnesota.  Hope was a small village of about 80 people.  Hope was on the Rock Island railroad and had a depot agent names, Rhodes.  There were two grocery stores in Hope.  One was run by the Wesley bros and the other by Joe Slezak who also sold farm machinery.  Joe's store also had a beer counter in it. There was a creamery located in Hope and it is still in operation to this day and Hope butter has its own label and they also sell to Land O Lakes.  

There was also a large elevator and in the south edge of town was a business that bought cattle and hogs and sold to  Hormel in Austin.  The post office was located in the Slezak grocery store.
At that time people would bring their eggs and ducks and chickens into the grocery stores and would trade them out for groceries.  Wesley's store also had some thread and some sewing material and the best was the ice cream.  Here's an article reminiscing about mom and pop grocery stores, Slezak being included..

Don and I started school which was located a mile and a half from our farmhouse.  I started in 3rd grad and Don was in 8th grade.  We walked to school every day and on the 5th of May we could go barefoot to school and we looked forward to that. Our teacher was Elaine Eggers and Don gave her fits.  A new school and he tried out the teacher quite well. It was not much fun changing schools but both of us got along all right.

Dale Wilker first attended the Hope School 60 years ago in protest after his family moved to the small community south of Owatonna. Today, Wilker is still in protest over the school, though this time it is hopes of keeping it open to the public. (Annie Granlund/People’s Press)

In the summertime, the biggest thing was going to the free movies.  The industrial arts teacher in Ellendale High School had a movie projector and movies and cartoons and he made a round of all the little towns every week in the summertime to show the movies.  He hit Clarks Grove and Geneva and Ellendale and Hope and I think another place close to Highway south of Owatonna.  Tuesday night he was at Hope.  Our seat was outdoors and they were telephone poles set on top of either other poles or wood.  Anyhow they would roll a little bit.  All the farmers came into Hope on Tuesday night.  Oh yes, there were two taverns in Hope and there were slot machines in them.

Slezak grocery store had a popcorn machine and it cost a nickel for a bag of popcorn.  Times were a little better and I always got a nickel and usually spent it on ice cream which was sold at Wesley's store.  When the kids got a little older they would go behind one of the stores and smoke.  The young people would sit next to each other and do some smooching I really looked forward to the movie and that is when I learned there were 168 hours in a week and I would count the hours until the next Tuesday in Hope.

Most of the farmers were dairy farmers and they raised hogs for market and had chickens so they could sell eggs.  We also sold ducks but most of the farm produce was for feeding the cattle.

I do not remember my dad selling oats and think he used it for feed for the hogs and cattle and chickens.
The farm we rented was sandy and one year we raised a lot of watermelons.  

There was a small creek running through our farm and it connected up with the Straight River.  One day I was down at the creek and I saw 2 big fish.  I ran to the house and told my Dad and he went down and speared them.  Mother cleaned them and we had them for dinner.

Back in the 30's we had fish in the winter as they would come from up north and would be frozen.  When we lived close to Geneva we could get ice in the summer.  They had a machine that cut the ice in blocks and they took it to the ice house and packed it in sawdust and when my Dad went to the creamery he would sometimes bring home ice. 

Geneva also had a small mill and we would take the corn in to be ground and used that in making cornbread.  Usually, we ate cornbread for breakfast.  You will not believe it but we put gravy and butter and syrup on our cornbread,

Hope also had a car repair shop called Kleckers.  30 years ago he was still alive and had two or three Model A fords that he was renovating.  Do not think he ever got them finished.

The school at Hope was north of town just a little bit south of the Noske farm and my brother Richard went to that school for a while.  Later the school was moved into Hope and is still there.  My nephew Dale has a  store in the old Wesley building and thinks it is called Hopeful Treasurers.  He has lots of books and good stuff to buy. 

Hope is still there and is still a nice clean village and probably about 90 people live in Hope now.No grocery store an elevator and a creamery and stockyard and two taverns the last time I was there.  Also, a bank and my sister Daisy worked there and was bank manager for many years.

Our trip to England - 1985 - Conoco Offices in London England

Off to England

In 1985 Gail was asked by Conoco Oil Company/Exploration Research Division to teach a class in creating digital computer contour oil in place maps in the London UK Conoco Office.  

Gail was to teach the geologist and the geophysicist how to use the CPS-1 Radian Corporation and the Zycor Mapping System Software in creating oil in place maps.  CPS-1 was the common program that Conoco's other partners used in creating oil in place maps from seismic data.

She was expecting Amber at that time and Steve could not go with her.  She asked if I would go with her and I did. I paid for my coach class ticket and then I was able to stay with Gail in London.

We left Tulsa late at night and I think we flew direct to London with a stop in New York City.  The trip over was uneventful and it was daylight when we flew over Ireland.  Everything in Ireland was green.  We arrived at Heathrow airport in the morning and I have never seen so many people in one place at the same time.  Everyone was checking through customs and I remember seeing young women dress in plaid suits and suppose they were Scottish or Irish.  

We got a taxi to our hotel which was called Churchill.  Found out later it was one of the most expensive hotels in London.  At that time the rooms were $135.00 per night.  We had a nice room with two beds and a refrigerator and a bunch of snacks in the refrigerator.  The bathroom had heated towels and a very nice bathrobe for each of us.  At night the maid came in and turned down the sheets and put a piece of candy on the pillow.

Gail went off to work every day and came on back to the hotel at about five in the evening.  I had a friend Shirley staying in the same hotel and she had been in London for a week or so.  I got up every morning and went down to eat breakfast with Gail.  They had strawberries with cream on the menu and that is what I had every morning.  Shirley and I would meet every morning at about nine and we went all over London.  We had paid ten dollars for a pass on all the busses and the tube and that took us everywhere we wanted to go.

Shirley and I went to Westminster and we went to Harrods and we went to see the Wallace collection of art and traveled around to see other sights.  The Churchill Hotel was close to the Marble Arch and Selfridges store and also near to Oxford St.  

When Shirley had to do something else I walked up and down Oxford St and looked at all the beautiful tailored clothing and the jewels and whatever else was interesting.  I went to the wax museum by myself as it was close to the hotel.

A film making crew from the states were in the hotel and we saw Meryl Steep come in one day.  I sat in the lobby once in a while and watched the people.  The hotel was filled with rich people from India and from the mid-east.  The men from the mid-east would sit and watch every good looking woman come in.
I stayed in the room sometimes and watched TV and the small children would be running up and down the halls and screaming.  Their parents did not pay much attention to them.

Shirley and I went to the west side one day and that was where there were open-air cafes.  The women from the middle east were dressed in their colorful clothing and were having the best time drinking tea and laughing with their friends.

We were in London from July 5 through the 19th.  The second-weekend Gail and I decided to take a train up to York.  We went down to the train station and stood in line with other people until it was time to board the train.  I had made reservations at the hotel for a room at York that night.  The countryside was green and we could see the power stations dotting the land.  We got off the train at York and went to our room and then downstairs to eat a typical English meal.  Not like food in the states and very bland.  The next morning we got up and walked uptown and saw some interesting old buildings.

Gail was not feeling well and so we took an earlier train back to London.  There were several interesting people in our car and we managed to get a conversation going with them.  There was a young woman from Denmark and so a group of us talked on the way back to London.  The British people are very quiet and of course, they knew we were Americans.  They remarked to us that Americans were open people, but we all had a good time.

Gail and I went shopping at Harrod’s and she bought a pair of riding boots and I think I bought two pieces of fabric.  It was Liberty of London fabric and I still have it.

We did go to a play with the man and his wife who had asked Gail to come over and teach the class. 
The class was over and we caught a taxi to the Gatlin airport and on to New York.  There was one woman on the plane from Ponca City and she had been to Italy.  We arrived at John F Kennedy airport in New York and changed planes and on to Tulsa.  Picked up the car and Gail was tired out so I  drove on home to Ponca City..  Quite a trip

Radio School 1944 - Life in the Big City -- Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Radio School 1944 - Life in the big City, Minneapolis, Minnesota. 

My first job out of high school in 1944 was at a Hide Fur Wool and Tallow company in Owatonna.  My friend Annette Denker was the secretary there and she needed some help when the wool season started.  There were various buyers in the counties surrounding Steele county and they would buy the wool and get it to Owatonna and my job was to check and see if their paperwork was right and OK it and send them checks for the wool.  They also bought hides from various places and then took them by truck into St Paul where they sold the hides.  The place smelled to high heaven but you got used to it after a few mins and it didn’t bother you anymore.

I stayed with Annette’s folks and it cost me $2.50 for my room and breakfast.  I bought a meal ticket at Oaks café for $5.00 and that was for 15 meals.  I was able to save about $10.00 a week and so at the end of a couple of months, I had $50.00 dollars saved.

I got a letter from someone in Minneapolis and they had a radio school there and they said if you took their training you would be able to get a high paying job.  So I wrote off and the man came down and I paid him $50.00 and then borrowed another $150.00 from my folks so that I could go to radio school.

My job was finished with the Wool company so I talked my friend Myrtle into going to Minneapolis with me.  She was not going to radio school but jobs were plentiful and so off we went.  My Mother went to Minneapolis with us and we went to the radio school and then found a room to rent and Myrtle went to a company during war work and I got a job as a waitress downtown at 6th and Hennepin in the middle of the entertainment district.  

I would get up in the morning and go to school at 9 am and finish at 3 pm.  Then I would go back to the room and then head downtown on the streetcar to get to work at 5pm and work until 10pm.  The job paid minimum wage which was 40 cents an hour.  That was enough to pay for my room and eat and buy a few things.  

I learned how to type faster and learned the international Morse Code and how to teletype.  I had a half year typing in high school and by the time I left I was typing about 50 words a minute.  We also learned radio theory and had to pass a test to get our license which I never used.  

We used to get on the streetcar on Sunday and ride all over Minneapolis and then we would go to St Paul.  Think it cost us about ten cents.  

I learned how to make sundaes and malts and we sold a lot of pie with ice cream.  The café only had stools and it was combined with a tobacco shop at the intersection of 6th and Hennepin and there was a bowling alley over it.  It had a steady bunch of customers and they worked for the CNW railroad as billing clerks and then the guys that ran the movie projectors came in for coffee and pie.  Had a bartender come in every night and we saved chicken for him as he wanted a chicken sandwich every night.  He always tipped me a dime.

A newsstand was right outside the café and he was selling newspapers.  He was always saying "Extra extra read all about it". That was the way we got news back then.

A bunch of us girls went to see Duke Ellington as he was playing at one of the theatres close by.  I still remember that and they told some funny jokes along with the music.

I rented a typewriter and when I got home from work I would practice my typing.  Myrtle was working nights so we did not see much of each other.  Just went home one time before I was hired along with 17 other girls to go to work for the Santa Fe Railroad.  They hired us sight unseen and we all got our tickets paid to go to Chicago and we went to the main office of the Santa Fe Railroad and they asked us what state we wanted to go to.  I picked Oklahoma as I had an Aunt living at Elk City.  I did not know if I would stay or not and I wanted to see some of the country.  

That is a little bit about my time at the radio school and big city life.

In the Winter of 1936

The Winter of 36

I was 8 years old in 1936 and I want to tell you some things about that winter.  My oldest  sister Dorothy was married on Dec 28 1935 and that memory stays in my mind after all these years.

We had lost our farm located 3 miles west of Geneva Minnesota  in 1935 and so we were forced to move and rent a farm about 10 miles from where I was born.

That winter we had an unusual amount of snow in Minnesota and my brother Don and I had a ½ mile hike to school.  Don had to break the snow drifts ahead of us as he was 12 and I was 8 years old.  We also skied to schools some days.  We had skies that fastened over our overshoes and we just kind of walked them to school over the snow.

That winter my sister Daisy contacted pneumonia and ran a fever of 105 degrees for quite some time.  The Doctor came out from Ellendale and cupped her on the back every day and he came with a horse and sleigh as they could not get the roads plowed out until we had another storm.

My little brother Dick who was 6 months old and I went over to my sister Dorothys and spent 6 weeks while my Mother was taking care of Daisy.  I missed that much school but did not seem to hurt me any.

Dick was a good baby and I remember teasing him a little and he would get so mad.  He knew I was fooling with him and he was so small.

My brother Lawrence and a neighbor boy and girl went to High School in Geneva and they had to go in a sled driven by one horse.  They parked the sled and hose in a livery stable in Geneva and then had to come on back home.  It was about 3 miles to Geneva and they had one teacher that taught all the subjects.  The students had to go to High School the last year in Ellendale to graduate by state law.

We moved to 2 miles south of Hope Minn in March and the neighbors came with their sleds and horses and moved us.  They had to dig out the last quarter mile so that the Model A Ford could get through.  I remember my Mother holding the mantle to the Alladin lamp in her hand all the way to Hope.

Don and I then started school in our local district and when the spring thaw came about it was another mess.  My Dad met us down by the creek one day and the water was running over the road.  He told Don and I to walk back to the railroad tracks and come through the field.  We had to walk the barb wire fence for about 10 feet as there was quite a bit of water in that field.

We started in the new school and did all right.  I think Lawrence walked across another field and caught the bus into Ellendale.  He was in 10th grade at that time.  The next year my dad bought a Model A Ford and the boys drove to Ellendale and took about 5 other young people going to High School.

That was a very different time and people cooperated more and helped out more with their neighbors than they do now..

I volunteered. Marlands Home, American Legion, Ponca City High School, White Eagle Reservation, First Methodist Church of Ponca City, Ok

I volunteered
Most of us have been doing volunteer work after we have grown up and some when we were in
High School.  I sold candy and tickets for various high school projects and also worked in the school library checking out books and putting them back on the shelves.

I taught Sunday School for 15 years and did a lot of various church projects and also worked in
various organizations selling fruit cakes and making cookies for band and orchestra organizations.

I will be telling you about several different projects that I have worked on in the past 20 years.

In 1993 Penney Brownfield called me from High School and asked if I would help her with a project with her EMH girls.  She said she had 6 girls and no boys in her last hour class and she wanted to teach them how to knit and how to embroider. I have been doing embroidery, sewing and tatting since I was 10 years old and taught myself to knit when I was working as a telegraph operator on the railroad in 1945.  I relieved agents in small towns like Nash, Hillsdale and Burlington and in the fall there was about 2 hours of work a day in the small agencies.  So to keep my sanity I would sit around and do handwork.

I started in Penneys class in January of 1993 and went to class 3 or 4 times a week for an hour.  I had lots of knitting needles and yarn and so I took all my supplies with me and gave them to the girls. I had not worked with young people classified as EMH and handicapped.  2 or 3 of the girls were
from the Legion home and there were 2 native American girls.  I am quite impatient with an adult that does not catch on fast.  I did not know how I would handle repeating instructions.

I had to repeat and repeat maybe 25 or 30 times and it did not bother me.  Lo and behold all the girls learned how to do the garter stitch and one Native American girl learned how to purl.  They loved it and Penney said on the days I was not there that they finished their homework and were so eager to knit.

Penney bought pillow cases and had them stamped with a butterfly design, she had them color the design on paper so we would know where to fill in the colors.  I again brought floss and embroidery needles from home.  I taught the girls outline, chain stitch, French knots and satin stitch. They learned that and I had to show them several different times.

Other young people in regular school knew what was going on and they would come by and ask if I could not come to study hall and teach them.  On day after having been gone for a few days I walked in between 5th and 6th hour and one of the regular students saw me and said where I could hear ‘Oh look grandma is back.’

Penney said to me several months ago that she saw one of the girls and she mentioned about how much she enjoyed the time I spent in the classroom teaching the girls.  That was a fun experience and am glad that I made to effort to do it.

The next experience along the same lines was at the Legion school.  Earlene Matthiessen was the teachers aid and the regular teacher was out of town for a couple of weeks and Earlene wanted to know if I would help her with art work.

The students were boys and girls that could not attend regular school because of behavior
problems.  So here I go again.  I started out the first day with knitting needles and yarn.  That did not appeal to only about 3 of the 12 students, so I had to come up with something else.  So I had lots of 4 inch squares of denim and corduroy cut out so the next day I took them out to work on.   Five or 6 of the students liked that and they begin hand sewing the squares together.  Then 2 or 3 of the boys wanted to learn how to sew a button on and how to mend their clothes.  So I took some needles and thread and taught the boys how to do that.

I had black, white and native American children in the class and the 3rd day the black and native American young people were calling me Grandma.  Maybe the only stable person they loved were their grandmothers.

Two or 3 of the native American girls were bored with the 3 projects that I had going so I got out my stash of beads and took them out.  That was a big hit.  Several put their 9 patches together and I brought them home put backing on and stuffing in and they had a pillow.

One of the boys worked hard  sewing every day and he sewed 49 denim squares together.  He asked me if I would put a backing on and stuffing.  He had a nice large pillow and he sold it to one of the house Mothers for $15.00  that was the frosting on the cake and I have laughed about that for twenty years.

The next different sewing experience happened about 10 years ago.  Velma Jones a Native American adult of 93 years of age called and started talking and asked if I would come out to White Eagle as she was going to teach as class on ribbon work. This is the decoration that the Native American people use on their dance  dresses.  She wanted me to help keep the sewing machines adjusted and in the process I would learn ribbon work.  We met about 3 hours every week for about 6 weeks.  We learned to make original designs and how to machine  stitch the designs to the material . They use satin material for their garments and the  cloth designs are satin.  If you wish to see examples of their  clothing go down to Sharps Pawn Shop on South 2nd St in Ponca City Okla.

Most of the women attending were retired nurses that had come back to Ponca City from other parts of the country.  I run into some of the women and they always tell me how much they liked the class.

Velma Jones died about 6 years ago.  She had worked at the 101 ranch and is the Mother of  Danny Jones who at that time was the Ponca tribal leader.  Donna Jones Flood is her daughter and a well know local artist.  One of Donnas pictures is in the post office on the east wall.

My last bit of volunteer work was at Marlands Children home.  I was asked by one of the Elk Lodge members if I would be interest in teaching about 10 girls out at the Marlands Children home knitting.  The Lodge gave me money for supplies and I went out there in the summer for a couple of hours every week and several of the girls learned to knit.  Then we started doing some other hand work.  We made nine patch pillows and we make book marks and we did a few embroidery stitches and then later on we did a lot of work with beads. 

Some of the girls learned very fast and some had never done any kind of craft work.  They were from broken homes and had all kind of problems.  The girls were thoughtful of me and again I was grandma.  I also had a mix of white, black and native American girls and they seemed to get along quite well.  I always had an aid in the class.  I stopped teaching about 6 months ago as the population of the school went down from 45 to about 16 and I only had about one girl that was interested in doing hand work.

This is the story of some interesting volunteer work at least for me.