“Mr. Fargo”
C. Warner Litten says will he never forget what his teacher Ms. Mary Fowler told him on the day he graduated from Fargo Central High School in 1932. “Warner,” Ms. Fowler said. “I know that you are planning to work your way through the Agriculture College [NDAC], and I just want to make one recommendation to you: you have the ability to participate in some extracurricular activities…do this, that, and the other thing.”
Warner did work his way through NDAC, but also participated in “this that and the other” campus activity and making innumerable friends in the process. He graduated in 1936, worked at Northwestern Bell, and was drafted for military service in 1941.
Warner was discharged in April 1946 and by November was managing the Fargo Clinic. “The first thing I did [at Fargo Clinic] was organize a committee of 11 doctors. We talked about goals and objectives, where we wanted to take the Fargo Clinic.” He also went to Mayo Clinic for a few days to learn how they functioned. “Instead of continuing as a general practice group, we were going to specialize.” Warner also described the placement of satellite facilities in communities in the Fargo-Moorhead trade area. “When I started, the Fargo Clinic had 11 full-time and a few part-time physicians on the staff; when I left, there were over 100, and now there are over 400 [speaking of MeritCare]. It’s a true success story, the Fargo Clinic.
“I used the word ‘teamwork’ quite often. I used to tell the [Fargo Clinic employees], I want you to remember what Emerson said: ‘Nothing great was ever accomplished without enthusiasm.’”
Warner also served the Fargo community at-large in countless leadership positions, including the state legislature. Happiness, Warner says, “is just a matter of associating with good people, which Fargo is full of. The thing that’s best about this community is the people.”
When asked whether or how attitude influences enthusiasm, Warner cites a favorite adage: it’s your attitude, not your aptitude, that determines your altitude in life.
– C. Warner Litten, Interview: January 29, 2004, County: Cass, City: Fargo
“Encouragement to Read”
“I consider Drake as my home,” says Sophie Beutler, a former school teacher who taught many years in the Drake area. But her first day as a teach er was at John Olson Country School near Charleson in McKenzie County. Arriving was a bit concerning. “When I was walking to school I could see, from the top of the hill, kids coming to the schoolhouse. I got to the school house, and there was no one to be seen. There wasn’t a child around. There was a horse…by the barn, but no children.
“I unlocked the door, and here were these 20 kids. One of the little boys had gone down the coal shoot and opened the door from the inside, let every one in, and then locked the door. They were all there.”
The schoolhouse furnace was important, and Sophie fired it every morning. “The kids all would bring a potato, brand it—take a pen or pencil, dig into the skin to mark it—and place it down in the ash pit,” she recalls. “At lunchtime, everyone had a hot potato to go with whatever they brought in their bucket.”
Sophie’s fondest memory during her 27-year teaching career occurred in Wheatland: “I had a [student] who got burned in the throat and mouth by acid…so he had to redo the fifth grade. He had a little trouble reading. One day his hand was the first one to go up, so I let him read the page. He read the entire page word-for-word. When he was done, all the kids in the room stood up and clapped.
“Years later, a lady came up to me and said, ‘Do you know where that boy is now?’ I said, ‘No.’ She replied, ‘He is playing on the NDSU football team. If you had not been his teacher, he would never have gone there.’”
Sophie advises all children: “Learn to read. Anything. It doesn’t matter what it is. But read. And understand it. Because the world centers on reading. Television has not replaced reading.”
– Sophie (Nielsen) Beutler, Interview: September 13, 2006, County: McHenry, City: Drake
“The Mesh of Marion”
Dean and Shirley McInnis married in 1951 and moved to Marion so he could manage an elevator owned by his grandfather. Shirley remembers Dean’s grandfather telling them Marion is one of the best communities he had an elevator in because “the people in Marion really mesh together.” Shirley says it’s still true. “The people in this community are not strictly of one na tionality, but rather come from so many different ethnic background and they cooperate so well,” she says.
The town has supported up to six churches. Shirley served as organist at the Lutheran church for 35 years and only regrets not keeping track of all the weddings and funerals she played for. However, Marion’s community con nectivity is not limited to church events. “Years ago, every Wednesday night everyone from the country would come into Marion. The stores were open, and there was always a program put on by a group on the bandstand.”
No longer is there a program every Wednesday, and only two churches cur rently operate, but Shirley leaves no doubt that people of Marion still mesh together. “When we had our 100th anniversary of Marion and an all-school reunion in the year 2000, we had 3,000 people come. The entire community, [not only] the townsfolk, worked hard to put it on. The people here worked together very well,” Shirley says. “That tells you something.”
Even though events like these are fewer and farther between, Dean says, “You still can drive around, stop at someone’s place, and have a visit. If you knock on the door, they know who you are. If they are outside, we can then just lean against the car and visit. There is a lot of it.”
Shirley adds, “Many times there is an offer to come into the house and have coffee. It is wonderful.”
– Dean and Shirley McInnis, Interview: May 10, 2006, County: LaMoure, City: Marion
(Editor’s Note: These profiles of North Dakota residents were collected by author James Puppe between 2004-2018, covering 617 subjects and 113,000 miles. He has given permission for his book to be serialized in North Dakota Newspapers at no charge. To find out how you can read the entire collection of Dakota Attitude profiles go to dakotaattitude.com.)
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