The Simple Lives We Live
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The Simple Lives We Live
Medora Was My Playground | Bobby Olstad
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In 1950s Medora, you cranked the phone and asked the operator for "three four, please." Bobby Olstad grew up roaming Medora, ND like it was her own backyard, riding the train to Dickinson for new shoes and hauling cases of ice-cold pop up the amphitheater hill. She's honest about the hard parts of growing up too, and how they shaped the woman who was running the Medora bank at just 23.
Welcome to The Simple Lives We Live, where we capture the extraordinary stories hidden inside ordinary lives. I'm your host, Kylie Simiano, and each week we sit down to share memories of love, family, hardship, joy, and the moments that shaped us. If these stories mean something to you, you can help support the podcast by subscribing, leaving a review, sharing episodes with family and friends, or donating through the links in our website and social media bios. Your support helps keep these stories alive. Now let's settle in and listen back together. All right, we're back for another episode. Today, my quote is: people without the knowledge of their past history, origin, and culture is like a tree without roots, and that is by Marcus Garvey. So today I have a super special guest. I think everybody's super special. But I have the beautiful Bobby Olstead with me. So thank you, Bobby, for taking time out of your day.
SPEAKER_01Thank you for calling me beautiful.
SPEAKER_04Oh well, you are. You are. Okay, so we have a little bit of history. I did what do you call that? Um, like a work study in here with you. But I really don't out of the office, I didn't really know you a whole lot. So I'm super excited that I get to interview you and you are really into history, I feel like, as well. Or memory sharing memories.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Now that I'm old.
SPEAKER_04Well, okay, let's start there. How old are you?
SPEAKER_0178 and a half almost. 78 and a half.
SPEAKER_04Okay. Now I take notes during this sometimes, so that way I have a little bit of um I can go back and check. When where were you born?
SPEAKER_01Actually in Fairview, Montana.
SPEAKER_04Fairview, Montana. Okay. Did you always live out there? Nope. Okay, so tell this story.
SPEAKER_01I don't remember. Um and um tell it as it was told to you.
SPEAKER_04Why were you born out there?
SPEAKER_01People didn't tell me anything when I'm my family and that generation didn't share things like we do. And I had to piece together what I do know and go for memories. And um, yeah, anyway, I think I think my mom and dad were living up at probably what's the name of that town up there? Shoot. Oh, it's up there by Fairview. Uh I'll think I'll think of it after this. But there was a, and I've looked it up now, there was a maternity hospital there or home for or anyway. That's where I was born. Uh you look it up in Fairview history, it's kind of interesting. There was a lady there that that delivered babies, and evidently that, and I wasn't told that. I had to research that myself. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So they never lived there, but you were born up there, or did they live there for a little while before?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, they must have lived there. I mean again, I don't remember. I was too little. Um, and uh a newborn and stuff, but what's the name of that town? There's a little town up there by Fairview, and um I can't think of it now. It's one of those little unknown towns in the area by Watford City. And do you know at what point you guys moved to this area, or did you always well see my grandparents lived in Medora, and before they lived in Medora, they lived north of Balefield.
SPEAKER_04Okay, okay. So at what point did you guys move from Montana? Do you know?
SPEAKER_01Well, we never actually lived in Montana. I think we always lived in North Dakota. Yeah. And then again, the way I remember, and my memories are spotty, and nobody, like I said, my family was actually pretty, they didn't talk about things. And I think part of it was because of my mom and dad's relationship, but um, and I was afraid to ask. So we I remember being pretty little and living in Medora in a little shack out behind the Riff Riders Hotel. I remember, you know, we had like we didn't have a bathroom, we had a sloar, and we had coal heat. And I remember watching the uh congregational church burn down, and I had to be like three years old then or something.
SPEAKER_04The congreg when that church burned down? I think it was in 1952.
SPEAKER_01I know there was a church that burned down. I think it was in 1952 or whatever, and I remember watching that from our window or whatever, and then just the way I remember, and this is again a little kid's concept. We moved we moved to Oxford City. Oh, and I think my dad was around then, and my mom I think was working in a cafe some. And I don't I don't know that it was very long. So your mom did work sometimes, at times, yeah. And she was a really, really good cook. Well, she she and her sister had run a cafe in Baalfield. Okay. And I don't know how long we lived in Watford City, but I think that was the beginning of my maybe memories or something that shaped me more than anything was um and I I really don't know what happened exactly, but this is how I remember my mom sent six-year-old Bobby to the grocery store with her last five dollars. She was pregnant with my sister, and I lost it. And my dad and my dad was gone. And so the way I remember it is then my grandpa came and got us, and then we went and lived with him and grandma.
SPEAKER_04So after that, you said you were how old? Six. Six. After six, you lived with your grandparents from then on? Oh, so what happened? You said your mom was pregnant with your sister. So you have one sibling. Did you know your sister growing up? Or did your mom keep your sister? Yeah, your mom kept your sister. So you lived totally separate from your mom and your sister.
SPEAKER_01No, I live with my grandparents and my mom and my sister.
SPEAKER_04Oh, okay. But your dad was gone then.
SPEAKER_01Gone, and it was like forboden. We didn't talk about him. Interesting. Evidently, again, my perception is he had a drinking problem. And I had a very, very strict, opinionated Norwegian grandmother. And if you drank, you were Satan personified and you weren't allowed in her house. And wow. That must have been the straw that broke the camel's back.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Can can I ask who what are the names of your parents?
SPEAKER_01Joan. Joan? And her maiden name was Anderson.
SPEAKER_04How about your dad?
SPEAKER_01My dad's name was Delmer White.
SPEAKER_04Now, do you have specific memories of your dad, even though he was gone after that point? Do you remember what he was like? Um as a person, as a dad?
SPEAKER_01I mean, I have it's I don't know if I'd like to know if other old people remember have memories like me and me. They're they're like pictures, like still pictures, just link.
SPEAKER_04Oh, so not like a whole, in a sense, movie of how things happened, but just more of a like I I can remember like him holding me and listening to his heartbeat.
SPEAKER_01That's a kind of a weird memory.
SPEAKER_04That's a really cool memory.
SPEAKER_01I remember him taking after me with a razor strap because I filled the holes of a Buick car with rocks and dirt. Um I remember going somewhere in a car with he and my mom, and you know, they didn't have seat belts or car seats or anything. And I was standing up, probably bouncing around, and I fell against the dash and cut my knee real badly, and I've got a scar. Um, because the radio didn't have a knob. Uh I remember after we moved in my grandparents being scared every time the phone rang because I was afraid it was him. Because sometimes he would want to talk to me, and there was this tension in the air, like, it's your father. You know, it's like, oh my god. Yeah, even from a young age, you felt that. Well, yeah, I would go hide when the phone rang. Oh, geez. Yeah, I don't know. Nobody explained anything to me ever. I'm sorry. No. And do you feel like was he was he a bad person?
SPEAKER_04Now, of course, you're looking back on it as from like six and before. So who knows necessarily? Do you feel like it was because he wasn't a very good person, or did he get mean when he drank, or was he very short-tempered?
SPEAKER_01Um I don't know. And I I'm as a kid growing up, I felt deserted and abandoned. Now that I'm older and have life experience, I'm wondering how much my grandparents interfered and would not let them go back together, see each other, or come in their my grandma's house, or you know.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Do you know if he ever tried and you just didn't know?
SPEAKER_01He would come sometimes. Well, he would not, you know, I don't remember very often, but you know, that was even more traumatic than phone calls.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01That my mom and I would and my sister would go out and get in the car with him and drive around or whatever.
SPEAKER_04And so does your sister remember him much at all? I don't think so. Yeah, I don't think so.
SPEAKER_01So it was like two totally different childhoods. She has a different concept of how she was raised, and you know, and and again, I didn't realize in retrospect. I always wondered why my grandma was so I thought she was crabby.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And you know, we lived in a little tiny house in Medora. And I think when I first moved there with my mom, my uncle was a World War II veteran, was living there too, in the basement. My mom was pregnant, and my grandmother had cancer, which I didn't know. And you know, she was crabby. And then my uh my her other son, my my her youngest son, my uncle Lee, was killed in world well, he was killed in World War II, but they never knew what happened to him or they never found him or anything. But again, we didn't talk about anything ever. I mean, this was so we couldn't talk about Uncle Lee. We couldn't talk about the fact he was dead, you know. You just I picked this stuff up because I was a really nosy little kid. And I listened.
SPEAKER_04Yes, yeah, and uh so now when I get older, I'm like, oh, I would have been crabby too.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you know.
SPEAKER_04Do you know what what kind of cancer did she have?
SPEAKER_01Uh colon cancer. Is that what and that's another nightmare story, which I have never hardly ever told anybody, but uh I didn't know what colostomy was.
SPEAKER_02So did she have like a baby?
SPEAKER_01I found yeah, I found out in a really bad way. One day I was home alone with her and she yelled at me to come and help her. And I'd be like, What is that?
SPEAKER_04How old were you then? Do you remember?
SPEAKER_01No, but I probably would have been eight, ten somewhere in there.
SPEAKER_04And you didn't even know she had cancer. You didn't know.
SPEAKER_01I didn't know she had cancer, I didn't know she had a colostomy, I didn't know what a colostomy was.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01And then I had the argument with myself as a kid. You know, we were, you know, we went to church a lot and stuff, and with the Ten Commandments, honor your father and your mother, and they would tell us, you know, this means your grandparents. And I'm like, I don't like my grandma very good. You know, and then I was couldn't figure out because everybody thought she was wonderful, because she had a history of delivering babies out in the country when she was young and she had five kids, and she was a telephone operator, and you know, she was Mrs. Anderson, this and Mrs. Anderson that. And I'm like, Oh, I don't like her, you know. And one time when I was probably maybe 20 years old, my uncle Bud said he was like a god to me, my mom's brother. And he he said one time to me, Bobby, your grandma was very nice to you.
SPEAKER_04And yet you don't remember that.
SPEAKER_01I I remember her not being nice to me. Right, yeah.
SPEAKER_04But he thought said that she was nice to you.
SPEAKER_01No, she he said she wasn't she wasn't, okay. And that was one of the best things anybody ever told me, you know. Like validating that, yeah.
SPEAKER_04It wasn't just me being, you know, because do you do you ever think was that more because of who your father was? Do you think that she took that out on you? Or no, I think so, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that she didn't like your dad, and therefore yeah, because when I if ever she was mad at me, she'd say maybe I shouldn't say whenever, once in a while. I remember hearing um uh you're just like your dad, you know.
SPEAKER_04Oh yeah, you remember that as a kid. Yeah, little things like that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, just maybe she only said it once. I don't know, but you know.
SPEAKER_04I think that's so interesting you saying that because I don't there's a lot of quotes, right? But there there is something about um where people talk about how it's like an image management when everybody else likes you, but you're a totally different person behind closed doors and and whatnot. So is that more it could have been just like that image management? I don't know how else to put it. I'm thinking that that's like the right term.
SPEAKER_01Well, I I feel it was it's been cathartic to be able to grow old and look back and go like, well, no wonder your grandma was crabby. She had cancer. Her son got killed in a war and she didn't even know what happened to him. And her other son was in the war, and you know, her pregnant daughter moved in with her six-year-old and lived with her forever and ever. Amen. But yeah, on the other hand, that was good because she helped take care of her as she, you know, yeah, got sicker and sicker. But yeah, how was your grandpa? He was really good.
SPEAKER_04But your grandpa was great, yeah.
SPEAKER_01He was, yeah, he he was easygoing, happy-go-lucky. Um my grandma was Norwegian, my grandpa was Swedish. He worked for the State Highway Department. He was in charge of Highway 10 from Montana Line to Panic Canyon.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_01And uh yeah, and you know, he was, yeah.
SPEAKER_04And he never talked about the uncle that was that passed away either. They didn't talk about the war at all. We don't have a burial for him.
SPEAKER_01No, they don't. They think he was in France and they think he was in a, you know, I don't even know if they found this out, but since he's since then, they uh I actually got contacted, I think somehow through some army thing, but you know, chasing ancestry, and they think he was in a hospital in a German PL War hospital, and maybe he'd had appendicitis or something, and then it was bombed or oh wow. But yeah. So yeah, looking back, like you said, you can kind of understand where yeah, and then you know, I I yeah, I was like, geez, if that would happen to me right now, like if my son were missing in action and my other son was had been in a war, and my daughter and her two kids moved in with me in this. I mean, I I don't know if I could do it, you know, even and then I was sick with cancer, and you know, is that what ended up um causing her death?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, she it moved.
SPEAKER_01I remember it moved to her bones again. This is just from overhearing. Yeah. Remember, she'd gone into the hospital in Dickinson, and grandpa went to get her out one day, and she fell going down the steps of the hospital, and they took her back in and she never came out. This is how I remember.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah. How old was she?
SPEAKER_0169.
SPEAKER_0469. So really not and I was I was 12. Okay. How about your grandpa? Did he live for a while longer?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, he was four years younger than her.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_01So he lived, I think he wasn't, he wasn't. I'm thinking I'm thinking he lived to be I don't think he lived to be 69, I forget now. But um it was like when he retired.
SPEAKER_03No purpose in a sense.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and they made you retire at 65 and from the state highway department back then. It was like boom, you're done. You can't work anymore. Once you turn 65.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, but interesting.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so he had some uh he had a stroke, I remember, and then for a little while he went out and lived with my mom's sister in California. I mean, because he was sick and needed to be taken care of and stuff. So yeah.
SPEAKER_04And your mom never remarried.
SPEAKER_01No, no, and then I think when I was about 12, no, wait, wait, wait, yeah, when I was about 12, one day she says, you know, probably without even looking at me. By the way, um, your dad and I are divorced now.
SPEAKER_04So it took that long.
SPEAKER_01Well, I don't like I said, I I just have these pictures, and then I was married and working in the bank at Madora, and she's told me one day, oh, I should probably tell you your dad died. That's it. End of story. It would be so interesting to be able to talk to those people now, you know, and just like you know, and I've thought about trying to track down family, you know, and then like, no, you can choose your friends, but you can't choose your relatives. You know, I I don't know. Yeah, and you know, um, yeah. It would just be it would just be it's interesting, yeah. And I've I've looked a little bit online nowadays, how you can, you know.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah. Do you ever know how he passed away, your dad?
SPEAKER_01He was an alcoholic.
SPEAKER_04Oh, so it's more from that. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, I'm blaming that. And he was a veteran too, you know, from probably World War II. He was in the Navy, I knew that. Um, and another traumatic event for me was I was a senior in college and I got a letter from the Jamestown Hospital. You know, that we used to call that the insane asylum. But anyway, they sent me a bill for him. Here I was like 21 years old, and I got a bill for my husband being or my husband.
SPEAKER_04Your dad? My dad being in the and you had no idea he was even there?
SPEAKER_01No, no, and and they wanted me as a college student to pay. I about died, and Howard. I was going with Howard then, and he had a friend that was uh an attorney. So he says you should call Marv. So I called Marv and Marv wrote wrote them a letter, and that's the last I ever heard. But he'd never paid any child support or anything, yeah. Ever. And you know, our knowing our family, they wouldn't have asked for it, or you know, the done is done.
SPEAKER_04Wipe your hands of it, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So, you know, on one hand, when I was younger, I probably blamed him for never sending anything. On the other hand, probably wasn't, you know, who knows?
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Did your grandma work at all then with all this that she had going on?
SPEAKER_01Because you said your mom had kind of she she had actually had the telephone office in her house in Madora. She was a telephone operator.
SPEAKER_00In her house. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I remember the switchboard and little plug-in things.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04No, when they had that, was that just for I just thought of this. Was that just for that area, or was there a way to get to another town?
SPEAKER_01Well, I think the switchboard. I think you'd say long distance, please. Okay. If I remember right. And then, you know, she'd crank her up and then you'd get another operator. But I remember, I remember, you know, eavesdropping and I was pretty little then, but you know, like somebody call and say they wanted to call. Mrs. Raspis and Grandma would say, Oh, they went to Dickinson today. She's not home.
SPEAKER_04She knew everything that was going on. Wow.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_04It's hard. I feel like that's hard for some of us to wrap our heads around how that actually worked, just because we have it at our fingertips now to call somebody or text.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I remember getting uh well when the there was no longer the telephone office, getting a phone in the door and our number was three four.
SPEAKER_04Oh, that's right, because you didn't have to do even um like well we couldn't dial.
SPEAKER_01We had to crank and say three four, please. Oh and then some lady on the other end connected you with three four, but it was not a party line.
SPEAKER_04Interesting.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04All the different steps that that communication has taken.
SPEAKER_01And then if you wanted to call out of town, you cranked her and said, operator, please. No, you were business, please.
SPEAKER_04So you were always pretty much in Midorah from a super young age.
SPEAKER_01As much as I can remember. As much as you can remember.
SPEAKER_04Okay. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01That's just okay.
SPEAKER_04Um what chores then did you have growing up? Especially because you were with your grandparents and then your mom and your little sister. What chores did you have around the house?
SPEAKER_01I didn't. Well, I I remember having to dust and shake rugs. Empty the ashtries. Everybody smoked them. Empty and wash the ashtries. Oh, I'd help hang out clothes. And I remember how awful that was doing laundry because the wash machine was in the basement and the basement was terrible. And there's this wash machine, or there's a ringer wash machine with three tubs. You know, there's one to wash in, and then there was one to rinse in with blueing and one to finally rinse, and you'd run it through the ringer, and then if it was like handkerchiefs or underwear, it went in a pail first and got stomped on with a stomper thing.
SPEAKER_04So it would like agitate it a little bit and get it.
SPEAKER_01And then you carry the clothes up the basement outside. And hang it on the clothesline. And in the wintertime, they'd freeze, and then you'd bring the frozen clothes in, stiff as a board, and take them back down the basement, hang them on the clothesline. Then no way got dry, they sprinkled them with a sprinkler, stuffed them in a plastic bag, and then the next day you ironed them. And you ironed everything with iron handkerchiefs and underwear and pajamas and a full-time job.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, that's what it sounds like.
SPEAKER_01My grandma had like a schedule. I don't remember it per se, but I remember, you know, one day of the week was bread day, and then it was laundry day, and it was, you know, ironing day, and you know.
SPEAKER_04Oh, they worked.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04When people will say, well, they didn't work outside the home. I'm like, but inside the home, it was all by hand. Like you just said bread day. You know. So yeah.
SPEAKER_01And I I don't remember remember ever going, I shouldn't say ever, but I really can't remember ever going grocery shopping. Um, my grandpa brought home all the groceries. I think he because he was out on the road, so he'd be coming through Beach or St. Lebute or Bellfield, and he'd pick up the groceries. Okay. He's a really good grocery buyer.
SPEAKER_04So even your grandma didn't necessarily do that.
SPEAKER_01No, because there was no store in Medora. And we, you know, we didn't, I don't think she even drove. My mom didn't have a car. Sometimes we would actually take the train from Medora to Dickinson to shop.
SPEAKER_04Like if you, you know, like think of that, the train from Madora. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Once or twice a year, you needed new shoes because you were growing. So we'd walk literally across the street and get on the train and go to Mad go to Dickinson and get our new shoes or get our Easter dress or whatever, and then get back on the train and come home.
SPEAKER_04So you had the one vehicle that your grandpa took to work, basically.
SPEAKER_01No, he didn't take, I don't even think he took it to work. And I only remember him having a car like about 1956 or so. He had a 53 Chrysler he bought, you know, but yeah. Uh and my mom didn't have a car until after he died. Yeah. But then she and Betty Cornell started running the hotel cafe, the old Rough Riders Hotel.
SPEAKER_04Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_01And I was probably about 12 then. And they were both really, really good cooks. And right during that time, there's a lot of road construction around the door out in the park and on the interstate. So there's a lot of crews. And then, you know, I started waiting tables probably. That's when, but even before then, I would babysit and I would do some chamber baiting at the old hotel for Nita, Oregon, and I'd help people like Ruby Teiser and Mrs. Rasmussen clean. And I did a lot of babysitting. 25 cents an hour, even if they'd pool families. Sometimes you'd have six, eight kids and you'd get 25 cents an hour.
SPEAKER_04But you were making money, I guess.
SPEAKER_01And like I said, when when that happened with my with my dad leaving my mom, something happened in my brain, and I decided that I was that was never ever going to happen to me, no matter what. I was going to be able to take care of myself. And I I knew my mom didn't have anything, so I always tried to not ask her for anything.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Did your mom have a high school education? She did, okay.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah. And then she went on the year I was a freshman in high school, she ran for county treasurer in Billings County, and then she was county treasurer for like 25 years or so until she died. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Interesting. But she did go and graduate high school and everything. Okay.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_04What was school like for you growing up? Loved it. You loved it? Yeah. How many people were in your class? Because Medora had to still be small, I would think.
SPEAKER_01Well, first grade was about six. Okay. And after that, four. And there was four grades to a room. So then we had one teacher. I was thinking about that last night because I wanted to tell you about it. Mrs. Sylvester, and she taught and taught there for years. She was Lorraine Wagner's mother.
SPEAKER_05Who's that?
unknownRain Wagner.
SPEAKER_01Do you know Dixie Abraham?
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Be her grandmother.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01And she had taught there for years. And so she, I remember her having on the blackboard our schedule, because she had four grades in her room. And she would teach and she taught everything. You know, we had music, spelling, you know.
SPEAKER_04Oh, she even taught the extra stuff, like music. There wasn't a lot of things.
SPEAKER_01There was no teachers for anything extra. She, you know, she did it all. You know, we'd sing in the morning and do the pledge, and we'd she'd read to us and she'd, you know, and then there was no special education. If one of the kids in your class was, say, slower than you, she would let send you or let you go to the library. There's this little room, it's like a room closet. And you'd sit in this little chair with this other kid, and they would read to you, and you'd help them with their reading or their spelling or their flashcards.
SPEAKER_04You as a as a peer would help them with it.
SPEAKER_01Say the other first or second grader, we'd help the classmate that was struggling.
SPEAKER_04Did that help? Did that work?
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah. I mean, I yeah, it had to because you know, that the slower child got extra time.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And it made us, I feel like reiterated those foundations and everything.
SPEAKER_01And then having four grades in a room, by the time you got out of fourth grade, you had everything kind of down pat.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And I know she had trouble holding some of us back because we would be listening to the class. Well, I want to do that, you know. I want to do that.
SPEAKER_04I want to do that. I was ready to learn that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And so she would pretty much let us or whatever.
SPEAKER_04But and so she was there for you said a long time.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So her, okay. Did she have kids then too?
SPEAKER_01Well, Lorraine was her daughter, and then she had a daughter named Jean. But they weren't at school.
SPEAKER_04They were okay. Okay. That's what I was kind of wondering if she taught through them. And then so did you graduate from there was no high school in Madora.
SPEAKER_01So where did you go? I went to Beach and there was no buses, so I had to board out. Oh, where did you live then? My first year I lived with Mrs. Huber, who is um W. D. Schultz's mother.
SPEAKER_04I think I remember her.
SPEAKER_01Well, I don't think you could remember Mrs. Huber, but you might remember Schultz's Luella and W. D. Schultz, because he worked at the full cars. Okay. And then I think maybe he started the first Dairy Queen or serve around thing they had here. Okay. And so she I lived with her and I absolutely loved it because I had my own room. Because I had a really, really bad room in Midorah in my grandma's basement. Um and I would walk to school and then somebody would bring me on Sunday night or probably Sunday night. And then I'd go home on Friday night.
SPEAKER_04And that started in which grade?
SPEAKER_01Freshman.
SPEAKER_04That was a freshman.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_01Because there's no high school in the Dora. So um yeah. I loved it. Loved loved having my own room and being away from home.
SPEAKER_04It was it was nice. Yeah. So how about your sister?
SPEAKER_01When you by then she was six years younger than me, and she went by then they had school buses and she went to Bellfield. Oh, and she went to Bellfield. Okay.
SPEAKER_04Did she have the same relationship with your grandma that you did? She didn't really know her. She didn't remember much.
SPEAKER_01See, I was 12 and she was young when my grandma died. So my sister would have been five or six, yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_04Doesn't really have so much.
SPEAKER_01You know, and and I I would, I guess I was probably like my grandparents and parents. I didn't talk about these stories I'm telling you for years and years and years and years. You know, just kept them in my head and thought about them sometimes. And you know, you think, well, I went minored in psychology in college and stuff, so you think about yourself, or you relate to other people and you go, Oh, that's probably why I'm this way or that way, or why I think this way, or yeah, people fascinate me and always have. So, anyway, that was my freshman year. So then she was too old to have me the next year. Um, but I remember I really lost weight staying there because she cooked differently than I was used to. Like, I remember one time I thought I was eating chicken and it was a cotton tailor grandson that shot in her garden. Oh I was like, okay. And she would make gravy, uh, she'd have fish gravy, and I'm like, okay. And I hated, I hate, hated and hate squash. So she'd make squash pie because I could eat that. It was kind of like pumpkin pie if it was bearable, but um, yeah, I thought and she made she made canned tomatoes with cinnamon in them. Is that good? It's awful.
SPEAKER_04I thought that didn't sound like yeah.
SPEAKER_01I so anyway, that was, but other than that, I she was very, very nice and I liked her and you know, learned how to eat what was put in front of me or whatever. And and then the next year I stayed with Lloyd and Marion McCutcheon. And they had taken in a lot of kids over the years, and I they were only gonna Ramona Wilson from out south of Sentinel Butte was boarding there at the time. She was a senior, and she they were not gonna have any more kids stay at their house after that. But they liked me and kept me until I graduated.
SPEAKER_04So the next three years you were with them.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_01And she was as good a cook as Mrs. Hubert was bad.
SPEAKER_04Oh. Did you put weight back on then?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, probably, but you know, you think such a such a struggle. When you're well, then one summer I worked at the amphitheater for W. D. Schultz. It was one of the first years old Four Eyes was on, and they had the concession stand was at the top of the hill.
SPEAKER_02Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_01And they only have popcorn and pop. That was it. That's it. But we would carry it all the way to the bottom. Bottles of pop in wooden cases and walk up and down yelling ice cold pop. And I could, I would, I could carry a full case down and two empties up. So I was in really good shape that day.
SPEAKER_03Lots of steps too.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, there was nuts. It was scorial path.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, like well, definitely not, yeah, yeah, escalators to get up and come and all that stuff. But yeah.
SPEAKER_01But I loved it. Then, you know, we'd all we'd you'd hang around and watch the show. I kind of knew it by heart. And um, I had a friend that was horse crazy, and she would always want to ride the horses from the stable up to the amphitheater, and she wanted me to go with her, and I didn't like it so much, but I would do it, you know, how you are when you're a kid. So it wasn't so bad going, but coming home in the dark got kind of scary sometimes.
SPEAKER_04Oh, yeah. How are you having that relationship with your grand with your grandma and just the dynamic of the house? How were Christmases then growing up? They were good, but Christmases were good, okay? Yeah. Yeah, I like Christmas. Um, was your grandma happy around Christmas?
SPEAKER_01I don't remember.
SPEAKER_04You don't remember?
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_04Were you happy around Christmas though? There was excitement for gifts and things like that. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and we always uh there's a lady in Madora called Mrs. Graf's guard, and she didn't teach in Madora, but she taught in Freiburg, and her daughter was a year older than me, but she was really active in, she taught piano lessons and she organized a little choir at church, and she had a stamp club, and she had a German club, and she had um she would take us to swimming lessons, she'd take us to these community concerts in Dickinson and things like that. So um we were lucky that way. Some things we probably never would have gotten done to do. I remember we started the choir at church before I could even read. And there were six girls, and we did that. Came through high school, the Lutheran church.
SPEAKER_04In Madora?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, okay. And there wasn't a Lutheran church when I was really little. We would go to either congregational church or the courthouse courtroom upstairs. Oh. And then they brought in the church that's there now from Gorham, okay, which is north of Balefield. And that's still the church. The one that they use. And now they brought that was in about 1954, I think. As I remember, I've got some pictures of the dedication and stuff. My grandma was, you know, very strict, straight-laced Norwegian woman and very and you know, wore a dress and girdle and stockings and a hat every Sunday to church and yada yada yada.
SPEAKER_04And yeah. But but so she did go to church with you guys and everything.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah, we all went, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Any traditions around Christmas?
SPEAKER_01Uh certain foods or yeah, oyster stew. Could not why does everybody have oyster stew? I'm finding. It's Scandinavian, I think. And and like I said, they were strict, and I could not open my gifts until I ate some of that awful stuff. So believe me, once I was in charge.
SPEAKER_04That was the first thing to go.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_04Well, especially with your mom being a really good cook, it seems strange that we wouldn't just make something that everybody knows you didn't do that back then.
SPEAKER_01That's and they had they had some other uh Norwegian things that wasn't necessarily for Christmas, but I I'm not a very good Scandinavian. They made this, they call it Klub or Krub, which is potato dumplings.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01They're awful. I in my opinion. Some people love them. Rumigrat.
SPEAKER_02What's that?
SPEAKER_01It's like flour and milk and butter, and you put butter. I don't know, it's disgusting. It's like a pudding. But again, people that are not like me like it. I like tacos and chili and pizza, and well, I never even knew what a pizza was until I was in high school.
SPEAKER_04Well, I suppose, uh is that yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I remember what's pizza, you know. It's like it's great too.
unknownOh my god.
SPEAKER_04Any favorite Christmas gifts that you got?
SPEAKER_01I remember the year I learned that good things come in small packages.
SPEAKER_04What'd you get?
SPEAKER_01A ring from my from my Uncle Bud. I like rings.
SPEAKER_04And he got you a ring.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but my sister had this big package, and my grandma had this big package, and I had this little, yeah. And I had a ring, and my sister had a metal high chair for a doll, which we actually I still have at my house. And my grandma had, and I still have this too, um, silverware chest.
SPEAKER_05Oh.
SPEAKER_04Silverware chest for Christmas. Yeah, but that was big then, wasn't that?
SPEAKER_01Like China or like your she didn't have real sterling, but she had um silver plate. Okay. And you only used it Thanksgiving and Christmas or whatever. I remember that's what my grandpa got her, but yeah, I coveted everybody's gift until I got my ring, and then I was I was good. I remember one year my mom gave me a girdle. That wasn't too impressive.
SPEAKER_04It's whatever girl wants, right?
SPEAKER_01Evidently I needed it. But uh link um American bricks, they're the forerunner of Legos, and I love them.
SPEAKER_04Of what? Of Legos?
SPEAKER_01Yep. They're these plastic bricks, and you can build houses. Yes, and they didn't stick together. You had to just you know they had little pigs, but yeah, I love those. I played with them a lot. And then we played, you know, I had a lot of games. I remember playing Monopoly and checkers and Chinese checkers and things like that. And then when I got older, my mom and next door neighbor Betty Cornell would play whist and stuff with me.
SPEAKER_04And I liked so lots of card games and things like that.
SPEAKER_01But my grandma was against card games, so I think that would have been after she died. And my grandpa loved card games, and he would play Jin Rummy all the time down at the gas station or in St. Levieu.
SPEAKER_02Did she know about this?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and you know, of course I realized that that was not good, but my grandpa didn't care. He played Jin Rumi.
SPEAKER_04Why was she against card games?
SPEAKER_01Because she was this strict old Norwegian woman.
SPEAKER_04Now we're like, Can you please play some cards?
SPEAKER_01She was against cards and dancing and drinking. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Oh, even dancing.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so they didn't go dancing. Oh no, but my grandpa would dance around the living room and stuff, but she didn't.
SPEAKER_04I'm kind of wondering what she did for fun. Because that was like what people did for fun was dancing, playing cards.
SPEAKER_01I don't I doubt she ever did anything for fun. I mean, they lived out on a farm north of Bellfield, and she had five kids, and you know, I can't imagine. In my mind, I can't imagine her bread and yeah, washing clothes and taking care of kids and yeah, you know, she'd go deliver babies or whatever.
SPEAKER_04And then I yeah, no time for it, maybe.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Um how about birthdays? Did you guys have big celebrations? Were they small?
SPEAKER_01No.
SPEAKER_04Did they even did they recognize the birthdays?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think we knew when our birthday was, and I think sometimes we had a cake. I don't know if it was always, but that was about it. I don't remember birthday presents or anything like that, you know. And definitely didn't do anything at school for anybody's birthday. It was just another thing. Not like they do nowadays. Yeah. So they might maybe you might have got happy birthday sung to you. I don't know, but you know, it's not a big deal.
SPEAKER_04So you having birthdays not be a big deal. Did you make birthdays then a big deal for your kids? Or were yeah, you did.
SPEAKER_01Do you feel like well I thought it was a big deal?
SPEAKER_04Yeah. When you look back, we're like, oh, I wish, I wish they would have done some sort of celebration. No, it wasn't. No, even at the time it was. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01You know, nobody else was. Nobody else was doing anything either. Yeah, it was just how it was. I don't remember going trick-or-treating. Um, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Oh, you didn't even go trick-or-treating.
SPEAKER_01I don't remember it if we did, but I don't think we must have.
SPEAKER_04You guys obviously did not wear the uh the masks that we had growing up. Uh say plastic or whatever, and you like couldn't breathe and they were so hot. Any favorite childhood memories? You talked a little bit about what you did for fun with like cards and playing different games.
SPEAKER_01Midorah the whole town of Midorah was my playground. Um initially, like the Little DeMore's Park probably basically was my front yard. That's where I learned to ride bike and everything. Um, but we could kind of roam free, you know, and there was dirt, dirt streets. We'd catch tadpoles in the mud puddles and bring them home in the backyard and raise them in our wagons and sticks and cowboys and Indians we would play. Yeah, yeah. Cops and robbers and tag and ride bike and climb the hills. And uh my boundaries were kind of the railroad tracks, the river and the top of the hill, probably, but yeah. All over the place.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01But you could hear my mother yell from anywhere.
SPEAKER_04Did you have any special friends that you were always hanging out with? Do you remember?
SPEAKER_01There was actually nobody my exact age. There was um Zilsdorf girls, Leah and Lynette. One was older and one was younger, Iker's girls older and younger, and Judy Grafsgard, and then Donnie Myers, which I think everybody probably listening knows. He was a teacher here in Beach for years, was in my class all through first eight or eight years. And then he went to uh Bellfield and I went to Beach.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01We were highly, highly, highly competitive.
SPEAKER_04I didn't know he was from around here.
SPEAKER_01Oh, he's from Adora. Oh, I didn't know his mom was a postmaster and his dad was okay a cowboy. Uh yeah.
SPEAKER_04Because he taught my mom. And he taught me.
SPEAKER_01Oh, he taught my kids.
SPEAKER_04Yep. Yeah. Yep. Yeah, everybody's gonna remember.
SPEAKER_01And we were highly, highly competitive. We yeah, and we we fought physically a lot, you know. We were the next door. Oh, yeah. We it his his mother came to my house one day. My mom tell told this story. She says, Yeah, misses my, you know, we everybody was misses this and this is that. Brought her son over and he was all bloody and she said, Look what your daughter did to my son. So mom went out to find me and give me a whipping, and I was out and back, beat up worse than him.
SPEAKER_04But so he failed to tell his mom that he also had a part.
SPEAKER_01Oh, well, you know, there's there's that dynamic. Some kids, you know, I'm sure we had a lot of fights that nobody knew about, too. But and we would play a a lot of games together, you know, like the highly competitive again. You know, we would his memory might be different than mine, but you know, I remember playing um say Monopoly with him, and if I beat him, he might throw the Monopoly game on the floor or something.
SPEAKER_04But yeah, you know, that's just well it's nice to know people back then were super competitive and got to where they flip the board games over and stuff.
SPEAKER_01We were, yeah. If we if either one of us ever got less than a hundred percent or something, it was it was so even scholastically, you guys were super competitive. David Posh was in my class too, and he was and that's a story that I I love to tell because he was exceptional. He was in a car accident when he was four or five years old, and his mother was killed. And he was paralyzed from the waist down, and they didn't think he was gonna live. And they lived way out south of Medora, so they his dad brought him to first grade. At that point, he was in a back brace in a wheelchair. And he, you know, stayed with, he had he boarded him out there in Medora and you know, brought him to the school in Medorah. He eventually got so he could use crutches, and he had braces on his legs so that they'd have to be locked straight. Okay. And then he could use crutches. And of course, school had stairs and stuff, and they made a ramp. Well, first they made a ramp for him to go up and down on his wheelchair, and high school kids would pull him up or push, shake him down in his wheelchair.
SPEAKER_05Okay.
SPEAKER_01And then when he got crutches, he would just slide down on his butt, you know, or crawl up and drag his legs, you know. And the only thing he would ever let anybody do for him would be lock his braces, because I don't think he could do that himself, you know. But he would play softball with us. You know, he would um hit the ball with his crutches and run the bases on his crutches. He was just as um competitive scholastically as Donnie and I were. Um two of my favorite memories of him was one time after as an adult, he said to me, Remember that time I pulled the chair out from under you in school? I said, Yeah. And he says, and you hit me over the head with the encyclopedia. I said, Yeah. Nowadays you'd probably get expelled for that.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01That's kind of a day in all our lives.
SPEAKER_04And then But nobody was doing it to really be malicious. It's funny.
SPEAKER_01Well, yeah, no, we didn't hold, we didn't hold a grudge, we'd be out playing at recess. And another, another one, another David quote I have to share is he as adults, we were I was working at the bank, and you know, he'd finished college and everything, and he was in the bank one day and we were joking about growing up and stuff. And he says, Well, he says, standing there on his crutches, he says, I hope someday that I just die from a bullet in the back from a jealous husband.
SPEAKER_02Did he ever marry?
SPEAKER_01Oh, he did, okay. He didn't have kids or anything, but he died when he was about 65 or maybe a little older, but yeah, his his wife is Renee Posh, and some people around here might know her. She worked for the public library there in Dickinson for years, and yeah.
SPEAKER_00Interesting. It's really funny.
SPEAKER_01And his sister was uh married to umbergewych from We Bull Cliff. No, Cliff was the one up here, Gary Obergewich.
SPEAKER_04Okay. So a lot of people will know them from around here. Any favorite subjects when you were in school?
SPEAKER_01I liked everything.
SPEAKER_04You liked everything?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I yeah, I can't think of anything I really until high school, and then I think it was more on it based on teachers and the subjects, you know.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, oh that's so true. Yeah. So what when you got to high school, what subjects did you really excel in then?
SPEAKER_01Math and English. Math and English, which are not very compared. I mean, they're kind of both ends of the spectrum, but uh yeah, yeah, that was probably the teachers. Mrs. Cohane and Mr. Woods.
SPEAKER_04Oh, everybody's talked about Mrs. Cohen.
SPEAKER_01And then Mr. Woods he was super, super strict.
SPEAKER_04But in a good way?
SPEAKER_01Well, yeah, I've yeah in retro, yeah, but you know, you you sat feet together facing forward, didn't look right or your left. And when you were taking tests, you walked up and down between aisles, and and if your bracelets jangled or something, you got after you, and yeah. Really strict, yeah. And there was only Roberta Lynch and I were the only two girls by the time we were seniors, but we'd gone all four years into math, you know, with which was evidently unusual back then for girls to take math that long. But we took, you know, plain and solid geometry, algebra, advanced algebra, trigonometry, took all that from him. And and yeah.
SPEAKER_03So did you take any vacations as a kid?
SPEAKER_01Are you kidding?
SPEAKER_04I'm I'm gonna guess no.
SPEAKER_01If if a vac what I remember we'd go see my aunt in Montana once in a while.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01Um, I don't think it was even annually. Once when I was maybe 12, we went to Wheaton, Minnesota to see my grandma's grandpa's relatives. That's about it. That's about it.
unknownYep.
SPEAKER_04Okay, so you talked a lot about some different uh uh jobs that you had. Growing up, babysitting was a big one. You were a server in the restaurant that your mom was, um, that your mom had, right?
SPEAKER_01Yep, my mom and daddy green out.
SPEAKER_04Um, what were some of the other jobs that you had through high school?
SPEAKER_01I worked at the well, amphitheater.
SPEAKER_04Oh, that's right.
SPEAKER_01And the concession stand. And then I when I was in high school, I'd work at the bowling alley here sometimes. Oh I'd, you know, wait tables and cook the hamburgers. I'd work by myself. That was interesting. Um, but all through high school, I'd go home every weekend to work at the Refere Hotel as a waitress. By then, Harold Schaefer had taken it over and it was open year-round, and um that got me through school and college. And yeah, I'd usually bring a friend home from Beach to help help work. Darlene Kettleson and I were best friends, and she worked a lot of weekends with me and stuff there. And then when I was about 16, I worked at the amphitheater. I was actually in the show. It was well, not 16, I was younger than that. Well, 15 maybe. I was actually, it was before it was the musical, but um, I was actually Madora. I just walk-on part. Uh but then in the daytime I'd work as a waitress, and then the nights I'd go to the amphitheater and work. Then I worked at the chateau for three summers, and then I went to Minneapolis and spent a summer working for a traveler's insurance company in the mortgage loan department.
SPEAKER_04And then I how old were you that when you were 21 when you do that with that?
SPEAKER_01Got on the train in Dickinson with my two suitcases and took the train at night to Minneapolis because then I figured I'd be there in the morning. Got off the train with my two suitcases on Hannipin Avenue, called my cousin who I was gonna live with, and said, Well, I'm here, can you come and get me? She goes, Like, well, no, I have to work. So did you just hang out at the her folks? We were living at their lake home that summer, so they wanted somebody to come stay with her. She was just a year younger than me. So I she says, You're just gonna have to go to my house by yourself. Um, I'll tell you how to get there. So she told me to go to the certain street corner and wait for a certain numbered bus and get on it and tell them where I was going. And I had never been on a city bus. I didn't know how to read the street signs. And we didn't travel like kids nowadays. I had two suitcases for the whole summer. But there I was walking and we didn't have cell phones, you know. Right, right. So I was walking down or GPS, yeah, walking down Hennepin Avenue with my two suitcases. I don't know, somehow I got the right bus and told the driver that I needed to go to this address, which I didn't have a clue where it was. I did ask him if it was the right bus to get there. And I never forget that bus ride because luckily I was going away from downtown during when everybody was coming to work. So it was hardly anybody on it. But I remember there was a crazy woman that was talking to herself, and I think she fell down an aisle or something, and you know, a couple creepy guys, and I was like, Welcome to me. Yeah. So anyway, my cousin, nobody was home, and she says, Well, go to there's a little mom and pop grocery store in the corner, go there and tell them who you are and ask for the key to our house, and just go wait for me. Okay. I mean, what choice did I have?
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So I did that and waited for her to come home. And then the next morning I go, like, Well, are you gonna take me job hunting? Well, no, I have to work. Here's the Minneapolis Tribune. Start looking. The bus stops on the corner here. Just get on the bus and go downtown. So the first day I went downtown and came back that night and told her I had a job. She says, Well, what are you gonna do? And she says, I'm gonna sell encyclopedias door to door. She said, No, you're not. That's too dangerous. You know, it never crossed my mind, you know, that just to go door to door, you're used to yeah, but you're used to Madora and Beach people. Yeah. And so I quit that job before I started and went back downtown the next day. But by that afternoon I was working at travel traveler's insurance. They were just computers must have just been invented. That's how old I am. But um, they had all their mortgage loan files, and they were they hired two college girls from the summer to go through every file and fill in all on these little squares, everybody's name, address, phone number, social security number, and stuff. That's that's what I did all summer long. And then the other girl and I got to be really good friends. But and then during my noon hours I'd wander around downtown Minneapolis and explore and and ride the bus, ride the bus to and from work.
SPEAKER_04Interesting. Yeah. Is that the only summer that you did that?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Then the next summer I well, where did you you so you graduated high school, then did you I went to college at Dickinson. You did go to college at Dickinson.
SPEAKER_01And then I worked for um, well, I started out, I was still working in Madora weekends and stuff in summers, but um I started working in the college newspaper and they paid, I think I was like a beat reporter. I actually had administration, which is a really good beat to have because I got to know all the upper echelon. And I think we got paid by the Column Inch. And then I got promoted to circulation manager, and then the English professor that was the newspaper advisor asked me if I wanted to be a secretary. So then he hired me to be a secretary. So it was in the same office as the newspaper office, so it worked really well. Um, I just had like a box and he would put stuff for me to do in it, and then I had my deadlines for the paper. And so I would correct papers and type tests and do things like that for him, write letters. Um, and then I think I was maybe after a year or so that then they made me editor the paper, and that paid two, so that was kind of nice. I had I could work on the paper or work for him. Kind of I just had deadlines.
SPEAKER_04I didn't have you have to work this many hours or whatever.
SPEAKER_01I did have I did turn my hours into him, I think. I don't really remember now, but um the editor job was just by the month or whatever, and I don't remember how much it was.
SPEAKER_04So, what did you go to school for at at DSU at Dickinson?
SPEAKER_01Well, I didn't know what I wanted to be, and I still don't know what I want to be. So we did a lot of just general classes, but I liked English, so I decided I'd be an English major. And I and I was debating about being a math teacher, but I didn't like my first math class in in college, so I didn't take any more, which in retrospect I probably should have because I found out a lot of math majors didn't like that teacher either. So I majored in English, minored in German and psychology, and then I found out after a year or two that to get a BA you had to have a foreign language. To get a BS, you had to have psychology. So I got a BA and a BS with two minors. And then I had journalism electives in my English.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01So I actually could have taught English, German, psychology, and journalism if I wanted to. But I taught I student taught in Mandan, and then they offered me a job there. And I taught one year. I had 150 sophomore English students.
SPEAKER_04In Mandan. So you got a four-year degree. When you were 21, you go spent a summer in Minneapolis, and you still had a summer left, a next summer where you went somewhere?
SPEAKER_01Well, then I worked at the bank in Madora.
SPEAKER_04Oh, then you worked at the bank in Madora.
SPEAKER_01And then I, except for like Minneapolis, I never really technically applied for any job in my life. I was always asked to work. And so um they needed somebody for summer help at the bank in Madora, and Bill Connell was working there then. And so I went and worked with him.
SPEAKER_04And so that would have been your last summer of college, and then after that, you did your student teaching?
SPEAKER_01No, then that was I think no, I graduated in 70 and I went to Minneapolis in seven '69. So he retired and they actually must have worked that summer. And I was working then for him that summer, and then he retired, and then they hired me to manage the bank, which uh again I took for granted at the time, but looking back, I have to give Don Barch and Tommy Hudson a lot of credit because they hired a 23-year-old woman to manage a bank station, which was in 1971. So, and I did get a teaching job here because there weren't any, you know. So I, you know, I wasn't sure exactly what I was gonna do, but we were I was getting married. I got married in 71.
SPEAKER_04So after you got married, or when you got married, you had already taught that year in Mandan. You had already okay, so once you were in in Madora with the bank, you didn't do any more teaching.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_04You were done teaching.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_04Okay. Okay. So then you said you got married. So let's talk about who who um well first. Do you remember when you were little what you wanted to be when you grew up? Before I forget to ask.
SPEAKER_01Um I I don't know. I feel like I've always kind of wanted to be a writer, but I've never really been a writer.
SPEAKER_04Okay. I dabble a little bit, but did you do a lot of reading when you were little? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I did a lot of reading.
SPEAKER_01I read everything. I read packs of shampoo bottles and cereal boxes and all the magazines that came to the house.
SPEAKER_04Everything you could.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Who in your family do you feel like influenced you the most?
SPEAKER_01Well, probably my mother, obviously.
SPEAKER_04And in what way?
SPEAKER_01Probably every way. Every way. And by my uncle Bud, her brother. You know, he was probably my um substitute dad or whatever, but uh yeah.
SPEAKER_04How okay, so let's talk about your husband. How did you meet Howard? Well, your husband is Howard.
SPEAKER_01It's kind of interesting because he was from St. Nobute and I was from Adora. And we never met. Really? Ever, once.
SPEAKER_04Did he graduate from St. Nobute or did he graduate? He did graduate from St. Nobute. And I graduated from Beach. But never met.
SPEAKER_01We didn't we didn't move in the same circles, obviously.
SPEAKER_04Is he older than you?
SPEAKER_01One year.
SPEAKER_04Only one year.
SPEAKER_01But he graduated two years ahead of me because he's December and I'm January.
SPEAKER_04Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_01So he graduated in 64 and I graduated in 66.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01So, yep, went to I came back from Minneapolis. And well, I was teaching school and was home for Christmas vacation and went to the Little Missouri Club with my friend Connie Eichorst. And I think that was maybe the first time I was ever even in a little Missouri Club because I I never even took a drink until I was in college. And then I didn't I didn't have a car, I didn't know how to drive until I was 18. Didn't get a car until I graduated from college and could buy one myself. So Connie and I went to Little Missouri on New Year's Eve, and Gordy Eckert and Bill Johnson and Howard Olsted were there and we started dancing and stuff, and then tried to get to Weebo before the bars closed. After the bars closed in Medora.
SPEAKER_02Were you successful in getting to Weebo?
SPEAKER_01No, but we got to we got to Gordy's house.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01And you know, just hung out there, and then Bill and Howard brought Connie and I back to Medora and dropped us off. And then I kind of forgot about him. You know, I mean, just had fun and you know, yeah. I knew the other two. And I don't know, a month or so later he called and I said who he was, and I said, Who? Anyway, he asked me out, and I didn't, I was always broke and couldn't hardly afford to eat, so he was taking me out for supper. So okay.
SPEAKER_04Sounds like a great date, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I actually wanted to go to the Elks Club, and I'm like, oh, yeah, I'll go to the Elks. And yeah, that's how that started.
SPEAKER_04So he called you, asked you out. You guys went out to eat at the Elks Club. That was your first date. Um, talk to me a little bit about well, when he asked you out, what was he doing at the time?
SPEAKER_01He's working out at his dance ranch.
SPEAKER_04Oh, at his dance or dance ranch, okay. Tell me a little bit about Howard. How would you describe him? What's he like? Bobby, this is crazy. I don't think I've ever met your husband. See? But people have told me that I need to interview him as well. So, but yeah, tell me about him.
SPEAKER_01Um well, most people were shocked when they found that we were even going out together because we're we're kind of nothing alike.
SPEAKER_04And I think we were kind of shocked too, but you know more of like the opposites attract type thing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's just kind of interesting. But he's he is real um ambitious, I would say, and very conscientious. And I guess I was too, because when we got married, we had less than nothing. And I don't remember ever worrying about it or thinking about it because I had gone to college and I was going to take care of myself. And he had gotten a motor grader from Orville Mo with a deal that all the work he did with this motor grader, he would give Orville Mo half to pay for it until it was paid for, whatever they agreed on on price. And he traded his Barracuda car for an old uh 10 by 50 mobile home that belonged to his sister and brother-in-law, and we moved it into a door and we lived there, and we didn't have furniture, you know, we had lawn furniture in the living room and bedding on the windows, and it was pretty awful. And I was working at the bank $250 a month, is what I got paid, and uh but I only had to work five days a week and five hours a day. Bored out of my mind, really, because I was used to college and friends being busy and having a big thing. He would get up at the crack of dawn and come home after dark seven days a week because that's how he is and was. And I'm like, what have I got myself into here? You know, and I was sitting out there in this mobile home. We didn't have a phone, we didn't have pets, we didn't have a lawnmower. That judder house was crappy, you know. There's nobody my age in Midorah at that point, or that I knew, and I I really didn't like it very much. And um, we were we were married about six months, and I we bought a brand new mobile home 14 by 70 for $11,000.
SPEAKER_04Can't find that anymore.
SPEAKER_01Thought I had died and gone to heaven, you know. It had, yeah, it it was like it was wonderful. A huge step up, yeah. Yeah, and then I got we got a TV set, black and white TV set. I think I got a Christmas bonus that year from the bank. Then we got a cat and a dog, and then eventually we got a telephone. And then we were married three years and we had Krista.
SPEAKER_04Okay. Well, going back just before I forget, how long did you guys date before you got married?
SPEAKER_01Uh, about a year and a half.
SPEAKER_04year and a half and how old were you when you got married?
SPEAKER_0123, I think. Oh 23? Okay. He was 24.
SPEAKER_04Can I ask what the what was the wedding like? Was it simple? Did you guys do the whole reception? Because you were just saying well I'm you didn't have anything.
SPEAKER_01I'm a traditionalist which as I get older I may be less of. But you know I had to do everything the way you do you did it. It had to be church. It had to be you know black white dress had to have bridesmaids and groups men and they had to wear tuxes and but my mom made all the dresses the bridesmaids and my wedding dress. I went to Fargo and bought material because my best friend Connie was going to college there so I went there and I don't even know how I got there to have a car. I must have had a car then yeah because I bought a car one to get to my teaching job. I bought 67 Ford Galaxy and so my mom made all our dresses and and guys rented Texas and got married to the Bellefield Lutheran church because the Medora one wouldn't have been big enough because you take somebody from St. Lambute and somebody from Medora.
SPEAKER_04You gotta have the town because you know everybody.
SPEAKER_01Yeah you have to just basically invite everybody and see who comes and I was pretty I wanted it to be just real dignified and simple and Howard's upbringing was a little bit different than mine. His his friends and a lot of the country people like to party wanted it to be fun more than yeah and I you know so I I we did not have a wedding dance okay at our wedding but I knew we'd get chivereed if we didn't so we had it like a month later. Oh you really okay and it was kind of as bad as I expected I mean and as fun as other people expected depends on your perspective.
SPEAKER_04So you did you do the reception at least at the church and now who made the meal?
SPEAKER_01We didn't have a meal we had I got married in the evening because it's cheaper than you just have cookies and cake and punch.
SPEAKER_04Nice. See yep then when you guys had the dance what song did you dance to do you remember we didn't do that.
SPEAKER_01You didn't do that okay no it wasn't it was it wasn't a thing back then.
SPEAKER_04I don't even remember I I I could I love like how other people in a sense got married how the wedding day went how and I didn't do it yourself person.
SPEAKER_01I did everything myself I went to Dickinson picked up the cake I picked up my own flowers I got myself ready. I didn't go to the beautician I didn't have my nails done um I got dressed at the church and you know we hid our car because we didn't want anybody to decorate it I must have been kind of stodgy anyway I'm a lot more fun now you know my kids had a lot more fun weddings than I had but that's how I was and but I paid for everything myself 100% and I did everything as economically as I could I mean my bridesmaids carried single flowers. Yeah I had um carnations and daisies and roses in my and I had to have the church required that we had real flowers so I had real flowers on the altar but just two bouquets. I had a small wedding cake but I had sheet cake that you could yeah because that's cheaper. Yeah yeah and then there's I think Lady Zaid furnished the the cookies and stuff yeah and I I don't remember whether we had to give them or did give them a donation or what it was times were a little different then I think they gladly just did it you know so yeah that's that was look at and how how long have you guys been married now?
SPEAKER_04It'll be 55 years. 55 now in June so you ended up with two kids Krista and Hanson and Hansen. Okay what's what's the age difference between those two?
SPEAKER_01About the same as my sister and I about six six and a half years. Yeah I I uh I thought Krista was really really a lot of work and too interested in having another one for a while and then when I decided I wanted another one then it it didn't happen so fast.
SPEAKER_04So that's why there's the age gap that there is but uh and so things happen for a reason yeah right yeah so when you had Krista did you stay at home with her or did you still work did she go to daycare talk I worked until I had her and then I I think I got two weeks off with pay and I thought that was wonderful of the bank to do that for me.
SPEAKER_01I got two weeks with pay so that's what I did two weeks off and then I thought well when I first got married I thought well I'll work to have a kid or and then they had like a retirement plan where if you worked like 10 years you were tenured or whatever and you could get your money out. So then I thought well I'll work by 10 years you know or whatever and then oh so we moved out on the farm in 79 from Medora we moved our new mobile home to oh the mobile hole okay to to the farm so this is before you had Krista no we had this was after you had oh yeah it would have been after you had Krista after 79 yeah yeah yeah but before you had Counsel okay and then we um so we moved out in the farm moved our trailer house out there and I was so I was driving all the way to Medora to work every day and back then they didn't have cell phones basically no other women worked I think Jeannie Berman taught school she was a neighbor she taught school in Galva but nobody else there wasn't school buses so basically they didn't maintain the roads and the first two winners were the two worst winners I think in history the first year Howard says oh I've never seen it this bad before you probably never have to drive on roads this bad again and the next year was worse. That makes you rethink things and I so I was the only employee at the bank felt really lucky to have that kind of a job in the Loma North Dakota so I was by golly going to get to work some hell or high water and there was a lot of hell in high water I tell you um I drove a 76 Mercury Monarch two-door car with a standard transmission. And how far was that driving 27 miles 27 miles with not great roads and Krista would sit on the armrest yes and if I only got stuck once a day I thought I was lucky. So did you have a shovel in the back that you would like well I'm but it was a two door yeah it was awful yeah yeah but the only thing was is ever everybody else was getting stuck too like there was a road going out of St. LeBu there's like an S curve up there that went up the hill over there and they only had one lane traffic there and you couldn't even see if anybody was coming. Oh no and well I remember being stuck up there what one morning with about 10 other vehicles and and like I would tell people that we'd either could get to work in the morning or we couldn't get home at night you know it's one way or the other it was usually blocked. And so there was sometimes I my mom still lived in Madora so sometimes actually I stayed in Madora for maybe a week or so with Krista. And then would your mom watch Krista no I don't because I always took Krista to like daycare which was I think I usually took her to when she was really a baby that I had a couple a friend that babysat and then when I moved out to St. LeBute Eleanor Bone babysat so I drop her in St. LeBute and then um but if she was in Medora with me then she must have been in school by then yeah so she went to school in Medora for eight years.
SPEAKER_04Oh because you were working there.
SPEAKER_01Yep. So she went there for eight years okay yep and so then yeah I I just thought I had to get to work because you know it was my choice. I wanted if I wanted to live there and work in Medora it was my job to get there. There's no I Do you regret that looking back? No no I can drive through almost anything no I but I I think it gave me a lot of stress.
SPEAKER_04I wonder almost if that's one reason why my kids are that far apart but yeah you know yeah but then in 79 we built our house out there we built a new house and moved into that so you've been out at the ranch since since you moved that that since about 19 let's say 71 five years we lived five years in Madora so since 78 probably you moved out there and you've been you've been there ever since right um so you never when you said you took the two weeks basically of maternity leave uh did you get the same amount after Hansen was born or did you get longer?
SPEAKER_01Well that there was complication he was born with a clubfoot and he had jaunus so I remember staying in the hospital like a whole week with him and then um he had to go I had to take him to Dickinson weekly for the it's like every other day when he was a newborn to get his cast changed okay and then it got down to once a week I think and then once every couple weeks then so I think I took I think I might have had almost a month off with him.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01And then which was filled with appointments yeah really much pretty much daily yeah and then uh when he was 10 months old uh my foot doctor sent us to Minneapolis for him to have surgery on his foot because he says I could probably do it but he said I want you to go where they do it all the time. Yeah it's routine and yeah and he actually went and met me there and and was at the surgery you know he was really yeah Dr. Matthew from Dickinson I don't know if you've ever heard of him or not but anyway um yeah he I've always had angels but anyway he uh so Hansen had surgery there at Minneapolis Hospital Minneapolis Children's Hospital and then he had to wear a cast up past his knee for a couple months I think and then we had to keep going to Minneapolis he eventually got graduated from the cast to like a plastic molded brace. Okay and then orthopedic shoes and you know there's a lot of but I'm guessing most people don't know he had a clubfoot. No but when they operated on him the doctor told me that and I totally think this is true he's she said there's most children that have a clubfoot or anything like that there's usually something else wrong too like a cleft palate or other club foot or web fingers or I don't know but he said she said everything with him was 100% where it was should be she thinks he just got jammed in he was backwards and and okay and uh big he was nine pounds 10 ounces and I remember having a lot of yeah pain right here and that's where that foot was that rib okay and I I imagine it got jammed up there and just you know because it was it was pretty bad. But anyway went through all that with him and then then my mom got cancer and uh so then went three through three years of cancer treatments with her and then you know taking Hanson along and stuff because he was little. And you worked through all of this you did. They were the bank was really good though they they would give me oh you know I was always careful not to take much time like my mom had to go to Bismarck for cancer treatments. I think we'd go on Monday morning and come home on Friday. But it would it wouldn't be like steady it would be like a week here and then the next I don't remember now but but they're they're always really good to me and always I don't remember getting my paydoctor anything like that.
SPEAKER_04How long did you work at the bank for?
SPEAKER_0122 years.
SPEAKER_0422 years so what made you decide to leave is is that after the 22 years you went into selling insurance or no they promoted me up to the bank here in Beach after 20 years. Okay so then you did two years here at the bank and then you started your own no I didn't start it I was wait waiting on Dina Feldon one day you know like local people will know that name she used to come into the Dairy Queen and get coffee when I was working at the Dairy Queen. She was so sweet.
SPEAKER_01She was she's she was another one of my angels but I was waiting on her at the bank one day and I was that that job was literally making me sick. It was way too much stress yeah and responsibility and um my grandparents and my mother taught me that there's no such word as can't and so I would never ever say I can't so I and the more I did the more they wanted to do and I just kept doing it and I was I thought I'm either going to die or and by then I was mid forties and I had decided you know I'm not gonna die or starve to death if I quit this job so I was thinking about doing something else but I didn't know what because I could teach school or I could that's right I always like being a waitress so I was actually thinking about flying J or teaching school and uh so I was waiting on Dina one day and as she finished up with me she turned to walk out and she over her shoulder said you wouldn't want to buy an insurance agency would you and I'm like ha ha and she left well it just stuck in my head like buy an insurance agency how do you buy an and what do you do if you're an insurance I mean I had no clue. But she planted the seed definitely so I called her after a few days on the phone and she says well actually I was just kidding she said I was having a bad day but we can talk so I talked to her and she said well you have to get licensed you have to have your have companies license you you know and my agency is worth so much so you know you have to and so I bold it over and did all this and then so I very quietly you know sec actually secretly got licensed and um she took care of making sure her companies approved of me which is a big deal just to go decide you're gonna be an agency and think an agent and think you're gonna get companies is a whole different thing. Then I bought her book of business she financed me actually borrowed money on my life insurance for her my down payment to her and then I paid her monthly until I think for three or five years I can't remember until she was paid off it she was very very reasonable. I think I bought my agency for like well with file and equipment which was a typewriter and an adding machine um I think I paid her $25,000 or something like that. And she says oh you'll be able to build this up and make uh what you say I don't remember what she but she she told me you could get this to a hundred thousand dollar agency in a couple of years or I don't remember now but I could I couldn't believe it. But that was income that was total like sales and then you get about 15% of that. Okay. So I was thinking I was maybe going to be able to make $1520 a year but I had worked at the bank for the the 10 years prior for no raise and then then the mistake that the bank made as far as I was concerned is they put me in charge of payroll so I knew how much everybody else is making. They hadn't given you a raise in 10 years right yeah well you know what's a woman gonna do in Beach North Dakota when you have a job with all these benefits yeah good hours and you know right right and you were probably thinking the same thing maybe too of like but this is good they've been good to me but they've yeah you could hire somebody for a lot less I mean by then you know the old echelon was gone. There was no Don Barts there was no Tommy Edson, you know. And so that's what I did. I did it secretly well later on I found out actually the bank was trying to buy Dina out too which is kind of a oh so what a blessing that she said what she said when she said it's it's just like one of those things that you just go and so I bought her agency and she trained me and then um I didn't know what I was doing. You know people liked she was very well respected and and liked and so I of course I had her customers and dealt with them and then pretty much just built my business from referrals and yeah and you enjoyed it oh I loved it.
SPEAKER_04How long did you do that for?
SPEAKER_01Because you just sold it not too long ago correct about five years ago so I well I with teaching and the bank and that I worked 50 years.
SPEAKER_04So 22 20 take 23 from 50 that's how much I sold insurance 27 27 yeah 27 28 wow and you loved it so that's that was a great yeah so you and Howard you said you've been married for about 55 years now what do you think you and Howard did that resulted in a successful marriage marriage that's lasted so long we worked hard we neither one of us um like confrontation or fighting you know we just do a deal with it right away it's it's interesting but do you get into arguments?
SPEAKER_01Not with Howard not with Howard with other people um not angry arguments you know I I like to discuss yeah yeah but I'm not confrontational if I'm super super super angry I don't I don't talk I mean and that's how people will know that you're mad she's not talking I don't even know if that I don't get mad very easy and I get over it really fast. Um yeah and a lot of people have the belief that you should not keep things bottled up and I'd way rather not be sorry for something I said I hate that I I I'm a I'm a stifler and I've never been really sorry that I stifled I no no I just don't I don't like you'd rather sleep on it a couple days and then be able to talk and discuss and yeah and usually usually I'm over it I get over it really sometimes I get mad at myself because I get over it really quickly and then one time I remember one time being really really really really mad at Howard and I you know I was so mad I didn't think I could talk about it. So I wrote him a a note well he read the note and he didn't he totally didn't get it it was like well that was one of those learning curves that you learn I think as a woman is women are from Mars and men are from or men are from Mars and women are from Venus yeah yeah it it you're on two different levels two different planets one time I I saw a TV show where it showed you take a married couple and take them on their honeymoon and then you separate them and interview them separately and you wouldn't know they were on the same trip. I believe that and I kind of think that's true of marriage yeah you know and so um one one time I even read um you know women's magazine I read a lot that they had I think I read where it was good to have imaginary divorces you know in your mind you know it's like if I was really really mad I'd go like okay if I got a divorce what would I do and how would I do this and yeah and I'd go like yeah no not worth yeah that doesn't really sound as yeah I you know and I'm it was never anything major like you know like some people maybe have reasons for divorce but it was more like oh I had to be really tired a lot and I think sometimes you just get exhausted and you get fed up and yeah yeah so I think too is your generation I feel like most people did say and not I know some people say well they stayed together and they were miserable or whatever you know that's why the divorce rate was in this but I think they just have had a we're not giving up attitude with a lot of things. It's a commitment and it to me it was an investment and we'd worked hard and we were proud of our accomplishments and our I feel like our kids turned out really well and our grandkids and you know we don't fight you know I mean I'm sure we irritate each other once in a while but you know who doesn't I mean even you and your best friend will get on each other's nerves you know maybe after 24 hours or something so yeah it's just part of life and a big part is is learning about people I I truly think when I was first married I thought people live like on soap operas. I I hate to admit it that there was always the but I yeah I thought I thought that you know you were home waiting for your husband to come home and have the table all set and the meal cooked and your hair combed and come in and give you this big kiss and you'd sit down for this romantic supper. And it always looks put together and like it's not like that. No. Life isn't like that and it's and even if it and even if it it happened like that they wouldn't appreciate it. You know because that's not true. That's not the planet they're on. Right and uh yeah but Howard always he was not a male chauvinist he always let me I shouldn't say let me um supported me in my work things um encouraged me yeah never you know like no that's dumb or you know yeah and let me pursue my own interests we don't have a lot of the same interests together but um I'm not sure especially now if I'd want somebody that wanted to do the same thing as me I think I'd get really sick of them.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01You know I'm sorry but you know I don't want to hang out with anybody 247. So I I and I like being alone and I I have a lot of interests and hobbies I'd like to read and sew and do photography and you know go actually I'm getting a new ranger today.
SPEAKER_04Are you well that's super exciting because I wrecked my four wheeler yes yeah but I'm keeping my four wheeler I was going to trade it off and Howard goes like well are you sure you want to get rid of your four wheeler what if you want to ride it and I'm like oh okay but I decided I wanted a ranger because we have another ranger but he drives it all the time and I never can get it so now I can go all kinds of weather yeah yeah but see but and then we've always had I've always worked so I've always had my own money and we don't have like his and mine technically but sort of we do you know like I don't ask him if I can buy something I might just discuss something with him or I might not like we bought this ranger and I said you think I'm stupid I want to get in I want to get myself a ranger well no one and actually he's the one encouraged me to get the to keep my four wheeler and get the ranger so I mean but you see when you were when you guys were having kids he wouldn't have forced you to not work was it or was like he didn't force you he was more like whatever you want to do.
SPEAKER_01If you want to work work if you don't want to work we've I've got this type of type of oh we never said that it was just understanding under yeah yeah like one of my favorite quotes is the harder I work the luckier I get and and you you can have anything you want you just have to decide what you want and how badly you want it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah and you have your priorities you know Bobby's dropping lots of golden nuggets.
SPEAKER_01Our priorities were never fancy vacations or yes fancy anything you know so did you do a lot of traveling have you done a lot of traveling you and how we kind of accidentally because when I was in insurance I won quite a few trips and those were the perfect things for he and I because they told me when we were going how we were getting there and paid for it. Yes and um because we there's no way we could have sat down and picked a day that we we felt like we could get away.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So we've actually gone um and then he was a a national officer for land improvement association and we traveled quite a bit for that too so um that was paid for for him and then I would just have to pay my own way but we went to I've been to San Francisco three times we've been to New Orleans Key West the Bahamas uh Riverboat Cruise Memphis um uh Nashville I don't know what was what was your favorite place do you have a favorite place that you've been able to travel home people keep asking me meet you Bobby people keep asking me now that you're retired are you going on any big trips I says you know the first couple of years they would ask me that I'd be like no you know and I'd be like something wrong with me and then it dawned on me one day is I worked 50 years to have my house the way I want it to have my little things I like like a camera um computer I have like three iPads and a computer and two sewing machines and four TVs I'm sorry but and a four-wheeler and a ranger now and I'm in heaven out there. Yeah and I've got grandkids over the hill yeah how many grandkids do you have five five how many are here three three and then Krista has two yep and actually my her younger daughter is coming Sunday to live with us for the summer she's working at the chateau and how old is she she just turned 20 just turned 20 and her oldest daughter just graduated from college last week okay so how is being a grandma different than being a mom oh you don't have the responsibility you know the you know it's not do you feel like you can enjoy it more oh yeah yeah yeah yeah and they're all girls yeah all girls they're all girls and I just realized that all girls and they're all four years apart which is kind of interesting too okay and they're all different and they're all yeah it's and then be having Hansen's girls so close has been quite an experience you know and I I I got to be pretty hands-on with them when they were really little too I mean a lot of times I was taking them todaycare and picking them up and the drop-off picture I couldn't believe carrying them around those things those car seats are heavy you girls are gonna have big backs and good grief I was actually even to the point where I was like I hope they don't have any more kids but anyway yeah yeah yeah no it is it's they're heavy and unbelievable to I mean they're safe that's all great but yeah it's yeah Christy had the arm.
SPEAKER_04Yeah yeah that was a seatbelt his mom's arm and um yeah do you have any unique talents that people would be surprised to hear about no I'm pretty much an open book why do okay I think you mentioned Memphis when I was working for you that summer I think that's when you went to Memphis Memphis it had to be I and maybe I'm wrong in this but do you have a love for Elvis?
SPEAKER_01Oh yes oh you do okay I thought so he's the king yeah when did that start oh man not till after you died which I feel bad about yeah I mean I always liked his music or I've always liked music you know but um you know well I think you know I didn't really actually I didn't watch TV we didn't have a TV when I was younger my grandpa got one when I was about 10 years old a little black and white and then you know it was only on one channel in Madora and it was only on from eight until 10 and and then I was only home for a couple years until I went away to school and when you're living with somebody else you don't go down and sit and watch TV with them. Right right you know and went to college I we didn't have TVs in our room like and I didn't go to the lounge that's what weird kids did. I'm sorry but you know I I didn't watch so I literally did not watch TV except maybe once in a while on weekends from the time I was 14 till I got married and we got that TV back in about 72. And then I suppose I started realizing who some of these people were yeah and uh yeah if if you know much about Elvis you have to appreciate him but um he had a good quote too he said an uh person only needs three things to be happy something to do someone to love and something to look forward to that's a great one that was him I don't think he gets enough credit for that one do you we're just talking about you being a grandma and something had occurred to me so I had to write it down while you were talking about all this do you feel like your how did your relationship with your grandma her be mean do you feel like that affected how you were as a grandma of like I am not going to be like how my grandma was oh yeah uh not in a lot of ways because I was pretty young when she died but I remember that like if we broke a dish oh my gosh that was awful so you were like I'm gonna be totally opposite in a sense like you never wanted your grandkids to feel like that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah so I I would imagine that you're probably a pretty fun grandma.
SPEAKER_01I like to think so that's my grandkids one of them actually asked me here a few weeks ago grandma can I can I hear your mad mad grandma voice because I think maybe Avery might be the only one that's heard it of Hansen's kids. And so I showed it to them they go like whoa but it's rare that that would have my my mom hollered a lot and so I really I never was much of a yeller um I don't even like to yell loudly for get my kids to come or I don't yell at I don't yell at Howard to answer to get take the phone I'll I'll take it to him. I'm just not a yeller you know just and then and then I I worried at first because you know Christine Hansen's kids are so close to us and spent so much time with me and I I give them a lot of chocolate. And Chris is a PA and I was afraid I get in trouble. She says you know your grandma they can do whatever they want at your house so they do.
SPEAKER_04As I mean as long as I let them yeah yeah yeah I mean yeah it's not totally unlimited but yeah if you're there and you're approving of it and yeah you get to enjoy being the grandma yeah I mean that's how I wrecked my four wheeler a couple weeks ago was Quinn and I were turtle hunting. Oh that's what you were doing. Yeah I drove off the creek bank and dump myself in the creek it looked like a little bit of a muddy mess.
SPEAKER_01Quinn Quinn wasn't on the four wheeler with me but she had been she was walking along looking for turtles and the dog and I were on the four wheeler and I really don't know what happened but I could not stop that four wheeler for some reason and we went down right headfirst into the creek and it's you're not injured. Just a little bit oh you do have a little bit of bruise but dang I've done a lot worse.
SPEAKER_04I could be dead yeah so thankfully that did not a nursing home going back to Elvis is there anything else you want to include on that?
SPEAKER_01Well I have I've gone there I've gone to Graceland twice um went once Howard and I took a riverboat cruise down the Mississippi and went to Graceland and and of course we had to see the Memphis bell which is a World War II airplane that was for Howard Memphis or Graceland was for me but then when Krista turned 40 she's a huge huge music fan huge and she appreciates Elvis too so for her 40th birthday we went to Memphis she and she and I and we went to Graceland and toured around and stuff so that was really fun. Was it fun to see it through her eyes for the like her seeing it for the first time oh yeah I would go there and I would go again you know and yeah I've always liked touring I maybe from working at the chateau but um Howard and I went through Mount Vernon George Washington's home and we went through Andrew Jackson's home and those are some of my favorite things I I like doing even more than like touristy things I think I mean those are touristy things but I like the it's not but it's not like the amusement park and things like that. It is more the history I've been to Disney World in Disneyland and the other day Quinn and Callie were down in the creek and they found a hor our snapping turtle a couple painted turtles a fish and some frogs and we were laughing about that and I said you could take them to Disney World and spend thousands of dollars and they wouldn't have as much fun as they had down the creek that day. Yeah yeah well Disney World you wait a lot in line I feel like um what's an important life lesson that you've learned well I teach my kids you never say you'll try to do something you're either going to do it or you're not that's a great one I I did I was in my 40s before I figured that out because I would be at these meetings and stuff and somebody'd say I'll try to do that.
SPEAKER_00No they're not gonna do it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah or you'd invite somebody and they'll I'll try to come but no they're not coming so I consciously if I tell somebody I'll if I say I'll do it I'll do it. Otherwise I'm not gonna do it or I say I won't do it or I say when I'll do it but or I can't um that's one of my mantras. I have some others but now they just don't pop into my head. Well I'm kind of a believer in the can't you can't say can't which kind of is traumatic that's also kind of a good one. Um maybe you should say won't instead of I can't yeah yeah but uh if you say you're gonna do something you should do it you have to follow up you have to take time for yourself you gotta stop that's what I like about photography is it makes you look for something to appreciate no matter where you are or what you're doing. You know and try to share it with people see if they can get it yeah and I don't know whether they do or not but I I like that what do you feel like has been your greatest accomplishment probably my family.
SPEAKER_04Yeah if you could go back to any point in your life any stage or a memory what would it be and why oh man I don't really I don't believe that I look back and wish I was back anywhere.
SPEAKER_01Uh it's all a progression.
SPEAKER_04Yeah and uh but you love school so you would be like I'd go back and do grade school that would be fine that I'd go back and you would kind of have enjoyed everything it's it sounds like yeah oh yeah except for maybe living with your grandma yeah in those two years at the bank but um yeah but people say I had people say when I went into insurance do you wish you would have done it sooner and I'm like no I never would have thought I could but I says my job experience up to then it taught me I could do anything. You know and sometimes even getting to the point where you were in a sense underappreciated so much that it kind of got you to the point and you could really appreciate then being in that stage too I mean I appreciate working there all those years and all the things I learned but it and then nowadays it's actually pretty unusual for anybody to do anything 20 30 years.
SPEAKER_01So I figure I did well.
SPEAKER_04Really is there really is there anything you always wished you did but didn't get around to doing wished I did but didn't get around to doing well there's stuff on a daily basis but overall yeah that's so true. I can't think of anything I mean if you could give if you could go back and give yourself a piece of advice what would it be?
SPEAKER_01Maybe not take myself so seriously and take life so seriously but I'd probably have to be a different person. Mm-hmm yeah that personality wise some of us don't I mean I I I think I still have a sense of humor and like to have fun but I'm pretty pretty careful.
SPEAKER_04Yeah you say you're 78 you have like a really great memory do you I feel like you're very social too do you try it be I you like being home you like home I'm but do you really try and keep those relationships those friendships and stuff yeah but I don't like small talk.
SPEAKER_01Okay. I hate like running into somebody on the street and stopping and talking I'm sorry I'd rather go have a cup of coffee with you and sit there for two hours. Yes but to meet on the street and stop there for 10 minutes? I hate that you would hate me Bobby but I'm like you I still would rather go and have a coffee you know but you you do that often with friends do you get together at say Robin's nest and well quite a bit I have uh lunch dates usually usually well if I actually wrote them down or kept track probably three four times a month I I have different friends and and of all ages I've got um close friends in the 30s and 40s and close friends in their 80s. I love that I do too I do too and I I like I like the differences it's so interesting to me to you know go have lunch with my I call them my old lady friends and they won't be as because I'm the young one they're in their 80s and I'm only 78. And then um you know like Kelly that I worked with we still have lunch and and uh you know Amanda Christie's sister and of course my my daughter and daughter in law you know I I have just as much fun with them or enjoy them as much as I do yeah um my older friends.
SPEAKER_04Probably fun to get different perspectives of what's going on in people's lives and what they're worried about.
SPEAKER_01Well it's interesting to me when when um there was 10 of us that would go to Deadwood every year on a girls trip we started with we did it for over 30 years. And most of them were older than me and it was interesting as we got older and then eventually I was the driver because I was the young one and young one. Yeah and I like to drive but anyway I remember when I was still working and they were all retired we'd be driving down to South Dakota and they'd be talking about Medicare and health problems and stuff and I'm like oh well let me get back to my young friends and we'll talk about poopy pants and you know little kid things right and yeah but I I guess I like the balance you know I I appreciate it all but I still don't really like to I like to talk about current events and books and photography and nature and trees and people not in the gossipy way but I like to figure try to figure them out.
SPEAKER_04Yeah yeah try to understand you know I don't really like enjoy picking people apart but I I really try to understand like well why why are they doing that or yeah why are they like that or why why do they believe that or but you you talking about you liking current events does that ever get because I would feel like that a lot of times does come to politics but you seem like you could be a person who could see a lot of different sides even though you're not maybe not going to change your opinion does that ever do you feel like that's ever been an issue big time. I oh it have okay I mean I don't know if you what you mean by issue but I like does it cause arguments or do people get into heated debates because I feel like you are that person who could have a discussion.
SPEAKER_01I like to think that but I've got a couple friends that are you still are like we just don't talk about I I have to say we can't talk about it because they started getting angry and I don't feel like I get angry. Right. But I'm at a point where I know I'm not gonna change they're not they're not gonna even hear me I you know and I and I I feel like I know what they're gonna say and I so then you just bypass it.
SPEAKER_04We talk about something else.
SPEAKER_01I I do and I I feel bad about it because I would enjoy the discussion you know I would you know but uh I used to think about running for like school board or even county commissioner and then I would think about it and I'd go like no you wouldn't be good because you'd have your mind made up and you'd go in there and somebody'd come in with their point Of view, and I totally changed my mind because I can see both sides of so many things.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But I am but a lot of people can't. I know. Yeah. I and I I I guess I feel like I have a little problem with that. You know, I like discussions and the back and forth, and and you don't necessarily have to change your mind, but you should be able to see the other person's.
SPEAKER_04I can understand where you're coming from. Different some people have different life experiences that cause them to be more intense about certain certain subjects.
SPEAKER_01Even going back to say the 70s as a newlywed and talking about birth control and abortion, for example, or women's rights and the opinions you had then, and then compare error or premarital sex or any any of that stuff.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And I think a lot of people go the other way with age. Yeah. Could be wrong, but um, yeah, I don't know. It's interesting.
SPEAKER_04Then, like you said, they're trying to figure people out, and then yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and and um yeah, the world we live in is just one big reality show, and oh my god, I think we have I think we have alternate reality now, and I think I think people are on two different planets, but yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Any regrets that you've had?
SPEAKER_01Probably, but I can't think of any.
SPEAKER_04I mean, you know, always do something stupid or but you never regretted you you don't regret like working when the kids were young, you don't regret putting them in um daycare or being driven um to be a really successful businesswoman.
SPEAKER_00No, any of that?
SPEAKER_01No, no, I um and daycare per se was different when our kids were little because you just got a friend had had that had kids that you paid to have your kids go play with, basically. That's what it amounted to, and it's only five short years, yeah. And my kids went to Medora to school, and I only worked five hours a day. So a lot of times I'd pick them up after work and we'd go to the playground or I'd go hang out with a girlfriend and they'd be playing and we'd visit. And yeah, um, yeah, one of my best friends was my major daycare person, and you could call her up, say, at three o'clock and say, hey, I'm gonna run Dickinson for groceries. Can Hansen stay till I get back? Sure, no problem. Or I'm not, we have to go to something. Can he just stay overnight? Yeah, no problem. And it's not like that now.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, no, no, it's a daycare center. You never worried about him not getting attention or getting the love, or like, okay, he's having a bad day. No, it's fine, it's not a big deal.
SPEAKER_01I mean, there was never more than well, usually there was only three or four, but as he got older, there was a little time in Madora where there's where Esther had about eight or ten, I think, but by then he was older, so he was a little easier, maybe.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01But uh, and the fact that he went to school in Madora. Well, Hansen went till fifth grade in Madora, and then that when I moved to the Bank and Beach is when I brought him up here to school, and he was in fifth grade.
SPEAKER_04Okay, so he was at then this grade school.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_01So he started, and I think that was good because I think in my professional expert mothering teacher opinion, I think it's harder for boys to fit in later than girls. I think girls are a little more flexible. Um, I'm glad he got in when he did, you know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I don't know. And and Chris, of course, he and Krista are two different people. I would go to parent teachers' conferences for Krista, and teachers would say, Oh, she's doing fine. She's a really good student. We just wish she'd talk more. And then I'd go to hands and they'd go, like, he's fine, he's a really good student. We just wish he'd talk less.
SPEAKER_04Oh, that's funny.
SPEAKER_01So they're two different critters.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. What's your all-time favorite song?
SPEAKER_01Oh, no, I don't have a favorite.
SPEAKER_04Do you have a favorite like genre or singer? Well, obviously, Elvis, but anyway.
SPEAKER_01Well, if you're ever in a bad mood, just play Elvis gospel, and you cannot be in a bad mood. There is no way.
SPEAKER_04So that's your go-to.
SPEAKER_01Well, if if I if I need therapy, uh Yeah.
SPEAKER_04What's one thing you want people to remember about you?
SPEAKER_01Well, this is, you know, it's always emotional to answer a question like that.
SPEAKER_04Because it has to put you in a frame of like, you're not here. But what will they be saying? Or what do you hope they will be saying? Well, I just did my best.
SPEAKER_01I just did my best.
SPEAKER_04Are there any other memories that you want to share?
SPEAKER_01Well, we could probably talk for several days, but then you get bored.
SPEAKER_04I I don't get I never get bored with these.
SPEAKER_01So no, this was a great idea, Kylie. I've started listening to them. I really enjoy them.
unknownThank you.
SPEAKER_04Anything else? What would you what is a memory? I have never asked this. What is a memory that you hope Hansen remembers about you? And what is a memory that you hope Krista remembers about you?
SPEAKER_01I'd have to think a while. Um I don't know, just unconditional love.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. I love it. Thank you for doing it. Thanks for spending a little time with us today on the Simple Lives We Live. If these stories mean something to you, one of the best ways to support the podcast is to follow, share an episode with someone you love, or leave a review. You can also support the show through the links in our website or social media bios. Until next time, don't forget ordinary lives often hold the most extraordinary stories.