Karl and Ida: The move to St. Hilaire

In 1916 Karl, Ida & Horace moved to St. Hilaire, Minnesota. Following are some news items included to show social activities and are also of historical interest.

St Hilaire Spectator

March 23, 1916 More Settlers. Four carloads of immigrant effects were unloaded here last week. John Dwire of Lend, Minnesota had two loads and K. T. Dalager of Herman, Minnesota, had the other two. The first named will move on a farm east of town and the latter will occupy the Ness farm in River Falls township. Both these gentlemen come well supplied with farm machinery and stock and are prepared to farm on a large scale.

Because roads were poor, moving cattle, furniture, and machinery was by train. Because cattle needed care, it meant that the family moved right with them on the train. When Karl and Ida arrived in St. Hilaire, they moved onto the farm that had previously been farmed by A. Gunnar Ness, a bachelor.

James Franze remembered that his dad, John J. Franze, went up to St. Hilaire to visit his daughter and family in the fall of 1917. John said they had so much sowthistle that it really hurt the crops.

Feb. 1, 1917 A son was born to Mr. & Mrs. K.T. Dalager. (This was Karl Vincent Franze Dalager.)

Most children were born with the assistance of a mid-wife rather than a doctor. Grandma Peterson delivered my brother Vincent on Feb. 1, 1917 and two months later she delivered a neighbor’s son, Harold Walseth. Grandma Peterson’s maiden name was Anna Stena Broberg. She was one of two survivors of the Munson Lake Indian massacre near Willmar, Minnesota. Mrs. August Swenson was a daughter of Grandma Peterson. :Arlys Konickson, Mrs Jerry Konickson, would be Grandma Peterson’s great granddaughter.

Hilda Johnson remembered the Easter about a year after my parents had moved in. She and Otto were living on the Martin Hanson place where Nathan & Darcie Dalager live now. The road to town followed closer to the river than it does now. The Dalagers were driving a lumber wagon to church. The roads were so bad that they would have to get out and clean mud out of the wheels so the wheels would turn. They had two boys with them on the spring seat of the wagon.

Thorstein Walseth, a neighbor, remembered one time when Karl got caught in a rainstorm on the way to or from St. Hilaire and stopped at their place to get out of the rain. This was when Thorstein’s parents were living on the place that Ken Schroeder lives on now. Thorstein remembered helping unhook the horses and getting them in the barn so they would have some protection and have a chance to calm down. This happened before 1919 when Thorstein was 14. In those days farmers had most everything on the farm they needed on a day-to-day basis and they went to town to get items such as lumber, coffee, kerosene, sugar, and salt. Each fall farmers would take their own wheat to the Terrebonne mill that was about 20 miles south of the farm and have the wheat ground into flour.

The nearest neighbors to the south of their farm were the Gabe Petersons. Mrs. Peterson’s name was Josie, short for Josephine. Joe, Gladys, Melford, and Dale were children of Gabe and Josie Peterson. When the land was homesteaded, the land between the Dalager place and the Gabe Peterson place and north of the creek was all oak timber. Gabe had a sawmill and made good use of the oak. Joe said that the Dalagers would get their mail at the Petersons for many years. The Dalager’s mail was placed in the Peterson mailbox. The Petersons would bring the mail to their house and one of the Dalagers would come to get it. It was this way for many years. When the creek was high, either the Dalagers came on horseback or the mail was put in a bread pan and floated across the creek.

The following news articles are used to picture life on the Dalager farm for the next years.

St. Hilaire Spectator

May 24, 1917 Louise Franze of Battle Lake, Minn., is visiting with her sister Mrs. Dalager.

October 25, 1917 John Franze of Battle Lake, Minn., is a guest at the home of his daughter, Mrs. K. Dalager.

In the summer of 1918 Karl built a large barn measuring 68×36 feet. The head carpenter was Bill Gilbertson. During the building a carpenter named Leonard Erickson fell from the roof but was not hurt. A silo was added in 1919. Karl also sold many silos in the area.

Nov. 28, 1918 K.T. Dalager recently purchased a couple of extra fine pure bread Duroc-Jersey hogs. Mr. Dalager is going in for this class of stock exclusively & has a fine start.

Nov. 28, 1918 I have some acres of wood stumpage for sale. Some of the timber is dry and some green. Will sell in any size tracts to suit purchaser. Brush to be cut and piled ready for burning. K. T. Dalager, Route 2, St. Hilaire.

Dec. 26, 1918 Pure Bred Boar: I have for public service a pure bread Duroc-Jersey boar. Terms are $2.00 for grade and $5.00 for pure-bred hogs, cash at time of service. K. T. Dalager RFD No 2, St. Hilaire.

Feb. 13.1919 Mr. K.T. Dalager and son Horace were Sunday visitors at the T. M .Breviks who lived on the farm where Neil Peterson lives now.

Adelaide was born February 27, 1919.

Mar. 13, 1919 Miss Anna Franze from Battle Lake, Minn. is visiting her sister Mrs. K.T. Dalager.

April 10, 1919 Ad For purebred Leghorn setting eggs call or write to K.T. Dalager, Route 2, St. Hilaire.

April 24, 1919 Mr. & Mrs. E. H. Stephens & Mrs. K.T. Dalager & baby motored to Thief River Falls Thursday. (The baby was Adelaide)

July 24, 1919 K.T. Dalager purchased a new Ford car last week. K.T. Dalager is putting the finishing touches on a new barn out on his farm.

Aug. 14, 1919 Miss Louise Franze of Battle Lake, Minn. is visiting her sister Mrs. K.T. Dalager.

Nov. 20, 1919 K.T. Dalager has bought a complete set of steel stanchions, stalls and drinking fountains from St. Hilaire Retail Lumber Co. for installation in his new stock barn now under construction.

May 6, 1920 Ad Silo Solos were new and Karl had been the local salesman for a silo company.

May 13, 1920 K.T. Dalager has purchased a trailer for his Ford car.

Nov. 18, 1920 Mr. & Mrs. K.T. Dalager & family, Mr. & Mrs. Hans Hanson & family and George Stephens were Sunday guests at the Herman Jepson home. This is the farm where Kenny Noreen lives now.

Aug. 25, 1921 James, Fritz & Ruth Franze and Mrs. Clarence Larson autoed here last Sunday from Battle Lake for a visit at the home of their sister, Mrs. K.T. Dalager. Miss Louise Franze, who has visited in Dakota and arrived last week at the Dalager home, went back with them. (Louise was visiting brother Otto and family at Washborn, ND)

Kathrine was born January 14, 1924. The Pennington County courthouse spells her name Cathryne Isabella Dalager.

DEC 1, 1927 Mr. & Mrs. K.T. Dalager and family and Mr. & Mrs. N.E. Beebe spent Friday evening at the E. H. Stephens home.

Karl and Ida: Horace, Vincent, and Adelaide at Eastside School

Horace, Vincent and Adelaide attended Eastside country school that was located about 2 miles Southeast of their home.  The Walseths, Stephens, Gabe and Miller Petersons all had children about the same age and they would take turns hauling kids to school during wet weather or during the cold winter.  The children usually walked home.  Gladys Peterson, the daughter of Gabe Peterson,  recalled an incident that occurred when she was walking home with Adelaide.  It was a cloudy spring day and she had said, “I sure wish the sun would shine.”  Adelaide replied, “It is shining.  If it wasn’t, it would be dark.”  Gladys said that Adelaide was smart in school. 

Evelyn Peterson Hegrenes, the daughter of Miller Peterson, remembered those who attended East Side with her.  They were Ivanette Thyren, Ernest and Victor Erickson, Clarence and Mabel Konickson, Joe, Gladys and Melford Peterson, Horace and Vincent Dalager, Annie and Harold Walseth, and Mary and Henry Rohr. 

Among the things Evelyn remembered from country school were the syrup pail lunch buckets with syrup sandwiches.  When the weather was cold, their apples would freeze.  At school they always played ball and a game called pick-up-sticks.  They also played in the water in the big county ditch across the road from the school especialy in the spring.  The teacher would let them take turns ringing the school bell.  One day a boy tied their teacher, Bertilda Peterson, up with a rope.  Another student helped her get free.

Gladys Peterson and my brother Horace started high school in St. Hilaire in 1928.  Gladys and Horace went to grade school and high school together graduating in 1932.  Prices were really poor and Gladys’ dad, Gabe Peterson, sold a whole load of wheat to buy her class ring that cost $13.00.  Some of the teachers Gladys and Horace had at East-Side were Effie Fredrickson, Nannie Erickson, Miss Votava, Gaberial DeCathelineau, Hazel Dann, Lily Baum, Oscar Brevik, Bertilda Peterson, Ellen Nelson, and Evelyn Peterson.  Oscar Brevik was the son of Tarbjorn & Magnilda Brevik who lived on the farm west and south of the Dalager farm.  Oscar’s siblings were Bernt, Martin, Adolph, John, Mary, Margit, Tilda, Cornelia, and Helen.  The children were good singers and would walk to St. Hilaire to church choir practice, a distance of about 6 miles one way.   Others who lived on the Brevik place were the Brent Walseths, Frank Bothmans, Dan Johnsons, Harry Uttermarks, and Pete Hansons.  The Art Petersons moved to the Brevik place when I was in high school.  Art Peterson’s grandson Neil lives on the place now.

Students at the East-side school that Gladys remembered were Thyrenes, Ericksons, Petersons, Hudelson, Weckworth, Walton, Hogquist, Stephen, Palmquist, Hesse, Durheim, Konickson, Walseth, and Dalager.  There were up to 40 students at the East-side school during the 1920’s.  In a situation like this the older kids had to help the younger one because the teacher couldn’t find enough time to help all of them.  This was really the forerunner of our present day mentor system.  Schoolhouses were not well insulated and Joe Peterson thought that the winters were colder and had more snow in those days.  Gladys Peterson and Helen Hess Simpson remembered hearing wolves howling as they walked to school.  Joe Peterson remembered hunting wolves on horse back and on skis.  Games Gladys and Joe remember playing were fox & geese, drop the handkerchief, ring around the rosy, farmer in the dell, kitten ball and others.  Kids had a good time.  School was the main time that kids got to see others of their age.

Delford Stephens was a real cut-up in school.  Once he pretended he was going to hang himself.  He had tied a rope or wire to the ceiling and was standing on a box or desk with the wire around his neck.  Bertilda Peterson was the teacher at that time.  She really got excited but Delford was only fooling.  When he jumped off the desk he dropped the rope.  He would bring frogs and snakes to school, tease the Thyren girls by sitting by them, etc.  Gladys Peterson said that Gerald Stephens and Thorstein Walseth were the best looking young men in the area.  They were also good friends.  Once when Gladys was swinging, Delford started pushing her.  She would have fallen off but Delford’s brother Bob, who was on the next swing, jumped off his swing and caught her before she fell.  Bob was kind and considerate.

My brother Vincent remembers his first day of school very clearly.  He had dark curly hair which mother had let grow which was not the style at the time.  When he went to school he was teased a lot and it was the last day that he went to school with long hair.  Vincent also told about Delford’s prank with the rope tied to the ceiling but he thought Delford wanted to hang the teacher.  Another time Vince tried to roll a pencil across the isle to his neighbor and the teacher came down the isle with a ruler and hit him on the hand.  Vince said he out foxed her because he hollered real loud so she didn’t keep on too long.  It really didn’t hurt very much.  He thought this teacher was Ellen Nelson who later married Andrew Mortenson.

Members of Vincent’s class at the East side school were Floyd Hesse, Donald Thyren, Cyrus Peterson, Joyce Stephens, Bulah Rinkenberger & Harold Walseth.

One of the tricks they would do in school was to place a 22 cartridge on the stove.  Later on it would go off with a big bang causing a disturbance.  They would also ‘accidentally’ drop a celluloid ring from a horse collar on the stove.  This would smell up the school so badly that it would almost be necessary to close school for the day.

When Vincent was old enough to ride horseback he always rode one of the farm ponies to school.  By this time there was a barn at the school for the horses.

When the weather was nice enough, the East-Side students would play softball or kitten ball all the time.  At that time, Pennington County had a softball tournament in the spring when all the rural schools got together to play softball.  They usually had about 5 boys on the team and the rest were girls.  One year they were playing a team from up north made up of all big guys and they were tromping the Eastside team.  The boys from East Side didn’t like this very well so the 4 boys decided to challenge the other team all by themselves.  There were so few on their team that as soon as they got home it was their turn to bat again.  They only had a pitcher, a catcher, a first baseman and one fielder.  However, with only 4 players they were able to beat the other team.  This county sports event also included races, broad jump, pole vaults etc.

Vincent couldn’t remember his 7^th grade teacher’s name but she let them do anything they wanted to do.  If it were a nice day, they would jump out the window and go for a ride on their horses.  She had a model A Ford car.  In the spring when it was muddy, the boys would ride their horses in front of her car when she was driving to school on the wet road and plaster her car with mud.  Vince said that he and his friends were the meanest guys you ever saw.  

 

Karl and Ida: The Fire

In May of 1928, tragedy struck the home of Karl and Ida.

St. Hilaire Spectator

 

Mar 15, 1928 K.T. Dalager & family were visitors Sunday at the E.H. Stephen’s home.

 

CHILDREN MEET DEATH WHEN FARM HOME BURNS

 

May 17, 1928 Trapped in their bedroom on second floor of the home, the two small daughters of Mr. and Mrs. K.T. Dalager, Katherine, age 5 and Adelaide, age 9, perished in a fire which completely destroyed the Dalager farm home five miles southeast of here shortly after midnight last Thursday, May 12th.

 

The parents were aroused about midnight by noise from downstairs and upon investigation found the incubator and wall behind it ablaze. After calling the children, the parents made an attempt to extinguish the blaze that seemingly had not gained much headway by that time. It is believed gas must have generated from the heated incubator lamp as the whole room suddenly burst into flame, driving the parents out and cutting off escape by the stairway for the children. The two boys, Horace and Vincent, managed to break a window and jumped to the ground clad only in their night clothing. Mr. Dalager made a heroic attempt to reach his daughters but was driven back by the flames that completely enveloped the interior of the house by that time.

 

Help was summoned from the Walseth house nearby and a general alarm was sounded on the farm telephone line. Help was soon at hand but too late to be of any assistance in rescuing the children or saving any of the contents of the house that burned to the ground. Position of the remains of the children found after the fire would indicate that neither had awakened and it is likely they smothered before the fire reached them.

 

Rev. M.L. Dahle assisted by Rev. Lerohl of Oklee at the Norwegian Lutheran Church here Saturday afternoon conducted funeral services for the little girls. Internment was made in the cemetery east of the village.

 

The heartfelt sympathy of the community is extended to Mr. and Mrs. Dalager in the sad loss of their little ones and their home under such heartrending circumstances.

 

Pastor Lerohl was from the Glenwood, Minn area and had officiated at Karl and Ida’s wedding. Because Oklee and St. Hilaire are not to far apart, the Lerohls visited with each other quite often.

May 17, 1928 Mr. & Mrs. J.O. Grove of Glenwood, Mrs. K. Knutson of Willmar, relatives of K.T. Dalager, arrived here Friday being called by the holocaust that occurred at the Dalager home Thursday morning. They all returned home Sunday, Mr. Dalager accompanying them to spend a short time with his relatives.

The Glenwood Herald

May 17, 1928

 

Mr. & Mrs. J.O. Grove of Glenwood and Mrs. Knute Knutson of Willmar left here last Thursday evening for Hazel, Minn., called there by Mr. Karl T. Dalager, brother of Mrs. Grove and Mrs. Knutson, on account of the burning the night before of Mr. Dalager’s farm residence where two of his children lost their lives.

 

The fire was noticed in the middle of the night and at that time it had reached such headway that Mr. and Mrs. Dalager and the two elder boys barely exited in their nightclothes. Some of them had to jump out through the windows. It is not known how the fire started except that it is thought that it may have come from an incubator that was running in the house at the time. The two children that lost their lives were: Adelaide nine years old and Kathryn four years old.

 

Funeral services were conducted on Saturday afternoon at St. Hilaire. Relatives from Hallock, Minnesota also attending were Mrs. John Brendal and Hazel Grove.

 

Karl and Ida took this especially hard for if they had cleared the house of people before trying to put out the fire, no one would have lost their lives.

 

At the time of the fire, Gladys Peterson remembered waiting along with her mother for her dad, Gabe, to return. He had gone over to the Dalager place when central had sent out the general call. Horace went to stay with the Gabe Petersons and Karl, Ida & Vincent went to Walseths. As a result of the fire my parents lost all their pictures. They had lost the house and Katherine and Adelaide but also their memories.

Hazel Dann was the teacher at the East-Side school during the 1927-28 school year, the year of that fire. Hazel remembered that Katherine was visiting school the day before the fire. Katherine and Adelaide were having so much fun and they did not want to go home. Hazel described the girls as being “sweet.” When school met again Hazel said she had a “sad group of children.” One of the hardest jobs she had was to clean out Adelaide’s desk.

My parents never talked about the fire, however, the cellar and foundation of the house was always there as I grew up. The pain of the event is evident, also, in the fact that Dad left the farm for a time to live with his sister in Battle Lake, and Mom’s hair turned from black to white in a year’s time.

One of the sweet memories that mother told Shirley in later years was that Katherine and Adelaide had run down to the barn to say “good night” to their dad before they went to bed on the night of the fire.

Karl and Ida: Starting Over

After the fire, August Erickson, a neighbor who had built a new house on a forty about 1/4 mile away, let the family live in his house while a new house was built. The new house was completed during the summer and fall. That fall James was born on August 23 and Horace started high school in St. Hilaire. He drove a model A Ford car to school as long as he could and stayed in town during the winter.

Vincent took his eighth grade at the St. Hilaire School starting in the fall of 1930. Horace was a junior in high school there and Karl and Ida thought it would be simpler if they both went to the same school. Horace and Vincent drove to school every day. A neighbor, Paul Jepson also rode with them. Vincent could not remember what they did on stormy days or when the roads were impassible but they most likely had to resort to horses. Horace graduated in 1932 and Vincent graduated in 1935. Shirley was born May 28, 1930.

St. Hilaire Spectator

May 16, 1929 Evelyn Peterson, Annie Walseth and Horace Dalager spent the weekend at their respective homes.

Jan 9 1930 Mr. & Mrs. K.T. Dalager & family were guests at the home of Mr. & Mrs. Hansen of Red Lake Falls, Sunday Jan 3, 1930.

Feb. 13, 1930 Mr. & Mrs. K.T. Dalager & Mrs. G B Peterson attended the PTA meeting at St. Hilaire last Friday. They reported the Declamatory Contest very good.

May 28, 1930 Karl and Ida Dalager were blessed with the birth of a daughter. This was the birth of Shirley.

July 24, 1930 Rev. & Mrs. M.L. Dahle and family were guests Monday at the K.T. Dalager home.

Oct. 30, 1930 Mr. & Mrs. Fred Erdmann, accompanied by Mrs. K.T. Dalager motored to Moorhead Sunday to spend the day with Helena Erdmann while Mrs. Dalager visited her sister-in-law Mrs. Knutson of Fargo. On their return Mrs. M.L. Dahle and Maria Erdmann who had spent the weekend in Moorhead accompanied them.

Karl and Ida: Vincent’s school pranks and watermelon defense

When school started the fall of 1932, the St. Hilaire school sent out a bus which consisted of a box on the back of a truck which Ed Enge drove. When Ed had let off the last kid, he would drop the box off in the ditch and pick it up the next morning. Ed was a trucker and needed his truck to earn a living. There was no heat in the box but it offered protection from the weather and the ride was not too long.

Vincent’s classmates in St. Hilaire were Merle Rolland, Vivian Lindquist, Donna Brink, Rufus Olson, Isabel Rosendahl, Aradell Olson, & Jim Bainbridge. Jim was really Vincent’s best friend but after high school the Bainbridges moved to Iowa and Vincent hasn’t heard from him since. Jim had some kind of paralysis that caused him to limp.

Vivian Lindquist was always interested in Vincent but the interest was not mutual. One day Vincent put a mouse in Vivian’s lunch box. This did not go over very well and Vivian’s brother Vernon settled the score when he beat Vincent up. Vince was not hurt and Vivian still liked him.

The superintendent when Vincent was in high school was Mr. Reiersgord. The principal was Miss Bernice Anderson. Marguerite Dahle, Pastor M. L. Dalhe’s daughter was a high school teacher. Vince said he would be sent to the superintendent’s office for shooting spitballs. Mr. Reiersgord was Vince’s friend and he wasn’t too hard on him. They would talk for a while after which Vince was told to go back to his seat and get to work. Mr. Reiersgord also directed the band that went to the state fair the fall of 1935. Vincent played the trombone in the band. Vince’s good friend Jim Bainbridge was also in the band. Vince remembered walking around the state fair grounds with dark glasses on. They heard some old ladies comment that it was too bad that those nice fellows were blind. The boys had the word ‘band’ on their shirt some place and the ladies had read it as ‘blind’. Vince was also in the senior class play and he said he played the part of the town ‘bum.’ He said he was very good at it because of all his experience! Vince also remembered his French class. The teacher always had them exchange paper and correct them after a test. As a result, they would leave their papers blank and when they corrected them, they would fill in the correct answers. They all got through the class but none of them learned a word of French. One of the teachers would always give tests on Monday morning because he lived it up on the weekend and wasn’t able to do much Monday mornings. This was Mr. Al Figenskau. Other teachers Vincent remembered were Bertha Hasted (English), Ruth Lee (Math) and Betty McCracker (junior and senior English).

In high school Vincent did not play football or basketball because he always had to get home for chores. However, he was able to play in the band. One time Vince got a bee sting on his upper lip. It really swelled up. This was especially bad at this time because the band was supposed to play some kind of concert. He said he was able to play anyway.

Vincent didn’t like to milk cows so he carried feed and water to the cows and calves. He claimed that this is the reason he has big hands.

There was a fellow near Plummer who raised ponies. Every year Dad would keep a stud pony during the winter. It didn’t cost anything except the feed. In this way there were always ponies around and some of the mares would be with foal by spring. Vince loved to ride so there were always ponies to ride. Jerry, the pony I rode a lot, must have been one of the last of these ponies. Vincent’s main recreation during the summers was to ride around on a pony, carrying a rifle shooting rabbits. etc. Vincent earned money to buy his first 22 rifle by selling salve and other stuff like that to the neighbors.

Every winter, dad would haul cream to the creamery in St. Hilaire once a week. Some times Vince would ride with and go walking around the creamery seeing all the big machinery with the electrical panels on the wall and this always fascinated him. He was pretty small at this time but this interest was surely one of the reasons he went into the electrical business.

One of the garden products that were always a favorite with the family was watermelon. These watermelons were also a favorite of a lot of the young boys in the neighborhood. Many mornings the family would find the remains of what had happened the night before. One time Vincent figured how to solve this problem. He slept upstairs in the room that faced west toward the garden. He got a battery, a light, a switch and some other materials. He strung a string on pulleys around the water melon patch and up to his room. When the string was tripped it turned a switch on which turned on the light and activated a motor that pulled a string to fire his shotgun. To his surprise, it worked. In the middle of the night, a few days later, the shotgun fired. Vince got up and looked out the window and saw a guy heading for the fence. He rolled over the fence and was gone. Vince thought it was Delford Stephens. I remember dad trying something like this. He put twine around the patch and attached this to some tin cans in his bedroom. I am not sure how successful this method was. Another time Vince had gathered the melons in and put them in the basement on a shelf. However, the shelf was not strong enough and it broke down and so did the melons. They were having some group there, perhaps Luther League, so they served watermelons to all.

When Vince was young, the land ‘up north’ was loaded with prairie chickens. Dad hayed that land. In the winter when they went to get a load of hay up north they would also take the shot gun along and get a couple of prairie chickens. This was before the fire. Mother would bake the prairie chickens and the family would really enjoy them. There were also partridge in the woods. Vince would take a salt shaker and a potato and go out and shoot a partridge, cook it along with a potato and have a good meal in the woods. At that time most of the land west and north of the buildings was wooded. This was where the family got their stove wood for the year. I remember every year Dave Johnson would come over with a saw rig, powered by a model T or model Ford engine, and saw wood for us.

Vincent remembered an interesting incident with the double barreled shotgun when he was quite young. One Sunday morning there was a crow making a lot of noise. It was sitting in the willows by the slough that was near the house. He got up, put two shells in the double barreled shotgun and went to the slough to shoot this crow. He aimed the gun and pulled both triggers. This knocked him on his butt and the crow flew away unharmed.

Speaking about shotguns and their use, the kitchen door of the farmhouse had a small hole in it that had been patched by stuffing a small cork into it. This hole was made when a shotgun was accidentally discharged through the door. I do not know if it was Horace or Vincent who was holding the gun.

St. Hilaire Spectator

Dec. 23, 1937 Mr. & Mrs. Karl Dalager & family, Mr. & Mrs. Herman Sandberg and children, Mr. & Mrs. Adrian Anderson, Erling, Phoebe & Mayme Anderson were Sunday dinner guests at the Harry Winter home in St. Hilaire.

Karl and Ida: The Depression and other hard times

The depression was difficult on the farm but by working hard they always had enough to eat and to feed their cattle.  Mother always said that they did not have a lot of food or a great variety but they never were hungry.  To get enough hay, KT and the two older boys cut hay on a quarter of land two miles north and hauled it home during the winter.  He also cut cordwood and sold it to the St. Hilaire Creamery and school.  Grasshoppers were bad during the 30’s.  Neighbors would get together; mix a grasshopper poison made of sawdust, wheat brand, and arsenic and spread it on the fields by hand.    

Gladys Peterson remembered an incident that occurred during the drought and depression years of the thirties.  A man came to the door of the Peterson house asking for food.  None of the Peterson men were home so Josie said she would bring some food out.  About this time my dad, Karl Dalager, came to pick up the mail.  Josie asked him to come in so she could ask the stranger into the kitchen to eat.  This man was carrying a big suitcase so that made it a little scary.  When he came in to eat he set the suitcase by the door so he could keep an eye on it.  He probably had all his worldly possessions in that suitcase.  More of these men on the move stopped at the Miller Petersons rather than our place because their place was closer to the road.  Gladys remembered one sleeping on the edge of the road when they came home from school.  They were very quiet when they walked by him.  Gladys was in grade school at the time so it was in the mid 1920’s.  I remember these homeless men coming by our place.  They would ask for food and mother would give them something to eat.  Many times she asked them to split wood or carry water.  This would be about 1933 as I can remember it.  When asked about the depression, mother would say it wasn’t too bad.  They were always warm and had plenty of milk, meat, eggs and garden vegetables.

The following story was told by John (Jack) Winter, the son of Harry and Salma Winter when Jack and Jim Dalager were having lunch after Jack’s mother’s funeral at Calvary Lutheran Church, St. Hilaire, Minn. on Sept. 23, 1983.

During the hard times of the depression years, people often came to homes in town or country asking for food.  Once when someone came to Pastor Dahle’s home and asked for food Mrs. Dahle said she didn’t have any food but she had a quarter that she gave to the man.  She did this and then prayed that the Lord would provide. 

Later in the day there was a knock on the door and there was K.T. Dalager.  He had brought a bag of potatoes and a side of beef.  The Lord does lead and provide.

Karl and Ida: James and Shirley go to school

After graduating from high school in 1932 Horace stayed home to help on the farm. Following his high school graduation in 1935 Vincent took a two-year electrical course at Wahpeton State School of Science graduating in 1937 with a two-year degree in electricity.

When I started school in the fall of 1934, I rode in a car driven by Clif Schantzen along with Vincent, Paul Jepson, Henry Bothmans and Stella Omundson. The car picked us up at the cluster of mailboxes, located at the intersection of two roads about a half mile north west of our farm. Vincent and I had to walk the half-mile across country. I remember Vincent making a path for me through the snow.

For my second year I had to meet the car bus at the Bothman corner. This was over 1.5 miles from home or one mile west of the cluster of mail boxes.. Since Vincent had graduated from high school and was now at the Wapeton Technical school, I was on my own. During good weather Horace took me to this corner in the car in the morning. During the winter Horace took me on Jerry, our black and white pinto pony. On the way home from school, I would walk home from the Bothman corner. My usual path was one mile east on the gravel road and then across Anderson’s field through the Larson yard where Ron Hink lived later, then the path through the woods to home. Many time I stopped at the Larson house to get warmed up. Iris Larson, who later married Art Dicken, would give me something warm to eat before I left.

When Shirley started school in 1936, they had a real bus and the route was changed and we met the bus on the county line road south of our place. To meet the bus we had two routes. We could walk either through the Gabe Peterson place that was south and east of our place or through the Dan Johnson or Peterson place. We did this for three years until Carol Walseth started school in 1939. I was in sixth grade when Carol started school. The school bus had changed route again and we met the bus at the mailbox corner which was about 1/2 mile north of the Walseth place. Thorstein took Carol and later Bob by car to meet the bus. Shirley and I would walk to the end of our driveway and Thorstein would pick us up in his Model A Ford. We did this for several years until the bus started coming south from the mailboxes and turned at the Walseth crossing. This may have happened when Robert Peterson and Bob Walseth started school. There were five getting on the bus at that location so the bus came to the Walseth driveway.

Karl and Ida: Tractors that I (Jim) remember

As a child there are many things that I have fond memories of such as the smell of freshly baked bread, the sound of the frogs in the slough near the house, walking in the woods looking for the cows to bring home for milking. Then there were many Saturdays in the winter when Horace, dad and I worked all day cleaning calf pens, or hauling hay. Afterwards it would be wonderful to go to the warm house where mother would have nice meal for us. Paul Thyren threshed for Dad until dad bought his own machine sometime in the late 1930’s. I think I was about 10 years old when dad got his own threshing machine. When I was about 9 or 10 I helped with the harvest by driving the MM Z (Minneapolis Moline) tractor pulling the grain binder. Horace rode the binder. I could drive the MM because it had a hand clutch. All of the bundles we made had to be put into shocks to dry. Dad would usually do this but he couldn’t keep up so Horace and I would help put up shocks. Dad had bought a Farmall F 12 tractor earlier but it just was not powerful enough. Also, the MM model Z tractor was powerful enough to run a 22-inch threshing machine.

The summers on the farm involved a lot of work but I have good feelings about them. The work was hard but the memories are meaningful. One of my first jobs was to drive the horses when hay was loaded on a hayrack and hauled to the barn. I would drive the horses as Horace would spread the hay over the hayrack as the mechanical loader, which was pulled behind the hayrack, lifted the hay into the rack. Horses pulled the rack and loader down the windrow of hay. I would move around the front of the rack trying not to get too much chaff down my neck and also packing the hay down. When we hayed up on the north quarter, the hay was stacked. My job here was usually raking the hay into windrows. To do this we use a dump rake pulled by two horses. When I was in ninth grade I started hauling bundles for threshing. This was when we had our own threshing machine.

Our first combine was a used McCormick Deering. Sometime in the late 1940’s dad bought a new Case A6 combine. This was a good combine which he used the rest of his life.

Before the F 12 Farmall tractor, Dad had two other tractors, a Case and a Fordson. There is an interesting story about mother, Vincent and the Fordson. It seems that Vincent was seated on the Fordson and he dropped something on the ground. The tractor was in gear and running but he had his foot on the clutch as he tried to reach down to pick up what he had dropped. In the process, he lost his balance and fell off the tractor. The tractor was now in gear and the tractor backed up. The back wheels missed him but the transmission rubbed his back. However, the front wheels had turned and one of the front wheels was on top of his arm when the tractor stopped. He was near the house and mother heard him hollering. She came running over to where he was and saw the wheel on his arm. She took hold of the wheel and lifted it so that he could get his arm free. She was not a large women but God provided the strength when she needed it. Medically we could say that she had an adrenaline surge of strength. All that Vincent had was a bad bruise on his arm and back.

Karl liked to visit and mother would say that you couldn’t make a quick trip to town because Dad liked to talk so much. When the Frank Bothmans lived on the Brevik place, where Robert Peterson lived and now his son Neil lives, dad liked to visit with Frank. Many evenings Dad and Frank would sit in the barn talking for hours. During WW11, when Vincent was in the army and over seas, dad would try to keep up on the war by listening to the radio news broadcast by H. V. Keltenborn, and reading the Pathfinder magazine. During the war years, Pastor Skibsrud was our pastor. As a closing hymn for Sunday Service he would usually have us sing a special song asking God to bless our men in the service. This was very emotional for Dad.

Mother drove a car until she drove her model T into the big county ditch near the Swenson farm on the way to St. Hilaire. After her accident mother drove only when dad or the boys couldn’t drive. This would have been before I started school. After her accident mother only drove when dad or one of the boys couldn’t drive. I remember her taking me to school when I was in first or second grade, driving a Plymouth. This would have been in ’35 or ’36. On the way home that morning she turned the corner just north of the school too sharply and tipped the car over in the ditch. She wasn’t hurt and it didn’t hurt the car either. However, there was a square hole in the roof liner where battery acid dripped and destroyed the material.

Karl and Ida: James’ and Shirley’s teen years

Over the years, mother had several hired girls.  Both Helen Hesse Simpson and Gladys Peterson Johannick talked about working for mother.  One of the hired girls my sister Shirley and I remember was Evelyn Vandestreek.  I think she was either a junior or senior in high school when she worked for us.  Shirley remembers that I would chase Evelyn around the yard.  I do not remember this but it could have been when I was in 8th or 9th grade.  One of the things I do remember is the very wet spring or summer when Evelyn worked for us and that once when Lester Swanson came to pick Evelyn up he got stuck about half way down the driveway.  I do remember that I took our steel wheeled Minneapolis Moline tractor down the road and pulled them or him out.  Shirley did not remember why we had help that year but it may have been because mother did not feel well.  It could also have been the harvest and canning season when the workload increased and mother needed help.

Gordon Nohre is the only hired man that I can remember.  He worked for dad when he was in high school and maybe some afterwards.  He graduated in 1938.  He was a good worker and fun for me to have around.  He also played drums in a dance band to earn an extra five bucks for a nights work. 

Shirley remembers that I had a single bed in the dining room when I was recovering from rheumatic fever in the spring of my junior year.  I remember I was laying there listening to the radio when I heard that President Franklin Roosevelt died.  This was April 12, 1945.  Shirley also remembers that when I came home after a three-week stay in the hospital I commented, “It surely is dull around here.”  I had several room locations while in the old Mercy Hospital starting with the upstairs hall, a double room downstairs and a ward upstairs.  One of the men in the ward was an old man to me who was dying of cancer.  He had been a well driller and had a large mustache.  It was at this time that I had Alvina (Arveson) Hanson as a nurse.  We have known the Hansons ever since we joined Zion Luthern Church.  However, I did not figure out that she had been my nurse until recently.  I remember her as being pretty and friendly and she still is an attractive woman.

The summer of 1945, following my rheumatic fever, was when Horace and Gladys Nelson were married.  Horace wanted me to be his best man but because of my illness my doctor felt that it would be best if I weren’t involved in the wedding party.  Gladys’s cousin, Hazel, was the maid of honor and Joe Peterson was the best man.  Shirley and Lloyd Nyborge, Hazel’s husband, were the attendants.  Several of the Franze relatives were present but the only ones I remember for sure were Uncle James and Aunt Irene.  I remember Evelyn Stephens was there and  trying to decorate their car.  Dad was not to happy about this as he thought he would not be able to clean it off.  Horace and Gladys stayed in the Pennington Hotel in Thief River Falls the first night and then took the Duluth train in the morning.  When they returned from Duluth they set up farming and house keeping on the old Fellman farm where they lived for several years.  Scott Peterson lived on that location for several years. 

Because of the war and a shortage of teachers, the high school at St. Hilaire was closed in 1943 with most of the students being transported to school in Thief River Falls where both Shirley and I graduated.  I attended Concordia College graduating in 1950 while Shirley attended Fairview Hospital School of Nursing graduating in 1951.

Karl and Ida: The final years

In 1948 Karl and Ida moved into the same house they had lived in following the fire.  This move was made so Horace could purchase and move to the home place.  Karl continued to farm his north quarter.

On July 26, 1953 Shirley married Robert Westacott at Calvary Lutheran church in St. Hilaire, Minnesota. 

Dad had purchased a new Coop E3 tractor  in the late 1940’s and it was while driving the Coop E3 tractor to the land up north on November 18, 1954 that the tractor rolled over on him killing him.  He most likely suffered a stroke or heart attack rendering him unable to control the tractor.  He had turned off the tractor’s ignition.

Thorstein Walseth, a neighbor, remembered clearly the clear November day in 1954 when Dad died on his tractor.  The tractor had rolled over on its side and one of the big wheels was pinning his leg.  Thorstein said, “We thought that was the trouble, that he was pinned but he was also dead.”  Thorstein and Paul Anderson, another neighbor, had the job of telling my mother that my dad had died in a tractor accident.  This was a couple of hours after the accident.  Thorstein remembered Mother saying, “Oh, didn’t he get further than that?”  Dad had died a couple of hours earlier and mother didn’t know it.  Mother appeared to take things pretty calmly.  This was the way it was at the fire also.  After the fire, Dad had stayed with James and Irene Franze for a while but mother stayed on the farm.  Mother seemed to react to stress pretty calmly.  However, following the fire mother’s black hair turned white in less than a year.  Dad’s sister Julia came at this time, staying for a while, and was a frequent visitor over the years and was always a comforting influence.

Ida spent many of her remaining years on the farm.  It was during this period that Gloria Johnson, wife of Harlow Johnson from our neighborhood, got to know mother through ladies aid.  When working with mother in the church kitchen preparing food, mother had reminded her that when buttering bread or buns, be sure to spread the butter to the edge of the bread.  

It was during the summer of 1960 or 1961, when Phyllis and I were home from Camrose, Canada that the garage door fell on mother and broke her leg.  When she got out of the hospital she went to live with Shirley’s family.  She recovered from this break quite well and enjoyed many years living with Shirley and Bob and the Westacott children.  She got to know and enjoy those children like Phyllis and I are getting to know and enjoy Nathan’s and Darcie’s daughters Marryn and Annika.  Mother died October 18, 1971.

Acknowledgements

Many people and organizations have helped me with material for this family history.  The North Dakota Historical Library for microfilm of the Deering, Glenburn, and Sherwood newspapers.  The Thief River Falls Library for microfilm of the St. Hilaire Spectator.  Also Margaret Dalager Lindroth for providing Aunt Julia’s letters.  To the following people for taped interviews:  Helga Johnson, Benny Johnson, Dorothy Gunstad Hanson, Shirley and Vincent Dalager, Evelyn Peterson Hegreness, Gladys Peterson Johannick, Joe Peterson, Uncle James Franze, Thorestine Walseth and others.