I was born in the North Central North Dakota city of Devils Lake. I grew up on a wheat, barley and small dairy herd farm six miles northeast of Devils Lake.
The farm was purchased by my parents in 1942. Both of my parents grew up on farms in North Dakota. When I was born my sister Janis was four years old. The house had no running water and water was hauled from the well in the barn each day
by my parents. Running water was added in 1950 when my brother Daryl was born.
I was baptized at the St Olaf Lutheran Church in Devils Lake. My Grandfather and Grandmother, George and Stena were founding members of the church in 1936. We attended church every Sunday. I attended Sunday School and attended confirmation classes. I was confirmed in 1960.
I started school at Washington Elementary School in Devils Lake in 1952. I rode the yellow school bus with my sister every morning and afternoon. This ride was about 1 hour each way picking up other children in the rural southern half of Minnewaukan Township. The one afternoon a month that my mother had Ladies Aid at St. Olaf Lutheran Church I was able to walk to the church six blocks from the school.
All the husbands and farmers in the neighborhood would come in around six o’clock for hot dish supper with homemade buns and pickles. There were lots of cakes and cookies also.
My father milked about 6 to 8 cows a day. He would hand milk in the morning and evening besides doing other chores and farming. The cream was separated by a hand cranked separator and kept cool in a cream can. The cream can was kept in the water tank inside the barn. On Thursday afternoon my father and mother would load the cream can up and drive to town, pick us kids up at school and go the Fairmont Creamery in Devils Lake. We would unload the can full of fresh cream
and pick up the one can we dropped off the week before and go uptown and cash the check for the cream. My father wanted to get downtown Devils Lake to find a choice parking spot. The top prize was in front of the S&L Store right on the corner of Fourth & Fourth. There was a grocery store one block away in each direction. The Red Owl Grocery was a block east on 4th and a Piggly Wiggly store was a block north of that. South of the 4th and 4th was the Leevers Super Value Store and north a half block was Christie’s and going west 2 blocks was National T. So mother could get a good variety of food.
My mother Juanita loved to sew and several stores close to 4th & 4th had a good variety of supplies she needed. We kids got a nickel to go one block to the Arcade and buy a comic book. My favorite was Roy Rogers or Hopalong Cassidy. When prices went up we got a dime. There was a drawing at 8 o’clock p.m. for $200.00 announced on the local radio station KDLR for those customers who had registered at a local store that day. If your name was drawn you had to claim it in 30 minutes so
you had to stay in town. I remember one Thursday shopping night we were parked one block west of 4th & 4th in front of Mann’s Department store. I was in the 7th grade at the time. Mann’s was right next to the Woolworth Store and they had just received a big shipment of a new toy, the Hula Hoop. There was a lot of excitement. Father would not give us a dollar to purchase one. I watched several of my classmates go into the store with their parents to purchase one. I remember one
classmate, Carol Keller, going in with her parents and come out with the Hula Hoop, with a big smile of excitement.
I selected Vocational Agriculture as my elective course of study when I was a freshmen in Devils Lake High School. Norris Fagerlund was the instructor and advisor for the Future Farmers of America, FFA. I was an officer and livestock judge for the Devils Lake Chapter. I was able to represent the chapter at the Valley City Winter Show and State Convention at NDSU. Norris Fagerlund was an incredible instructor and took us on many field trips. Norris taught us how to weld, identify weeds, castrate sheep and cattle, artificially inseminate cattle, repair machinery, build ladders, gates and take soil samples. Along
with my father’s many years of experience I gained a strong foundation of agriculture. I built on that to become a sales
agronomist in the Sunflower industry later on. Traveling all over the states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Minnesota and Kansas promoting and contracting specialty sunflower. I was able to do all that and live and raise a family on the family Homestead near Devils Lake.
