Our Story
Home
Harvey Dunn Painting of South Dakota Pioneering Woman
|
First Impressions Nancy's grandfather, Harold Hans Brown (1892-1981), came here from Sweden in 1908, one year after the high water-mark for immigration. He said they often spoke in Sweden of New York having "streets of gold." When he arrived, with only pennies in his pocket, Harold was so happy to be here, he felt he could kiss the streets anyway that were teaming with trotting horses. Harold went on to start a lucrative coal and oil refinery business at 4252 Lawrence Avenue in Chicago.
The Olsons' destination was Vail, Iowa, near Denison. Their first impression of the plains must have been a disappointment. "What a country! No trees, some sod houses and homesteads, small buildings and a vast prairies land," Bertha writes, of their move to South Dakota twenty years later. "I think it must have been very hard on mother, for Sunne, Sweden was a beautiful place with lakes, trees, pine and fir trees, mountains in the background. With strawberries, raspberries, lingon berries, and other fruit growing wild, free for the picking. But most of all, perhaps, leaving her sister Lisa, relatives, friends, and a nice parsonage in Myssjö, Sweden." Viola notes that while South Dakota's treeless plains were a disappointment, Iowa was somewhat nicer. "Northwest Iowa is very fertile having the largest area of number one black soil in the country. South Dakota is very different. (Uncle Ole's enthusiasm for moving may have been partly motivated by his love story.)"
Martha Farnsworth describes her first look at the plains in a diary entry of December 8, 1891: "Have driven all day, today, without a sign of a living thing: not a bird, bush or tree. The plain is as level as a floor, with only buffalo grass growing. Not the slightest hollow or raise of ground-just a monotony of distance."
The hills were strewn with bleached buffalo bones. "Perhaps greedy hunters had killed them for their hides that were used for robes. Ole had secured one and was it ever ugly, but warm I suppose," Emma writes. "People picked up the bones by the wagon load, hauled them to Ipswich, and got a fair price in trade for coal and sometime groceries," Edward N. Olson, Emma's brother, writes. At the railroad, ricks sometimes lengthened into a half-mile or more gleaming white as a great snow bank until empty freight cars came along. The bones were used in the manufacture of such items as phosphorous, fertilizer, and bone china.
Emma's brother, Ole, spoke of the exaggerated opinion people had of America as a land that flowed with milk and honey. He said there was a saying that in America the "pigs ran about with knives in them all ready for slicing." A ditty from the time ran
Water The three immediate needs of the newcomer were food, shelter, and water, the last usually the most urgent. Many settlers hauled their water ten or twelve miles while they hurriedly sank a well. "A pioneer woman in Faulk County, South Dakota, often led the milk cow to a creek four miles from home. She would then walk back carrying two buckets of water in her hands," Reyn writes. "One quip that was repeated on the frontier was the remark of a man who said, "This would be a fine country if we just had water." "Yes," answered the man whose wagon pointed east, "so would hell." " Farmers dug many wells trying to get water. "The Olens dug 60 or more feet once only to have a dry hole," Emma writes. Most wells were about four feet in diameter and about 16 feet deep. Many a time, a cow or horse would fall into these wells and have to be winched out or covered over if the beast died. "By the time I came along, the farms had artesian wells that flowed constantly without wind or motor," Viola writes. "With so many tapping into the water table, it got so low that pumps and windmills were needed. The water table continued to go down and well got deeper and deeper. One of Milton's wells was 1,620 feet deep, a number I remember by connecting it with the year of the Plymouth Colony."
Erik got 120 acres of land at Cherokee County, Iowa, and built a sod house. "It was a very humble home indeed for it was but a little sod house with no floor. Long grass laid over saplings out by the creek made the roof. Board for the door and a little window were the only cash outlay." Sometimes, dug outs or "soddys" would flood or collapse. There was always the chance that a cow would hurtle through the roof. (Grace Wik's mother, Emma Peterson was born in such a dugout in 1886.) Erik soon replaced the sod house with a frame house.
At first, Erik worked on the railroad. "He would have them tear up long sections of track and then work like mad to repair them before some oncoming train," Emma writes. When forced to work through midsummer, Sweden's national holiday, Erik must have muttered in disgust: "De va ett uschlit land-håller de inte ens helgere i åra?!" (What a wretched country-don't they even respect the holidays?) He later worked in a store. Emma's brother Ole went to South Dakota to make a claim on a quarter section. He became "adept at determining locations by reading, even feeling in the dark, the township, section, and quarter marks made by surveyors on stones." Ole may have tested the grass with his teeth, considered last year's sunflower stalks to gauge the earth's fertility, and struck a spade deep into the earth, trying a ball of soil in his hand, and perhaps nodding to himself.
On November 30, 1876, Emma was born near Cherokee, Iowa, joining her brother Ole, age 19, sister Martha, age 17, and brother Edward, age three.
Ole Olson Emma's big brother Ole (1857-1931) would farm in South Dakota. He married Anna Erickson in 1886, and they had six children between 1887-1898 (Ida, Elmer, Hilma, Ellen, Myrtle, and Luella). Martha (1859-1904) married Lewis Resene in 1898. "I recall a lot of jolly banter as young folks were there and helped bake and bake for the wedding feast," Emma writes. They farmed in Cherokee County, Iowa and had ten children (Oscar, Carolina, Emma, Rose, William, Ethel, Agnes, Gertrude, David, and Louella). Edward (1873-1960) married Alma Johnson in 1910. He was a farmer, merchant, and railroad employee. They had four children (Irene, Raymond, Glen, and Doris).
Ole was a small, wiry man with a mustache and dark hair. He walked with a limp. Emma writes that her earliest recollection of brother Ole is of him sitting at the table with a dictionary at hand. "His chief joy was the English language," Elvera writes. "He would spend hours pouring over the dictionary just for sheer joy of savoring new words and their meaning. When he was reading, he was never without a dictionary." Viola wrote that "Uncle Ole didn't pay special attention to me, but I think he was one of the most interesting of the uncles. You could write the Great American Novel based on him. He was energetic and nervous and always seemed to be moving if only nodding his head. He had a keen mind and a far vision that the U.S. was getting better and better. He was the moving spirit in the move to Dakota. His glowing expectations moved others.
"What I'm going to tell you is surmise. You may have noted that in mother's writing she just writes "on April third, Ole and Anna drove to Faulkton and were married there." No big wedding like Mattie's, etc. The situation was that Anna was pregnant by another man, but Ole was in love and wanted to marry her anyway. I know nothing about the other man or how Anna felt about any of this, but she agreed to marry Ole. It seems natural to me that Ole would want to take her away from Iowa to Dakota. I don't think anyone showed any difference in the treatment of the children. Elmer, Merritt's father, was born later and Myrtle and Luella. (This all came up a number of years ago when Helen Mayo fell in love with Merlyn Resene, her cousin. She said that it was O.K. because they really weren't blood relatives. Turned out they each married someone else.)
"Anyway, Ole threw himself into farming, community, and church life. Before there was a school, he taught mother and others in the home though mom had problems with the multiplication tables. He organized a choir and taught singing although his only instrument was a tuning fork. (Elvera writes that he has a rare gift of perfect pitch.) He loved music, except for violin music, which he described as the screeching and gnashing of teeth.
"I remember him as an old man very bent over but still eager. One great interest was the Great Lakes Waterway, which he studied over long before it became a national issue. After much study, he would nod his head saying, "Yup, the United States ought to have Canada." I think he always came up with that solution. He had a way of rocking back and forth and clicking his false teeth while he worked things out.
"Another interest was the growing of alfalfa. Because of its deep roots, he saw it as ideal for dry country. The Faulkton Record printed long articles by him on the subject. He probably had other enthusiasms, but these were the two I remember.
"He raised the family on the farm north of the Stewarts, building a large white farm house and buildings. He had trees. I suppose that Elmer, Merritt's dad, bought the farm from Ole. In his old age, Ole lived with Myrtle and Eric in Faulkton.
"Uncle Ole in earlier days had real estate interests and at one time the children got word that he was almost starving in Rapid City. They went out to rescue him from his real estate dealings and established some kind of conservership so they had the O.K. on such deals. I don't know the details, but have been told that the land out there is now some of the most expensive in Rapid City.
"Like many oldsters, he had trouble keeping warm and would heat the house to the point Myrtle couldn't stand it. So they built a little house in the back yard where he could have it as hot as he wanted. This became the "shack" that the boys lived in when they were in high school. It was often a gathering place for more kids than it could hold. Uncle Ole would turn up at the house sometimes. I suppose he hopped the train in Faulkton. He was an early riser and considered it his duty to rouse out the boys. They thought it was still night when he'd call up the stairs, "Boys, boys, the sun is way up in the sky!"
"Ole's love of heat was his undoing. Mother would let him fire up as much as he liked. We had a coal furnace. One morning, he apparently stoked it with coal dust and a terrific explosion shook the house. Nick and a friend found Uncle Ole. The door of the furnace had hit him in the head and killed him." (Dad remembers that Nick and he were upstairs when the furnace exploded. They were covered with soot from head to foot. Smoke billowed over their beds and the foundations of the house shifted. Windows were blown out in four rooms. One window was lying by the fence, not even cracked.) Elvera writes that "as soon as the boys could make their way through the steam and dust, two of them went down to the basement. Soon we heard Arvid say, "There he is," and they picked him up and carried him to the dining room. I can never forget the horror we felt when we saw that the whole side of his face and head was crushed. He moved once, but his spirt had already gone to be with his Creator. Elsie tenderly wrapped him in a blanket. Words cannot describe the pain and shock we all felt."
"Uncle Ed was closer to mother's age and they enjoyed doing things together, even taking a buggy trip to Iowa at one time," Viola writes. "His wife was twenty years younger than he was, but to us he seemed younger and more playful. He'd do things like putting up a swing in their barn that reached to the rafters."
"The only cousins we played with were Uncle Ed's kids, Irene, Ray, and Glen. Glen was the little kid and we didn't play with him as much. All were good looking but I thought Irene was the prettiest girl in the world with her curly hair, and dark eyes and eyelashes. She was older than I and played with Elvera probably more than with me."
Fire Challenges faced the pioneers every day, for South Dakota, the Sunshine State, was a state of extremes. A temperature range of 170 degrees-from 120 to minus fifty-tested the endurance of the settlers, as did the weather that accompanied such temperatures. Death in the form of fire would race over the dry bristle. The shifting line of fire would sometimes cover 30 miles or more. In 1873, in Saline County, Nebraska, the wind swept the smoke of a great fire toward a schoolhouse. One mother, against the teacher's most earnest objections, took her children and those related to her away. The ten children tried to run before the fire and fell, one after the other, the mother too in her efforts to save them. The teacher and pupils who remained with her were safe on a nearby plowed field. Ironically, the schoolhouse was untouched by the fire.
Snow The plains needed the moisture of deep snow to make a good crop, but the storms could be dangerous. Blizzards often lasted for two or three days. Sometime, the pioneers struggled through blinding sheets of white to get to their cattle or to haul coal with hand sleds. They would burn grain and sometimes furniture to keep from freezing. Deep drifts would bury fences and houses. The worst blizzard was that of January 12, 1888, in which many lives, including whole schools, were lost. "The morning had dawned still and beautiful with the sun shining on the deep glistening white snow," Emma writes. A roaring blast out of the north reached the upper plains about three or four o'clock when children were just starting home from school. "In the middle of the forenoon, a strong wind arose suddenly lashing the loose snow into a furious blizzard with dropping temperatures. One teacher, compelled by wind and intense cold, to leave the schoolhouse tied the pupils to her and was able to find her way to home. But a girl, who had a claim near Olens, was found after the blizzard on her knees just a short distance from her home." Accounts of the lost ones came in from everywhere. A story from Dodge City, Nebraska, told of two sisters 8 and 13 who died on their way home. The older girl had taken off her wraps to put around her younger sister. Where the blizzard started earlier, some teachers kept the children at school, some tied them together and managed to reach a nearby house. Others died with their pupils. At Running Water in the Dakota Territory, a teacher left the schoolhouse with nine pupils. Their bodies were found scattered over the prairie some time after the storm cleared. Over 200 people had lost their lives in that short, swift storm.
Aunt Elvera recounts how as a child she had to rely on her horse to survive a blizzard. "I was teaching at a country school ten miles from home and boarding out. One cold February morning, the weather was so stormy that I was strongly urged not to venture out. But I was determined not to miss a day of school that I would have to make up. I got to school without difficulty, put the horse in the barn, and began working at my desk. Of course, none of my pupils showed up. By early afternoon, the wind had picked up and was howling around the corners of the schoolhouse. I looked out and could see absolutely nothing. I bundled up and stepped outside. I couldn't even see the barn, and the wind took my breath away. I struggled, stumbled, and fell but finally reached the barn. From here on, I would have to trust the horse. I hunched over in the saddle, turned my face from the wind, and closed my eyes. I let the reins hang loose and let the horse go where she pleased. When she stopped running about twenty minutes later, I opened my eyes and found myself right outside the barn. People often go in circles when they loose their way. But that day I learned the meaning of 'horse sense.'"
Other Challenges "Then came the grasshoppers," Emma writes. "One afternoon the sky darkened as for a storm and soon the hoppers alighted covering vegetation like a blanket. By morning everything was practically stripped. For three years they continued their devastating work."
The Indian menace continued until the so-called Battle of Wounded Knee in South Dakota in 1890. Emma said she was eager to read and believe everything that she read was fact, and it was her misfortune to get hold of some Indian massacre stores that filled her young mind with terror. "We did have an Indian scare during Sitting Bull's uprising. A girl came to school saying, "Six thousand Indians are coming down from Bismarck!" Some people left their homes and went to Faulkton. Some men at the North Western depot had volunteered to go with the soldiers to fight but had been told, "Go home. We'll attend to the Indians." I recall one Sunday morning the matter of defense was discussed at church but it was decided we could only put our trust in the Almighty." Viola remembers a debate at the Millard school: Resolved that the darkest blot on the escutcheon of the United States was the treatment of the Indians. "I remember it because there was a word I had never heard."
Home canning was unknown, and dried apples, peaches, prunes, raisins, and currents provided the pioneers with fruit. Food was largely corn meal, pancakes, fried potatoes, bread, molasses, and salt pork. The early settlers learned the Indian way of preserving meat, cutting it into flakes no thicker than the edge of a woman's hand to dry quickly in the constant wind. Well dried, the meat kept for months and was good boiled with a touch of prairie onion. Fuel was largely cow chips, straw, corn cobs, or twisted slough hay.
"My grandparents, along with other homesteaders, had come to claim cheap land in a vast expanse of virgin prairies," Grace Wik writes in her 1995 memoir, Roots and Memories. "There was a cost in physical labor, human privation, and energy to tame the fertile land. Life was hard. Little did he know that rainfall would often be scarce and winter snows would bring hardship. Grasshoppers often finished what the drought didn't.'' (Drought in 1889 brought widespread destitution to South Dakota. The years 1910-11 and 1931-40 were also unusually dry.) However, bit by bit they brought the prairies under cultivation, and they began to appreciate all that was around them. "We, here on the South Dakota, may not have the beauty of the towering mountains or be able to feel the sensation of the roaring oceans," Grace continues. "But we can know the beauty of the prairie flower, the thrill of seeing a colorful sunset or a star-studded sky, and the satisfaction of growing crops and nurturing animals."
|