“If You Remain the Same, you’re Gonna Get Lost”
“One of my best teachers [Amanda Janze]—I helped carry her to her grave,” says Lowell Laufenberg. “Yes, proud to be her pallbearer. She had polio, so she had braces on her legs, and so when she come to our country school to teach, one fellow I used to fight with, before we [became] lifelong friends, thought she was going to be a pushover because she was an invalid. He found out in a quick hurry that she wasn’t no pushover. Why, about the first time he acted up, he got the back of her hand right smack dab in the middle of his face and not just a tap. I don’t think he ever forgot it, and neither did I. She called me up to the desk one morning before anyone else was there and told me how important it was to say please and thank you and good morning and good night. And I remembered that all my life.”
Born in 1927 on a farm his father was renting near Alice, Lowell remem- bers the Dirty ’30s. “Sometimes my dad and the hired man would be working in the same field, and they couldn’t see each other. The dirt was blowing so bad that visibility was like a snowstorm. One was probably seeding, and the other was probably cultivating or harrowing.”
Lowell graduated from high school in 1945, then stayed home and worked for his father or neighbors. In 1951, he married Coral Buckle. They have six children. After the couple married, Lowell’s parents moved to Fargo, and he and Coral have been on the farm near Alice ever since. Son Randy now handles the farming.
“In a lifetime, you see a lot of change. Some you like, and some you don’t like, but if you remain the same, you’re gonna get lost. When Coral and I started to farm in 1951, if I’d have kept on doing the same things my dad did in farming, like cultivating the soil, we’d have gone broke. I say the same thing about our son, [Randy]. Had he continued to farm the way that I’d farmed, he’d have gone broke.”
Lowell Laufenberg, Interview: July 29, 2014 County: Cass City: Alice
“Raises the American Flag Every Day”
Joseph was born February 24, 1927, and went to school in Chaseley. “They had a big brick school here built—yeah, that was built in 1918.
“They had two years of high school, so I went to school here. That was the only place I went to school.” He enlisted in the Army and saw duty in Europe and South Africa. Following discharge from the Army, Joseph went to trade school. Then he returned to military service, this time, the Navy.
Joseph’s patriotic spirit is still strong. “I put my flag up there (points to the flag through the kitchen window) every day. It’s hanging up there now. When I eat supper here, I’ll take it down. Yeah. And up at the cemetery, I put flags out on all of the holidays. I started doing that the year after I got out of the Navy.
“Every year…every year. That’s gospel truth. Since I started doing that, we got 25 veterans [from Chaseley] up there. A number of them I’ve known. Quite a few that I don’t know. I’ve got four Civil War guys up there. I just don’t know how to describe that. I just—you feel proud.”
After leaving the Navy, Joseph took over his father’s trucking business. “I did that for 22 years, and then I sold it out to a guy in Carrington, and then I went to work in Fessenden for Farmers Union. I worked for them for 17 years.”
Joseph married Joyce Murdoff on May 25, 1963. Joyce died in 2013, leaving behind three sons and two grandchildren. Joseph says he is now the oldest resident of Chaseley.
“Oh, boy,” he says when asked if he has any advice for his grandchildren. “You really caught me, ’cause I don’t see them…. so seldom. Let’s see. What would I tell them?
“Keep good company. And I always tell them, ‘I want you to be a good citizen.’ I ’member using that phrase. And be with kids that aren’t out there running around boozing. Yeah. And they go to Sunday school. Yeah. So you know that helps.”
Joseph Braunagel, Interview: August 19, 2015, County: Wells, City: Chaseley
“50 Years in the Grain Business”
The town of Hamlet is no more; people left in the ’30s. Still standing is the old two-story Hamlet School, built and consolidated in 1923 and closed in 1960. The railroad left, the post office and grocery store closed, and yet, in spite of some very dry years in the ’30s and ’80s, the local Nelson Grain Company survives after being in business over 100 years. Today it’s run by a local, Kenneth Vatne, born in 1941.
“If you take a look at an old atlas, there is no way the people could continue to live on such small [acres of] land,” he opined, referring to the 160 acres people were able to acquire through the Homestead Act.
“When I was in the seventh grade, [the Youth Citizens League] put on a carnival,” Kenneth remembers, “And I was part of that. I called BINGO. I still enjoy BINGO, as I still call at the Lions in Wildrose or the American Legion.”
After graduating in 1959, Kenneth entered service and was stationed in Panama. After separation from military, he went to work at Nelson Grain.
“I had 50 years there now, first of April. I enjoy the association with other people. Work didn’t hurt anybody. When I first started, you dumped a pickup that held 80 bushels and now dump a semi that holds 1,000 bushels.”
Besides running the elevator, Kenneth operates two farms with his son and his brother. “It is kind of a unique deal,” he explains, “because we own my grandfather’s homestead on my dad’s side north of town, and we own my mother’s dad’s homestead south of town.”
During the interview, the elevator’s drive-through doors for trucks remained open. The rapid and persistent echoing cheeps and chirrups of sparrows could be heard as they fed on spilled and scattered grain. As Hamlet’s activities as a community have diminished over the years, one couldn’t help but feel the sparrows, thanks to the local elevator, have continued to flourish because of the plentiful grain.
Kenneth Vatne, Interview: June 12, 2012, Ciunty: Williams, City: Hamlet
(Editor’s Note: The following 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.)