Dakota Attitude #25
“Airplane Crash Survivor”
Arnold Christianson grew up speaking Icelandic on his family’s farm. “I couldn’t speak a word of English.” His father was born in Iceland, and his mother was a second-generation Icelander.
His journey into the insurance business was an unconventional path, when in February 1948, he and his brother-in-law, Duane Bryon, went up for an unfortunate airplane ride. “We crashed,” Arnold recalls. “We weren’t up all that high. Duane was buzzing Johnny and Clarence Geir, as they were out getting a load of hay.
“My belt broke, and I went flying into the dash and halfway out of the plane. It ruined the airplane. Fortunately, we both lived, but I was hurt pretty bad.” To make matters worse, it was a snowy February day. “The roads were blocked, and there was no automobile travel. My dad and my brother came close to two miles with a team of horses and a manure sled. They picked me up at the crash and came on Highway 32 to Mountain, or just at the south edge of town. There was friend of mine who was waiting with a car and took me to Grafton Hospital. I had my face all banged up. I had a double compound fracture of the left leg and other injuries. I was in hospital for three months. They had to do away with Maude, one of our horses. She stiffened out after the trip.”
He says the positive part of the whole experience was meeting Donna MacDonald, a nurse’s aide whom he would marry two years later. Also, “I really didn’t know what I was going to do [because of the injuries]. It so happened a cousin of mine in Bottineau was in the insurance business, and he came down and got me started. I think it turned out all right.”
Of course, I had to ask Arnold his favorite food, “Icelandic ice cream and vinarterta [Icelandic Christmas cake].” As he is active in the Vikur Church, I asked his favorite hymn, “Living for Jesus—the words and tune have special meaning. It is a beautiful hymn.”
Arnold Christianson, Interview June 17, 2011, County Pembina, City: Mountain
“Siblings’ Birthdays all the Same Day”
“I believe I pursued the calling that I was to take,” says Lila Werner. “If I would have gone into a career which would have given me a lot more money, I would never have been a teacher. When I first started teaching, I made $1,800 a year and I taught for 43 years.”
Early in her career, Lila worked for the Department of Defense, teaching at schools on U.S. military bases in Libya and Germany, and returning to Hazelton for the summers. “I remember when I came back from Germany one year, I said to my parents [who are German], ‘Okay, I want you to teach me to
say the Lord’s Prayer in German.’ They wouldn’t. That was their language, as when my mother started school she could not speak one word of English. So she did not want us to go through that.”
Lila and her two other siblings have the same birthday. “My brother, Herbert, named after President Hoover, was born October 24, 1929. Two years later, my sister was born on October 24, 1931. Then I came on October 24, 1932. “Mom would make a three-layer angel food cake. The bottom layer was the big one. Then she would make the next one a little smaller and the real tiny one was on the top. That was for me as I was the youngest.”
So the Werner family celebrated one birthday for three children of different ages on the same cake? Who blew out the candles? Lila explains, “My brother’s first. Then my sister, and then there was me.”
In 1995, Lila retired and returned to Hazelton, which she calls “home” today. “It was easy to grow up here,” she says. “It was a simple life. It was one where you did not worry about things. I think that is something I carried over from my folks. Even during times when things were rough, we were never told that. We were never told that money was tight. Or that we can’t do this because we do not have the money. We were never told that. You always felt safe. I think that is pretty true today—until I see something on TV that scares me.”
Lila Werner, Interview July 9, 2011, County: Emmons, City: Hazelton
“Twelve- and 14-year-olds Feed Large Threshing Crew Daily”
Thora and her sister, ages 12 and 14, were the cooks in a cook car that followed the threshing crew at harvest time. They fed 14 or 15 men five meals a day. “We were very young. We slept there,” Thora explains, “We would get up about four or five in the morning in order to serve breakfast at six. A midmorning break was called forenoon lunch. Dinner was at noon, followed by afternoon lunch and then supper. When [the crew] would come in for supper, it was usually dark or about dark. Then you had to wash up the dishes.”
Thora, now 95 years old, was born in 1916 on a farm near Alkabo. Her dad died of tuberculosis when she was a year and a half. She went to a country school. “I think I only went six years because they passed me two grades, which they shouldn’t have done. I can’t remember for sure, but you see my sister, she was two years ahead of me, she taught me everything what she learned in school…taught me at home. So when I started school, I was advanced. I graduated when I was 12.” She went to two years of high school and finished by correspondence. In 1936, she married Sam Bloom. There was no honeymoon. “At that time, I think we had $25 between us. We were very careful on what we spent. Very. But you know everyone was poor then.” They farmed and later ran a general store for 20 years in Alkabo, then returned to farming.
Asked about the wide usage of computers now, Thora says, “I don’t want a thing to do with them (she repeats herself), but I have one in my house. That wasn’t my idea. Well, I don’t do a thing,” Flora claims. “[My kids] call my name, I can hear it, and I will go out there [to the computer in the other room]. I’m paying for it, too,” she laughs. Thora enjoys “family who come to see me. Yeah. I have friends, too, who come. I tell them, ‘they do me a favor when they come [to visit].’”
Thora (Slaaen) Bloom, Interview: June 9, 2012, County: Divide, City: Alkabo
(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.)
