Roaming in the Gloaming -- Opinion Column in a Minnesota Weekly Newspaper, July

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July 4, 1957

  The females in Minnesota when they stub their toes along the Pathway of Life (and get caught at it) are taken care of at the State Reformatory for Women at Shakopee, whether the charge is murder, pilfering or other crime.
  It was my good fortune to visit the Reformatory through the kindness of Dr. F. H. Buck the physician in charge. He drove over for us one day last week and were we disappointed: no high drab stone wall, no fence, no uniformed guards with clubs and pistols. Just a fine set of buildings in beautiful surroundings.
  Girls (inmates) passed by us carrying crates of strawberries. They were a wholesome bunch, just like one sees coming out of the average school. They have a wonderful garden and when the time comes they put up all the fruit and vegetables for winter. Their rooms are as neat and clean and some of them are as well furnished as the college girl’s. They learn to sew, knit and cook besides going to school, which also includes typing.
  Older women are busy getting out Braille alphabets and other material for the blind. Some of them have completed over 20,000 pages. Others work at making teddy bears, etc., which are sold during the year. While in the kitchen we saw the dinner on the table for the next day. A big dish pan of cut up chicken, a large pan of shelled peas, onions and oodles of strawberries. Everyone works here. There is one detention room. Once in a while a patient breaks rules and they are punished. All inmates are on their honor to obey the rules. Minor breaks are punished by cutting off privileges allowed: girls and women who smoke cigarettes are cut from 7 to 2 a day, etc.; there are fifty inmates running in age from 18 to 60 and up. The length of sentence runs from one year to life. Catholic and Protestant services are held alternately.
  The superintendent is Miss Clara Thune, a well known authority on the problems of women and on institutional work. She is assisted by a corps of able and capable assistants who are called House Mothers. The inmates live in two cottages and the main building, each holding 21 girls. They are under the supervision of the House Mother.
  Shaw cottage, located alongside of the other buildings is a separate institution. In this building are mentally retarded children, girls from the ages of 4 to 12. There are about 30 in the group. While we were there the youngsters, that is some of them, danced, did a little acrobatic work and sang. Poor youngsters. When they get a little older they are taken either to Fairbault or Cambridge. We asked, do they have enough toys at Christmas time? Their answer was, in sending toys there is liable to be some of steel or wood which cannot be given the kids. Best way to do is to send a check. Put this down on your agenda right now, girls.
  One of the prime favorites with the children is “Dr. Buck” who goes beyond professional work in his aid and devotion to these children for whom all hope is almost gone. We forgot to say that the inmates publish a neat and newsy magazine called the Reflector. Inmates have articles in it. “Johanne S.” closes articles with “To those of you who have never lost their freedom, try to keep on living a good and lawful life.” “Georgette” ended her article with “We in Shaw like to feel that all children are flowers in God’s Garden and retarded children are the buds that never fully opened.” Another of “Georgette’s” lines is, “We feel blessed for being given the privilege of brightening their way a little.”
  In charge of Shaw cottage is Mrs. Mosenbrink, R.N., an outstanding official. She spreads her many talents in the personal supervision of the children, not a move is made but what she sees it.
  You come away from the Reformatory and Shaw Cottage prouder than ever that you are a Minnesotan, when you see the wonderful work the state is doing in the sympathetic care given to the retarded children and the opportunity given those young inmates who want to take up a better mode of living. Folks who have never visited the Reformatory should do so. You own it. Drive over some day. Forgot to tell you that there six men working here doing the heavy work, looking after the building, etc.
  We saw no glum hard looking faces. Most of the officials and inmates wore smiles, even the portly Indian woman who was helping two men on outside work wore a big smile, in spite of the fact she has never had a chance to read, “How to slenderize.” ---   Had a visit with Mrs. W. W. Baer of Slayton the other day. She is much younger than she looks as she was helping make the county fair at Slayton back in 1889. Her husband was an enthusiastic sportsman. His pals were Dr. Williams and the late J. K. Bennett. They fished at Longville in Cass County and hunted ducks in Bear Lake when it was a hunter’s paradise. The three went out several times and got more than they could carry out. Wading in the mud and slush for hours was hard work. Back in those days hunters from Luverne, Pipestone and Slayton maintained hunting camps in the Bear Lake woods. Dr. Williams is now living at Lester Prairie. ---   Mrs. P. Fine of Memphis, Tenn. was an ambitious woman. She craved the spotlight. She won in the contest of “Mrs. Homemaker.” After a meek and humble husband had perjured himself swearing that she was the best cook, the cleanest housewife, how she got up in the morning and got breakfast with her hair done up; there was nothing she could not do. And she won the title. She lived in the clouds the next year flitting from pillar to post. This year, tired in being in her “drab old home,” she sued her husband for a divorce. He was too hard to please. She got it and the man went back home and did the housework as he had for years, thankful and happy, saying to himself, “Not many guys get a break like this.” ---   We notice that the Pilot at Lake Wilson has changed hands and will be published by the six men that now own it. Strange to say but the Pilot has increased more in value since its birth than any business place in the village. It started in 1901 by a Davis. He ran it for a year, then Pratt & Thompson. The going was not good. We bought the Pilot lock, stock and barrel for $175; that included subscriptions due. We plugged along with it for over 40 years; they were enjoyable years but not profitable years. The Suedkamps have given the village a first class paper for a town of that size. We always think that the reason a small town paper has such a hard time is that every time you write anything, somebody thinks you are shooting at him. We wish the new group success: we now they will see human nature from every imaginable angle. ========================

July 11, 1957

  This spraying of parks, etc. to kill the mosquitoes is or could...[line missing]...after the spraying means that the whole job has to be resprayed. The Mankato Liquid Fertilizer Company offers to spray two city parts for $115.00 What about the mosquitoes on the outside of the park fence? It will take more than an ordinance to keep them out. ---   Wrestling matches are going to be on many a county fair program this fall. You will be able see the mad Russians, the crazy Japanese and many others. We notice that over at the Cottonwood County Fair at Windom they are going to have women wrestlers. That should draw good crowd of men. They might find some new “holds” that could come in handy if the going gets bad. ---   Some of the new rates on certain articles of postage are pretty tough. Special Delivery fees on a letter will not cost 30 cents. It used to be twenty cents. Evidently the government wants to get rid of money orders. Up to $5.00 the fee was ten cents. The new rate will be 15 cents up to five dollars. If you want to register your letter, value up to $5 will now be 40 cents instead of 30 cents. For delivery “to address only on letter” it got a real raise, used to be 20 cents and will now be fifty cents. ---   In the Auto Race, Ford is still leading the Chevy by about 20,000. The Plymouth is far ahead of the Buick and brining n the rear is the Packard with five cars last week. ---   Dropping in on us last Sunday afternoon was Frank Morse, the first child born in the village of Slayton, and his sisters Cora and Mary. Cora married the late Sam Swenningson, depot agent at Slayton and St. James. Mary married the late P. J. Nelson, for two decades the leading merchant of Murray County. They all live in Minneapolis. Naturally in the group was Mrs. Wm. Lattimore. Frank was Supt. of Schools in Slayton for many years. One of his graduates was our daughter Nola. Mary was telling us that her brother Oscar has married again and was now living in Washington. He married his first wife’s sister. Naturally it was an enjoyable afternoon. The late S. O. Morse was the first depot agent in Slayton. ---   Do you want to make a million dollars? It’s easy. Just concoct a mosquito repellent in which you dip your stockings or sox that will repel or kill. Many women would gladly wear lisle hose, if they could walk out in the evening in peace. Being so near the Minnesota River flats they grow to king size and become altogether too familiar. ---   TV sets are here to stay. A survey showed that fifty per cent of the people when asked, “Which would you give up last, newspapers, radios, magazines or TV?” they answered TV sets. ---   It is hard to believe that we are at peace: at the present time Uncle Sam has 2,800,000 men in his armed forces. ---   Our daughter Nola arrived here from California last week and plans on making Minneapolis her home. This is the first time the family has been together for many years. ---   Something new that will make you think. Saw an ad the other day announcing a Solar Radio. It plays without batteries or inside electricity. Lifetime solar components convert sun and artificial light into electric energy. It has electronic components. To a layman the radio will get its power from the sun and the electric lights in the house. The retail price is $14.95. What will they do next? Will all of the wonders of today vanish in ten years? ---   Did you hear this one? City Judge at his desk. Policeman said, This man is charged with kissing a woman.” Judge said, “5.00 fine.” Then he looked at the woman and said, “Cancel that fine. Make it $10.00 for being drunk.” ---   How many of you can remember the expression “Let the Anvils Ring”? The anvils opened the glorious Fourth in the early days at sunrise. The blacksmith took a long wooden pole, stuck a long iron rod at one end. Filled the cavity in the anvil with black gun powder. Heated the iron rod, stuck it in the gun powder and the Fourth was officially opened. It was a tradition of the old days. ---   There seems to be no end in the increase in the price of advertising. The Reader’s Digest tops all of them with $38,000.00 for a page in color: pretty high for a pocket size magazine. Of course it has a circulation of eleven million. If you want an hour on the NBC radio network it will cost you $121,000.00 and you will still have to pay for the program; and then the Ford company have set aside $14,000.00 of publicity work when the new Edsel is born. Yet there are some folks that say advertising does not pay. ---   Minnesota Republicans or rather Eisenhower Republicans in Minnesota owe a debt of thanks to Senator Humphrey who went to the aid of Ike on foreign aid. Humphrey had been over there and knew the aid was needed. ---   The Northwestern R.R., the one that runs through Balaton, continues to economize. It wants to take off the day passenger train and close the depot at Evan: you can’t blame the railroads. Folks will sign petitions to keep trains going that have never ridden on a passenger train. ---   Chicago has a different system than Minnesota when it comes to handling criminals. It has a criminal court. Cases are tried and if found guilty the jury metes out the sentence. Three young men got what they had coming to them one day last week after they had held up Chas. Styrasky, age 48, and killed him. The jury fixed the sentence of Robert Maslowski, and look at this. He was only 16 years old, yet he got 110 years in prison: he fired the fatal shot. His companion David Clark, 15 years old, got 99 years and so did Gerald Pelzed. Cook County states attorney was elated with the verdict. It will teach young hoodlums that they can’t go on the way they have. The weeping of mothers and politics, so prevalent in Minnesota, did not have any influence with the trial jury. Some of you kids should “Stop, Look, and Listen.” ---   Mrs. Hugo Stream drove over one day last week and took us for a long drive in her new car. She was accompanied by Mrs. Elias. The Minnesota valley is clad in many hues of green and is beautiful. Mrs. Stream was born at Lake Wilson and is a daughter of the late N. C. Christensen, for years the backbone of the village. He came there in 1901 when north Lake Wilson was in the making. Honest, sincere and a hard worker: they don’t make many like Nels. ========================

July 18, 1957

  Over at Windom some of the folks are starting a revolt against the Daylight Savings law and there is merit in some of their arguments. Instead of closing the new law in October it should end August 31st. It would give the kids a chance, who live in the country, to make the school bus and there are going to be more of them than ever, owing to the school consolidations. The Minnesota Legislature was stampeded into passing this. The powers behind the new bill said this was a backward state, etc. The truth is, out of the 48 states only 14 have a Daylight Savings law. North Dakota had it one year. That was enough. ---   The recent Wisconsin Legislature gave the potato growers in the state the go ahead and massage and blanch the white potatoes; now you can’t tell them from the Idaho eye teasers. ---   It’s a long time since the raising of turkeys looked as bad as it does today. Raisers of the birds got 23 cents a pound last month. A year ago they got 29 cents a pound. The cold storage birds were at a record high on May 30th, and then the crop this year will be five per cent over last year. Looks as if we will all get turkey for Thanksgiving except the raiser. There won’t be much of a Thanksgiving for him. ---   The Sleepy Eye village council has decided to have a try at eradicating mosquitoes and is making arrangements to have the entire village sprayed. A lot of village councils have been waiting for some town to start: they want to see how it works out. All councils should remember what state entomologist T. L. Aamodt said the other day. Mosquitoes can easily travel seven miles. ---   Senator Kennedy’s request to President Eisenhower to set the Algerians free was the worst dud in a decade. First thing you know France will be sending a delegation over here to see that all the people in the U.S. who have the right to vote can vote. And then let’s not go too strong on France. First thing you know those excitable French will be talking to the Reds under the table and “poof” would go our first line of defense. ---   See where thirty farmers in Kittson County loaned their trucks to haul 700 yards of gravel on the county fair grounds. All of which would indicate that there’s one group of farmers that have the community spirit, and over at Winnebago a young farmer, Henry Staloch had spinal trouble. Twenty farm neighbors lined up in front of his place, each had a tractor with a 4 row cultivator. Staloch had 560 acres of corn and soy beans. The job was done by 2:30 p.m. Just amazing what good tractors and good neighbors there are in this state of Minnesota. ---   Congressmen evidently do change their minds. When the big heat was on two months ago, they tore the Farm Soil Bank to shreds. It reversed itself the first of the week and the Soil Bank which will bring in 500 millions of dollars to the farmers will be in effect for another year. ---   The scrap among the Russians is a battle won for the U.S.A. Every time they fight among themselves the government gets a little weaker as every one of the deposed men have friends all over Russia. If the Reds start warring they’ll need a bigger army to keep peace at home than will on the battlefields. Don’t worry about Russia going to war for years. ---   There seems to be a letdown on the Dave Beck union labor case. The story is that the Teamsters are not quite so hot on the house cleaning business as they were three months ago. ---   Nasser of Egypt is still the people’s “Friend.” At the recent election there was only one ballot which was printed by the Nasser folks. You either voted this ballot or you didn’t vote. ---   In northern Minnesota when they can’t get doctors, they go over into Canada. Here is a hint to the towns that can’t get doctors. ---   Mr. and Mrs. Frank Christie drove over from Shakopee one afternoon last week. They asked “Would you like to go for a ride?” We did. Frank took us into new territory. We passed small lakes, passed the Bebe Shopp home where we once had dinner and a shirt ironed by Bebe, passed by patch after patch of raspberries and then to Hopkins, the Raspberry Capital. We passed several church camps full of boys and girls. We visited the huge Glen Lake Sanitarium, and down the valley to their home where we had a delicious dinner: a very enjoyable afternoon. ---   When the Currie Independent gave up the ghost a short time back, it was the first time that town had been without a paper for 79 years. The first paper was published in 1878 by A. Bromish. This man captures our admiration. In spite of the Grasshopper plague ending the year before, there was not a railroad in the county and not a town for 100 miles west. He had the grit to establish a newspaper in Currie. He called the newspaper, “The Pioneer,” a fitting name. Besides the Pioneer, Currie has had five other newspapers: the Currie Pioneer, the Murray County Pioneer, the Southwest Minnesotan, the Lake Shetek Courier and the Currie Times. The first paper published in the county was not the first legal paper in the history of the county. The commissioners of Murray County on Jan. 27, 1875 designated the Windom Reporter of Cottonwood county as the legal newspaper for the county.
  Fulda was the second town in the county to have a newspaper. It was called the Free Press and was printed in 1887, six years before Slayton was incorporated. Since the Free Press was born, Fulda had 3 newspapers: the Murray County Republican, the Fulda Republican and the Fulda Free Press. Among the old editors we remember were J. S. Maxwell (Little Mac) and B. W. Woodstencroft who became Judge of Probate. Then there was A. W. Johnson who was editor for years, made enough money so he could retire and enjoy life, which he and his good wife are doing. He sold out the Press to John P. Wagner and his very capable wife, who are giving Fulda a very good paper. ---   Had a visit the other day from C. L. Mikkelson of Fullerton, California. He was sent to see me by an old friend Paul Hubbard, who ran the Holland Advocate in the good old days. Paul also taught village bands, a versatile cuss. He now runs the Independent at Ridgecrest, California. Mr. Mikkelson is a former Murray countyite. His father was Ole Mikkelson who owned a farm two miles west of Iona. C. L. has been in the banking business for years, was a vice president of the bank of Italy, later of a Bank of America in California, and before that C. L. was a bank examiner. He remembers the Disches, the Dysthes, Pete Byrnes and Geo. Lieser. John Orr who formerly had a grocery store at Slayton is C. L.’s uncle. It really was a pleasure to visit with him. ---   See where Sleepy Eye is planning on selling its municipal power plant to the Northern States Power Co. ========================

July 25, 1957

  The most unpopular and the most despised female in Minnesota today is the lady mosquito, who lives a short, gay and stinging life. She has four stages of life: egg, larva, pupa and adult. The egg only takes a day to hatch. Breeding spots are sloughs and swamps, anywhere there is stagnant water, even rain water barrels. In nine days she’s an adult. She seeks blood then, so she can lay eggs. She stings dogs, rabbits, other animals and has been known to sting human beings. They have been known to travel 15 miles from home when the wind conditions were right. Like many other species the female does all the stinging. All her boy friend does is to fly around and buzz. Dry weather is their worst enemy. They live about a month, and they are becoming a terrible nuisance. Five counties up here are planning to exterminate them in 1958. When the five counties are sprayed, an additional five-mile circle will have to be sprayed. It’s going to cost money and the talk now is that the Minnesota River flats will have to be ditched. A heavy rain will wash out all the spraying and the job has to be done all over again. Might be better to follow the plan used on sheep. Have a big trough and everybody strip and walk through this repellent every morning in wet seasons. Look before you leap. ---   Minnesota congressman Blatnik from the Iron Range is heading an investigation of the so-called cigaret filters. He claims that the filters, on which $500,000 is spent, do not do what the advertisers claim. They do not remove only half the tar and nicotine. The cigaret makers are using cheaper tobacco. The filter plan allows them to use ground up stems and yellow leaves. Cigaret smokers like the taste of nicotine and tar. This is where they get their kick. To take out all the tar and nicotine would be the same as taking the whiskey out of a highball. Who would pay 75 cents for a cube of ice and a glass of ginger ale? ---   Mr. and Mrs. Jay York of Lake Wilson, and Mrs. Earl Heding (formerly Rachel York) of Wayzata drove over for a short visit last Friday afternoon. Doris told us how her brother Keith was now a National Bank examiner. It reminded us that it would be two Lake Wilson youngsters that have made the grade. Bob, son of Harold Johnson, and Keith, son of Mrs. Fred Bedford. We sent back to Lake Wilson our thanks to the boys of No. 262 who sent us a box of “Bobbie Burns” smokes for Father’s Day. One Sunday Mr. and Mrs. Lee Hosmer and Mr. and Mrs. C. F. Lentz came. Besides the news, there were gifts and well wishes from our friends in Slayton and Lake Wilson which were deeply appreciated. It was another old home week for us. ---   Was glad to see Pipestone got the Indian School. The state would not take it and it stood there like a sore thumb. Congress had no trouble in closing Indian Schools, but it is going to be plenty tough in closing negro schools. ---   Jackson folks are pleased with their new TV setup. It cost $100,000 for the installation of the cable and the service per month will be a dollar and a half, and best of all it gets them out of the snow belt. Many a town a hundred miles from a station will follow its example. ---   According to the present outlook, cement is going to be real scarce for the rest of the year. IN the south, much needed cement is bringing an increase in price from 7 per cent to as high as 77 per cent. Most of the blame is placed on strikes: half of the 170 cement plants are still. These walkouts mean that many a new schoolhouse and hospital in Minnesota will cost much more than anticipated. In Michigan, the highway commission is changing cement contracts for black top. ---   Over at the Centennial celebration at Madelia a while back, one of the “smart” local boys lost $80.00 to a carnival man. He squawked to Sheriff Berg who failed to find the guy. Why didn’t the sheriff arrest the boys, they were gambling just as much as the carney man. The usual course when a smart guy squawks, the carney man is arrested unless he disgorges the amount the smart boy said he lost. If he doesn’t, he goes to jail and the hometown boy goes free. Just don’t sound like good sense. ---   Hard to believe, but it does happen. During one of the hottest days of last week we received a letter from down home, opened it and the first thing was, “This has been the worst snow storm in March for a long time.” I looked at the postmark on the envelope and it was Lake Wilson, March 7th, 1957. Where it spent the time from March 7th to July 13th no one knows. There was not a postmark of any kind to show where it had been. The dept. would not admit that it had been missent. ---   The Barton Advertising Co. in New York was notified last week to discontinue handling the Reader’s Digest or else. It was the big cigaret firms that issued the edict and the ad firm dropped the Digest business for the cigaret business. All of which means that the article in the Reader’s Digest about cigarets was true. The tobacco companies surely missed the play on this one. It’s a sort of admission of guilt. ---   This was entertainment week for the Roamer. One Monday night we had Group No. 1 of the Children’s Unit of the Minneapolis Aquatennial. Never saw a prettier or a better show. Forty youngsters from four to twelve years old put on an hour and a half show that was a pippin. They did everything from dancing to acrobatic work, singing, etc. Never saw so many cheerful looking faces; no wonder, in a city of 500,000 there should be some clever smart looking kids. And this was the cream. The next day was the Shrine Parade, just too big for us to get in a small space. Never saw so many really beautiful horses. There were solid blacks, the Whites from Sioux City, chestnuts and the mixes and they all got their share of applause. To add to the enjoyability of the occasion for some people, there were three Scotch Highland Bagpipe Bands. We had the pleasure of showing most of the people of the Lancaster Penn. Band through the Masonic Home the next afternoon. Bet there wasn’t one of them that could sing, “If ye can say it’s a Braw, Bricht Moonlicht Nicht Ye’re Aw Richt, Ye Ken.” There was a bit of Scotch in two of them: one man said, “Look at this place in Minnesota, it must have cost a pretty penny,” and the other chimed in with, “And we expected Indian squaws and blizzards.” On Wednesday afternoon came a bus load of the “Singing Plainsmen” from Bismarck, North Dakota. They are the pick of the singing crop in that state. They sang the songs we knew and loved. Supt. Hudson of the home belonged to the group when he lived in North Dakota and naturally sang with them. ========================

August 1, 1957

  A lot of farmers in Murray County will get a kick out of this item, taken from the New Richmond News, just across the line in Wisconsin. “The horse pulling contest will take place at the John Bernd place on Saturday afternoon, sponsored by the Centennial committee. The contest will feature three classes, farm, professional and light.” ---   More men than ever are wearing wedding rings. A lot of them will find out some day that they don’t need to wear a ring to remind them that they are married. ---   The jury in the Hoffa case certainly sent Senator McClellan and Atty. Kennedy back on their haunches. Hoffa being innocent may take over the Teamsters Union and get Dave Beck’s place. ---   The Social Security bank went into the red last week for the first time. Heretofore enough money had been coming in to pay the Social Security checks, but like “Old Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard” it was bare. But don’t think there is no Social Security funds. It has $27 billion dollars which has been loaned to other federal agencies: at interest. ---   See where coffee is up 10 cents in some places where a nickel would do. Poor time to make the change as Columbia coffee, the best, is down 4 cents a pound. In the east all vacuum packed coffee is down 4 cents a pound. Of course 4 cents a pound drop would not make many cups of coffee, and what’s a nickel nowadays. ---   Noticed an item in the daily the other day about the county treasurer in Indiana embezzling $250,000 and went on mournfully to say that the county was impoverished (been reduced to poverty). Why put such slop in high class dailies. Every one knows that county treasurers are bonded. But it makes a better story. ---   We thought cement was going up, but look at nutmegs. A storm hit the island of Grenada and raised heck with the nutmeg trees. Before the storm, nutmegs were selling at 35 cents a pound; now they are worth $2.50 a pound which will make it tough for those who use nutmegs in their Tom and Jerries this coming Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday. ---   Another reunion we enjoyed last Wednesday was with the Weber family. There were Mr. and Mrs. (Joe) Weir of Mpls. and Mame and Gertrude Weber of Slayton. We have known the Weber family for over sixty years. Nick was a pioneer of the county. Especially were we glad to see Mame. For years when we were struggling with the Pilot no one aided us more than Mame. When we ran short of anything in the printing line Mame saw that we got it in her quiet efficient way. They seemed to enjoy their visit and we did also. ---   Over in Wabasha County, Luther Anderson sued George Schmidt for $100,000 for alienating his wife’s affections. The jury cut the budget down to $7,500. Affections seem to be at a low ebb these days. They remind us of raspberry jello. Pretty wobbly at times. ---   The farm groups at Washington don’t seem to be alive--you never hear about them doing anything. How can you expect any legislation unless there is a movement back of it. You never see anything about changes in parities or anything else in the newspapers: the agitation would start now and not wait until another election arrives. ---   See where a young man became infuriated with a girl that was always shrieking at him in her high pitched voice, so that she drove him nuts. He had a mallet in his hand and slew her. He has our sympathy. Nothing irritates a man more than to be thrown into a group of women along in years when they start to talk in high shrill voices, some of them slightly “deef” and all trying to outdo the other. Subconsciously you reach for a mallet, but you can’t reach it. ---   Another July passed and no tornado. Seems strange, but Minnesota has never had a tornado in July, but look out for August. Worst month in the year for tornadoes. Two tornadoes struck Tyler and Rochester on Aug. 21st and tornadoes struck Austin and St. Paul on Aug. 20th. ---   “THE COUNTY NEWSPAPERS”
(Continued from last week)   Only one village in Murray never had a newspaper, but it had the first brass band in the county. ---   The first paper that we can remember that was published in Slayton was the “Slayton Gazette,” published by L. C. Herr in 1890. He was a different type then, than the rest of the newspaper men. He was politically minded and worked it. Strange to say, but Herr bought the plant of the first paper published in the county from the Currie owners. James Ruane bought the Gazette from Herr. Jimmy ran a column “The Gossip Whispers” which had a lot of folks on needles and pins. People are funny, some think the editor is always sniping at them. Alvin Day was the Gazette foreman, he is living in Washington, D.C. W. B. Bell started the Murray County Herald in 1890. Pete Theisen was his foreman. Pete has been with the Rochester Bulletin for thirty years. Jimmy and Bell did a lot of sparring. A gangling youngster climbed on a high stool and started setting type for Bell. It was the hard way, but Vin stuck to it. Became a master craftsman, bought out the Herald, then the Gazette and later became State Senator. When he passed on, John David took over and while his Dad’s shoes were hard to fill, John David has more than filled them, giving Murray County the finest paper for a town of its size in the state. He has two good right bowers, Clint Johnson and Paul Higgins, and a left bower in Mame. Tops in their departments. Another feature that makes the Herald one of the leaders in the state is its splendid staff of rural correspondents. There are none better on any county paper. Those 17 lady correspondents write in 26,000 inches of type matter a year. An orchid to all you girls. ---   Maynard Engel and Lars Aga of Lake Wilson, pals of ours for three decades and their wives visited with us last Saturday, and what a wonderful visit we had. These visits are a regular shot in the arm to an old guy. ---   Once a year we allow ourself an item. Last Sunday we got orders to clean up as we were to be the guests of the family at a dinner party. They took us to the St. Paul House at Shakopee. Like many men, the place looked better inside than it did outside. Everything was subdued, the lights, the waitresses and the guests, but there was nothing subdued about the three foot menu: the food was A1 both in quality and quantity. At the end of the meal a Birthday Cake was brought in. There was not room enough for all the candles, so it had only five candles, evidently they thought we were short of wind, something we have never been accused of before. All of the family except one were there. As we looked at the cake, the thought came to us. How merciful God has been to us during our 85 years. ---   Dropping in to see us the other afternoon last week was former Supt. of Schools C. E. Anderson of Slayton, now assistant Supt. of the $3,750,000 Senior High School at St. Louis Park. He was on his way to the “Stage Coach” to meet a bus load of his old Kiwanis friends from Slayton. After a refill, they attended the ball game at Mpls. Stadium. He said he and Mrs. Anderson were happy in their new home and we are happy he called. ========================

August 8, 1957

  The mosquito hysteria wave has reached northern Minnesota where they do have king-sized ones. At Hallock the village council is having the village sprayed four times this year. The cost to the tax payers is a dollar added to each water bill. Tax payers assist in the work by keeping lawns mowed and keeping down the weeds. ---   See where the authorities stopped a fight between Mankato and New Ulm youths. It took 25 New Ulm officers to subdue the Mankato boys. Better let them fight it out of their systems. The net time New Ulm will have to call out the militia. ---   The province of Ontario is just a bit ahead of Minnesota when it comes to presenting fishing and hunting resorts to the public. Everyone who is that line of business must take out a license. The government publishes a bulletin showing the name of the resort and the easiest way to get there, how many guests can be accommodated, how many cabins, how many cottages, toilets, baths, showers, etc., prices and months open. One resort can only accommodate 4 people. The largest one 60. Prices range from $1.50 to $35.00 a day. The latter being not in the wilds. ---   In the early days the folks in this county dreaded lightning more than they did cyclones (there were no tornadoes, they came later). Selling lightning rods was a sort of graft then. Clever tongued salesmen from other points would agree to rod your house for 7 cents a foot for the wire. The buyer signed the note. If it was for 7 cents, the salesman would change it to 17 cents and sometimes 27 cents, took it to the bank, gave the cashier a fat slice, then shook the dust of Murray Count from his shoes. Reliable businessmen started rodding houses and did a swell job. The last lightning rod man we can remember is an old friend of ours, Joe Koob of Iona. Honest and sincere, Joe always claimed that a house properly rodded would never be hit by lightning, and he was right. According to a letter we received from the State Board of Health, the average deaths from lightning was a little over 3 per cent. About the same as the average death from tornadoes. Yet no sirens blow for thunder storms. Funny people, aren’t we? ---   Coming to visit us last Sunday were Miss Hulda Erickson of Slayton, efficient and competent register of deeds and the only woman county official. She was accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. J. Olson of Mpls. Mrs. Olson is Hulda’s sister. Pretty agreeable girl is “Erick.” When we were hunting data for historical stories she was always ready and willing to help. Then there were Mr. and Mrs. Vern Youll who lived in Slayton for a number of years. Vern was manager of the telephone company, with headquarters at Slayton. He was promoted to Farmington a few years ago and he says he is getting along just fine. Then Pete and Mildred Kramer came over to take us for a ride. In the evening our folks got back from a trip to Canada. They went to Kenora at the head of Lake of the Woods. Coming home they took the Wilderness Trail, a new road to Port Arthur. A very beautiful and picturesque drive. They found Canadian storekeepers just as pleased to take American dollars, even it was a nickel off. Our daughter Nola moved into an apartment at the Park Plaza. The three of us are all on the same bus line which makes it very handy. ---   Kittson County up in northern Minnesota has stopped paying bounty on foxes. It was paying $4.00 but the more bounty it paid out the more foxes there were next year. Several northern counties have quit paying fox bounties. They are going to trust to nature to keep them down. Perhaps the fact that professional fox hunters have been taking them out by the hundreds and the local boys were not getting any of the gravy, had something to do with the change. ---   The town of Middleton, Ohio is 150 years old. A prisoner broke out of the jail last week and the city found out that it did not have an ordinance against breaking out of jail. Must be a pretty nice place to stay. ---   We live in the heart of the mosquito belt, right close by the river flats. They have large picnics here every Sunday afternoon. Saw one woman a week ago with a dress held up by two thin straps. It was open at the back to the section line and open in front to the drop off. A wonderful runway and landing spot for mosquitoes, but she did not heed them, while others were waving towels and handkerchiefs. She stood there as cool as ice: must have had a wonderful repellent, or pure nerve. ---   Down in San Francisco a man had a valuable Labrador Retriever dog. Another man was drinking in a saloon. He had been drinking strong water. When he started for home he ran over and killed the dog. The owner sued the saloon keeper for giving the other man too much booze and got a verdict for $500.00. Getting so if a man is going to drink he’d better ride with his neighbor. ---   THE COUNTY NEWSPAPERS
(Concluded from last week)   The fourth town in Murray County to have a newspaper was Iona. It was started by Jack Griffin and a grand young fellow he was He took life easy and vacationed quite often. He did not get heck from one to do any work so he changed the date line from the 7th to the 14th and ran off the week’s year-old paper. After he sold the journal he worked for us on the Lake Wilson Pilot. A first class printer in every way. He moved to Fergus Falls where he died. If we remember right, Chas. McKinney bought him out and got out the journal. Charley gave them a good paper and later became secretary of the Murray County Fair. When he passed away his son Charley took over for several years, but he loved the climate of Florida more than he did Minnesota so he left and the Journal folded up. ---   The fifth town in the county to have a newspaper was Lake Wilson. C. M. Davis drove into the town in 1900 with a wagon load of furniture and a printing press. Davis was what one would call an itinerant newspaper man. He was from South Dakota. He had been in several counties. When the settlers who had taken homesteads had to prove up on their U.S. Government land, they had to have the notice printed in a legal paper in the county where the land was. The legals were pretty fat and Davis did well. Few men had a more picturesque language, his words of praise and commendation were works of art and he could besmirch in the same fluent tone. He was a booster: he’d served years at the trade and he made things hum. Got popular. Ran for office. Started boosting improvement. Ran into the “that will raise our taxes.” Exit Mr. Davis. Pratt and Thompson from Iowa took over. Young and strangers. One fell in love, the other was indifferent. We bought the Pilot. Why? Charley Thompson worked for me and oh, what happy days we spent with the Pilot. ---   Charley Smith took over the paper when he became postmaster 15 years ago. He ran it for a while with Frank Sisson. They added new machinery, then Doctor Suedkamp and Mrs. Suedkamp bought out the Pilot, they also spent a lot of money for machinery. Several months ago they sold the Pilot to six enterprising business men, Glen Hueur, Don Johnson, Polly Parrot, Wm. Steffes, Kenny Orr and George Gowin, who will do their best to give Lake Wilson a good town newspaper. ========================

August 15, 1957

  THE COUNTY FAIR   The annual Murray Count Fair is on this week and everyone in the county should be there to see the development in agriculture this year and to witness a fine entertainment program. A few years ago some folks objected to paying admission to see the exhibits and saying as long as the county and state were paying for it, no admission should be charged. The board then made the change to a free fair. The whole family can now go to the Fair and see all the exhibits without paying a cent, so be sure and spend a couple of days there. You’ll be prouder of Murray County.
  We remember the first Fair back in 1912. The only entertainment was a shooting match between Fulda and Slayton. There was no carnival but there were plenty of old timers telling stories of the days that were. The Slayton business built three buildings and they were full of exhibits. The Fair had the first auto advertising tour in the history of the county. Geo. H. Woodgate, who knew more about the roads in Murray County than anyone else, was made Captain. He had a big U.S. flag floating from his auto, and with him rode Double, his druggist who had spent two weeks tearing old newspapers into scraps of paper (now don’t laugh). It was the old Hares and Hounds game. When Mr. Woodgate turned a corner at the section line, Double scattered the scraps of paper so the rest could follow the trail. It was a rural trip. Few towns were visited. Advertisements were scattered in front of farm homes. When you met a team in the road and it started acting up, the auto had to be stopped and the driver would go and take the team by the bit and lead them by the new contraption. There about 25 cars in the parade and they were followed by “Hospital” cars from the two Slayton garages. They carried tires, tubes, oodles of patches, etc. Some cars were unable to make the whole trip. Corn was partly in its infancy then. By request the Fair was held back into late Sept. one year, so the corn would be ripe enough for a good exhibit. Floyd Lindsley of Lake Sarah was the corn supt. and what a valuable man he was. Always encouraging and boosting.
  Then there was the first 4-H camp. What a timid bashful lot they were. The boys slept in little tents on the fair grounds and the girls were bedded down in the Slayton High School. Today our boys and girls are a snappy bunch of youngsters that seem to know where they are going. You can’t tell them from the St. Paul and Mpls. youngsters.
  And another item of a changing day. We remember during the horse race cycle, we had an extra fine bunch of horses. They wanted to put on an additional race. The Fair was broke as usual. We went up town, saw Bert Weld, Frank Weck and Pat Harrington, told them of our plight. They came down to the grounds in an hour with $300. The community spirit. We could go on for columns but have not got them.
  One thing we cheerfully remember was the time when a group of Slayton businessmen drove to Lake Wilson one night and presented us with a South Bend watch, on the back of which Paul Freeman the little jeweler had engraved our initials, and it is still running. Adieu. Don’t forget to take in the Fair! ---   Mr. and Mrs. Harry Nelson of Slayton who were here for the furniture convention drove over and spent a pleasant afternoon with us last Sunday. Mrs. Nelson’s father was an old friend of the last Ed Swenson. We spent 15 years together on the Murray County Fair board. ---   THE COUNTY NEWSPAPERS   The sixth village in the County to have a paper was Avoca. Henry Pffeier started the Murray County Independent in 1892. Henry was a pretty good newspaper man, you never saw him without a copy of his paper in his pocket. He ran it for two years, then sold it to J. Beck, who failed to hit on all four and gave up.
  Chandler over in the southwest corner in the county had a newspaper for a short time. It was called the Chandler Review and was edited by C. C. Peterson. Its life was short: Carl then took to politics and was elected clerk of the court. He died while in office. Hadley is the only town in the county that did not have a newspaper, but it did have the first brass band. ---   At long last a real dent has been put in the juvenile delinquency disease, and it hits the right place in 90 percent of the time. Mrs. Jenny Bishop and Chas. Deegan were each given 2 days in the Mpls. jail because their kids were not home by 9:30 p.m. Wonder how that will work in the small towns. Dare the marshals make an arrest and if he did what justice of the peace would ever dare send two of his neighbors to jail. ---   This item is from the Standard of St. Croix Falls, Wis., just across the line from Minnesota. “Farmington Woman Loses Right Arm and Left Leg in Binder Accident--Mrs. Neuman of Farmington, Wis. was helping her husband cut oats. While clearing away the bundles from the rear of the machine, the horses reared up. She tried to calm them but got caught in the machinery. She is now at the Osceola hospital.” That’s one accident that can’t happen in Murray County. In the same issue was the county fair program “Horse Pulling Contest.” Prizes total $240. Horses have not all disappeared from the face of the earth. ---   Herman Roe sent us a copy of the Northfield news last week in which he had an item from this column, but we did not like the way he started out. He wrote, “Quoting from Bob Forrest’s column in the Slayton Gazette.” The Slayton Gazette has been dead for over thirty years and we started wondering where we were writing from. We write a live paper: The Murray County Herald. Herman bought the Independent a while back, which with the News is giving Northfield the service it should have had years ago. ---   Three boys ranging from 10 to 15 ganged up and shot their father near Crosby. It was not for abusing the mother this time. They said the old gent whipped them because they did a poor job picking weeds in the cornfield: the farm is getting to be a dangerous place to live. ---   A sexual pervert killed two boys, one ten the other 12, then tried to burn the bodies. He was sentenced a while back to ten years for a similar attack. Politics and a wobbly judge got him out early. If this brute had been sentenced to 40 years, and after he had served two years was told that if he would submit to an operation he would be set free, he probably would accept the offer. In the final analysis these men are not to blame any more than a person that has TB. They can’t curb that desire and the best way is to kill that desire. ========================

August 22, 1957

  We wonder if the Murray County hens are taking part in the greatest American medical drama in many a year: the expected Asiatic Flu. Where do our eggs enter in? To make it short, vaccine mfrs. in the East have ordered ten million eggs. They must be large, white shelled, eleven days old and fertile. They are to be first line of defense. The eggs when they come to the Merck Mfg. Co. are taken one by one. The wide end of the egg is given a dab of iodine. A tiny hole is drilled through the iodine into the egg. The virus is injected into the egg through this hole. The egg is then sealed with paraffin and put away while the virus multiplies, from which the vaccine is made for the real battle. Why is this a drama? No one knows how strong the flu will be, nor what vaccine will help control it. But the medical men and the army are getting ready. ---   Queer laws we have these days. A female made application for a job as teacher. She sent all her qualifications except her photo. The board asked for it. Attorney General Lord said that it was against the law for the board to ask for her picture. Besides looking like buying a pig in a poke, it smells lie a relative of the Fifth Amendment. Even the poor man who wins a mail order bride generally gets a picture of someone, and they get along just the same as if she had sent her own picture. They did not expect much and verily they were not disappointed. ---   Twenty-five youths in New York have been murdered in gang fights. They should give these youths machine guns, so enough could be slain to make a dent on New York, which has a thick hide when it comes to crime. ---   A bill to raise postal rates is before congress. If the postal clerks will use the same energy and get back of this bill as they did the one raising their salaries, they’ll get somewhere. ---   You can get married any day or night in the week but you can’t have your wedding dance in the village of Ellsworth on a Saturday night. Village clerk Magee said the crowds are so large at these dances that they get out of hand. Here’s one village in the state that turns away crowds on a Saturday night, while a hundred villages in the state have to buy people to come to their town: sometimes the purse is four hundred dollars. ---   Another Minnesota newspaper bit the dust recently. After publishing the Vesta Vision for over 21 years, Editor Southmayd threw in the sponge. Reason: income can’t keep ahead of the ever increasing costs of paper, type, labor, etc. The ends would not meet, he said. ---   Up in Red Lake county a farmer had several good sized patches of Canadian thistles. A species of web worm moved into the patches and cleaned up the thistles by eating the leaves. The web worm loves broad leaves but will not harm hay, lawns, etc. They do however move into the garden, after they get through with the thistles. They save you a lot of hoeing and raking. When they get through your garden will remind you of Mother Hubbard’s cupboard. Seems as if there is always something. ---   An orchid to the Lakefield Justice of the Peace. A guy had been lugging beer to teen agers for parties. They got him and the justice gave him 60 days in jail. Stick to the 60 days, judge. Don’t weaken. Three of the teen aged were held. Parents of the girls who were on the party until after the grey dawn should be given two or three days in jail. ---   A member of the Glaziers Union gave testimony in a Union labor trial in New York. His body was found the next morning with a bullet in the head. Many people believe that the “strength” of the big city unions is in murder, intimidations or kidnapping. ---   There are still things that are hard to understand. We pay so little attention to the little things in life. Readers Digest changes from 25 cents to 35 cents a copy. No one beefed, yet this increased of 10 cents made a difference of forty per cent. If a merchant raised his prices forty per cent or a farmer would get 40 per cent more for his corn and hogs wouldn’t this be a wonderful world? All the Digest had to do was so say we’re raising our prices forty per cent. ---   Fairmont is trying to get permission to install a TV station. It would give both national and local service. That will give a black eye to some of the booster stations, won’t it? ---   If New Ulm is the Polka capital of the U.S., Sleepy Eye must have the No. 1 Drum Corps in the nation. The Sleepy Eye drum corps has won the Minnesota state championship for the last 13 years, and it does not seem to make any difference what kind of uniforms they wear. ---   All those faces you see in the pictures of the big Milwaukee baseball grandstand are not from Milwaukee. Officials of the Greyhound bus outfit are asking for permission to raise rates in Wisconsin, swore that if had not been for the crowds that their buses hauled back and forth to the Milwaukee games, the company would have been in the red. ---   Why all this uproar about the Daylight Savings law. Everyone new it was coming. All the schools have to do is to start school at 10 o’clock on the first Tuesday in September. For years school boards have juggled holidays and vacations around and no one said anything about it. ---   Here’s a new one. Massachusetts has a privately owned turnpike that pays taxes to the state. The state has a 5 1/2 cents gasoline tax for the purpose of maintaining state highways. Users of the turnpike are asking for a refund on the gas they use on the turnpike, as none of it is used on roads: what’s you idea? ---   Visiting us last Saturday was Oran Lang. Old friends you might call them as we knew his father, M. E. Lang 74 years ago. A long time, isn’t it? Oran and our son Robert were born three months apart. They were pals. We remember when they cut the long hair from the tail of Nelly, the family mare, and the poor thing nearly ran herself to death with the flies. Then they ended up the day by taking 12 old hens, placing them on the block the wrong end to and chopping the tail feathers off with the axe. “Memories.” Oran was on his way home with his family on a fishing trip. He has been with the Greyhound bus people at Des Moines, Iowa for over 30 years. ---   Driving over from Shakopee on Sunday were the Harold Johnsons. They said jump in, we are going for a ride. We said we wanted to see some lakes. We did. Over to Minnetonka, a beautiful lake, on to Wayzata and Deep Haven. Every other two-toned auto was lugging a launch behind it, same toned color. We watched the water skiers, looked at the mansions of the upper ten with tailor made lawns that makes your mouth water. Then we saw Calhoun, with the white sails in the sunset, Harriet, Lake of the Isles, etc. It’s a sprawling section. Little villages, the big manufacturing plants. There is no lower five. The medium class of people take as much interest in their homes as the high and mighty. What impressed us the most was that there was not a drab looking home. Every one was painted and shining, looked as if they were just out of a band box. Another thing that impressed us was what a grand thing it is to have friends when you’re old. ========================

August 29, 1957

  There was a twinge in our heart last week when we heard of the death of Mrs. Frank Weck of Slayton. We had known her for over 60 years. Mrs. Weck was blessed with a wonderful voice and how generously she lent it to almost everybody in the early days. She was a sincere friend of ours, and during her recent illness when we happened to be at the hospital we visited her and our memories would always end in the days of “Sweet Alice, Ben Bolt:” that beautiful voice is now silent and still. ---   No wonder wild geese are vanishing. Clever hunters in the east thought up a new plan of late. They took a tape recording outfit down near a real goose slough. They touched it off from a distance then let the machine run itself out. The geese and ducks fell for it to their sorrow. In one spot hunters took out over 2,000 geese by the aid of the tape recording. The federal wild life dept. is going to do something. Why wait? Meet and pass another regulation. ---   Villages and towns in southwestern Minnesota think they have real water trouble. Never a year goes by but what there are warnings, “Don’t water the lawns,” etc. Warren, the county seat of Marshall county, a county three times as large as Murray, has real water trouble. The council can’t even buy water and the only solution is to build a pipe line 7 1/2 miles long to where they can buy a well that will give them 300 gallons a minute. But the sticker is, the cost of the pipe line will be over $180,000. The city has had the state aid them its quest. A lot of tax for something that is not in the village limits. ---   When we lived in Lake Wilson, like everyone else we used to send to Sears Roebuck Co. for mdse. We always got our mdse. three days after mailing the order: pretty fair service, considering we lived 186 miles from Mpls. We now live in the same P.O. area and it takes six days to make the round trip. Pretty rotten service isn’t it? We could make the trip with bus in 3 hours. So don’t kick about mail service out in the rural districts. ---   Here’s another mail story that’s hard to believe. The Oakland post office is just across the bay from San Francisco. It takes a day for a letter to go from Oakland to San Francisco. So the Oakland P.O. puts the San Francisco mail on a night plane to New York where it is transferred to a plane for San Francisco where it arrives before the regular mail service from Oakland. Don’t sound true or god sense but that’s what the Milwaukee Journal says. ---   There are 2700 oil rigs drilling this week in U.S. and Canada. Texas has 943 drills, Louisiana has 424, Oklahoma 278, Kansas has 125 and Canada 175. Thirty-one states have drills working today, but Minnesota or Wisconsin are not in the charmed circle. North Dakota has 31, South Dakota only 1, Iowa has two. This is the largest number of drills working at one time in the history of the oil industry. ---   Here’s an unusual item from the Brainerd Dispatch. A lady has a column, “The Farmer’s Wife.” In it on Aug. 14th was this item: “To settle an argument how many poisonous snakes are there in this vicinity, my husband saw two copperheads. I saw rattlesnakes both here and at Sauk Rapids, and I’ve seen the little brown snake with the red belly and Mel Pederson had a rattlesnake sink his fangs in his leather boots. Let’s hear our favorite snake story.” What’s unusual about the item is that Brainerd is in the heart of a summer resort where people come to enjoy the outdoors. ---   George Bent, city policeman of Minneapolis, don’t look so hot, but he has brains. A woman went on a tear, a real one. Pulled a knife and stabbed George when he tried or rather did arrest her. She howled, swore and tried to spit in his face. He taped her mouth shut: several drug stores were out of adhesive tape the next day. ---   Over in Jackson the women folks were peeved the way dogs were running all over town in violation of the town ordinance. They presented a petition to the council asking it to enforce the law. What did the council do? Nothing. Don’t scorn women, boys, so they know it. A women scorned is worse than a bushel of mosquitoes. And while we’re on the dog question, here’s one from Edina. The women believed that big dogs do more damage to flowers, shrubs and gardens than little ones. So the law is that the license price runs for dogs under thirty pounds $3.00. License fee for heavier dogs you pay $5.00 If you violate this law it will cost you $40.00 Between the dogs and the mosquito trouble, the attendance at ladies aid meetings and bridge clubs host not bee crowded of late. ---   Vandals along the North Shore must be getting ready for the deer and duck season. One hundred and seven Minnesota highway signs have been punctured with rifle bullets and shot gun shells, so they will have to be replaced. One or two signs could be excused, but over a hundred is, well, revolting. ---   Villages will soon have to put male wet nurses on their pay roll for the drunks that get one too many in the village emporium. Appleton has a verdict of $109,000 against it because its employees in the saloon overloaded customers. The customers got in an auto wreck and now the tax payers have to pay the bill. How many towns can stand a verdict like this? Of course you can get insurance but not for an amount like this one. ---   In Martin County the commissioners recently selected a veteran’s service officer for the county. Evidently he was not exactly what the Legion boys wanted and they went to the County Auditor to see how the commissioners voted. The County Auditor refused to do so, evidently at the request of the board members. It’s time the County Boards, village councils and school officials wake up to the fact that they are only servants of the people and not czars. Some won’t wake up until it is too late. ---   Mrs. Clara Amundson of St. Paul, Iver E. Ranum of Lincoln, Nebraska, Julius Ranum and son Arnold of Chandler visited us one afternoon last week: old time families of Murray County. How did they like it? In the visitors register there is one column, “Remarks.” Here’s what Julius wrote: “A very fine Home, so complete. It’s hard to find words to express your thoughts.” ---   Proud and happy were we last Friday forenoon when five friends, prominent in the little community in which we lived for so many years, drove the 200 miles to see me and to spend the day renewing old friendships and to foster the ones we already had. For three hours after dinner we told and retold stories of the community in which they were born and where they have spent so many useful lives. We knew both the grandparents and parents of two of them and the parents of the other three. Those who made the trip that meant so much to an old man were: Art Warren, Vincent Harmsen, Maynard Engel and Polly Parrot of Lake Wilson and Wm. Nepp, formerly and now of Pipestone. It was a real red letter day for us and one that will linger long in our memory. They left for home at four o’clock carrying with them our best wishes to the folks where we lived so long and still remember with pride and pleasure. Make it a yearly trip, boys. It was nice in another way, boys. One really never knows how many lilies there were on his coffin or how many folks were at his funeral. ========================

September 5, 1957

  Mr. and Mrs. auto driver, some day you are going to be halted by the Highway Patrol and they are going through your car with a fine tooth comb. It will save you money and perhaps a little humiliation if you have your car ready for inspection. Notice where they found 86 autos in one town with defective equipment. ---   Many small towns that are looking for some industrial plant to move to their town and take up the surplus labor that is bound to leave unless they can find employment of some kind, should write the Northern States Power Company. They have a man that will come to your town, go over the situation and go over conditions with you. A mighty fine gesture by the Northern States folks. ---   The instant coffee people claim that they have brought back the odor to coffee. Nothing ever beat the smell of coffee, bacon and eggs for breakfast on a cool morning. ---   Social Security folks should be happy. They are headed for a raise on their present allotments. They won’t get it this year, but they will in 1958, when election time comes up. Budgets won’t cut so much figure: votes is what they are after. ---   If this item proves true there will be a wave of rejoicing all over the United States. The Sterling Drug Company says it has a drug, Aralen, that has been found effective in 71 per cent of cases with Rheumatoid Arthritis. ---   President Eisenhower received a shot of Asiatic Flu vaccine last week. He had come in contact with two persons suspected of having the disease. This type of Flu is said to be severe on persons having heart or lung trouble. Up to date, little is known of the Flu or what the vaccine will do. ---   Studebaker-Packard has had a new loss of over a million in the first six months of 1957. That’s nothing, in 1956 it had a total loss of $35 million. It would jar a lot of us to lose that much money, but the company is still making cars. ---   In three or four years there will be gadgets along side that TV set of yours. You will be able in the afternoon to drop a half dollar in the gadget and get any ball game in the United States or in fact any other big doings. The telephone company is doing that now and TV is only in its infancy. ---   The state of New Hampshire now has a 6 cent gasoline tax. If it was not for the gas tax the U.S. would go broke. Many of the states in the south have a 7 cent tax. Mississippi has a 3 cent tax, the lowest in the union. ---   Saw a want ad last week. It read, “Wanted: Two honest girls from 17 to 30 years of age, to work in modern home and help with milk utensils, $25.00 a week with room and board. Send picture with application to ___, Brainerd.” Pleased to note that honest girls are living longer than they used to, but lady, never ask any applicant for a job to send their picture. Atty. General Lord says that is a deadly sin and could cost you money. You have to take the girls just as they come. ---   New York grand juries are getting tough: they are indicting youths of 15 on murder charges. They are striving to halt the gang spirit. ---   Here is a real advertising sight. A full page of Alcoa Aluminum wrap was inserted in each Chicago Daily News last Tuesday. You won’t believe it, but it took 250 miles of Aluminum wrap. ---   Kohler was beat for Senator in Wisconsin. Budgets are deadly in election years. ---   A committee report of the American Medical heart association says “Hear Disease Link with Fat Questioned.” What next? Trouble is we never know what we die from: that comes with the death certificate and then it has not interest to us. ---   Allowing the public to bet legally has been a wonderful reviver to trotting and pacing racing. This sport was in the doldrums for many years until pari-mutuel came in and the harness horses are drawing real crowds. Over $5 hundred million was spent in betting last year. The state of Illinois is really interested in the horses and gives back to the race purses nearly all it takes in. Horse racing was on every county fair program in the early days. Murray, Pipestone, Rock, Jackson, Nobles and Cottonwood dropped them years ago. Two nearby counties that held on with the trotters were Lyon and Chippewa (Montevideo). They are always the main feature on their fair program. ---   An old and sad case comes from Sleepy Eye. While sharpening a lawn mower with rusting blades, Lewis Abel cut his finger and lockjaw set in. He was taken to the Cities for treatment but to no avail. He leaves a widow and 8 children. ---   Ralston-Purina who besides being a big food distributor also has contracts with a lot of chicken raisers. The company told those folks to cut down the production of broilers 29 per cent. It also told the raisers that they did not make costs last year, and unless production was cut, the price would go down to where they would go in the hole again. The law of supply and demand evidently enters into the chicken market. ---   After reading the sob sister columns of “Ann” and “Amy” one comes to the conclusion that the most dangerous animal in God’s green earth is the “Other Woman.” Men used to be the villains in the play, but women have taken over that job and everything else. ---   Kids can’t have much fun in British Somaliland in Africa. On the schoolhouse door is this sign, “Don’t bring knives, clubs, axes and spears to school: leave them at home.” Got so kids can’t have a good time anywhere. ---   A law suit was started in St. Paul last week that should interest every one that owns a home. A three year old boy strolled across the lawn of the next door neighbor. The neighbor’s dog bit the kid, disfiguring his face. The suit is for $10,000. You think the boy was a trespasser? No child is ever a trespasser. Who will win? We’ll bet on the kid. ---   Dropping in to see us on Tuesday afternoon were old friends of ours, Mrs. Ada B. Wise and Mrs. Winnie Campbell, formerly of Slayton. For years prominent in public affairs, Ada was County supt. of Schools for 24 years and Winnie held down a chair in the Murray County Herald for years which we now occupy. Joining the group was Mrs. Wm. Lattimore, a very early citizen of Slayton, Mrs. Frank Christie of Shakopee, a former Hadley girl and Mrs. Forrest, not one of them an amateur. They talked about old friends and the county they loved so well. The Roamer cheerfully retired at the end of the second heat, but what a wonderful time they had. Mrs. Campbell’s daughter Joy came and got the two first ladies. ---   The guy with bushy hair in St. Paul is planning on plaiting his hair and in time let it hang down the back: hair cuts have gone up to $1.75. It’s worse for the man who can’t shave himself: the price is from $1.00 to $1.25; some of them were looking for a small gasoline torch. ========================

September 12, 1957

  Big game hunters in Murray County should take a trip to New Zealand and get it out of their system. It is a real hunter’s paradise. The big game is a menace and they are shot any time in the year. The state even hires exterminators to kill deer, mountain goats and chamois. Odd thing is that none of the three are native to New Zealand. All of them are imported, some of the first deer coming from Minnesota. New Zealand has no wolves and the grass is green the year round, except up in the mountains. ---   More folks like tomatoes than any other vegetable. Now they are going to have a real treat. Tomatoes now come in powdered form, for soup, juice, etc. Just mix with water. Gone are the days when you have to pound at the bottom of the bottle to get it started. ---   We treat Negroes different in Minnesota than they do in Arkansas. Billy Williams’ picture will be hanging soon with that of fourteen governors he has served in the state of Minnesota. Ike should send Billy down to Little Rock as a pacifier: none better. He has pacified hungry office seekers in Minnesota since the new Capitol was built. The year before he came to the new building he took the storm windows off the old Capitol on Wabasha St. building. How do we know? We worked with Billy in 1905. ---   The Roamer and Mrs. Forrest celebrated their 58th wedding anniversary at a dinner party given at the home of their daughter, Mrs. Ray D. Elias in Minneapolis last Thursday. Who ever expects when they are young that they would be together that long. ---   A lot of folks are slamming the government because some of the aid sent to foreign lands gets into the hands of people who are not entitled to it. That happens everywhere. It’s every day human nature. We remember during a severe drouth in western Murray County a while back. We were in bad shape in spots around Lake Wilson. We took up a subscription and started doling out coffee, sugar, etc. at the depot. It grew until we asked the state to help. It did, sending in wheat, oats and hay. It’s human nature. Then there was the humorous side. We remember a lady from south of town who managed to grab three corsets (they wore them in those days) to keep her form in shape, when she really needed a hay baler. They came out of a bunch of cast-off clothing sent down by Mpls. folks. It was dark and cloudy that winter and spring: in a year it was all forgotten. ---   Folks who live in the country that whine about their local hospital bill should live in Minneapolis. Talked to a man the other day that had been there. There were two beds in the room and they each paid $20.00 a day. A room by yourself would cost $30 a day and up. When you add the doctor’s bill, the x-rays, medicine, back rubs, etc. it would cost a little over fifteen thousand dollars a year. Stick to your hospital, especially to the Murray County Memorial Hospital where you get top service at a reasonable rate. ---   School troubles that infested southern Minnesota a couple of years ago have spread into New Richmond, Wis. After years of work and talk the voters finally brought in a majority of 36 for a new school house. The next week in the news was a letter from a tax payer wanting them to call another election, as a lot of voters were on vacation and farmers were busy in the fields. The school board did more than that: they gave the voters a chance to pick out the site. There were 8 sites on the ballot and when the voters got through they were madder than ever at one another. ---   Noticed in the Jackson County Pilot that the Sec’y of the county historical society said that the numbers of Old Timers were getting smaller each year. You’re absolutely right. Old Timers are going faster than we think. We speak from experience when we say that we spent too much time with Old Timers and not enough with Young Timers. Not enough work has been done to any of our counties to interest the youngsters. Old Timers got their history from experience, the youth has to get it from books. Both the state historical and county societies should try and get a bill through the legislature that would compel the teaching of county history in every local high school This should be done soon or the historical society will fade out of the picture. ---   Something happened to the cigaret market in June. It went down 33 per cent while the sales of large cigars were up. Small cigars took a bigger jump: don’t suppose that some of the gals have taken to small cigars. ---   The Greatest Show on Earth, the Ringling Brothers that ‘died’ last year, is still on earth and making money, but it only hits the big cities. In the days gone by it took 80 long freight cars. This summer it has three freight cars and they are used for toting the elephants, giraffes, camels, etc. Eighteen trucks are used to haul the show around. There is main top any more and no cook tents. The performers travel in autos and busses. They stay at hotels or motels. It plays indoors or under the sky. There’s no bearded lady or fat females. Side shows are gone. It used to take 800 men six hours to put up the tents. There are only 110 places in the U.S. or Canada where they can show. To us old folks the glamour went out of the circus business when the glittering parades were halted. By the way, George Newell of Slayton spent one season with the Ringling Band. ---   Heard one Senator make the remark that they could not do anything on the farm question for there was no leadership in the White House. How did the Senate slash the budget bill, pass the bill for $34,000,00 office buildings for themselves, the pork barrel for pet home measures that are handed out to quiet the home folks and many other bills? ---   It pays to advertise in the Murray County Herald. When we came up here last January we bought a suit of clothes but it had no vest. Clerk said nobody that was anybody wore vests today, our two daughters concurred: that settled it. We wondered what we would ever do without a vest. Where would we carry our cigars, fountain pen, pencil. We don’t need a comb, but what about tooth picks, wooden matches, mint lozenges, cloves, chewing gum, Sen Sen and that little piece of Masterpiece chewing. Bursting in on us last Tuesday was Andy Anderson and his good wife from Flint, Michigan. They brought with them a fine new vest. It fits too, and the pockets were filled with everything from cigars to toothpicks, and even the Masterpiece was there. Andy said he asked fifteen stores before he found it, and were we happy. Now we can go about and wear a belt like a fat human being, out of sight. Andy used to set type for us when he was a kid for $3.00 a week in the good old days, on the Lake Wilson Pilot and without a university diploma or a course in culture, when he retired from the Buick plant at Flint he was in charge of the immense drop forging dept. We sure were glad to see one another. Andy is now puttering around with trotting horses and pacers on his farm near Flint. Andy comes of early Murray County stock. His dad was section boss on the branch and put in the side track at Lake Wilson in 1883. We can’t forget the sturdy old Swede. Jovial story teller and a hard worker. Can see him yet, with a boat sail under his arm which he used as an electric motor on his hand car, and how it would fly in a strong wind. Andy and the missus promised to visit us again next fall. Hope they do. ========================

September 19, 1957

  Any town, no matter what size, should stop, look and listen before it signs a contract with that company that is going to start a factory. Some of those birds are O.K. and some are not. Some come in and get things started and then move out. We notice that one company that made plastic work, ‘twas a big outfit, left the town in which it received many advances in money and rents. Quit on a moment’s notice and the town is stunned: there are over twenty houses for sale and there are also men hunting for work. Tie them down as tight as they tied you down. All is not gold that glitters. ---   The two-toned fad has invaded sick rooms. A Milwaukee woman severely injured ten years ago by plaster from the new Y.M.C.A. building falling on her head, sued for $100,000 damages. The case was settled last week for $40,000. Her husband testified on May 1 that on orders from the Mayo Clinic he painted their one room apartment black and hung green window shades so Mrs. Koch would not be further upset. ---   If you are a drinking man in California, better watch our step. Don’t get arrested twice for drunken driving. The second trip to the judge brings you at least 5 days in jail and the fine cannot be less than $250. ---   Boys of the Legion, when you want to raise some money why not try the plan of the Legion Post at Lake Bronson, a town of 400 in Kittson county. Last spring they decided to raise some money by giving away an auto. They started selling tickets for a dance. Two days before the dance they had raised just enough money through ticket sales to pay for the new car. The wives and the business men took over during the next two days, sold a $1,000 worth of tickets. That’s the true community spirit. It rained five inches the night of the drawing, yet over a thousand people were there and the car went to a 17 year old lad who was not there. You did not have be there to win, and the Legion boys are happy. ---   If you like band music that sparkles and scintillates you should have been here last Sunday afternoon. For an hour the residents were entertained by a splendid program by the Zuhrah Temple band from Minneapolis, one of the finest marching bands in the nation. The fifty member band in the colorful costumes put on a wonderful show. We gave them all the applause we had. They brought us cheer and a glow of happiness. ---   Apples have gone two-toned like everything else. Apples half red and half yellow outsell the solid reds three to one. The little red apple that you used to take to the teacher on a frosty morning is now in the segregated class. ---   “What Happened to Hell” is the title of an article written by Harold Blake Walkon last month. It starts, “years ago the pulpits of this country had a great deal to say about the fires of Hell. Now you rarely hear about the place. What I want to know is what has happened to Hell?? The article was in the Presbyterian Life. Sitting back in a pew of a Sunday in Scotland eighty years ago Hell was a stern reality. There were no ifs and ands about it. Now they seem to have lost it. They’ll be real mad back in Stirling when they hear about it. ---   Years ago when politicians wanted to get the poor man’s vote they used to shout “Remember that a torn and ragged coat often covers an honest heart.” When did you see a torn and ragged coat in your town? The country must be rich. ---   After reading the editorials in five of the leading newspapers in the South, one comes to the conclusion that they think more of their state than they do of their country. The South is toughest of all the nations we’ve had to lick. The Civil war is not over. ---   Got a letter from A. W. Johnson, former editor of the Fulda Free Press and former post master of that place. Al, who long since retired, has a real worthwhile hobby. He is gathering data from the printer’s point of view on the newspapers that were born in Murray county. He, assisted by Jay Schuler, former county attorney, are taking life sized photos of the front page of every newspaper and they are doing a swell job. Two newspapers are missing, the Avoca Independent and the Chandler Index. If you of anyone that has a copy of either paper, won’t you write Al at Fulda. Be seeing you, Al. ---   If you are interested in grapes and its derivatives you’ll be shocked at the increase in the price of grapes this fall. The Thompson seedless grape that sold for $40 a ton last fall is now $50 a ton. Better buy the raisins for that Christmas pudding early. ---   It listens now as if we are not going to see any Minnesota football games this fall on the TV. Seems that when every seat is sold in the stadium the folks who could not buy a ticket, and the folks in the rural districts who help support the U. should have some rights. The Minnesota U athletics seem to be patterned after union labor. Indian does not want TV so we suffer. ---   Wednesday evening, next door neighbors of ours down home called. They were Mr. and Mrs. Rudy and Mary Lee. The women used to hang clothes across the fence and had no trouble in picking up where they left off. Rudy is now managing a lumber yard at Lake City. Mary Lee starts a course in Medical Technology in a Minneapolis school next week. ---   The fox bounty law looks like a real joke in Minnesota. After years of paying bounty there are more foxes in the state than there were before it started paying bounties. Interested, we wrote Donald S. Balser, Research Biologist at the Game and Fish Dept. He said that the dept. was not in favor of the law because bounties have resulted in a healthy increase in foxes and besides it feels that the money paid for bounties could be better used for acquiring better hunting grounds, etc. In order to learn something about it, we wrote Clair Peterson, county auditor of Murray county and asked for certain figures. He sent me the fox figures on Murray county and they did surprise us. Every year but one, there has been an increase of foxes and cubs taken. Starting at 1952, adult foxes taken were 75; through the efforts of the bounty that number was raised to 120 killed last year. In 1952 the cubs taken amounted to 156, last year there were 331. The amount of bounty paid in 1952 was $612, last year it was $1,142. If we keep on with the bounty it looks as if we’ll need to rent land for the foxes. The county pays $4 on adult foxes and $2 for each cub. The state reimburses the county $3.00 for each adult and one dollar on cubs. What is true in Murray county is true in nearly every other county. There has been 1,287 cubs and 530 adult foxes taken in Murray county in 5 years. ---   Dr. Walter Alvarez, the doctor writer, urges that retirement be based on medical examination and not by age. There’s one man that always says something that is chock full of common sense. ========================

September 26, 1957

  Turkey raisers are facing a tremendous loss this season. Last week dressed turkeys were selling for 29 cents a pound. The lowest price on meat offered. Once the turkey price was the highest outside of steaks. Why don’t people eat turkeys at 29 cents a pound? We asked several women. One said it took too long to make the dressing. Another said it took too long to cook, the average turkey was too big for the medium family, too big for the ice box, so much meat people get tired of it and a younger matron said, “It’s just too much work.” The day of the big turkey dinner is over. It’s cheaper to go to the restaurant. Looks as if the turkey breeders should get their birds down to the size of a chicken. ---   Water is as precious as gold in the town of Warren. Latest estimates place the cost of getting a satisfactory supply of water close to $500,000. There are eight miles of pipe to be laid, two large reservoirs to be built, new pumping equipment, etc. If towns suffer from nature giving them too much water at times, and in the disaster group, why shouldn’t Warren get in the disaster class because Nature did not give them enough. ---   The Lions Club at Hallock sold its members as slaves. They ranged in price from $16 to $36. The total was used for a Lions’ project. They were so proud of themselves one suggested that they sell their wives as slaves. It will be no great change for them as they have slaved over a hot stove, etc. You’ve all heard this line. One man who evidently wanted a little rest suggested that they sell them for a week at a time. He acted as if he wanted to get shut of his bitter half so he could put on a party. ---   While this bitter fight over cigarets is waging the U.S. it is still interesting to remember that a Scotsman started the fight against tobacco. It was in 1604 that he wrote in the English of that period, “A custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmfull to the brains, dangerous to the lungs, and in the blacke stinking fume therefore, nearest resembling the horrible stig and smoke of the pit that is bottomless,” ending up with calling it “the filthie noveltie.” Who was he? King James the Sixth of Scotland and when Queen Elizabeth passed on he became King James the First of England and Scotland. Besides being interested in tobacco he was interested in religion. The King James Version of the Bible was done under his supervision. Some of the cigaret haters of today still use Jimmy’s arguments. King James the Sixth held court many times in the Royal Borough of Stirling, where we were born some years later. ---   If you want a quiet modest gift for that handsome husband or boy friend of yours, why not get him some hankies. Saw an ad in a Chicago paper. Name, Shaksted is selling an all linen embroidered handkerchiefs with your initials on them. The price is $16.50 for six hankies. Price for women’s hankies are six for $9.50. ---   August was a top month for the auto makers. They sold 400,000 cars that month. Will this country be rich forever? Won’t the pendulum have to come down some day? ---   Mrs. Alfred Albinson of Worthington made us a short visit last Sunday. She was entranced at the nicely kept grounds and the beauty of the Home, both inside and out. The Albinsons have been in the lumber business in the Turkey Town for generations. Come again, Marjorie, we enjoyed your visit. ---   Farm crop insurance is the most sensible movement for the benefit of the farmers. If you can insure his house and barn why not his crops? Of course it will be complicated but officials will soon be able to trim out the goats. ---   Little did Sears the depot agent at North Redwood think when he started selling a bunch of refused watches that his name would head one of the largest companies in the world. The name of Sears heads an army of over 200,000 employees today. ---   India is fast becoming read for statehood in the U.S. The untouchable political party objected to the Hindu party singing their songs. A fight started. When the dust settled, nine politicians were found dead and a hundred houses destroyed. ---   The most important race in Minnesota in many a year is the one between Jack Frost and the corn and soy beans. It will be a miracle, almost, if we can get enough hot weather to help out. This will be the greatest disaster in years and some folks are praying hard. ---   Not only is the baseball race in the National League a close one this fall but so is the auto race. Last spring the Ford led the Chevvies by 29,000. The Chevy has been creeping closer all year and last week the Ford was only 3,000 behind. ---   We pay tribute today to a man we have known and loved for over forty years. Gunnar Bjornson is the type of a man you don’t often see in public life. Kindly, courteous, a gentleman without rancor and one who never forgot the meaning of the word, “friend.” As a public servant he was efficient and able. No stately monument bears his name, but he and the late Mrs. Bjornson left as a heritage one of the finest family of sons in the state who will carry on the name of Bjornson. ---   The town of Sleepy Eye is pondering on the problem of selling its municipal plant, which seems to be gradually becoming a burden. The Northern States Power Company has offered the town $802,588 for the entire outfit. The town has a bonded indebtedness of $528,000. Nothing will be done until the voters get a shot at it. ---   Just can’t get away from the fox figures in Murray County. How can any animal hunted by day and night, the hunter being paid. How can they increase in number. Biologically it is all wrong. Man has almost eradicated the mink and muskrat, also the rabbit, and would clean out the deer if given the chance, but the fox with his charmed life continues to increase. In five years, 1,287 pelts have been presented for bounties and yet there are more than ever before: can you solve it? ---   Taking a bus down town one day last week we were really shocked and we wondered what kind of nerve a bus driver has. Ahead of us on one spot were five youngsters about five years old, crossing merrily forwards and back across the street, without looking either way. Two blocks farther down the street were four more on their wee bikes moving slowly down the street with their backs to the bus. The poor youngsters looked up inquiringly when honked at. But it could not be helped: the mothers were delegates to the monthly meeting of the Adult Delinquency Club. The subject that day was “How to Make the Streets Safer for Our Children.” The ones we can’t send to school. ---   Had a war up here last week. Not a cold war but a gas war. Saw several signs that had prices below 22 cents. ---   Had a card from Kenora up on the north end of Lake of the Woods last week. It was from Charley and Emma Smith, both 33rd degree fishermen. Charley worked for us for over 25 years: anybody that could work for us for over a quarter of a century has got to be good. ========================

October 3, 1957

  Is this the off season for juvenile delinquency? Does football take up the slack? ---   Comedians on TV are not going over so good. No wonder, some of those little commercial sketches furnish a lot of bright smart comedy. ---   Skipton is a quaint little town in Yorkshire, England, but the baker there has some young ideas. At the top of his big shop window is this sign, “Outstanding accounts: John Edgar L3-9-4 1/2,” meaning three pounds, nine shillings and four pence ha’penny, followed by three more outstanding accounts. The baker’s wife says it helps in collecting the small debts. She also added, “Some of our customers are very conscientious.” Wonder how it would work in this country. Would there be any window left the next morning? ---   Up at Mahtowa in Carlton county a new square dancing club was organized last week. The new president is Mrs. Einard Paulson and the secretary Mrs. Hulda Hall. Calling the old fashioned dances last night was Mrs. Carl Johnson. Don’t they even have men to dance with? ---   Noticed an ad in a Minneapolis paper last Sunday: Wall eyed Pike, 49 cents the pound. Northern Pike 45 cents. White Fish 59 cents and BUFFALO fish 45 cents. How the lowly buffalo has climbed up the ladder is hard to understand. They must have found a new way to cook it so it is palatable. ---   Detroit Lakes is another town that is interested in the liquor problem. A man got drunk in their municipal store. When he started to drive home he rammed a car owned by Dr. and Mrs. Rosenberger of Fargo, N.D. The doctor was killed and the wife lost a leg, and she wants the town to pay her a tidy sum. The town may have to add water to their stimulants. Another hundred thousand dollar verdict is going to set the insurance company back on their heels. Juries seem to feel more kindly to private operators than they do to municipalities. ---   Mrs. Ted Hill and Mrs. H. Hoppe of Pine River called on us last Tuesday. In the evening Mrs. Hill had as her guests the Forrests and Mrs. Annah Etnier at a dinner party at the Biltmore. Mrs. Hill is a former Slaytonite. She is the daughter of the late Bert Meyer and is a graduate of the Slayton High School. ---   Can’t get over this Biltmore. It was sumptuous but not swanky. It has a beautiful menu that makes any printer envy. There was something unusual about the dining room, you could feel it. We could not see a man, not a woman nervously smoking a cigaret. There were no uniformed waiters carrying trays loaded with glasses clinking with cocktails, highballs or fizzes. But we did see several families walk by, fathers and mothers with their youngsters, rather unusual in a place like the Biltmore. Our thought was, here’s one place that would rather cater to kids and help stem juvenile delinquency. Quite an experience. On the way out was a tiny showcase and in it was a box of cigars (they were three for a half). ---   Some nations are taking the Asiatic Flu calmly. Others are worried. Over in New Zealand some folks wanted to put a quarantine around the entire island. Some of you remember the Flu that covered the world in 1918. It was a deadly one and took the lives of over 15,000,000 people. ---   The winning of the national pennant does not bring joy and complete happiness to all the folks in Milwaukee. Some big business outfits are on the ragged edge trying to get tickets for their customers and their friends. Last year some of the big outfits were secretly glad that the pennant did not come to Milwaukee. ---   A Minneapolis jury awarded $45,000 damages last week because some workmen left some gas in a can. Kids got hold of it, threw it on a fire. We’ll soon have to revise the “Safety First” slogan. Make it “Safety First for Children First.” Minnesota juries are big hearted. ---   Looking as fresh as a daisy was 78 year old Perne Silvernale of Currie when he called on us Sunday night. He is of what you call pioneer stock, his grandfather coming to the county in 1868 settling in Shetek town. His grandfather, father and Perne owned the old flour waterwheel mill at Currie, and Perne has taken an active part not only in the development of Currie but the county as well. His home town, Currie, is the real historic center of the county. Long before the Curries came, Lake Shetek was well known on the frontier. Through what is now Currie passed trains of two hundred wagons bound for Fort Thompson, S. D. It waited here until a 200 detachment of soldiers arrived to guard it over the trackless prairies. There was a post office here in the early sixties as the mail route between New Ulm and Sioux Falls crossed the Des Moines at Currie. That must have been a job, carrying the mail in a buckboard over the section between Shetek and the Falls. All early records tell of Shetek. It was the crossway to the unknown west. There was not a white man in Pipestone County until fifteen years later. All this inspired John Silvernale, a son of Perne, to be historically inclined. He has been at the head of the Murray County Historical Society for years. He has been assisted by civic minded Mrs. Eva Roberts of Slayton. This couple has virtually kept the society going. We note the society is going to have a museum in Slayton. Do your bit to help them. It is your county as well as theirs. Perne on his visit last Sunday night was accompanied by his son-in-law, Don Sponster. ---   No matter what our political or civil rights conviction may be, one cannot help but have a feeling of pity for some of the white people in the south. The awful shadow that has been their dread for generations has fallen. What’s bred in the bone can’t get out of the flesh. Put yourself in their place. But it had to come. ---   We were sad when we read the deaths of Mrs. O. Posthuma and Heine Martensen last week. All sudden deaths are a tragedy and doubly so when it takes lives that are in their prime and usefulness. ---   Hard to realize by the American negro, the center of so much controversy, could have the most powerful political group in the world. If they would unite they could elect the President of the United States, the most powerful nation in the world. ========================

October 10, 1957

  Chemists have developed a new strain of corn that can be so processed that it can be used for spinning. The new material is called amylose and this new corn has eighty per cent of it. Quite a jump from Bourbon to shirts and skirts. You’ve heard the old expression, “I’ll eat my shirt.” That time is coming soon. ---   Prize fighters seem to have hypnotic power over the U.S. income tax bureau bunch. Here’s Joe Louis still owing over a million and Sugar Ray now over $500,000. Quite a big lump of interest on that kind of money. Just why Uncle Sam does not prod his collectors into getting into action is one of those $64 questions. If the farmer or the business man owed $10.00 the treasury sleuths would be spending $25.00 collecting it. ---   Gov. Faubus is doing a fine job of keeping the festering wounds open at Little Rock, Ark. Recently he said that Judge Davies was sent down from North Dakota with orders to squelch them, etc. Those southern officials always took pleasure in lambasting the north. Remember when Minnesota folks were trying to get statehood, how the south fought against it. Minnesota like every other state, county, etc. had lied or rather exaggerated the number of the population, but that did not bother them. As one Senator from Missouri said in the halls of Congress, “There may be in this territory Norwegians who cannot read one word of English. What a mockery, and what a trifling with sacred institutions it is to allow such people to go to the polls and vote.” What did the Norwegians do? After they quit saying “Gude Ogen” they entered politics. More Governors in Minnesota have Norwegian blood in them than any other nationality. More power to them. They started at the bottom. ---   Saw a Minnesota county seat weekly last week that did not have a grocery ad. It is something unusual in this day and age when 80 per cent of the county seat newspapers teem with page age ads. ---   Have heard a lot of people tell of how much cheaper you can live in California. Read a super ad in the Ridgecrest Independent, California. Tomatoes 10 cents a pound, potatoes $3.30 cwt. Coffee 96 cents, sweet corn 39 cents a doz., eggs 2 doz. for 89 cents, round steak 79 cents, smoked ham 57 cents. Not so much difference. In the Peoples Forum was a letter kicking on the electric rates. 80 days for a family of two old people, $44.41. ---   Happy were we to get a box of heather, the Bonnie Purple Heather of old Scotia from Mrs. Henry Rambosky formerly of Slayton but not of 233 Egbert St., Brighton, Colo. Thank you so much Mrs. Rambosky for this timely remembrance from the land of my birth. “Lang May Your Lum Reek.” ---   Close in apartments are being built in St. Paul. Some to be close enough so the renter can walk to work. The owners are trying to interest young couples who are “tired and weary” of doing the chores involved in a one family home. The record, “There’s No Place Like Home” is broken. It just don’t belong in this day and age. They may be right, but the young married woman that does not want a home is as rare as the little tot that does not love her dolly. What kind of women do we have anyway? Don’t any of them plan on raising juvenile delinquents? ---   Saw a young married woman this week who was wearing a fancy red apron trimmed in black. Across the front in four inch capital letters was, “TO HELL WITH HOUSEWORK.” So heady for the kids to tell letters when they start to school Several of the stores have a supply of aprons. ---   In the final analysis, we the white people who live in the north are the biggest hypocrites in the nation and you are one of them. We prate about civil rights and integration. We want the law enforced, yet if an average negro family would move into the house next door to us, we’d have our house for sale not the next but that same afternoon. How many of the Senators and Representatives who made the law would live in a house between negro families. “Consistency, Thou Art A Jewel.” Only exception is the small towns. The folks there do not seem to have any ill will against the colored race. ---   The Asiatic Flu continues its spread over the United States, by the millions. The public health service estimates that over 35 million people have had it so far. There are relatively few deaths. Mississippi was hit the worst, one in every ten suffered. There is a dearth of vaccine and the manufacturers say there will be a slight delay. Takes time to make the vaccine, the eggs must first be bought and then they take 15 days for a virus to become vaccine. The Flu seems to affect youths and young men the most. ---   Gov. Freeman got off the beam when he told flood stricken farmers what would be given them out of the disaster fund. Again it’s a case of the law, and the law does not agree with what the Governor told the flood victims. You should tell them you were wrong, Governor. ---   Saw where a man in Wisconsin was fined $250 for being drunk. Looking through the glass dimly we can see the day coming when a guy is arrested for drunkenness he will ask the Judge to make the bartender a codefendant, and the Judge may fine the bartender instead of the customer: might tend to restrain drunken driving. ---   Some towns left in Minnesota are still bone dry. Up at Argyle some of the friends of John Barleycorn wanted 3.2 beer on Sunday. They made so much noise that a special election was held. The vote was “Yes” 39, “No” 163. ---   Here’s an odd coincidence. While Judge Joseph Davies of North Dakota is down in Little Rock, Arkansas curbing people who are trying to violate federal law, the same thing was happening in his own state. The Federal Government has control of migratory water fowl and sets the day of the opening season. The North Dakota legislature last winter passed a law that would allow North Dakota citizens to hunt ducks in North Dakota three days before the day set by the U.S. government. When the North Dakota season opened last week there were 40 federal game wardens and two helicopters there to see that no hunting was done until the date set. Ten hunters were arrested and the rebellion of the favorite son was quelled. ---   Small local stores in the state of Washington are happy. The supers are now charging 10 cents for cashing checks. The little fellows feel that it will make a lot of people mad, but don’t be too sure. ---   Milton Sjuggerud of Chippewa Falls, Wis. was arrested last week charged with bigamy. He had two wives and eight children. He should either have his head examined or given the Medal of Honor for bravery. He was fined $500 and placed on probation. Whatever you might call him, he must be financially a genius. The judge should get an orchid. Sending the man to jail would mean two women and eight children for the county to support and after all it could be that the women should have their heads examined. ========================

October 17, 1957

  There are more tea drinkers in the world than coffee drinkers, and they will be happy to know that the price of tea will be cheaper. An exceptionally good crop this year has caused the Ceylon government to put a tax of 46 cents on every hundred pounds of tea to be used for advertising purposes. Tea trees grow to about twenty-five feet high but they are kept trimmed down to hedge height. The reason for this is that the tea leaves are picked by the Tamil women and they are short and stubby. It takes 300 pounds of green tea leaves to make one hundred pounds of dried tea. Black tea, the popular tea today, is produced by fermentation. Tea leaves run about 680 pounds to the acre. The best tea leaves are grown at an altitude of 6,300 feet. Three times as high as any spot in Minnesota. When we came to Murray County back in the 80’s you could not buy black tea: everybody drank the green. ---   Reading about the frog migrations we can’t forget one we had back in 1915. The slough just north of the lake in Lake Wilson had never been blessed with such an enormous crop. The highways were covered with their dead bodies and autos skidded and slid in a strip about six hundred feet long. George McCammon took over the job of frog catcher in this section. He made a fence of cloth 24 inches high on the north ban of the lake where the frogs were headed for. Then he dug pits two feet deep and two feet wide. When the frogs hit the fence they started going either way and the pits were running over several mornings. George had a big dipper and he transferred the frogs from the pits to wash tubs and with his pick up hauled them to an unused box car on the passing track. They were worth money then. Scads of people loved frog legs. Saw an ad in a sports magazine the other day, “Giant Bull Frogs” $10.00 a pair. They have legs on them as big as that of a leghorn broiler. If our local frogs had been as large, George would have been a millionaire and moved to California, which he did. The Giant Frogs are raised in Mississippi. You can get 100 young giant frogs for $15.00. ---   A lady editor, Mrs. Helen Kerr of the Sausalito News, won’t need to buy rouge for the rest of the year. She told her readers to turn their clocks “back” an hour “that” night. ---   Jimmy Hoffa, despised by the MacClellan and Kennedy committee was elected to take Dave Beck’s place as president of the Teamsters. So Dave is really back in the saddle again. Is the MacClellan committee solely for political purposes? ---   Faubus of Little Rock, Ark. considers himself crucified and compares himself to Robt. E. Lee. Here’s a better one than that. During the first World War there were many against it in Murray County. There was a safety commission in Murray Count as in every county. One man had been outspoken against the war and would not buy bonds, was brought before the commission on two different occasions. The last time he said, “You are persecuting me the same as they did Jesus Christ.” ---   Why all this up-to-do about sending a rocket to the moon. We remember well the attempts made and the lives lost in finding the North Pole, since it was found nobody wants it. ---   Time, the outstanding news magazine, is trying out a new stunt in six states. Time can be had at the newsstands for 15 cents a copy. This is what they call a temporary experiment. They call it that but some folks say it is slipping. ---   The five cent cup of coffee should be here soon. The major coffee roaster say they have reduced the price of coffee four times this year. The instant business folks did not follow the cut in price. ---   We’re pretty glad to know that the corn and soy beans in Murray County came through in pretty fair shape. These are times when the family income has to be assured. ---   Up on the Canadian line wet weather followed by three or four 75 degree days brought out a late crop of mosquitoes last week. They must be the snow mosquitoes. ---   There were many expressions of sympathy last week in the Home here for Dr. Buck, resident physician, in the death of his wife. Mrs. Buck had been blind for over forty years, took care of most of her house work but still found time and effort to aid many that were handicapped as she was: a life of darkness that brought cheer and hope to many. ---   The Centennial celebration committee got off to a fine start last week and if it does not achieve success it will not be the fault of the officers, as they are the pick of the crop. They are fortunate in living in Murray County as very few counties have the background of romance, adventure and history as Murray County. ---   Baseball fever was at a high pitch this year. Heard of Milwaukee fans paying as high as $30.00. In New York one tycoon paid $100 a seat for three choice seats. People gaped. Don’t worry: probably $900 meant no more to him than ninety cents would to you and me. ---   The jury in the Confidential film magazine trial disagreed at the ratio of 7 to 5. There were five women and seven men on the jury and the vote seems to express the opinions of the people of the U.S. This country isn’t going to the dogs. No matter how unreal it seems to be, many sober, straight laced women never turn down a juicy story, if they think the next door neighbor would not ever hear of it. She probably is doing vice versa. As for the men, a lot of men years ago carried verses of poems in their wallets that did not tell of flowers or landscapes. We feel like the morals of people are on the up and up and they don’t do those things in a spirit of downright meanness, but in the spirit of devilry. ---   The Braves won the Series last Thursday and enough beer was wasted that afternoon to raise Lake Michigan six feet. Joy was unconfined in the Suds City. In fact all the sport loving fans in the West were for the Braves. High schools are not the only one that got excited over sports. ---   A new state law went into effect in California a week or so ago, for drunken drivers. If you get too much aboard on your second trip the new law says the judge must add five days in jail. There’s another new law: the public defender says if a culprit donates a pint of blood he can have five days deducted from his sentence. If Minneapolis had this type of law it would need a silo as tall as the Foshay Tower as a reservoir. ---   Had a visit Sunday from Mr. and Mrs. Howard Green of Edina. Mrs. Green (Evelyn) is a daughter of Mrs. Axel Fresk of Slayton. We remember her father the late Axel Fresk. We played baseball together on Lake Wilson one year when the lake was as dry as a bone. When youth was at its height. Axel played his part in life well. Was interested in organizing three of the cooperative associations in western Murray County. He held the office of County Commissioner, was a charter member of the Farm Bureau. A worthwhile citizen. Mr. Green is with the Pillsbury folks and is a member of the Chanters of Zurah Temple. ========================

October 24, 1957

  Ingrid Bergman is suing for a divorce, so there must have been something in that Indian dame’s story after all. Poor Ingrid, lying with tears in her eyes that it was not us, while she knew better. “As you sow, so shall you reap.” But don’t feel sorry about Ingrid, she will draw bigger crowds than ever. We like that stuff. ---   The U.S. has told Hoffa that his election was illegal and that he must clean his skirts before he can take over. He has been accused of almost every crime imaginable for months, yet the policemen in Mankato, one of the conservative towns in the state, voted unanimously to join Hoffa’s Teamsters Union. Funny world isn’t it? Peace officers following men of the Hoffa type. ---   One would think when he reads the stories about beer running knee deep in Wisconsin that it was the real beer state. It just isn’t so. New York drinks ten million barrels a year, then comes Pennsylvania, then California. Wisconsin isn’t mentioned: it only makes beer. ---   In the world’s championship tractor plowing contest at Peebles, Ohio last week a man from Holland own first place, the second went to an Englishman and the third to a Finlander. The United States entry came in ninth Not a good showing from the land where tractor plowing got its start. ---   The brilliant success of the Milwaukee baseball team has set the sportsmen in the Twin Cities on edge. Now both St. Paul and Minneapolis are angling for any kind of a team, just so it’s major league. They never stop to think what could have happened if Milwaukee had occupied the cellar all summer. ---   It’s getting so it is as hard to boast in California as it is in Texas. Mill Valley claimed highest tax rate in the state, $9.05 on each assessed hundred dollars. Next week up comes Richmond in Contra County, says pardon us but our tax rate is $9.50 for every assessed hundred of valuation. There’s just as much sense in them boasting about taxes as there is in International Falls and Bemidji boasting about having the coldest town in the nation. Got so every time you hear the name Bemidji you start to shiver. Just don’t look like good advertising for Minnesota. ---   Some voters that do not like Benson for some of his policies did the brave manly act. Five the them threw eggs at him in Sioux Falls, S. D. Why don’t those criticizers of Benson throw eggs at their congressmen and senators? He is up there purely because they want him. A congress that can stop a $70 billion budge has the same power to hogtie Benson. If this egg throwing business is going to continue, the other guys will start throwing eggs at opposing speakers and the first thing you now we’ll have a Little Rock in the Nawth. ---   Here’s a word of comfort and grace for the despised and down trodden women that go by the name of gossipers. Mrs. John Dullin has a column in the Brainerd Dispatch called “The Farmer’s Wife.” Last week she wrote, “Why fuss so much about gossip? We talk about Hoffa, Dulles, Faubus, etc. many times a day. Why is it any worse to tell what your neighbor says or does if you tell the truth. If he (or she) is ashamed to have you retell it, he (or she) should not have done it. People are more interesting than weather.” P.S. The Roamer inserted the words ‘(or she)’ twice. She evidently forgot that some women have pasts just the same as some men. ---   Lemon growers have a new electronic gadget that does a wonderful job in sorting and picking lemons. Up to date the champion lemon picker was Mrs. Johanna Beasley of Cherry Creek, S.C. She has had five husbands and claims she picked a lemon every time. ---   Here’s a brand new one: it’s about adult delinquency. At Roseau, Carl Foss age 71 and his son Clifford have been feuding for years. To get even with his son this fall, the old gent strewed a fine 75 acre field of alsike (clover to some) with pieces of barb wire and all the little scraps of metal he could find. Clifford damaged his combine to the tune of $700 and he estimates the loss of the alsike will be around $4,000. They had to use army mine finders to pick up some of the junk. The old gent is in the Crookston jail, says he never felt better and isn’t a bit sorry. Evidently an old dog can still teach the young pups new tricks. ---   About the oddest law we can remember is this new flood disaster law. No one seems to have known anything about it, even the men who passed it. The law talked about so much is a conservation measure and was passed to aid all farms that had lost soil by erosion during flood periods. ---   Had an item last week about the Confidential magazine: it could be true. We notice the Saturday Evening Post is imitating Confidential in an amateurish way with an article on Queen Elizabeth. ---   A while back a suit against the city of Marshall for $55,000 for getting a man drunk was stalled. The judge set this action aside without prejudice, now this city is being sued for $80,000 by another member of the family involved in the first case. ---   Women continue to take the lead. Up near Perham a woman killed two deer, not with bow and arrow, shotgun or rifle. She ran into them with her car. ---   Sleepy Eye voted on a new charter a while back. It lost by seven votes. Six hundred and ten citizens turned out to vote. There were 369 for and 231 against. A majority of 60 per cent was needed to carry. ---   The Lions Club of Lamberton has a new way of making money and providing entertainment for the home folks. They got in a bunch of airplanes and a helicopter and give rides. Fare, a cent a pound: $1.50 is maximum for ladies. ---   We like to read the New Richmond, Wisconsin News. The editor, besides being a hot 33rd degree fan of the Milwaukee Braves writes with an elastic touch to his wrist. Here’s one of his recent items. “We are sure Evanston, Illinois had an excellent effect on us--a block from the Hotel Georgia we noticed a substantial looking edifice which happened to be the First Congregational Church of Evanston, and darned if we didn’t go to church Sunday morning. Probably the first time in 30 years. And that we considered enough to help the Braves win their ball game that afternoon, so we stayed in Evanston (sent our tickets on to Milwaukee with our daughter and her escort) and after the Braves went ahead 4-1 took a nap, only to be suddenly awakened with the bad news that it was all tied up 4-4 in the ninth inning and we stayed with the Braves through the 10th inning when they put the ball game on ice. Seems we got a lot out of the weekend. We oughtta go away oftener.” ---   An old and aged office, that of Justice of the Peace, is getting a shot in the arm from the autos. Nine out of ten cases these days are from auto speeders. Down at Windom where the catch is always good, the highway patrol men have a radar device that tells the story of the case. ---   Fairmont, perhaps the largest dry city in the state, is having saloon troubles. The council had a problem with over 500 names asking that the issue of an off sale license be voted on has draw a lot of fire. Letters to the editor indicate that they don’t want to be a stock holder in a municipal liquor saloon. ---   Sign of the times. Workmen with a cutting torch dismantled the railroad water tank at Sleepy Eye. This is the 50th water tank the group has wrecked in four years. ========================

October 31, 1957

  The worst enemy the cattle and hog raiser has is the chicken raiser. He has made wonderful inroads in the meat business. Years ago we used to get chickens on Sunday, when the preacher came or when we went to picnics. Now chicken is almost a daily diet at a lot of homes. The women like it as it comes all ready to put in the pan. There is 25 pounds of chicken raised this year for every man, woman and child. When you remember that there are 171,000,000 people here now and when you multiply that amount by twenty five you can get some idea what a place they take in the meat business. They have even shoved the price of turkeys down to twenty nine cents. Chickens are one thing you can eat before they are born and after they are dead. ---   Whither are we drifting or rather rushing? The Lincolns and the Fords will have 400 H.P. engines next year. Ain’t we killing enough now? ---   Although a week late here’s an orchid to Judge Nordstrom of Carlton. Officers had reports about teen-age beer parties at Barnum. They surrounded the house, found nothing but a quiet bunch of kids. Just as they were leaving, three cars drove up, filled with kids and beer. Three 18 year olds were arrested. The judge said there is no fine, but each of you will serve thirty days in jail. ---   We often wondered why municipal and county hospitals do not advertise. Some say they can’t do it on account of ethics. Never heard one of them object when injured people were taken there to have the name of the hospital mentioned. Churches advertise, why not hospitals: they both do a lot of good. ---   You’d never expect to read this in a Windom paper. In Police Court news Oct. 16th, Ruth W. Plantz was fined for driving after suspension, got $10.00 and costs. Daisy Mcelurray didn’t see the stop sign, she was pinched and fined $10.00 and costs, and Mrs. Warren Lecy could have bought a new pair of specs, she missed one stop sign. Her fine was the same as the others. ---   The Postal Men’s Association of Montevideo are protesting against the Milwaukee railroad for pulling off trains numbers five and six, saying it will deprive a lot of men of jobs. President Wiley of the road says the passenger traffic on their two main trains amounts to only 5 per cent of the operation of the trains. ---   No national political conventions will ever be hotter than the coming election at Sleepy Eye, on whether the city should sell its municipal power plant to the Northern States. The vote on a new charter was defeated by seven votes. What will it be on selling the plant? ---   Bing Crosby, age 53, married a gal last week that is 23 years old. Some day Bing will start singing, “Silver Threads Among The Gold,” and a voice will pipe up and say, “Speak for yourself, Bing.” Remember the bird in the gilded cage--”Her Beauty was Sold for an Old Man’s Gold.” ---   We never had any idea until last week that Carlton College was third in the nation, scholastically. We never had a thimble full of education and we’d rather see a boy of ours graduate from Carlton than make three touchdowns to the rousing cheers of thousands. ---   In story and in song the beach at Waikiki is perhaps the most famous beach in the world. It came near losing all its romance last week. The sand at the beach has gradually disappeared and sand had to be hauled in from nearby beaches. ---   Last week the Bergman woman was suing for divorce. This week they were hugging and kissing one another with the tempo of sixteeners: more advertising. ---   Had a pleasant trip last Sunday. Mr. and Mrs. Ted Hill wrote down from Pine River, saying they were taking us out to dinner. We rode down the valley of the Minnesota River all ablaze with orange and gold, the trees were at their best, a sort of funeral party for the closing year, then through South St. Paul, across the Mississippi River Valley and into Wisconsin to the valley of the St. Croix, where every tree was trying to outdo its neighbor. Then to Holcombs for dinner. One of those places with flowering potted plants, beautiful interior decorating, plush carpets, subdued music and steaks sizzling over charcoal. One thing we are not crazy about are those tray after tray of appetizers, that tend to keep you away from your main course. We notice they had frog legs. Wonderful meal. They brought us back through St. Paul past the places we lived in days gone by. Other guests were our daughter Lieut. Col. Nola Forrest, Rtd. and our grandson Robert III. We enjoyed every minute of it. ---   Things are in a bad way at Butte, Mont. The world seems to have an ample supply of copper, lead and zinc and the mines are closing. Things look bad for the miners but they are not throwing eggs at one another or at anyone. ---   When we were younger we knew some Norwegians that were always thirsty. We thought perhaps it was just a national trait. Clementine Paddleford does a piece about cooking in This Week magazine in the Sunday papers. She had heard of a boiled fish dinner put on by a Norwegian colony in Door County, Wis. and went to investigate. She gave the recipe for this fresh water lude fiske. She wrote, “They take 100 pounds of Lake Trout, 70 pounds of salt and 70 pounds of potatoes.” Do you wonder now, why they are thirsty? ---   See by the sporting sheets that a million American women have taken up the art of bowling. That’s more than have taken up the art of biscuit making: but we must have exercise. ---   Our biggest surplus on had this year is wheat. You and the rest of the folks in the U.S. have $13.40 worth of wheat on hand. ---   We had a village election here on Tuesday of last week. The booths were set up in the billiard room. Although we live out in the country we still belong to the village of Bloomington, which is the largest village in Minnesota. It has 42.9 square miles, so you can see it is larger than a township. This sprawling village has eight shopping centers and twenty-two voting centers. Few votes are cast by the residents of this Home but a number of nearby farmers vote here. There were no issues this election. Next election, look out. They are going either wet or dry. There were four women on the election board and one man. By the way, Bloomington has a population of over 40,000. ---   Here’s something for the farmers Argentina has a breed of corn that is corn borer resistant, but it’s pretty scrawny, so the experts are working to give it stronger stalks and a better yield. Another new corn will be out next year. It is a dwarf variety. The ears are only two feet from the ground. They say it will save a lot of corn from heavy fall winds. We remember in Cameron Township back in 1885 all the corn we raised was about a foot from the ground. ========================

November 7, 1957

  Women who live in timber sections say things clear and direct. Here’s an item from “Hits and Mits” in the Barnum Herald: “I hear the Commercial Club is again having their annual dinner. In think they’re a bunch of stinkers not to invite their wives. Up Cook way the men invite their wives or lady friends to a spring and fall dinner and social evening which they plan especially for them. I’m sure we gals would enjoy it. Of course we don’t have to cook dinner for the beasts that night, but ‘taint no vacation--there’s always the kids to feed anyhoo.” ---   The tornado season is over and we can’t remember of any lives being lost in Minnesota. All that was lost was thousands of hours of sleep to folks who were afraid they would miss the warning sirens. ---   One of the biggest little pig towns in Minnesota is Royalton. One day recently 2,600 pigs came to market there. Prices ranged from $11.50 for 20 to 25 pounders to $13.50 for up to 30 pounders. A lot of the pigs went to town buyers. The Little Pig day is quite a day. There were 171 sellers there that day. One hundred and seventy-one trucks and trailers: should boost business. ---   Christmas trees are in a class by themselves in Minnesota. You must have a permit to cut a tree on your own land and the taxes on the land must be paid before you start cutting. ---   Calling on us last Friday was Mrs. Margaret Fresk of Slayton and Mr. and Mrs. Frank Christie of Shakopee. We sure enjoyed their visit. ---   Pete and Mildred (Hanstrom) Kramer picked us up last Sunday afternoon for an auto ride. Pete took us up the east side of the river to where the Mississippi meets the Rum and then up to where it meets the Elk and then further north to the Big Lake section. We came home on the west side of the river. Saw a lot of farm land, some good, some bad, but n one of it compared to Murray county with its rich black soil. We stopped by the waters of Minnetonka for our dinner. We won’t have many more such delightful days like last Sunday. Mrs. Kramer taught school in Lake Wilson in years gone by. ---   On the other hand, there is Pleasanton in south Texas. The folks took a vote on integration. The result was 328 for and 88 against. The governor will not need to call out the militia. ---   Had a nice visit with Frank and Mary Keller of Slayton. Frank is deeply interested in the REA and has given that organization splendid service. By the way, we served over 30 years on the Murray County Fair Board with his father and him. We are the only one left of the men who had helped organize the county fair back in 1912. ---   The mayor of Sleepy Eye resigned Nov. 5th: could not see eye to eye with the council over the disposal of the city electrical plant. ---   Baseball is not the same kind of a game as football. Over in Milwaukee last summer when the Braves went sour the fans hanged the manager in effigy. In football, Minnesota sport writers and some fans start beefing at and belittling the players. ---   The motto “Safety First” should hand in one room in every home. Twenty-four more lives were lost in homes in the first six months in 1957 then there were in the same period last year. The bathroom is the most deadly room in the house. Better hang it there. ---   No, brethren, this country is not going broke--right away. It’s hard to believe, but the Ford company made its biggest gain in years in the third quarter of 1957. Last year the total sales came to $888 million. This year they were $1.4 billion, 37 per cent greater than a year ago. When buyers see these large amounts of money made by the “Big Three,” some day they are going to ask for lower priced cars or start buying foreign made cars. ---   The Minnesota state property tax levy last year was 9.15 mills. This year the levy will be 12.62 mills: the second highest in a hundred years, which will not bring many rounds of applause. ---   While we were gone Sunday Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Reynolds of Minneapolis called. Mrs. Reynolds was formerly Miss Ida Moen. Both were old timers from Lake Wilson. We’ve known them both since they were knee high. ---   One hundred years ago today the Minnesota Posten, first Swedish newspaper, was published at Red Wing. There were not enough Swedes here then, so it was merged with the “Hemlandet” in Chicago. ---   When you sell booze to teen agers you are accused of selling intoxicating liquor to minors. Not so with 3.2 beer. Evidently it is not intoxicating according to law: you are charged with selling 3.2 beer to minors. ---   Mrs. Ruth Olson has a column in the Moose Lake Gazette. She calls it, “As Yet Unclassified.” She feels she was classified last week when she got an unsigned letter containing a clipping of an article of hers on the hospital question. Across the clipping written in ink, “You poor, poor ignorant fool. Go back to pig raising.” Years ago, Mrs. Olson wrote letters to the Gazette when she disagreed with it, but she added she “always had the guts (pardon the expression)” to sign her name. Evidently7 there are several types of intestines in Moose Lake. ---   We were guests at a Halloween party at the home last Wednesday night. Want to tell you about it. The dining room was garbed with a Hallowe’en motif. Top number on the program was the Northwestern student nurses’ choir. It has a national reputation and deserves it. There are 48 members, and they were all here. A fine looking bunch, all dressed in white; smart looking and good singers. Should be an attractive place to go when you are ailing. Then there were the Rockettes from Roosevelt high school. Eighteen on the line and what a shapely group of youngsters they were. From Hopkins high came several pleasing numbers from the Girls Vocal Sextet. Debbie Johnson of Hopkins sang a solo. W. G. M. Grace Aker led the community sing. She has a lot of poise, grace and charm: we call it “It.” Seventy-five competed for the prizes in the costume contest. Then followed a lunch served by our visitors. A night worth while. Miss Barbara Lindsay of Slayton is a student member of the Northwestern. ========================

November 14, 1957

  while we talk glibly about Civil Rights and the Little Rock, Ark. case, we have not yet reached the other side of the problem. In the state of Alabama in the deep south, the counties of Macon Greene and Lowdnes have a population that is over eighty per cent negro which means that if the colored folks are given the same voting rights as the whites all offices will be filled by negroes, eventually all whites would have to evacuate and the property loss would be enormous. In Bullock County (74 per cent negro) only six out of 5,425 negroes are permitted to vote. The registration questions are tough, but not as tough as the oral questions asked you by some of the boards. Here are two that you can’t answer off hand. “What was the 14th state admitted to the union?” “How many members are there in the electoral college?” ---   It’s going to cost more to ride the Greyhound buses in the future. The company has asked for an increase in the minimum rate. At present it is 25 cents for under five miles. They want to raise it to 35 cents. It has no competition now. ---   If you feel like you would want to be a practical nurse, there’s a 12 months’ course in practical nursing at Gustavus College at St. Peter, starting January first. There always seems to be a need for practical nurses in every village and community. ---   The Minnesota Mining Company, manufacturers of Scotch Tape, has a new stain repellent. Put it on women’s dresses and stains of all kinds roll off like water off a duck’s back. Fruit juices, coffee, whiskey, but it never mentions gravy. What the human race really needs is something to keep stains off our character. ---   Lee Hendrickson age 36 of Carlton will have his nose on the grindstone for a long time. He was charged in district court with fathering three illegitimate children, and the county attorney is figuring up the costs way into the future. Lee will need an oil well, a nickel mine and a Bingo game to keep the pot boiling. ---   The State of Utah has gone a long way in cutting down divorces by passing a law that has a 90 day cooling off period before the divorce takes effect. Good law. Folks living in the cycle of today have short tempers, we say many things and do many things on the spur of the moment that we regret for years. If the young folks would only listen to their hearts and not to some busy bodies, things would be lots brighter. ---   Here are two changes in highway traffic laws suggested by experts. Red as a stop sign or light should be abolished. It is one of the poorest lights to see that there is. Yellow is the color seen the plainest by the naked eye, or even if you wear spectacles. Another good idea is one changing the stop sign to a triangular shape. That shape is not used in markers at present. At the present there’s so many different shapes and colors that drivers are often confused. ---   If you are one of those gals that participates in the weed that “brings you solace in time of woe and peace in the hush of the twilight,” a brake on those troublesome nerves of yours and you hate to give up those deadly lung cancer cigarets, manufacturers have provided you with another way to enjoy my Lady Nicotine. It is a dainty light weight pipe. It is neat, beautiful and you can stow it away in your purse. With it comes “My Lady” mild tobacco, specially blended for you in Holland. The pipes come in smart colors, cherry, jade, and navy. The pipe costs $1.98. The cuspidor you can find in the attic, or use the fire place or kitchen stove, but they are not out of the picture so you’ll have to try the sink until you get to be a seasoned smoker. ---   Here’s some sorrowful news. The swanky Esquire magazine of New York has for years published a calendar filled with pictures of the most shapely girls in the country in as little clothing as possible. It was a national pinup ground. There will be no calendar this season. Reason is, “Interest in girlie pictures has diminished.” The old men of today must be slipping. ---   There are still some kindly hearts left in the world. A Chicago woman shot her husband while asleep, with a bow and arrow. She could have used a revolver, she said, but did not want to wake the children. ---   Sears Roebuck Co. has been getting a lot of unsavory publicity of late. Sears did not believe in Union Labor and did everything possible against it, but never expected it would come out in the dirty linen of the U.S. Senate. ---   The sales plan added three more states to its number last year. There are not 37 states that get most of their tax revenue from the sales tax. In twelve states most of the taxes come from the income tax. Oregon leads. It gets over half of its taxes from the income tax. The take-home pay check must be slim. ---   A five mile bridge now unites the state of Michigan. Heretofore ferries carried all the business. They employed 450 men. The new bridge will only need fifty men, so four hundred are looking for jobs. Seems as if progress always hits the laboring man first. ---   Colorado Springs, Colo. has passed an ordinance taxing cigarets 1 cent a package. Why all this raising on tobacco and liquor? Why should they carry the load? Why not tax our virtues instead of our vices? Give the really good people a chance to help reduce the national debt. Seems passing strange that the virtuous folks are always willing to let the vice ridden people pay the bill. ---   We live in a peculiar place up here. We live in the village of Bloomington, a village of 40,000, yet all our mail is addressed to Minneapolis. Bloomington with its 40,000 votes only cast 6,890 votes last Tuesday. ---   The National Safety Council says if you travel at 75 miles an hour and have an accident there’s one chance in eight that you will be killed. If you travel 65 miles an hour there is only one chance in forty of your being killed if you have an accident. Keep your eye on the speedometer, if you want to keep looking. ---   Mrs. Ruth Hanson, whose name we inadvertently gave as Olson last week, is society editor for the Moose Lake Gazette. She has charge of the correspondents. She chided them a little last week. Said when neighbors called them with their news items, advise them that when Mrs. Beep Jones called on Mrs. Beep Smith when they live across the road from each other, is hardly to be called news. She asked them to limit their items to out of town visitors, parties, visits to distant points and items along that line: Ruth talks and writes plainly. ========================

November 21, 1957

  The misty soggy weather this fall is the worst in history for the corn and soy bean crop. This wet area covers most of the state and corn in many counties has a moisture content of 36 per cent. A fall of six inches of wet snow in Minnesota would be a real calamity. Let’s hope it will not happen. ---   There was a real hot election at Hanska this year. A man wanted to file for mayor but owing to some technicality the board would not accept his filing fee. That made some of the folks mad and they ran his wife in his place. You know what happened? She got 114 write-in votes while her main opponent got 81. Women seldom use their power at elections. ---   And talking about elections, here’s a good one. Up at Hallock there were 180 spoiled votes for trustee out of a total of 555 votes cast: looks like they need an election school up there. ---   The Packard is out again with a swell bunch of advertising of its new 1958 auto. The records state that only 27 Packards were made last week and 24 the week before. Up to date there have been 4,745 cars made this year. It might be a comeback for this once popular car. ---   The present football season has been the most depressing in many years. At the start of the season Warmath and Charley Johnson cut out a paper football team that was invincible, which started a wave of the odor of roses all over the state. What happened, you know full well. In the set ups it just laid its opponents out in rows. When it started playing real teams it wilted. The coach evidently tore out the chapter on forward passes and said, “Boys, you won’t need to know anything about them this year.” One afternoon two players from an opposing team made goo eight straight passes, that’s a record. Coaches plaster their breasts with medals until they are lopsided when the team wins. They should take the blame when it loses. ---   Now some leaders want to give all the surplus grain we have to Europe, free, even the shipping costs. For several years we have been sending tractors free to those folks, so the farmers could get on their feet: now the farmers over there will have a grain surplus. Great world, isn’t it? ---   No other device has done as much for the sport lover as TV. In baseball you sit behind the home plate and umpire the game. In football it is the same, you’re right on top of the ball all the time. If you bought a ticket and were seated at the far end of the Memorial Stadium, you wondered who was playing. You cheered when the crowd cheered and peered through the dusk. If you sat in the middle of the Stadium some yaps were always jumping up and cheering on every play and you saw nothing or heard nothing until the loud speakers came. We remember games at Northrup field back in the days when the players wore long hair and were called the Vikings. You waited until the paper came out to see who won and what the score was. What a grand thing it is to watch the games today, especially the pro games. They are as far ahead of the college games as the big league baseball is ahead of the American Association. ---   While we’re on sports remember one thing. It we had spent as much time and money on science as we have on sports in the U.S. the sky would be so full of Sputniks that snow couldn’t fall. ---   Another youngster from our old home town has done real well. Roger Miller, son of Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Miller, won a scholarship at Hamline last week. There’s been a lot of youngsters from Lake Wilson and vicinity that have gone out into the world the past two years. Few towns of its size have sent so many and we feel mighty proud of all of them. ---   Turkeys are so cheap this year that every family can afford one for Thanksgiving. We notice that the birds are selling in New York City for 39 cents a pound. The lowest price in history. ---   The Herald had a kindly tribute to Sever Johnson, an old friend of ours, last week. Many men in Murray County have achieved more than Sever, but none of them had a bigger or more friendly heart than Sever Johnson. ---   After Saturday’s game with Michigan State it would not be amiss to ask Mr. Warmath what size hat he wears. The coach of Michigan State is a gentleman and he cleared the bench down to the 4th stringers. Everybody had a chance except the kindergarten. ---   Willie Mays, famous Giant baseball star, bought a home in the upper ten district. The mayor and his wife entertained them. If a negro scientist had asked for a home in that section, all he would have gotten would be turned up noses. ---   The coffee growers are as bad off as they were last year, if not worse. Coffee growers will have 4 million bags that they don’t know what to do with. Total crop: 810 million bags. Progress is the cause. A new coffee tree was produced several years ago Instead of taking five years to raise coffee beans the new tree bears a crop in three years. South American countries are striving to keep the surplus off the market but there is always that pesky Africa. ---   The bitter fight over whose going to run the municipal plant at Sleepy Eye ended in a victory for keeping the local plant. We read columns on both sides. The councilmen who favored a change brought out this clincher. It was short and snappy and informative. “Not a dime that has been transferred to your city’s general fund that hasn’t been paid out for utility bonds.” Of course, they may have a very low rate. ---   In Minneapolis last week two St. Paul men got the works for drunken driving. Among other fines and jail sentences one man was fined $100 and thirty days in jail for driving with the other man’s license, and the other man got the same sentence for loaning him his license. That’s playing both ends against the middle. ---   When the Northern States Power Company lines went on the blink a short time back there was some chuckling in towns that have their own municipal plant. One of the editors told them not to be so gay. He said the same thing might happen to any plant, and what would the towns with their own plants do? It would take time to repair the damage, and what would they do for power and light, but also the small industrial plants. He suggested that it would be good insurance for towns with their own plants to build connections to a nearby power line as sort of an insurance. There’s a law of averages that is still working. ========================

November 28, 1957

  Advertisers in the early days were almost as extravagant in ads a hundred years ago as they are today. Rivers were the railroads in those days. The steamers were fighting for the trade on the Minnesota river from St. Paul through Mankato to Fort Ridgley. The ad for the Mindora, one of the steamers, said it was brand new and that in only draws 14 inches of water. Owners of the Equator claimed that their boat would only require a heavy dew. Both the above ads appeared in the St. Peter Courier on June 3, 1857. Seems strange that St. Peter had a newspaper before Murray county was born. ---   The Chicago North Western is asking the Railroad Commission to close 59 out of its 81 stations in South Dakota. This is the company that owns the Pipestone branch. This is a lot of telegraphers to throw out of jobs but if the company can get along without them you can’t blame the company. Another eastern railroad, the B & O has asked permission to abandon all passenger service between Baltimore, New York and Philadelphia. It runs 20 passenger trains into Philadelphia, and the end is not yet. ---   If interested, which we doubt, you might like to know that L. Nelson of Perham will pay thirty dollars a ton for medium sized trimmed rutabagas. He’ll come and get them he says. ---   For four weeks Sleepy Eye has been trying to give away $500, but when the lucky number comes up the unlucky guy is not there. ---   The passing of Mrs. Wm. Sabin in the western part of the county removes another of the pioneers. She came to the country with her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Uebersetzig in 1878. The family had a farm in Chanarambie township. We remember one fall when we were a youngster we helped Henry stack his grain, with a yoke of oxen. What a grand old man he was. Between loads he would set down and teach me German songs. We did not drive the oxen with Gee and Haw. Henry had broken them to drive with bridles. The late Mr. Sabin came from the Joe Sabin family which settled in the early days on the west side of Lake Shetek. Bill took a claim in Cameron township. Bill and Ally Gilfillan were two men that aided in the development of the county. They dug wells in the summer time, baled hay in the winter time and in the fall ran a threshing rig. They used a Case straw burner engine. It took a lot of straw to keep the engine going in the winter, as they often ran their machine until Christmas. Just a page from pioneer days. There are few pioneers left. ---   Those in the know say that congress will raise the postage rate on letters to four cents at the next session and that Ike will sign the postal raise bill. ---   There will be a third major political party at the next election. The South is distrustful of both Democrats and Republicans so it will form a party that it can trade with either of the old parties so as to hinder the work of enforcing the Civil Rights bill. Faubus would like to be a candidate but the South won’t have him: they want a man with brains. ---   The oldest Indian reservation and perhaps the only reservation in southern Minnesota is at Morton. There are still over 200 Indians living there now. Thirty-five years ago we remember when delegations from this tribe of Sioux used to come to the Murray County Fair at Slayton and put on scalp and war dances. Joe Carousal was one of the head men then. It takes more than Indians to give the folks a thrill in this day and age. ---   Did you notice that the members of the Notre Dame football team, after winning the game from Oklahoma, put Brennan the coach on their shoulders and carried him twice around the field. Evidently he must have taught them something about football. ---   Doctors and advanced medicine have added more years to the average life than anyone ever anticipated. In the last 15 years the diminishing death rate is astonishing. Dr. Goldman gave us figures that are hard to believe. The death rate from influenza has decreased 91 per cent, appendicitis went down 74 per cent, 60 percent from kidney troubles, tuberculosis 76 per cent and there are a lot of us over eighty that proves Dr. Goldman is telling the truth. He says this is the Golden Age in medicine. ---   If you would like a try at bear hunting go to the area around Baudette next year. Sixty bears were shot in that vicinity this year. That section is full of yellow clover. Grand for bees. Bee man says that is why there are so many bear. They tip over a hive and sit down and enjoy the honey and pay no attention to the angry bees. One of the bears weighed over four hundred pounds. We remember eating bear meat at the Doc Christianson home. It was oily and greasy. Went down slick. Came up just as easy on some of the boys. ---   The story is out that the DFL and the Republicans are going after congresswoman Coya Knutson’s job. Coya raised quite a fuss at the last primary. She would not take orders and Senator Kefauver came all the way from Tennessee to straighten things out. No doubt Coya will have Kefauver come again. It will be interesting to see two presidential candidates in a skirmish in Minnesota. ---   It looks about time for Ezra Benson to start packing his grip. The longer he stays in the cabinet the worse off his party will be. He may be right, but the farmers don’t seem to want anything to do with his program Taking his family along on a plane flight to Europe was bad. He should have said when he left that he was going to pay for his family but he didn’t. Never said a word till a nosy newspaper man asked him. Little things that don’t amount to anything is what spread like a tumbleweed. ---   The agitation for a new reapportionment for the coming legislature continues. The suggested plan is that the senate districts remain as they are and that members of the lower house be elected according to population: a legislature duplicating the U.S. Congress can’t be far wrong. ---   Something every county has to face in this day and age is the care of the aged. These added years of life bring additional care from nation, state and county. We notice one county bought an old hospital and will fit it up as a home for the aged. Another town is selling rooms as high as $5,000 a room. Home for the aged of any type must provide continuous nursing care until death, if it is going to be a benefit for the old folks. Six or eight counties should either build or rent a nursing home. It’s coming just as sure as fate. ---   There are still a few economical women in South Carolina. A fisherman stumbled onto a clearing on a hillside. Over in front of the corn crib he saw a man and a bear in death grips. Over on the rickety porch sat a woman, peaked looking woman. He said, “Why don’t you shoot?” She answered timidly, “Waiting to see if the bear will save me the trouble.” ========================

December 5, 1957

  No wonder the big city politicians are interested in the negro vote. Ebony, one of the negro magazines, has a circulation of 447,000. ---   The little country of New Zealand has surpassed the world when it comes to planting trees. Its hand planted tree lot covers 350,000 acres. The lot was started back in 1925. A fast growing pine called Radiata is used exclusively and results are amazing. An annual crop of 23 million cubic feet is assured. Fancy fifteen townships planted in rows of trees. The new paper mill cost over $35 million. Where is the Minnesota man-made forest. ---   In New Jersey it is unlawful for children to say grace at school lunches. More than that they can’t even stand still for a few minutes, as the supreme court has held that is for the purpose of saying a silent grace. The supreme court has also held that the Lord’s Prayer and the Old Testament are not sectarian. The same state has a law requiring school to open with five verses from the Old Testament, with no comment. You’ve got to get away from home to get the news. ---   Women are beginning to smell better Remember years ago when they used Lifebuoy soap, it helped but the odor was about as bad as the odor. Today there are eight soap manufacturers making fragrant soaps that cover up the odor of bacteria, that’s what makes the odor. Anyway over 2 percent of the bar soap made is deodorant and the country looks like it and smells like it. P.S.: some folks have never heard of it. ---   Members of the Blue Cross are facing a stiff increase in rates. This is the largest organization of its kind in the country, not the largest single company of its kind as the Blue Cross consists of 85 small and large groups. The entire group is handled by the “Associate Hospital Service of New York,” and last week this management group is asking that the present rates of the Blue Cross be raised 40 per cent. The raise for similar groups in Canada runs from 10 to 60 per cent. The raise is to be expected. What hasn’t gone up? ---   Down in Texas last week a woman went into a doctor’s office and wanted to know if she had diabetes. The doctor told his nurse to give her a certain medicine. The nurse grabbed a bottle and gave the medicine. It proved to be deadly poison. The woman died in ten minutes. They claimed the death was accidental. It was not accidental. It was caused by pure negligence and she should be punished by a jail sentence as a lesson to others as well as herself. Hundreds of lives are lost in this manner which could easily be avoided. Whoever has the authority should pass a regulation, order or law which would provide that all deadly poisons should be contained only in three-cornered bottles. If they come into common use, people would feel instinctively that they were on dangerous ground. ---   Send food to all of Europe is the cry of some that want to get rid of the surpluses. We’ve been doing that for years and when they pull the teats out of their mouths they start sulking. Fill the average man in Europe full of food. Why should he work. ---   Charlie Johnson, sport man in Minneapolis Star, is exploding all over himself about football and is using sale bill type to do it, but he did not dent the line an inch. ---   Wasn’t it Solomon that said the crowning beauty of woman is in her hair. Some Chicago males evidently misread him as they are paying $7.50 for nifty hair “does” and we suppose they will smell like a cake factory. ---   You’d think that depot agents were noxious weeds. The Minneapolis and St. Louis have a new plan. It consolidates two depots under the charge of one agent. ---   During the flu, a druggist in Ohio got a big table, put it in the middle of the room and filled it well with all kinds of flu and cold remedies and threw in a lot of vitamins. The customers came in and browsed and the sale was twice as large as they expected. Some folks never read about a new medicine without trying it: when we get old, we all imagine we have something. ---   Everybody at one time or another has held some old coins or collected them, as a real hobby. They are soaring in value these times. Age does not make much difference in the price of coins. You can get a coin that was minted long before Christ was born, to be exact 2,300 years ago, for $1. It is a Greek drachma. While a 1914 U.S. penny will bring $170 if in a perfect state. If old it will bring $5. One of the highest priced coins is a $3 gold piece minted in 1870: it is said to be worth $50,000. Coins are like corn, soy beans and even hogs, it’s the scarcity that makes prices. ---   Thank the Lord for families. We were invited out to a good old Thanksgiving dinner at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Ray D. Elias, 519 W. 50th. Among the guests were Mr. and Mrs. Braemmer and son Dick of Minneapolis, old friends of the Elias’ from Worthington. Our granddaughter Miss Kae Elias, a student at the St. Barnabas hospital, and granddaughter Peggy Jean a freshman at Washburn, and Miss Nola Forrest. ---   Who was the first settler in Murray county? When did he buy the first land from the government, is an interesting piece of news. John Wright was the first man to be issued a patent from the federal government in Murray county. On June 9th, 1862 (two months before the Indian outbreak) Wright made a declaratory statement, No. 17644 under the Preemption act of 1841, claiming that he had settled on Lots 1 through 6 of Section 1, Township 107, Range 41 (which is now in Mason township) on Dec. 6th, 1861. Wright purchased this land with Military Bounty Land Warrant No 104,132 for 160 acres under the act of 1865. He had bought this warrant from Julia Upham, widow of Silas Upham, a veteran of the War of 1812, on Nov. 25, 1861. This land was patented to Wright on January 20, 1866. The Homestead Law did not go into effect until May 20, 1862. The earliest Homestead in the county was filed by Wm. Duley on April 27, 1863 (No. 312) for lots 2, 3, and 4, Section 6, Township 107, Range 40, which is now in Shetek township. Minnesota can never forget Duley. He was the man that ended the 38 Indians at Mankato December 26, 1862.
  The Wright farm is now occupied by George Rauenhorst, C. M. Speer, Olaf Hubbard and others, and the first Homestead by the Shetek State Park and Pearl Hudson. ---   Wright was not at the settlement when the massacre took place. Duley was, but left during the night. Mrs. Duley and Mrs. Wright were taken prisoners but were released later. While there were settlers in the county in the late fifties they merely held squatters rights. The surveying of these townships did not start until 1861. ========================

December 12, 1957

  A writer says in an article that the big soup makers still pare the onions, carrots, etc. with a hand paring knife. That’s nothing. U.S. mail men still sort your letters by hand as they did over a hundred years ago. ---   The hundred Mormons of Pipestone have completed their new $27,000 church. Mormon missionaries used to visit Murray county over fifty years ago. They traveled in pairs and what fine gentlemanly young fellows they were. They had to travel two years for their church. They would stop wherever night overtook them. The women folks will not forget them. They would carry in wood, water, etc., and do the handy things around the house, the niceties they saw so few of in those days. One of the members of the Pipestone church drives 80 miles to church. Minnesota has had a colony of Mormons at old Clitherall in Otter Tail county for the last ninety-two years. ---   Bad weather hit the Kittson county fair. It went in the hole $4,000 and this is the second year in succession. What makes it tough is that it is not county owned and naturally the stock holders are worried. It will try to sell more stock; selling that much stock in a county looks like a tough job. ---   Noticed a lot of pictures of girls in a magazine. They are called pin-up girls: some of them must be for the dart shooting. ---   Read an article in the Hutchinson Leader last week about building Homes for the Aged. Trouble is all those Homes for the Aged, Sunset Homes, etc., stop where they should really begin. Old age doesn’t begin at eighty or thereabouts. It begins when you get ready for the hospital. That’s where the costs come in. Saying a resident nurse will be in attendance is all right as far as it goes but when the patients need night and day treatment that’s different. The hospital costs are mounting every day. One mid-west Blue Cross official said that by 1967 the cost would be $42 a day. The Blue Cross has fifty million members. It covers all hospital bills including surgery. ---   Whatever you do this year, gals, send common-sense Christmas cards. Send cards of normal size that can be easily handled and tied by the postal men. Don’t send long slim ones, round ones, triangular ones or cut outs. They bring many a muttered cuss word from the overworked mail workers. Put a 3 cent stamp on the letter with your name on the back, then you will known whether your friend got it or not. During your lifetime, my dear lassie, many of those Christmas cards of yours have been burned because they had no return on them. Of course you don’t care much, the fact is you don’t want to send a lot of them anyway. The Joneses do it and you think you have to. Whatever you do, add just a personal line on their cards. Little things like “How’s the new baby?” “Would just love to see you again,” “Those kids of yours must be nearly men by now,” etc. A little note like that will make a card more cherished, and you’ll both be more happy. We would like to write on your card, “A healthy Christmas from the Roamer and thank you for reading the column.” ---   Mr. and Mrs. Mike Plut of Maple Island, Lake Shetek, where they have a beautiful home, stopped for a short visit last Wednesday. They had been over to the game and fish dept. and stopped in on their way to Minneapolis. We took them through the building, etc. They like it. Mike has been rough fishing at Lake Hendricks, got about 100,000 pounds and ships them to Spirit Lake, Iowa, which is a distribution point. The fish get there alive. Mike was saying they have a new hospital at Hendricks and are using the old hospital as a nursing home. That’s showing a lot of good sense. ---   Don’t hate anybody. It doesn’t pay. They don’t know they are being hated and all the harvest you’ll get is a good crop of dancing lilies that overworked stomach of yours. ---   Slow auto drivers in California that held up traffic must drive into designated turn offs to let faster cars go by. Good law. ---   If you had wild rice for dinner Thanksgiving, you fed far up on the hog. Minnesota wild rice sold in Chicago that day for $3.00 a pound. The weather was unfavorable this year, the yield down and the law of supply and demand took over. ---   Last season the Ford output kept ahead of the Chevrolet all season long. This season it was thought that the Edsel would keep up the pace but it has fallen, especially in New York where the biggest dealer surrendered his contract last week. They didn’t move fast enough. This month the G.M. has the ball. ---   Straws show the way the wind blows. Over at Fairmont the council worked early and late for the opening of its new off-sale booze joint. It’s going to be modern when it comes to service. When men go into a joint of this kind they buy a bottle, stick it in their hip pockets and try to walk out unconcernedly. Over at Fairmont the council has a fleet of those basket carts you see in the super markets. Men don’t know how to use those things. ---   Nice young lamb carcasses are bringing $48.00 a cwt., a raise of $10.00 in a year. Price cuts no figure on eatables if they are choice. ---   Adlai Stevenson does not choose to go with the Republicans to Europe on the NATO meeting. Don’t blame him. He does not agree, naturally, with the Republicans on all the problems. ---   A man who lives close by told us yesterday that he had been downtown and while passing Donaldson’s he met a good looking young dame. He thought he knew her and said, “Good morning, how are you feeling?” She turned her head and said briskly, “All right, any other questions?” His feet were traveling faster than his head, he said, and before he got far he felt how rude he had been not to answer, and what he should have said, not wanting to come at the problem from the Ann Landers or Abigail angle and not knowing much about affairs of this kind. We told him if she ever asks again, hold up your head proudly and ask, “How’s your mother?” You’ll be on the safe side. ---   Mr. and Mrs A. E. Reha drove over from St. Peter Sunday and spent the afternoon with us. We’ve known them both since they were kids and as Al and we had made fishing trips along the North Shore, up the Gun Flint Trail and to old Leech we had plenty to talk over. So did the women. Al was telling me that David, his grandson, Byron’s boy, is getting along fine. David only weighed 2 pounds and 2 ounces when he entered this world. He now weights 15 pounds. Al is still with Hubbard & Palmer and says both soy beans and corn are hit with the wet weather. Funny how many things one can remember when two old cronies get together. ---   The voters at St. Louis Park voted school bonds to the tune of $2,325,000 for a junior high last week. An indoor heated swimming pool bond for $100,000 was voted down. The vote on a butler was postponed until next year. ========================

December 19, 1957

  The soy beans of the north are playing heck with the south wen it comes to vegetable oil. Soy bean oil can be made cheaper than cottonseed oil and is outselling cotton seed oil in larger quantities as the years go by. ---   The long expected blow has struck and telegraphers, that is about fifty of them, on the Northwestern and Omaha will be looking for jobs soon. The North Western has asked for permission to close about fifty stations, or rather consolidate 93 one-man stations into 39 centralized posts. This is one of the changes in the Northwestern. Of course it went to the extreme when it stated agents at some points work only 16 per cent of the time and some work a whole week at points only served by trains once a week. Towns will get up and howl, Why? The businessmen or people never patronized them anyway. ---   Sorry we did not tell you sooner but there is a place in Dundee, Illinois where you can get almost 4 pounds of smoked Cornish hens for $8.95. A 10 pound smoked ham at $12.95. If you want two pheasants, they’re yours all dressed for $12.00. Then there is a place in Chicago where you can get steaks (raw that is) for $6.50 a pound, or you can get a fifty pound chest of beef for $75.00 and they cheerfully pay the freight. ---   Mothers, here’s that accident that you always worry about that could happen to yours. A 2 1/2 year old son of Mr. and Mrs. Glen Well of Blue Earth was found with the stub of a lead pencil sticking out of his right eye. No one knows how it got there but it had gone through the eyeball and into the head to the depth of two inches. This is a warning for fathers and mothers. They cannot be too careful with sharp pointed instruments in the home. Shotguns and revolvers are not the only dangerous weapons about the house. Hopes are entertained that the baby will not lose his eyesight. A sort of miracle. ---   Our youngest grandson, Robert Forrest III visited us last Sunday and with him was Miss Janet Willemssen of Worthington. They seemed very happy and so did we when we noticed the pretty engagement ring Janet was wearing. Both of them are attending the University. Janet who used to be with the Worthington Globe is taking journalism. We feel proud of the new addition. Peggy Jean Elias was along as chaperone. Doesn’t youth always bring joy to old people. We dream dreams and see visions of the days that were. ---   Chicken raisers in the east besides playing havoc in their own ranks are making a dent in the sale of steak and pork chops. Last week broilers were selling for 16 cents a pound in the Murrayland producing area. Another new chicken stunt is the placing of egg vending machines at gas stations and other places along the highway. You drive up, slip your coins, pick up a dozen of eggs, thereby saving about 20 per cent of the prices in the city. ---   Notice that Herbert Johnson was elected to a three-year term on the Farm Credit board of St. Paul. You don’t get elected to jobs like this just because your name is Johnson. You’ve got to have ability and Herb has it, which is shown by the many positions of influence and trust he has held. There are a hundred and fifty-two farm organizations in this farm group that elected Herb. ---   Ramsey county, the home of the state capitol, is a poor place for Cupid to live. Looks as if every third marriage went on the rocks. At least the figure in November showed 63 divorces and 172 weddings. Don’t look good. ---   Waupan, a city of 7,000 and Berlin, another town of 4,500 in Wisconsin have lost their movie theatres and some people are saying, “It’s a trend of the times.” It’s not. It’s because folks have lost their sense of loyalty to the town they live in. They forget that movies are a part of the real attractions of the town. They bring thousands of people to your town that would not come if it were not for the movies. A lot of people spend money somewhere and they won’t spend money unless they come to your town. This is no time for jealousy or back biting no matter how small your town is. Close up your ranks. What is true of movies is true of other lines. ---   If you’re going to build next year, here’s a hint. Cement is going up 15 cents a barrel. ---   While your heart is full of gladness with Christmas cheer for those impatient youngsters of yours, won’t you stop just a minute and look at the other side of the picture: the retarded child whose life will never begin and never end. Those haunting pitiful eyes you carry with you for weeks after your visit. Won’t you remember them this Christmas if you can? Send a dollar or a half a dollar to Supt. Thune of the Home for Retarded Children at Shakopee, Minn. They love toys, but some of them in the past have had iron, tin and wood in them that brought injuries. The Home buys rubber and cloth toys with your money. There is no restriction at the Home as to race and creed. All the requirement is that you need care and help. How those youngsters will enjoy the toys and y our heart will enjoy giving to those babies; and you’ll thank God for his kindness to you and yours. ---   In a corridor last Monday we met a gentleman. We nodded and said, “Good Morning.” He asked, “Where are you from?” We told him Murray county and a huge smile enveloped his face. “I lived there for 18 years, going there when I was two years old. I went to Sunday School in the old Sillerud church when Rev. Almen was pastor.” We talked of the old timers, one would mention one and then the other. We served on the county fair board with Fred Norwood, John Miller and Ed Swenson, knew a lot of their friends so we did our stint, even going back as far as Axel Lagerwall. We even reached out and thought up and American name, Harry Tate, another of the Skandia township boys made good. After leaving Skandia he went to Minneapolis, where he was assistant cashier at the First National Bank until his retirement. His name is David L. Johnson, lives at 3834 Inglewood. He has many relatives in Balaton and Skandia. Has a brother in Balaton. One of his nieces Violet Hillquist married Arch Engebretson of Hadley. We’ve known Arch ever since he was a yearling. ========================

December 26, 1957

  Australia will ship 4,700,000 No. 2 bales of wool this year. The price is off a tuppence and there is woe Down Under. If they don’t eat more mutton down there than we do in Minnesota one wonders what becomes of all the mutton. ---   These big fat ganders you see once in a while around the farm yards are on their way out. They have got to go to a slenderizing parlor and trim like some humans. Goal is a goose that weights around 12 to 16 pounds. The old type took up too much room in the refrigerator and besides, you can get a better left over in cans. ---   A big coal concern in the east is now shipping its coal 108 miles by water. Not on top but through a huge pipe. It is called slurrying. Coal is ground to needed size and poured into the pipe where it is pumped the 108 miles. Those poor railroads. ---   Back in the good old days everybody on the farm had several rows of popcorn. We were not choosy as to variety. It’s different now The yellow type gets the best price. It is quoted now at $8.50 a hundredweight. Bad floods in the east sent the price $1.75 above last year. ---   The cigaret folks have a new scientist on their trail. This man asserts that the cigaret smoker gets more tar than ever with his or rather her cigaret smoke. The new filters allow the makers to use the stems of the leaves and the dust. Young women should be allowed to smoke as they did their part in advertising tobacco. Back in 1619 ninety young English women wanting a man or wanting to see the world sold themselves to come to Virginia. They advertised themselves as “agreeable persons and incorrupt” and in 1621 sixty more maids who claimed to be “of virtuous education and young and handsome” came to Jamestown, Va. which was then plum daft about tobacco. They planted it everywhere, even in the cemeteries. The girls were put up at auction and the first batch of females sold for 120 pounds of tobacco. The second bunch bringing 150 pounds. At that time preachers were also paid in tobacco. One got as high as 1500 pounds a year. ---   The lowest type of moron in the state can be found in the beautiful and big hearted town of Grand Marais. This top member of depraved humans took an axe and chopped the big Christmas tree to bits. It was the first community tree in years. Sad that we have people of that type in this world, but remember how many good people there are. ---   Austin came out ahead in its swimming suit. A man went out on the springboard one summer day and without looking dove into the water. He hit a man below the surface. He was not hurt but the man that dived was seriously injured and to make it worse has several children. We’re all sorry for him, but isn’t it time that cities, villages and big concerns don’t have to be wet nurses for every one that does not look out for himself. The big word lawyer just didn’t have enough on the ball. ---   Both the Democrats and the Republicans are to blame for our laxness in satellites. Folks fifteen years ago thought that scientists were not all there and all we’d ever get out of the moon was a song or two. Einstein, boss scientist, was better known to the average man and woman for his crazy looks than for his brilliant brain. ---   Woman has done it again. This time one of them has eclipsed Tommy Manville. Bealy O’Malley, 48 years old, last week took her 14th marriage vow to love and cherish a certain man as long as she lived. She had a hard time in gaining top honors in this imitation prize ring. Since her first trip up, her nose has been broken five times and it wasn’t for running against door jambs. Her new book, that is if she writes one, should sell as well and contain as much information as Dr. Kinsey’s. ---   Those four escapees who got away from St. Cloud Reformatory is a striking testimonial of the cleverness and efficiency in which our officials acts. They are going to break out again, even if they have to k ill some one. That they bought the saw blades is probably true. If you have enough you can buy anything you want except one thing: “YOUTH.” ---   An orchid this week for the people of Moses Lake. The state has a hospital there for mentally retarded. The people of that town seem to regard it as a sacred trust when it comes to comforting the patients, and keep them supplied with the little things that mean so much. After they are cured they continue to send them cards and gifts. There is no organ in the hospital and those self-sacrificing women of Moose Lake are raising a fund to get one. They hold bake sales, give lunches and do anything to raise money for the fund. They have over $740 in the fund. The last legislature appropriated a million dollars to observe the centennial of the state, a project that is sagging in the middle and both ends. Some of this appropriation could better have gone for this organ which will be a thing of joy and comfort to so many. Again we salute you good folks of Moose Lake. No, we don’t know a soul in Moose Lake, but have been reading of these people in the locals of the Moose Lake Star Gazette. ---   This is our first Christmas at the home and we want to tell you a little about it. For the last two weeks the Christmas spirit has been so thick around here that you could cut it with a butter knife. There were carol singer groups from cities, schools, church, independents, Girl Scouts and then a group of Boy Scouts. God Love Them. What a bright snappy bunch they were with twinkling eager eyes, faces that just shone--reminding us oldsters what Ma could do with Lennox soap. The big day, the climax came on Thursday afternoon when Zurah Temple strutted its stuff. Old hands at the business, they put on a real show that shone with professional and amateur talent. They had interesting dance numbers, music both vocal and the other kind. Acrobatics, magicians, and an M.C. who was big league stuff and a Santa Claus who had been here before. Human nature is not as bad as some say it is, when a group of men will leave their business for an afternoon to ease the going of those who are nearing the place where the Twilight and Dark meet.
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