Schedule a reunion and they will come. A Govert reunion. No one would miss this reunion. No one. Not Howard Jacobs. Not Charles and Zee Laflin. Not Mitch and Nikla Kulisich. Not Forrester and Louise West. Not Nick Lale. Not the Giese sisters or the Hafner brothers. Not Smokey Joe. Not Gus Toble. Not Theodore Vogt or his brother, Ernest. Not Evaline West or her sisters, Alice Mae or Shirley Jean. Not Marie Kulisich.
No one would miss this reunion. Not Govert Van der Boom. Not his wife, Emma. Not his sons, Virgil, Gordon, or Roger. If a reunion could roust the founding family of Govert from the grave, why would other Goverites hesitate to break a path back to Govert, South Dakota, back to the beginning?
No one would want to miss this reunion ... a reunion where every man, woman, and child bearing allegiance to Govert, South Dakota, would gather to share the stories of their lives.
Schedule a reunion and they will come.
They appeared over the horizon from every direction, these former neighbors. From North Dakota by way of Buffalo and Reva, crossing the Slim Buttes. From the west, leaving sunny homes where they retreated in retirement after years of buffeting by the icy Harding County wind. From the south, joining other reunion travelers northward by way of Rapid City and Belle Fourche and Newell. From eastern states they came, crossing the Missouri River to reach the prairie lands rolling away from the western bank.
They came hunched over from days astride the back of a horse, or bumping along in buckboards, rattling in carts, cruising in the relative comfort of a Model T or a Model A. They came perched on tractors and harvesters, roaring on motorcycles, cruising on bikes, and and peddling tricycles, little legs pumping hard. And some arrived footsore. But no one was going to miss this reunion.
Charles Laflin's wagon came into sight first, Govert newspaperman and booster, eager to gather again those he once rallied into community. Just then appeared Mitch and Nikla Kulisich in their Chevy, wheels flattening the prairie grass, small particles of soil rising behind them as dust. Forrester and Louise West pulled up alongside in their '39 Ford pickup truck. Gustav Toble, eating the dust of the Ford and Chevy, while raising his own, watched for familiar landmarks over the backs of the mule team straining against the weight of the wagon, the wheels turning, turning, over the prairie grasses, returning Gus to the place that gladdened and saddened his heart, toward the town that gave him a place to be during the Depression years.
Look! Do you see Howard Jacobs who, together with Govert Van der Boom, founded the prairie crossroads town of Govert? He's there - look - over there to the west - his buggy rolling sedately toward the Govert Store, Laura Belle sitting elegantly at Howard's side on the leather seat.
A 9-year-old Howard Jensen appears riding bareback, his lips pressed together insistently, his mouth watering at the thought of the chocolate and caramel candy bar he would buy on his father's account at the Govert Store.
The Hafners arrive as they did in 1913 from the east, in two covered wagons, trailing a herd of cattle and a herd of sorrel horses with startling blonde manes. Ollie Nelson, on horseback, joined his friends Peter and William as the three maneuver the herds forward toward Govert. Peter's wife, Clara, and Clara's sister, Lora Giese, reins in hand, pointed the teams and wagons toward Govert, eager to return to the place they raised their families.
And there's Dina Olthoff, looking uncomfortable sitting astride a white horse, still wearing the heavy Dutch dress she safeguarded on the ocean voyage from Holland, a dress better worn sidesaddle. Peter Rosenthal rides the black horse beside Dina ... Petrus ...the reason Dientjie made the journey to New York by ship, and then west to South Dakota by train.
Schoolmarm Dixie Blomberg sits lightly, trusting her horse to pick his way across the prairie, Dixie's eyes skimming the prairie grasses for the hint of purple of the prairie lilies. The schoolchildren abandon their game of tag, tearing across the gumbo flat, shirts and skirts flapping. Miss Blomberg! Miss Blomberg! Dixie pauses, surprised to see the small up-tilted ovals, eager, full of smiles and dirt smudges, the children, her children, clustering around her, drawing her back into their lives.
The matronly figure of a woman in a floral-patterned house dress, apron askew in the breeze, walks briskly from east of the Govert Store. As the distance closes, the Van der Boom boys run out to greet their aunt, Lydia Gee, and to get a better look at the two deep-green watermelons their cousins, Melvin and Russell, lug to the reunion feast. That this was not the season for harvesting watermelon gives them no cause for concern.
Schedule a reunion and they will come.
They come from the years leading up to 1909, when open range ranchers, and squatters, and then homesteaders claimed the prairie. They come from the 1910's and the 1920's when Govert was full of hope, and growth still seemed possible. They come from the '30s and 40's when only the very hardy dared to remain on the prairie. And they come from the 1960s when Elizabeth Marty May, now a member of the South Dakota House of Representatives, was a schoolgirl at the Govert School. The Brinks are there. Howard Jensen's son, Doug, is there. Everyone is at Govert for the reunion.
These are the homesteaders, the farmers, the ranchers who made their lives in and near Govert Township. These are the farm hands who stayed for a season or two, like Cornelius Kraatzenbrink ... and the families who left before the census taker ever knocked at their door, like the Putmans. These are the men, women, and children who felt the embrace of the Govert community.
As familiar faces and forms streamed over the horizon, Govert Van der Boom fidgets in the doorway of the Govert Store bestowing his bright smile on the earliest arrivals, favoring the children with the twinkle in his eye. Next door in the residence, Govert's wife, Emma, eager and impatient, cheeks red, stirs the pots and casts a nervous peek into the oven of the hot woodstove ... pausing now, one hand on her hip, straightening, to ease the ache in her back. She slides the roast out of the oven and the table trembles when the pan falls into line with the ham and the pies. A waft of earthy rich coffee from the big pot on the stove floats out the window overlooking the Slim Buttes.
Eunice Jensen's frosted layered white cake ... with the filling of ground raisins and nuts baked into a custard ... bounced on her knees as Hugo pulls on the steering wheel in a futile attempt to avoid the ruts deeply engraved into the dirt road passing in front of the Govert Store. Louise West's dozens upon dozens of oatmeal cookies bulged in the re-purposed cloth flour bags, a bounty proudly carried by Evaline and Alice Mae and Shirley Jean. Nikla Kulisich carried a brilliant strudio, her offering for special gatherings. Dina Rosenthal brought salmon croquettes. And someone brewed up a pot of oysters and milk into a bona fide oyster stew.
Others brought sandwiches layered on fat slabs of richly buttered, freshly made bread. They brought hot potato salad, cold potato salad, cabbage salad, chicken salad, deviled eggs, meat and vegetable casseroles of every description, and dishes with the exotic appeal of Croatian, Dutch, German, Belgian, Scotch, and English influences. Everyone brought a bowl mounded high, a heavily laden platter, a sloshing pot to add to the feast, because that is what they expected of themselves and their neighbors. That was the way they socialized in the years gone by when Govert was their home. That same community sharing, personal responsibility, and self-sufficiency remain the tradition in Harding County, honored ever more by the passing of the years. The joy of the potluck dinner lives on.
I wouldn't miss this reunion, not for anything. Would you? Heaven on earth is the opportunity to ask the questions you never thought to ask while you still could ask them.
Schedule a reunion and they will come. Follow this link to call the roll.
Listening to the wind blowing through the prairie grass. Kate
[Written with gratitude to SD Representative Elizabeth Marty May, SD Representative Sam Marty, Myrna Giannonatti, Howard Jensen, Patricia Dreesen, Frank Goodell, Marie Kulisich, the West sisters, to everyone who shared their family stories of Govert, South Dakota, with me over the years.
If you would like to return to the list of invitees in the future, you will find "Govert Roll Call" on the right hand panel of the blog itself at ThruPrairieGrass.blogspot.com.]
Showing posts with label West. Show all posts
Showing posts with label West. Show all posts
Thursday, May 21, 2015
Thursday, February 26, 2015
The Soul of Forrester West
The unrelenting wind slapped the prairie grass against his legs and whipped the blue chambray of his shirt which earlier had been tucked neatly into the worn, bibbed denim overalls. Forrester West broke his gaze from Sheep Mountain cast in the pale remnants of gold and peach of the rising sun. He turned to his left and, via the jagged edge of the Slim Buttes to the north, continued his tour of the prairie toward the far away horizon to the west. This survey of Forrester's world, a world extending little beyond Govert Township, reminded him of why he resisted leaving the remote corners of the prairie ... why he remained here with his family long after other prairie homesteaders surrendered to the siren call of urban centers beyond the borders of Harding County, places like Belle Fourche or Rapid City, or those who quitted entirely the state of South Dakota.
Forester's business was cattle and sheep - and family. We can't overlook Forrester's wife, Louise Cornella, because he wouldn't. Louise was both fragile and gutsy. Forrester respected his wife's determination and character, and treated her with warm concern for her fragile heart. We can't forget Forrester's children, because he couldn't - Herman and Richard, his wife's sons whom he embraced as his own, and their daughters, Evaline, Alice Mae, and Shirley Jean, who brought Forrester a gentle joy he never knew would be his. Forrester's livestock was a means, and his family the end. This wild, unfettered land was the how and the where he wanted his children to be formed into strong, independent adults. Forrester wasn't much of a stockman, his daughter Evaline remembered, the land held him, not the nature of the work ... Evaline's father had far too much empathy for the cattle and the sheep in his care. Forrester was a shepherd in rancher's clothing.
Little about Forrester appeared ordinary. He was taller than most, and his dark hair was thicker than any man had the right. The forehead beneath that bounty of hair was broad, giving the impression of deep thought, or an artistic temperament. Your eyes would be drawn to his - a prescient grey - and by the prominent cheekbones supporting them. Forrester watched the world around him through these grey eyes, half-closed. Maybe his eyes were light-shy from all the days of his life lived outside on the prairie ... from the hot, gritty wind half the year and ice barbs carried on the wind the remaining months, and from the near eternal prairie sun. Or maybe watching the world through half-closed eyes was instinctive, a tool of observation.
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Was it the half-closed eyes under the broad forehead that made you wonder "What is that man thinking about?" Was it because Forrester had little to say when you leaned on the counter beside him in the Govert store, or claimed the empty seat on the bench beside him at a P.T.A. meeting in the Govert schoolhouse, or stopped on the side of the rutted dirt road interrupting his work to talk about the weather? Forrester must have thought in loops of consciousness that most of us could never hope to understand. Forrester observed the world like an artist, and he painted the world he saw with words. For us he translated his thoughts into poetry.
Forester worked his poems while he worked the cattle, while he worked the sheep, while he mended the fences. Then at night, by the muted light of the kerosene lamp, he transferred the words swirling behind his ever observant eyes to a lined yellow legal tablet. You might wonder how poetry can flow from a man who works more hours in the day than you knew existed, outside, in the hot sun and blowing dirt.
Forrester appreciated hard work, honesty, integrity. He appreciated the beauty and strength of nature, and the strength and weakness of mankind. He appreciated the cycles of life. Most of all he appreciated the openness of the prairie, the beauty of the rustling grasses, the buttes, the breaks, the sunrise, the sunset, and the absence of all that was urban - the sort of silence that forgets man and allows men to forget.
Forrester West was a man you would want to know. Here on Thru Prairie Grass you will read Forrester's "A Message to Youth" published in the Govert Advance on November 28, 1940. Herm was 26, Rich was 24; Evaline was 12, Alice Mae was 10, almost 11, Shirley Jean was about 3 years old.
Forrester became the messenger when he wrote "A Message to Youth". Published after Forrester passed his 54th birthday, wisdom had replaced the brightness of opportunity, and the peace of acceptance was still to come. Forrester must have been talking to his sons, young men full of life's promise. Forrester had no way of knowing that in five months his son, Richard, would be dead.
The return of spring with its sunshine and showers,
Its new life and budding flowers,
Always reminds us of youth and the springtime of life.
In memory we go back thru the years to our own youth,
With its joys and pleasures, its disappointments and sorrows,
Yes, and its dreams and ideals.
But for us the day is far spent.
Now our greatest ambition is to realize in our children
What we wanted to be,
And the accomplishment of what we wanted to do.
Yes, you who are young,
We have an interest in you,
And for you we have a message.
We are taking a great deal of liberty in speaking to you
For we are not speaking for ourselves alone,
But for our generation.
Perhaps you ask, what right have you to speak to us?
You who are Ignorant.
No marble halls of learning have ever been yours.
No, but we are wise,
In wisdom often gained through bitter experience.
Yes, wisdom sometimes hot with the yearnings of a heart,
And sometimes with the anguish of a soul.
We who have crossed the half century line
Know that we have reached the afternoon of life.
Yes, we are nearing the land of the setting sun.
But you, who are young,
For you we hope life, real life,
Has scarce begun.
Memory carries us back nearly fifty years,
But it seems only yesterday
That mother wiped away our childhood tears.
In looking back we realize how short is life,
Even tho we might be spared
The three score years and ten,
Or four score or even more.
But rather than go back, if we could,
And live it over again with its failures and mistakes,
We would stumble on down to the end of the trail.
Hoping that a wise and kind Heavenly Father
Might give to us a few more years.
That we in some way might finish the work he gave us to do,
That the burden to be laid on your young shoulders
Might not be so hard to bear.
But why lament over the shortness of life?
For it matters not so much how long we live, but how we live.
Yes, one short second may decide the destiny of a soul.
One minute might decide the destiny of a nation.
We believe that time and life
Are two of the most precious things in this world.
Time may be cruel,
For it carries us toward old age and the grave.
But then again it is kind,
For with the passing of the years,
Many of the bitter struggles and hardships of our youth are forgotten,
And in their place linger memories we cherish dearly,
But enough of the bitterness remains
To remind us that your troubles and your problems are real.
Yes, if we had it to do over again
We would be more kind to the young,
Giving a word of kindness along with a word of reproof,
For we have some idea of the disappointment
And heartache that might be yours.
Of the two, life is far more precious than time,
Yes, precious Human Life.
Human life consists of three elements,
The body, the mind and the soul.
Sometime every young person asks,
Which of these is the most important?
Certainly, it is not the human body,
For of it has been said from dust thou came,
To dust thou shall return.
It is not the mind,
For that mind, tho it may be brilliant,
Before the dawn of another day,
It may reel and topple from its throne.
Then it must be the Soul,
That spark from the Divine,
That for good or evil
Shall live thruout Eternity.
Today Forrester's daughters are in their 70s and 80s. They have taken their turn as messenger, and have progressed beyond wisdom to the peace of acceptance. They are exactly where their father would want them to be.
Thank you, Forrester West, for choosing to pass your life on the prairie near Govert, South Dakota, for sharing your poetry with the Govert community, for sharing your soul.
Listening to the wind blowing through the prairie grass. Kate
[Written with gratitude to Forrester Frank West and the three daughters he raised to be such wonderful women, Evaline, Alice Mae, and Shirley Jean, who now are sharing their father's poetry with us. Photo and poem used with the permission of the West sisters.]
Forester's business was cattle and sheep - and family. We can't overlook Forrester's wife, Louise Cornella, because he wouldn't. Louise was both fragile and gutsy. Forrester respected his wife's determination and character, and treated her with warm concern for her fragile heart. We can't forget Forrester's children, because he couldn't - Herman and Richard, his wife's sons whom he embraced as his own, and their daughters, Evaline, Alice Mae, and Shirley Jean, who brought Forrester a gentle joy he never knew would be his. Forrester's livestock was a means, and his family the end. This wild, unfettered land was the how and the where he wanted his children to be formed into strong, independent adults. Forrester wasn't much of a stockman, his daughter Evaline remembered, the land held him, not the nature of the work ... Evaline's father had far too much empathy for the cattle and the sheep in his care. Forrester was a shepherd in rancher's clothing.
Little about Forrester appeared ordinary. He was taller than most, and his dark hair was thicker than any man had the right. The forehead beneath that bounty of hair was broad, giving the impression of deep thought, or an artistic temperament. Your eyes would be drawn to his - a prescient grey - and by the prominent cheekbones supporting them. Forrester watched the world around him through these grey eyes, half-closed. Maybe his eyes were light-shy from all the days of his life lived outside on the prairie ... from the hot, gritty wind half the year and ice barbs carried on the wind the remaining months, and from the near eternal prairie sun. Or maybe watching the world through half-closed eyes was instinctive, a tool of observation.
[Louise Cornella West and Forrester West in 1925]
Was it the half-closed eyes under the broad forehead that made you wonder "What is that man thinking about?" Was it because Forrester had little to say when you leaned on the counter beside him in the Govert store, or claimed the empty seat on the bench beside him at a P.T.A. meeting in the Govert schoolhouse, or stopped on the side of the rutted dirt road interrupting his work to talk about the weather? Forrester must have thought in loops of consciousness that most of us could never hope to understand. Forrester observed the world like an artist, and he painted the world he saw with words. For us he translated his thoughts into poetry.
Forester worked his poems while he worked the cattle, while he worked the sheep, while he mended the fences. Then at night, by the muted light of the kerosene lamp, he transferred the words swirling behind his ever observant eyes to a lined yellow legal tablet. You might wonder how poetry can flow from a man who works more hours in the day than you knew existed, outside, in the hot sun and blowing dirt.
Forrester appreciated hard work, honesty, integrity. He appreciated the beauty and strength of nature, and the strength and weakness of mankind. He appreciated the cycles of life. Most of all he appreciated the openness of the prairie, the beauty of the rustling grasses, the buttes, the breaks, the sunrise, the sunset, and the absence of all that was urban - the sort of silence that forgets man and allows men to forget.
Forrester West was a man you would want to know. Here on Thru Prairie Grass you will read Forrester's "A Message to Youth" published in the Govert Advance on November 28, 1940. Herm was 26, Rich was 24; Evaline was 12, Alice Mae was 10, almost 11, Shirley Jean was about 3 years old.
Forrester became the messenger when he wrote "A Message to Youth". Published after Forrester passed his 54th birthday, wisdom had replaced the brightness of opportunity, and the peace of acceptance was still to come. Forrester must have been talking to his sons, young men full of life's promise. Forrester had no way of knowing that in five months his son, Richard, would be dead.
A MESSAGE TO YOUTH
by Forrester F. West
The return of spring with its sunshine and showers,
Its new life and budding flowers,
Always reminds us of youth and the springtime of life.
In memory we go back thru the years to our own youth,
With its joys and pleasures, its disappointments and sorrows,
Yes, and its dreams and ideals.
But for us the day is far spent.
Now our greatest ambition is to realize in our children
What we wanted to be,
And the accomplishment of what we wanted to do.
Yes, you who are young,
We have an interest in you,
And for you we have a message.
We are taking a great deal of liberty in speaking to you
For we are not speaking for ourselves alone,
But for our generation.
Perhaps you ask, what right have you to speak to us?
You who are Ignorant.
No marble halls of learning have ever been yours.
No, but we are wise,
In wisdom often gained through bitter experience.
Yes, wisdom sometimes hot with the yearnings of a heart,
And sometimes with the anguish of a soul.
We who have crossed the half century line
Know that we have reached the afternoon of life.
Yes, we are nearing the land of the setting sun.
But you, who are young,
For you we hope life, real life,
Has scarce begun.
Memory carries us back nearly fifty years,
But it seems only yesterday
That mother wiped away our childhood tears.
In looking back we realize how short is life,
Even tho we might be spared
The three score years and ten,
Or four score or even more.
But rather than go back, if we could,
And live it over again with its failures and mistakes,
We would stumble on down to the end of the trail.
Hoping that a wise and kind Heavenly Father
Might give to us a few more years.
That we in some way might finish the work he gave us to do,
That the burden to be laid on your young shoulders
Might not be so hard to bear.
But why lament over the shortness of life?
For it matters not so much how long we live, but how we live.
Yes, one short second may decide the destiny of a soul.
One minute might decide the destiny of a nation.
We believe that time and life
Are two of the most precious things in this world.
Time may be cruel,
For it carries us toward old age and the grave.
But then again it is kind,
For with the passing of the years,
Many of the bitter struggles and hardships of our youth are forgotten,
And in their place linger memories we cherish dearly,
But enough of the bitterness remains
To remind us that your troubles and your problems are real.
Yes, if we had it to do over again
We would be more kind to the young,
Giving a word of kindness along with a word of reproof,
For we have some idea of the disappointment
And heartache that might be yours.
Of the two, life is far more precious than time,
Yes, precious Human Life.
Human life consists of three elements,
The body, the mind and the soul.
Sometime every young person asks,
Which of these is the most important?
Certainly, it is not the human body,
For of it has been said from dust thou came,
To dust thou shall return.
It is not the mind,
For that mind, tho it may be brilliant,
Before the dawn of another day,
It may reel and topple from its throne.
Then it must be the Soul,
That spark from the Divine,
That for good or evil
Shall live thruout Eternity.
Today Forrester's daughters are in their 70s and 80s. They have taken their turn as messenger, and have progressed beyond wisdom to the peace of acceptance. They are exactly where their father would want them to be.
Thank you, Forrester West, for choosing to pass your life on the prairie near Govert, South Dakota, for sharing your poetry with the Govert community, for sharing your soul.
Listening to the wind blowing through the prairie grass. Kate
[Written with gratitude to Forrester Frank West and the three daughters he raised to be such wonderful women, Evaline, Alice Mae, and Shirley Jean, who now are sharing their father's poetry with us. Photo and poem used with the permission of the West sisters.]
Thursday, May 8, 2014
Sheep Ranching in Govert, South Dakota, by Marie Kulisich
After writing about calving [Ain't She Sweet ... Calving in Harding County, South Dakota], I read the Nation's Center News with my pen, marking every mention of calving. Week after week my edition of the newspaper was so marked up, I could have connected the marks to fill in a picture of a calf. Then, a couple of editions ago, I saw the first mention of lambing along with the calving. Lambing continues now as the calving activity slows down. Marie Kulisich, the daughter of Mitch and Nikla Kulisich, told me about her experiences with lambing and sheep ranching in the 1930s and 1940s. Marie was born in Govert, South Dakota, and that is where she spent her childhood, attending school, and as a valued young ranch hand on the Kulisich Ranch. I am introducing Marie as a guest blogger.
SHEEP RANCHING IN GOVERT, SOUTH DAKOTA, by Guest Blogger, Marie Kulisich
I remember watching a program on TV about a veterinarian helping a cow give birth when she was having trouble, and I was reminded of how my dad did that with sheep, going in and turning the lamb so the ewe could birth her lamb easier. How did my dad know how to do that? Somehow whatever knowledge is needed comes to a sheep rancher intent on saving his sheep!
All the homesteaders in the Govert area first tried to farm, but the land was not good for farming. Then they tried cattle, but the grass was not good for cattle. Then they tried sheep. The sheep could eat the short grass that was close to the ground. The ranchers could make a better living from sheep, because they had two checks per year, one for each of two harvests: wool in the spring and the lambs in the fall. Cattle ranchers just had one check a year that being for the calves.
Lambing time was the first part of May, when the weather was warmer for those new babies. The lambs suckled soon after birth, and got by outside pretty well if it was dry. We did not have shed room for all the sheep and their lambs. We had "tepees" which were canvas, waterproof, small tent affairs with rods running through and around, with four sides that anchored into the ground and were big enough to cover a ewe and her new born lamb out on the prairie.
This tepee shelter kept the sheep and lambs dry if the day was cold and raining, and then you went out and brought the sheep and new lambs home before the day was over. Even today when I see rain and some snow in the air, I'm reminded of what a miserable day we'd have on the prairie at Govert herding sheep, maybe even a few first lambs arriving, and would have to use the little tepees to keep the newborns dry. The rest of the herd raced across the prairie, they too hated the wind!
I was often sent out to herd the "drop" bunch, the ewes that hadn't had their lambs yet. And one time I watched helplessly while an eagle swooped down across the draw from me, and took the new lamb up and away into the sky and its doom! I felt so bad!
My schoolmate, Evaline West, told me they once had a black ewe and she had black triplets. This is quite unusual and would make the news today. The sheep mother could only tend one lamb and the two other lambs became pets for Evaline and her sisters, Alice Mae and Shirley Jean. What was so cute were the names the girls gave their black lambs, something like Midnight and Lignite. They were ewes so were kept. We kept the black sheep as 'markers' within the herd. Like one black sheep for every 25 or 50 sheep so that when you brought the herd in at night you counted the black ones to get an estimate if you had them all.
The lambs without a sheep mother were called "bum lambs". Some ewes had twins but didn't have enough milk to feed two lambs, so one was taken away to be raised as a "bum" on a bottle. We used a pop bottle, with a store bought nipple and cow’s milk. I was supposed to feed the bums but my soft-hearted dad didn't want to wake me at five in the morning and would do it himself! I was fond of the bum lambs. They were my playmates, along with the dog, the cats, the saddle horse, and later that silly goat.
Dad had another option in dealing with bum lambs and that was to bond a bum lamb to a foster mother. If a ewe's lamb died, Dad would skin the dead lamb and tie the pelt on a bum lamb and shut the foster mother and foster lamb in together for a day or two until the ewe accepted the new baby. Sheep recognize their lambs by smell. Thus there was one more lamb for fall harvest!
Then towards the end of May came "docking" time when lambs had their tails and testicles, called "wethers", cut off. Sheep were brought into the corral, and then my job was to catch the lambs and put them in the pen. Dad held the lamb in the pen and my brother, Tony, did the rest, not a pleasant job to be sure. I always held back the black lambs or black spotted ones until last, thinking I was giving them a reprieve.
Then next came shearing time, probably June. My memory of this was all the bleating as ewes and lambs were separated. The lambs were left outside the corral while ewes were run inside to pens by each shearer. When the shearing was done, the ewes were turned outside to find their bleating babies.
Outside the barn where the shearers were, a big scaffold was set up to hold the huge wool sacks. Tony was in the sack, tramping down the fleeces of wool to make a very tight sack. These sacks for wool were maybe 10 or 12 feet long, and they also had "ears", two on the bottom and two on top, so there was a way to handle them, loading on the truck at the ranch, and off again at the wool house at Newell.
Right after the sheep were sheared, we branded them. Our brand for the sheep was a "K". The branding tool - I think it was made from wood - was dipped in paint and then on the back of the sheep. Each rancher had a different color. I seem to remember that the Lale's brand was black, the Wests used green, and ours was red.
Then in September came the time to truck the lambs to market in Newell. Dad hired truckers to come in and haul lambs in the fall, and the big sacks of sheared wool in the spring, to Newell by truck. Leonard West was one of the truckers, no relation to Evaline. Leonard later married my sister, Ann. Frank Wald was one of the truckers when he was still living in Newell; later he moved to Govert.
Highway 79 was pretty good, but the couple of miles from the Govert store to the ranch was a country road, no more than a trail, no problem for the truckers as long as conditions were dry. The trail we used went across the Gee property to our place. Back then no one had much concern about trespassing, although you were expected to always shut gates, which was very important so the livestock didn't get out. The trucks used this trail across the Gee place when they came to get the lambs in the fall to ship to market, and the huge sacks of wool in the spring for the same reason. The truck had to ford the Moreau River as well, no bridges there for just one family!
I was amazed how my mother cooked for and served so many people when the truckers were out at the ranch, and that was when we lived in the granary after our house burned down, so we had little room. I think it was in the fall of 1937 when Leonard West and his brother, Bud, and Lee Post from Newell were there for supper. They were the truckers that came to haul the lamb crop to Newell for sale, and I'm sure a couple other men were there to help with the loading. What did my Mother feed all those people? I do realize it was a much simpler time then and I would guess she had a big roast or fried chicken, potatoes and gravy, homemade bread and butter, coffee and perhaps pie and that was it, but my mother served ample amounts and men like that! In the fall she might have had some garden stuff. And I am amazed at all the social interaction there was. These days were events!
We did not eat mutton or lamb. Mutton is not a very desirable meat, has a tallow taste and must be served very, very hot and spiced up like with rosemary. Besides, ewes produced the lambs and the wool which were our two cash crops per year and likewise, we would never kill a lamb.
We were grateful for the two incomes a year, the one in the spring for the wool and the other in the fall for the lambs. Many ranchers had a charge account at the Govert store and also at Brattons general store in Newell, and they paid up in spring when they sold the wool and in the fall when they sold the lambs. I'm more appreciative now of my parents and how they made it through the Depression when many of the ranchers were unable to pay even their real estate taxes. My parents were very conservative and carefully planned how to use the money from the wool and the lambs. Even during the Depression, we always had plenty to eat with our own milk, cream, homemade bread and butter, chickens and eggs, and Dad's garden.
My parents were both born in what is now Croatia. My dad had no ranching experience before he homesteaded near Govert. I'm so often going back in my thoughts to my dad's sheep raising operation, and wonder how did my dad know how to do all of this, how many sheep the land would feed, lambing time, docking time, shearing time, trucks coming in to haul out the big sacks of wool in the spring and when to have them come again in the fall to take out the lambs!
After the spring harvest of wool and the fall harvest of lambs, another year passes for the sheep rancher. As for me, I loved school and could hardly wait for school to start in the fall. Winter time for the rancher was slower, just herding sheep every day and battling the snowy, windy days of the winter ...
... and listening to the wind blowing through the prairie grass. Marie and Kate
[Shared with gratitude to Marie Kulisich for recording her memories.]
SHEEP RANCHING IN GOVERT, SOUTH DAKOTA, by Guest Blogger, Marie Kulisich
I remember watching a program on TV about a veterinarian helping a cow give birth when she was having trouble, and I was reminded of how my dad did that with sheep, going in and turning the lamb so the ewe could birth her lamb easier. How did my dad know how to do that? Somehow whatever knowledge is needed comes to a sheep rancher intent on saving his sheep!
All the homesteaders in the Govert area first tried to farm, but the land was not good for farming. Then they tried cattle, but the grass was not good for cattle. Then they tried sheep. The sheep could eat the short grass that was close to the ground. The ranchers could make a better living from sheep, because they had two checks per year, one for each of two harvests: wool in the spring and the lambs in the fall. Cattle ranchers just had one check a year that being for the calves.
Lambing time was the first part of May, when the weather was warmer for those new babies. The lambs suckled soon after birth, and got by outside pretty well if it was dry. We did not have shed room for all the sheep and their lambs. We had "tepees" which were canvas, waterproof, small tent affairs with rods running through and around, with four sides that anchored into the ground and were big enough to cover a ewe and her new born lamb out on the prairie.
This tepee shelter kept the sheep and lambs dry if the day was cold and raining, and then you went out and brought the sheep and new lambs home before the day was over. Even today when I see rain and some snow in the air, I'm reminded of what a miserable day we'd have on the prairie at Govert herding sheep, maybe even a few first lambs arriving, and would have to use the little tepees to keep the newborns dry. The rest of the herd raced across the prairie, they too hated the wind!
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| Marie Kulisich on "Pony" carrying a new lamb in front of her. |
My schoolmate, Evaline West, told me they once had a black ewe and she had black triplets. This is quite unusual and would make the news today. The sheep mother could only tend one lamb and the two other lambs became pets for Evaline and her sisters, Alice Mae and Shirley Jean. What was so cute were the names the girls gave their black lambs, something like Midnight and Lignite. They were ewes so were kept. We kept the black sheep as 'markers' within the herd. Like one black sheep for every 25 or 50 sheep so that when you brought the herd in at night you counted the black ones to get an estimate if you had them all.
The lambs without a sheep mother were called "bum lambs". Some ewes had twins but didn't have enough milk to feed two lambs, so one was taken away to be raised as a "bum" on a bottle. We used a pop bottle, with a store bought nipple and cow’s milk. I was supposed to feed the bums but my soft-hearted dad didn't want to wake me at five in the morning and would do it himself! I was fond of the bum lambs. They were my playmates, along with the dog, the cats, the saddle horse, and later that silly goat.
Dad had another option in dealing with bum lambs and that was to bond a bum lamb to a foster mother. If a ewe's lamb died, Dad would skin the dead lamb and tie the pelt on a bum lamb and shut the foster mother and foster lamb in together for a day or two until the ewe accepted the new baby. Sheep recognize their lambs by smell. Thus there was one more lamb for fall harvest!
Then towards the end of May came "docking" time when lambs had their tails and testicles, called "wethers", cut off. Sheep were brought into the corral, and then my job was to catch the lambs and put them in the pen. Dad held the lamb in the pen and my brother, Tony, did the rest, not a pleasant job to be sure. I always held back the black lambs or black spotted ones until last, thinking I was giving them a reprieve.
Then next came shearing time, probably June. My memory of this was all the bleating as ewes and lambs were separated. The lambs were left outside the corral while ewes were run inside to pens by each shearer. When the shearing was done, the ewes were turned outside to find their bleating babies.
Outside the barn where the shearers were, a big scaffold was set up to hold the huge wool sacks. Tony was in the sack, tramping down the fleeces of wool to make a very tight sack. These sacks for wool were maybe 10 or 12 feet long, and they also had "ears", two on the bottom and two on top, so there was a way to handle them, loading on the truck at the ranch, and off again at the wool house at Newell.
Right after the sheep were sheared, we branded them. Our brand for the sheep was a "K". The branding tool - I think it was made from wood - was dipped in paint and then on the back of the sheep. Each rancher had a different color. I seem to remember that the Lale's brand was black, the Wests used green, and ours was red.
Then in September came the time to truck the lambs to market in Newell. Dad hired truckers to come in and haul lambs in the fall, and the big sacks of sheared wool in the spring, to Newell by truck. Leonard West was one of the truckers, no relation to Evaline. Leonard later married my sister, Ann. Frank Wald was one of the truckers when he was still living in Newell; later he moved to Govert.
Highway 79 was pretty good, but the couple of miles from the Govert store to the ranch was a country road, no more than a trail, no problem for the truckers as long as conditions were dry. The trail we used went across the Gee property to our place. Back then no one had much concern about trespassing, although you were expected to always shut gates, which was very important so the livestock didn't get out. The trucks used this trail across the Gee place when they came to get the lambs in the fall to ship to market, and the huge sacks of wool in the spring for the same reason. The truck had to ford the Moreau River as well, no bridges there for just one family!
I was amazed how my mother cooked for and served so many people when the truckers were out at the ranch, and that was when we lived in the granary after our house burned down, so we had little room. I think it was in the fall of 1937 when Leonard West and his brother, Bud, and Lee Post from Newell were there for supper. They were the truckers that came to haul the lamb crop to Newell for sale, and I'm sure a couple other men were there to help with the loading. What did my Mother feed all those people? I do realize it was a much simpler time then and I would guess she had a big roast or fried chicken, potatoes and gravy, homemade bread and butter, coffee and perhaps pie and that was it, but my mother served ample amounts and men like that! In the fall she might have had some garden stuff. And I am amazed at all the social interaction there was. These days were events!
We did not eat mutton or lamb. Mutton is not a very desirable meat, has a tallow taste and must be served very, very hot and spiced up like with rosemary. Besides, ewes produced the lambs and the wool which were our two cash crops per year and likewise, we would never kill a lamb.
We were grateful for the two incomes a year, the one in the spring for the wool and the other in the fall for the lambs. Many ranchers had a charge account at the Govert store and also at Brattons general store in Newell, and they paid up in spring when they sold the wool and in the fall when they sold the lambs. I'm more appreciative now of my parents and how they made it through the Depression when many of the ranchers were unable to pay even their real estate taxes. My parents were very conservative and carefully planned how to use the money from the wool and the lambs. Even during the Depression, we always had plenty to eat with our own milk, cream, homemade bread and butter, chickens and eggs, and Dad's garden.
My parents were both born in what is now Croatia. My dad had no ranching experience before he homesteaded near Govert. I'm so often going back in my thoughts to my dad's sheep raising operation, and wonder how did my dad know how to do all of this, how many sheep the land would feed, lambing time, docking time, shearing time, trucks coming in to haul out the big sacks of wool in the spring and when to have them come again in the fall to take out the lambs!
After the spring harvest of wool and the fall harvest of lambs, another year passes for the sheep rancher. As for me, I loved school and could hardly wait for school to start in the fall. Winter time for the rancher was slower, just herding sheep every day and battling the snowy, windy days of the winter ...
... and listening to the wind blowing through the prairie grass. Marie and Kate
[Shared with gratitude to Marie Kulisich for recording her memories.]
Thursday, May 1, 2014
Get Together, Pull Together, Stick Together (Part III: A Novel P.T.A. Program)
What was so fascinating about the P.T.A. program in February 1935? This long ago evening in Govert, South Dakota, was so novel and so innovative, you will be distracted from your otherwise natural expectations for a tedious and oftentimes contentious meeting between parents and teachers. You see, the entire Govert community was in agreement over the conduct of the school, so their energies were not dissipated in discord but were channeled into creating a program calculated to be people pleasing ... and please the people it did. Goverites created the entertainment, and Goverites were their own entertainment. With such joy in the planning, and in the execution of the program, no possibility existed for any person in that schoolhouse, that night, to be a passive observer. This was to be a night of surprises.
The program was entertaining and appealing ...
amusing ...
interactive ...
personal ...
spirited ...
The program committee tailored original readings ...
for unsuspecting attendees ...
to present sight unseen ...
bringing the community together to laugh ...
and play and socialize ...
The authors of the vignettes
mined the depths of their imaginations and literary skills ...
and their knowledge of their friends and neighbors ...
their neighbors who were their friends ...
their friends who were their neighbors ...
Once they identified their performers, what did the P.T.A. program committee use for material? The committee of three was well-positioned to know everyone's business in Govert. Secrets have a short expiration date in a small town; they just won't stay secret. Adelaide Calkins, Mrs. Wesley Horton, and Fredric Laflin were the perfect playwrights to compose each part of this carefully choreographed evening. Adelaide was the 36-year-old schoolmarm of the Govert country school. Ida Wendt Horton, 33 years old, was a local girl, born just down the road in Castle Rock. Ida had two children attending Govert School, Evelyn Marie and Dale Vernon.
The last member of the program triumvirate was a young man, only 21 years old. You might think that being both young and unmarried, Frederic Laflin might disdain dipping his toe in his neighbor's business, but no one was immune in Govert. Besides, Frederic was the son of the editor of the Govert Advance, the local newspaper whose success was based on reporting the activities of the community. Yes, that Frederic Laflin. Frederic was Govert-born and well-versed in the ways of his community. Frederic was absolutely perfect for this job.
The evening planned by Adelaide, Ida, and Frederic started with upbeat music, songs in which everyone joined, intended to generate enthusiasm and unity. According to Mr. Laflin's coverage in the Govert Advance, "The first four songs on the program in which the peppy musicians were joined by Mr. and Mrs. Wesley Horton and Frederic Laflin most assuredly welcomed one and all to the P.T.A. that evening." The songs were Come In, Hello, The More We Get Together, and Smile Awhile.
Come In might have been the song that goes something like this: "Enter, rejoice, and come in. Enter, rejoice, and come in. Today will be a joyful day; enter, rejoice, and come in." Never you mind that this may have been sung Sundays in church. The folks up there, in those times, didn't have to segregate their faith life to the realms of private rumination. They played out their faith and wouldn't have thought twice about singing a song with hymn overtones at a P.T.A. meeting in the schoolhouse ... which was also their church on any Sunday a pastor was in the neighborhood.
But Hello? What were the lyrics to Hello, and to what melody were the lyrics sung? Some details are lost to history. Fortunately, the remaining two introductory songs from that night might ring more familiarly in your mind.
The More We Get Together
The more we get together
Together, together
The more we get together
The happier we'll be
Cause your friends are my friends
And my friends are your friends
The more we get together
The happier we'll be
The more we play together
Together, together
The more we play together
The happier we'll be
Cause your friends are my friends
And my friends are your friends
The more we play together
The happier we'll be
The more we dance together
Together, together
The more we dance together
The happier we'll be
Cause your friends are my friends;
And my friends are your friends
The more we dance together
The happier we'll be
The more we get together
Together, together
The more we get together
The happier we'll be
Cause your friends are my friends
And my friends are your friends
The more we get together
The happier we'll be
The more we get together
The happier we'll be
The more we get together
The happier we'll be
Smile Awhile
Smile awhile and give your face a rest
Raise your hands to the One you love the best
Then shake hands with those nearby
And greet them with a smile
[Repeat]
We are not blessed with a copy of the program script for the vignettes performed by our Govert neighbors that night, so we don't know exactly what the words of the original compositions were. Nevertheless, the title of each vignette was printed in the Govert Advance. The titles suggest the individual readings were based on recent, perhaps even "notorious" events, or a widely-noted personality feature unique to that person.
In the Govert Advance, Charles Laflin set the stage. "Miss Adelaide Calkins was at the piano. Seated and facing the audience were Dale Horton, Billy Lale, Evelyn Horton, Waldo Jergenson, Elsie Lale, John and Anton Kulisich. [...] With a world of pep in music and songs, and a happy smile of anticipation this lively group introduced and invited to the platform each surprised person to whom a reading or song was handed. All responded and it was, indeed, a severe test for some - but everyone did splendid, that's why we're so proud of them."
How did this play out in real time? With the piano accompaniment of Adelaide Calkins, the choir of her school children sang an "invitation song", specially composed to identify the next unsuspecting performer. Fifteen Goverites in succession were called to the front of the single room of the schoolhouse, and they responded just as if they were again nervous schoolchildren called upon to recite their lessons.
The invitation song was based on a common melody. For example, "Herbert's a Jolly Good Fellow" as a come forth song would have followed the tune of "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" to bring Herbert Scofield to the front of the class. We can easily imagine this as some variation of:
With the invitation song ringing in his ears, now burning bright red, Herbert Scofield, and everyone else called forward in this manner, found his or her way to the front of the room through laughing and jostling neighbors. Each accepted the proffered script and each, in the spirit of community cooperation, made a performance that, even if not eligible for an Emmy, brought good humor to that corner of the Depression era prairie.
So here we go. What follows are the title of the invitation song and the title of the assigned reading for each of our 15 Govert neighbors who performed that night ... along with what might possibly have been the program committee's inspiration.
1. Invitation by the choir: "Howdy Do Joseph Grandpre"
Response performed by J.L. Grandpre: "Howdy Do Kind Friends"
Joseph Leo Grandpre was a respected, longtime Govert resident having arrived before 1920. He knew everyone, was always glad to see everyone, was friendly with everyone. He was a welcoming man, so would be the perfect person to open the program and set the stage for the acts to come. Mr. Grandpre is remembered by then 6-year-old Evaline West as a short Frenchman ... the influence of his French Canadian parents ... very neat in his appearance, dark eyes flashing with energy. He was not a loud man, but was a lively and energetic little man, outgoing, and jovial. You couldn't help but like Joseph Grandpre.
2. Invitation by the choir: "Cheer Up Ida"
Response performed by Ida Wendt Horton: "He Wasn't Necessary"
Ida was blonde, blue-eyed, nice-looking, maybe a little thin to be as attractive as she could have been. It’s not that Ida wasn’t cheerful. Ida was friendly and outgoing, but Ida was a bundle of nerves, as if she wasn’t quite comfortable in her own skin. Some thought her nervousness was connected to her worry over her son Dale’s heart problems. Then, too was the fact that Ida was a go-getter and her husband Wesley could never get anywhere on time; he was laid back like his brother, Rayford. Anyone who had to deal with a spouse like that would sympathize with Ida. She was a good person, not negative, just had thin nerves. But what about the second part, the title of her reading? Who or what wasn't necessary? The author of Ida's reading would hardly have disregarded a person as unnecessary, so "he" must have been something as uncomplicated as a turkey or a chicken who escaped the coop. Remember, Ida was on the program committee. And so was Frederic, whose reading came next. You might notice that no reading was prepared for Adelaide, leading us to suspect that our much loved schoolmarm playfully wrote the readings for Ida and Frederic.
3. Invitation by the choir: "Frederic Will Shine Tonight"
Response performed by Frederic Laflin: "Afeard of a Girl"
Twenty-one was an awkward age for Frederic Laflin. He would soon be considered a ladies' man, but the ladies had yet to encourage him. Frederic's father, Charles Laflin, was short and his mother, Mary Zee Campbell, was considered a bit tall for a woman. Frederic himself was the anomaly standing over 6 foot tall, maybe even six foot three. His nickname was “Broom Laflin” because he was so tall and thin. Frederic may have been afeard of all girls, or maybe he was afeard of one particular girl ... and that might have been Inez James. Another two years would pass before Frederic and Inez married. Frederic would have been much more confident in 1935 had he known that he and Inez would have a beautiful and spirited daughter, Saundra, and grandchildren and great-grandchildren to preserve the Laflin foothold in Govert Township. Yes, that Frederic Laflin.
4. Invitation by the choir: "Herbert's a Jolly Good Fellow"
Response performed by H.L. Scofield: "Hints for Him"
Herbert and his wife, Signey, were a good-looking couple. All the Scofields were well-groomed including children, Dorothy and LeRoy. Herbert himself may have been a font of grooming advice, counseling young men on the importance of good grooming and how best to maintain a good appearance.
5. Invitation by the choir: "What's the Matter with Waldon" [The coming forth song may have been based on What’s the Matter with Father.]
Response performed by Waldon Lemm: "Teachers"
Come now, Waldon, you really didn't think it was a secret you were paying court to the schoolmarm? Remember that 6-year-old girl who stayed with Adelaide at the teacherage during the school year? Well, that little girl still remembers your coming to visit, sometimes staying for dinner, and everyone else in Govert knew about you and Adelaide, too. Truth be told, Adelaide's divorce remained fresh in memory, Waldon was a younger man, and maybe the timing just wasn't right for Adelaide. Waldon found another love and married in 1943, but Adelaide and Waldon remained forever friends.
6. Invitation by the choir: "Sing a Ling, Ling, Mr. Laflin"
Response performed by Charles E. Laflin: "No Salesmen Allowed"
Without Charles Laflin's experience stringing telephone lines prior to taking up a homestead in the township to the north, Govert may never have enjoyed the ding a'ling a'ling of that new-fangled telephone device. Was the dawn of the telephone in Govert also the dawn of telephone solicitation? Or was Mr. Laflin impatient with the many peddlers who found their way into his otherwise quiet corner of the prairie? Transients selling brushes or clothing or encyclopedias; or buying pelts or bones; or speculators in land. Mr. Laflin was a very good person with only the best of intentions, and he might have been surprised to learn how powerful and influential people thought he was. One thing for sure, Mr. Laflin assumed a lot of responsibilities and, understandably, he would have had no time for anyone intent on wasting his time.
7. Invitation by the choir: "Are You with Us Lillian Hafner"
Response performed by Lillian Gudmunson Hafner: "Too Promising"
Lillian Gudmunson was an outsider, arriving in the Govert area first as a schoolteacher and remaining to marry rancher George Hafner. Of the two, Lillian was the more reserved. George was outgoing and personable, a grownup who stopped to play with the children in the schoolyard. With her daughter, Mercedes, ready to start school, Lillian may have had conflicting loyalties. Which would prevail, the Govert community she adopted as her own, first as teacher and later as a rancher's wife, or her own desire for her children to have the best educational opportunities available ... a desire which might have seemed traitorous had it taken them away from Govert and to a larger town.
8. Invitation by the choir: "In Style All the While"
Response performed by Lydia Vogt Gee: "Babies"
Lydia Gee was a well-dressed woman, in a modest, middle class kind of way. She may have had interest in fashion but, as for most women at the time, Lydia was challenged by the economy and fashion looked more like a housedress. She was a competent woman, very involved in the Govert community, with special status as a longtime resident and a former schoolteacher. To young Govert mothers, Lydia was the older, wiser woman, caring and gracious, a respected adviser. Now at 48, with her two sons finishing high school in Newell, soon to embark on their own lives, Lydia had reason to sit back and smile about babies, doting on and fussing over the babies in the Govert community and dreaming of her own grandchildren, the first of which would not be born for another 15 years. If the issue was fretting mothers yearning for stylish baby clothes in the middle of the Depression, I can imagine my great-aunt offering the wise counsel that "Babies are always stylish".
9. Invitation by the choir: "Hello Delore"
Response performed by Delore Grandpre: "Trouble Brewing"
What kind of trouble could be brewing for this 16-year-old boy? Delore and both of his parents were part of this collection of vignettes. All three were chosen to participate because the program committee knew they would do so in good humor. Delore could not have been a troublemaker. So what trouble was around the corner for Delore? Or any 16-year-old boy, for that matter. Must have been something to do with abundant testosterone reserves.
10. Invitation by the choir: "O Mrs. Grandpre"
Response performed by Amanda Bekken Grandpre: "Nothing to It"
"Oh, Mrs. Grandpre" sounds like a plea for assistance by a young neighbor desperately seeking advice. "Nothing to it" is the response of someone with superior experience born of overcoming challenges by force of an indomitable, can-do spirit. "Just do it this way. Nothing to it!" Both Mr. and Mrs. Grandpre were outgoing, and were blessed with a strong, positive attitude. They were relaxed and fun to be around. Nothing to it.
11. Invitation by the choir: "Give John Donohue a Hand"
Response performed by John Donohue: "When Hog Meets Hog"
Twenty-five-year-old John Donohue was a rancher, son of a rancher, brother of a rancher. Young stallions like John have been known to tell a tale or two. The re-telling of his story about competing hogs may have been even better than the original.
12. Invitation by the choir: "Signey Went Over the Mountain" [This come forth song may have been based on The Bear Went Over the Mountain, sung to the tune of For He's a Jolly Good Fellow.]
The bear went over the mountain,
The bear went over the mountain,
The bear went over the mountain,
To see what he could see.
And all that he could see,
And all that he could see,
Was the other side of the mountain,
The other side of the mountain,
The other side of the mountain,
Was all that he could see.
Response performed by Signey Bekken Scofield: "Advertise"
Maybe Signey was developing entrepreneurial ideas. After all, ranch wives brought in reliable income with their cream and butter products and with the eggs they collected. They also tended the turkeys and the chickens offered for sale to townspeople who didn't raise their own. Maybe Signey had ambitions.
13. Invitation by the choir: "O Mr. Toble"
Response performed by G.H. Toble: "Kissing Neath a Mustache"
"Oh," she said coyly, "Mr. Toble, your mustache tickles." Those are words Gus Toble probably never thought he would ever hear again. His wife, Amy, died four years earlier after being terribly burned in a fire that began in the stove flue and consumed their Govert home. Gus was struck senseless by the tragedy, but he got a second chance at love with the charming Widow Byers who lived up by Cash. The Govert community closed ranks around Gus and he kept his ties to northwestern South Dakota for the remainder of his life. Lydia Vogt Gee called Gus uncle, as did Emma Vogt Van der Boom, the wife of the founder of Govert. Everyone liked Gus, including children and dogs. At the P.T.A. business meeting this very night, Dale Horton couldn't hold back his enthusiasm for Gus ... this 10-year-old boy jumped up in that large group of adults to nominate Gus for the next program committee. Dale's burst of fondness reflects the community's support for Gus and his new companion. Writing a playful "Kissing Neath a Mustache" vignette just for him and his generous mustache tells us the same thing. The Widow Byers became Mrs. Gus Toble on March 19, 1935, nearly a month after Gus performed his part in the P.T.A. program.
14. Invitation by the choir: "My Name is Bert Ellis"
Response performed by Bert Ellis: "Proper Length of a Man's Legs"
Bert Ellis had very strong opinions about politics, about the senselessness of Prohibition, about nearly everything subject to judgment. This went hand-in-hand with a propensity toward giving advice. Both opinions and advice were framed by his sense of humor and a reputation for being something of a tease. If asked to opine on an appropriate height for a man, he might very well have said something profound and a little flippant like, "The proper length of a man's leg is from his hip all the way to the ground."
15. Invitation by the choir: "Willie Boy"
Response performed by Wm. Donohue: "The Wild Cow"
Oh, where have you been Willie Boy, Willie Boy; oh, where have you been charming Willie? Like his older brother, John, William Donohue had something of a rough and tumble cowboy reputation to protect and perpetuate, and the tales of valor to go with it ... here, probably a tale of derring-do and a wild cow.
In addition to the 15 vignettes, the P.T.A. program offered three other acts. The first provided a break in the action after eight Goverites performed their surprise readings. This was when Dorothy and Rayford Horton sang Good Ship Lollipop to the accompaniment of harmonicas played by their cousins, Evelyn and Dale Horton. After the 15th, and final, vignette, Adelaide Calkins led the entire assembly in singing We Won't Go Home Until Morning. By then it appeared unlikely that anyone would go home before morning. So say we all of us ...
[Sung to "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow"]
We won't go home until morning
We won't go home until morning
We won't go home until morning
Till day-light doth appear
Till day-light doth appear
Till day-light doth appear
We won't go home until morning
We won't go home until morning
We won't go home until morning
Till day-light doth appear
The very last act was A Radio Program, performed by Mr. and Mrs. Wesley Horton, together with their children, Evelyn and Dale, with Frederic Laflin as the radio announcer. Huddling together around a radio was wonderful entertainment for those with the good fortune to have a radio in their home. Mimicking the vocal affectations of the actors and the sound effects, as well as static and echoes in reception would have made a clever skit. As Charles Laflin wrote in the Govert Advance, this last act "produced a peck of fun and completed a splendid program of interesting, wholesome fun."
Adelaide may have correctly gauged the evening by leading the group in We Won't Go Home Until Morning. After the program starring our Govert neighbors, which easily passed the two hour mark and may have crept up on the third, Charles Laflin, the P.T.A. President, presided over the business meeting [see the minutes at Get Together, Pull Together, Stick Together Part I]. By the time Mr. Laflin adjourned the business meeting, his Govert neighbors were more than ready for their bona fide oyster stew supper [for more on the food that night see Get Together, Pull Together, Stick Together Part II]. Only after the last oyster was slurped down did anyone consider leaving for home.
All that remains is one last quote from Charles Laflin in the Govert Advance: "If loyalty and happiness spells fragrance and beauty, then we think the beautiful blossom was a wonderful one and feel sure pleasant memories will survive its fading away." Getting together, pulling together, sticking together was never more fun.
Listening to the wind blowing through the prairie grass. Kate
[Written with gratitude to Evaline West, the six-year-old first grader living with Adelaide Calkins when Waldon Lemm came to court, now a charming eighty-something woman with a remarkable memory of her neighbors while growing up in Govert Township; and with reference to the 14 March 1935 edition of the Govert Advance.]
The program was entertaining and appealing ...
amusing ...
interactive ...
personal ...
spirited ...
The program committee tailored original readings ...
for unsuspecting attendees ...
to present sight unseen ...
bringing the community together to laugh ...
and play and socialize ...
The authors of the vignettes
mined the depths of their imaginations and literary skills ...
and their knowledge of their friends and neighbors ...
their neighbors who were their friends ...
their friends who were their neighbors ...
Once they identified their performers, what did the P.T.A. program committee use for material? The committee of three was well-positioned to know everyone's business in Govert. Secrets have a short expiration date in a small town; they just won't stay secret. Adelaide Calkins, Mrs. Wesley Horton, and Fredric Laflin were the perfect playwrights to compose each part of this carefully choreographed evening. Adelaide was the 36-year-old schoolmarm of the Govert country school. Ida Wendt Horton, 33 years old, was a local girl, born just down the road in Castle Rock. Ida had two children attending Govert School, Evelyn Marie and Dale Vernon.
The last member of the program triumvirate was a young man, only 21 years old. You might think that being both young and unmarried, Frederic Laflin might disdain dipping his toe in his neighbor's business, but no one was immune in Govert. Besides, Frederic was the son of the editor of the Govert Advance, the local newspaper whose success was based on reporting the activities of the community. Yes, that Frederic Laflin. Frederic was Govert-born and well-versed in the ways of his community. Frederic was absolutely perfect for this job.
The evening planned by Adelaide, Ida, and Frederic started with upbeat music, songs in which everyone joined, intended to generate enthusiasm and unity. According to Mr. Laflin's coverage in the Govert Advance, "The first four songs on the program in which the peppy musicians were joined by Mr. and Mrs. Wesley Horton and Frederic Laflin most assuredly welcomed one and all to the P.T.A. that evening." The songs were Come In, Hello, The More We Get Together, and Smile Awhile.
Come In might have been the song that goes something like this: "Enter, rejoice, and come in. Enter, rejoice, and come in. Today will be a joyful day; enter, rejoice, and come in." Never you mind that this may have been sung Sundays in church. The folks up there, in those times, didn't have to segregate their faith life to the realms of private rumination. They played out their faith and wouldn't have thought twice about singing a song with hymn overtones at a P.T.A. meeting in the schoolhouse ... which was also their church on any Sunday a pastor was in the neighborhood.
But Hello? What were the lyrics to Hello, and to what melody were the lyrics sung? Some details are lost to history. Fortunately, the remaining two introductory songs from that night might ring more familiarly in your mind.
The More We Get Together
The more we get together
Together, together
The more we get together
The happier we'll be
Cause your friends are my friends
And my friends are your friends
The more we get together
The happier we'll be
The more we play together
Together, together
The more we play together
The happier we'll be
Cause your friends are my friends
And my friends are your friends
The more we play together
The happier we'll be
The more we dance together
Together, together
The more we dance together
The happier we'll be
Cause your friends are my friends;
And my friends are your friends
The more we dance together
The happier we'll be
The more we get together
Together, together
The more we get together
The happier we'll be
Cause your friends are my friends
And my friends are your friends
The more we get together
The happier we'll be
The more we get together
The happier we'll be
The more we get together
The happier we'll be
Smile Awhile
Smile awhile and give your face a rest
Raise your hands to the One you love the best
Then shake hands with those nearby
And greet them with a smile
[Repeat]
We are not blessed with a copy of the program script for the vignettes performed by our Govert neighbors that night, so we don't know exactly what the words of the original compositions were. Nevertheless, the title of each vignette was printed in the Govert Advance. The titles suggest the individual readings were based on recent, perhaps even "notorious" events, or a widely-noted personality feature unique to that person.
In the Govert Advance, Charles Laflin set the stage. "Miss Adelaide Calkins was at the piano. Seated and facing the audience were Dale Horton, Billy Lale, Evelyn Horton, Waldo Jergenson, Elsie Lale, John and Anton Kulisich. [...] With a world of pep in music and songs, and a happy smile of anticipation this lively group introduced and invited to the platform each surprised person to whom a reading or song was handed. All responded and it was, indeed, a severe test for some - but everyone did splendid, that's why we're so proud of them."
How did this play out in real time? With the piano accompaniment of Adelaide Calkins, the choir of her school children sang an "invitation song", specially composed to identify the next unsuspecting performer. Fifteen Goverites in succession were called to the front of the single room of the schoolhouse, and they responded just as if they were again nervous schoolchildren called upon to recite their lessons.
The invitation song was based on a common melody. For example, "Herbert's a Jolly Good Fellow" as a come forth song would have followed the tune of "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" to bring Herbert Scofield to the front of the class. We can easily imagine this as some variation of:
For Herbert's a jolly good fellow,
For Herbert's a jolly good fellow,
For Herbert's a jolly good fell---ow
Who gives us jolly advice.
With the invitation song ringing in his ears, now burning bright red, Herbert Scofield, and everyone else called forward in this manner, found his or her way to the front of the room through laughing and jostling neighbors. Each accepted the proffered script and each, in the spirit of community cooperation, made a performance that, even if not eligible for an Emmy, brought good humor to that corner of the Depression era prairie.
So here we go. What follows are the title of the invitation song and the title of the assigned reading for each of our 15 Govert neighbors who performed that night ... along with what might possibly have been the program committee's inspiration.
1. Invitation by the choir: "Howdy Do Joseph Grandpre"
Response performed by J.L. Grandpre: "Howdy Do Kind Friends"
Joseph Leo Grandpre was a respected, longtime Govert resident having arrived before 1920. He knew everyone, was always glad to see everyone, was friendly with everyone. He was a welcoming man, so would be the perfect person to open the program and set the stage for the acts to come. Mr. Grandpre is remembered by then 6-year-old Evaline West as a short Frenchman ... the influence of his French Canadian parents ... very neat in his appearance, dark eyes flashing with energy. He was not a loud man, but was a lively and energetic little man, outgoing, and jovial. You couldn't help but like Joseph Grandpre.
2. Invitation by the choir: "Cheer Up Ida"
Response performed by Ida Wendt Horton: "He Wasn't Necessary"
Ida was blonde, blue-eyed, nice-looking, maybe a little thin to be as attractive as she could have been. It’s not that Ida wasn’t cheerful. Ida was friendly and outgoing, but Ida was a bundle of nerves, as if she wasn’t quite comfortable in her own skin. Some thought her nervousness was connected to her worry over her son Dale’s heart problems. Then, too was the fact that Ida was a go-getter and her husband Wesley could never get anywhere on time; he was laid back like his brother, Rayford. Anyone who had to deal with a spouse like that would sympathize with Ida. She was a good person, not negative, just had thin nerves. But what about the second part, the title of her reading? Who or what wasn't necessary? The author of Ida's reading would hardly have disregarded a person as unnecessary, so "he" must have been something as uncomplicated as a turkey or a chicken who escaped the coop. Remember, Ida was on the program committee. And so was Frederic, whose reading came next. You might notice that no reading was prepared for Adelaide, leading us to suspect that our much loved schoolmarm playfully wrote the readings for Ida and Frederic.
3. Invitation by the choir: "Frederic Will Shine Tonight"
Response performed by Frederic Laflin: "Afeard of a Girl"
Twenty-one was an awkward age for Frederic Laflin. He would soon be considered a ladies' man, but the ladies had yet to encourage him. Frederic's father, Charles Laflin, was short and his mother, Mary Zee Campbell, was considered a bit tall for a woman. Frederic himself was the anomaly standing over 6 foot tall, maybe even six foot three. His nickname was “Broom Laflin” because he was so tall and thin. Frederic may have been afeard of all girls, or maybe he was afeard of one particular girl ... and that might have been Inez James. Another two years would pass before Frederic and Inez married. Frederic would have been much more confident in 1935 had he known that he and Inez would have a beautiful and spirited daughter, Saundra, and grandchildren and great-grandchildren to preserve the Laflin foothold in Govert Township. Yes, that Frederic Laflin.
4. Invitation by the choir: "Herbert's a Jolly Good Fellow"
Response performed by H.L. Scofield: "Hints for Him"
Herbert and his wife, Signey, were a good-looking couple. All the Scofields were well-groomed including children, Dorothy and LeRoy. Herbert himself may have been a font of grooming advice, counseling young men on the importance of good grooming and how best to maintain a good appearance.
5. Invitation by the choir: "What's the Matter with Waldon" [The coming forth song may have been based on What’s the Matter with Father.]
Response performed by Waldon Lemm: "Teachers"
Come now, Waldon, you really didn't think it was a secret you were paying court to the schoolmarm? Remember that 6-year-old girl who stayed with Adelaide at the teacherage during the school year? Well, that little girl still remembers your coming to visit, sometimes staying for dinner, and everyone else in Govert knew about you and Adelaide, too. Truth be told, Adelaide's divorce remained fresh in memory, Waldon was a younger man, and maybe the timing just wasn't right for Adelaide. Waldon found another love and married in 1943, but Adelaide and Waldon remained forever friends.
6. Invitation by the choir: "Sing a Ling, Ling, Mr. Laflin"
Response performed by Charles E. Laflin: "No Salesmen Allowed"
Without Charles Laflin's experience stringing telephone lines prior to taking up a homestead in the township to the north, Govert may never have enjoyed the ding a'ling a'ling of that new-fangled telephone device. Was the dawn of the telephone in Govert also the dawn of telephone solicitation? Or was Mr. Laflin impatient with the many peddlers who found their way into his otherwise quiet corner of the prairie? Transients selling brushes or clothing or encyclopedias; or buying pelts or bones; or speculators in land. Mr. Laflin was a very good person with only the best of intentions, and he might have been surprised to learn how powerful and influential people thought he was. One thing for sure, Mr. Laflin assumed a lot of responsibilities and, understandably, he would have had no time for anyone intent on wasting his time.
7. Invitation by the choir: "Are You with Us Lillian Hafner"
Response performed by Lillian Gudmunson Hafner: "Too Promising"
Lillian Gudmunson was an outsider, arriving in the Govert area first as a schoolteacher and remaining to marry rancher George Hafner. Of the two, Lillian was the more reserved. George was outgoing and personable, a grownup who stopped to play with the children in the schoolyard. With her daughter, Mercedes, ready to start school, Lillian may have had conflicting loyalties. Which would prevail, the Govert community she adopted as her own, first as teacher and later as a rancher's wife, or her own desire for her children to have the best educational opportunities available ... a desire which might have seemed traitorous had it taken them away from Govert and to a larger town.
8. Invitation by the choir: "In Style All the While"
Response performed by Lydia Vogt Gee: "Babies"
Lydia Gee was a well-dressed woman, in a modest, middle class kind of way. She may have had interest in fashion but, as for most women at the time, Lydia was challenged by the economy and fashion looked more like a housedress. She was a competent woman, very involved in the Govert community, with special status as a longtime resident and a former schoolteacher. To young Govert mothers, Lydia was the older, wiser woman, caring and gracious, a respected adviser. Now at 48, with her two sons finishing high school in Newell, soon to embark on their own lives, Lydia had reason to sit back and smile about babies, doting on and fussing over the babies in the Govert community and dreaming of her own grandchildren, the first of which would not be born for another 15 years. If the issue was fretting mothers yearning for stylish baby clothes in the middle of the Depression, I can imagine my great-aunt offering the wise counsel that "Babies are always stylish".
9. Invitation by the choir: "Hello Delore"
Response performed by Delore Grandpre: "Trouble Brewing"
What kind of trouble could be brewing for this 16-year-old boy? Delore and both of his parents were part of this collection of vignettes. All three were chosen to participate because the program committee knew they would do so in good humor. Delore could not have been a troublemaker. So what trouble was around the corner for Delore? Or any 16-year-old boy, for that matter. Must have been something to do with abundant testosterone reserves.
10. Invitation by the choir: "O Mrs. Grandpre"
Response performed by Amanda Bekken Grandpre: "Nothing to It"
"Oh, Mrs. Grandpre" sounds like a plea for assistance by a young neighbor desperately seeking advice. "Nothing to it" is the response of someone with superior experience born of overcoming challenges by force of an indomitable, can-do spirit. "Just do it this way. Nothing to it!" Both Mr. and Mrs. Grandpre were outgoing, and were blessed with a strong, positive attitude. They were relaxed and fun to be around. Nothing to it.
11. Invitation by the choir: "Give John Donohue a Hand"
Response performed by John Donohue: "When Hog Meets Hog"
Twenty-five-year-old John Donohue was a rancher, son of a rancher, brother of a rancher. Young stallions like John have been known to tell a tale or two. The re-telling of his story about competing hogs may have been even better than the original.
12. Invitation by the choir: "Signey Went Over the Mountain" [This come forth song may have been based on The Bear Went Over the Mountain, sung to the tune of For He's a Jolly Good Fellow.]
The bear went over the mountain,
The bear went over the mountain,
The bear went over the mountain,
To see what he could see.
And all that he could see,
And all that he could see,
Was the other side of the mountain,
The other side of the mountain,
The other side of the mountain,
Was all that he could see.
Response performed by Signey Bekken Scofield: "Advertise"
Maybe Signey was developing entrepreneurial ideas. After all, ranch wives brought in reliable income with their cream and butter products and with the eggs they collected. They also tended the turkeys and the chickens offered for sale to townspeople who didn't raise their own. Maybe Signey had ambitions.
13. Invitation by the choir: "O Mr. Toble"
Response performed by G.H. Toble: "Kissing Neath a Mustache"
"Oh," she said coyly, "Mr. Toble, your mustache tickles." Those are words Gus Toble probably never thought he would ever hear again. His wife, Amy, died four years earlier after being terribly burned in a fire that began in the stove flue and consumed their Govert home. Gus was struck senseless by the tragedy, but he got a second chance at love with the charming Widow Byers who lived up by Cash. The Govert community closed ranks around Gus and he kept his ties to northwestern South Dakota for the remainder of his life. Lydia Vogt Gee called Gus uncle, as did Emma Vogt Van der Boom, the wife of the founder of Govert. Everyone liked Gus, including children and dogs. At the P.T.A. business meeting this very night, Dale Horton couldn't hold back his enthusiasm for Gus ... this 10-year-old boy jumped up in that large group of adults to nominate Gus for the next program committee. Dale's burst of fondness reflects the community's support for Gus and his new companion. Writing a playful "Kissing Neath a Mustache" vignette just for him and his generous mustache tells us the same thing. The Widow Byers became Mrs. Gus Toble on March 19, 1935, nearly a month after Gus performed his part in the P.T.A. program.
14. Invitation by the choir: "My Name is Bert Ellis"
Response performed by Bert Ellis: "Proper Length of a Man's Legs"
Bert Ellis had very strong opinions about politics, about the senselessness of Prohibition, about nearly everything subject to judgment. This went hand-in-hand with a propensity toward giving advice. Both opinions and advice were framed by his sense of humor and a reputation for being something of a tease. If asked to opine on an appropriate height for a man, he might very well have said something profound and a little flippant like, "The proper length of a man's leg is from his hip all the way to the ground."
15. Invitation by the choir: "Willie Boy"
Response performed by Wm. Donohue: "The Wild Cow"
Oh, where have you been Willie Boy, Willie Boy; oh, where have you been charming Willie? Like his older brother, John, William Donohue had something of a rough and tumble cowboy reputation to protect and perpetuate, and the tales of valor to go with it ... here, probably a tale of derring-do and a wild cow.
In addition to the 15 vignettes, the P.T.A. program offered three other acts. The first provided a break in the action after eight Goverites performed their surprise readings. This was when Dorothy and Rayford Horton sang Good Ship Lollipop to the accompaniment of harmonicas played by their cousins, Evelyn and Dale Horton. After the 15th, and final, vignette, Adelaide Calkins led the entire assembly in singing We Won't Go Home Until Morning. By then it appeared unlikely that anyone would go home before morning. So say we all of us ...
[Sung to "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow"]
We won't go home until morning
We won't go home until morning
We won't go home until morning
Till day-light doth appear
Till day-light doth appear
Till day-light doth appear
We won't go home until morning
We won't go home until morning
We won't go home until morning
Till day-light doth appear
The very last act was A Radio Program, performed by Mr. and Mrs. Wesley Horton, together with their children, Evelyn and Dale, with Frederic Laflin as the radio announcer. Huddling together around a radio was wonderful entertainment for those with the good fortune to have a radio in their home. Mimicking the vocal affectations of the actors and the sound effects, as well as static and echoes in reception would have made a clever skit. As Charles Laflin wrote in the Govert Advance, this last act "produced a peck of fun and completed a splendid program of interesting, wholesome fun."
Adelaide may have correctly gauged the evening by leading the group in We Won't Go Home Until Morning. After the program starring our Govert neighbors, which easily passed the two hour mark and may have crept up on the third, Charles Laflin, the P.T.A. President, presided over the business meeting [see the minutes at Get Together, Pull Together, Stick Together Part I]. By the time Mr. Laflin adjourned the business meeting, his Govert neighbors were more than ready for their bona fide oyster stew supper [for more on the food that night see Get Together, Pull Together, Stick Together Part II]. Only after the last oyster was slurped down did anyone consider leaving for home.
All that remains is one last quote from Charles Laflin in the Govert Advance: "If loyalty and happiness spells fragrance and beauty, then we think the beautiful blossom was a wonderful one and feel sure pleasant memories will survive its fading away." Getting together, pulling together, sticking together was never more fun.
Listening to the wind blowing through the prairie grass. Kate
[Written with gratitude to Evaline West, the six-year-old first grader living with Adelaide Calkins when Waldon Lemm came to court, now a charming eighty-something woman with a remarkable memory of her neighbors while growing up in Govert Township; and with reference to the 14 March 1935 edition of the Govert Advance.]
Thursday, February 6, 2014
Fox and Geese ... and Children ... Oh My!
No winter passes in the North Country of South Dakota without the bite of bitter cold. This very day of February the temperature in Buffalo, South Dakota, may rise as high as 5 degrees. Yesterday the high was -3 and last night the temperature fell into the double digits below zero. Harding County winters were no different back when Govert School was in session to teach the children of Govert township.
The memory of Govert as a town includes the memory of wood frame houses with little or no insulation, miserably warmed by a wood or coal burning stove. Goverites had no experience with layers of insulation in their attics measured in inches, with high efficiency gas or electric furnaces, with double paned windows. How cold was it? Cold enough for the pail of water in the kitchen to freeze during the night. Yes, that cold.
But what does this have to do with fox and geese and children? For this story we need a winter scene, so play along.
During the years the Govert community stood on the prairie ... during the 1910's, the 1920's, the 1930's, and into the 1940's ... the only warm place in the house on a cold day was the stove. The stove came in many shapes, and your house might have only one ... the cook stove ... but picture in your mind a pot-bellied stove. From watching their parents, children learned to face the stove to warm their hands and their front side, and then to turn around to warm their back side. Many of the stoves had a foot rail so you could pull up your chair and prop your feet on the stove rail. In winter, life in the North Country played out within the effective radius of the stove. Yes, that cold.
And now on to the fox and geese and children.
A favorite winter game for Govert school children was Fox and Geese, a game of tag. Other agreeable versions of tag could be played before the first snow and after the last snow, but Fox and Geese required a good snowfall. Sitting at their desks in the one room Govert school house, with that first snow calling them by name, the children grew restless for recess, eager to stomp out a new playing field. They fidgeted and bit their lips, made faces, looked around and rocked in their chairs, making scratching and thumping noises.
By the time the children thought they could restrain themselves no longer, the teacher knew their minds were beyond her reach and she called recess. If it was the year Miss Blomberg was the teacher, the children who jumped from their desks were James Donohue, Mercedes Hafner, Marie Kulisich, Billy Lale, Albert Springer, Edwin Springer, Roland Springer, Alice Mae West, Evaline West, and Nona Marie Wald.
For whatever reason of childhood, not even the most unbearable of cold winter days could get in the way of children intent on recess. The children piled into the cloakroom and bundled up, layering on sweaters, coats, mufflers, mittens, snowsuits ... whatever they had taken off and hung on the hooks when arriving at school that morning. They early learned to pull on their snow boots before adding on the last layers of clothing, or they would never be able to bend over and reach their feet.
Scrambling outside to their favorite play area, the children then stomped and shuffled through the snow, one behind the other, like a parade following in the same path. First, the children stomped a path making a circle, a large circle several feet in diameter. Then they stomped straight paths across the circle like a wagon wheel, one rim to the other. The hub of the wheel was stomped flat, too. Shuffle and stomp. Shuffle and stomp.
If you've never seen the wheel of a horse drawn wagon, you might not be able to imagine how the spokes radiate from the hub in the middle to the rim on the outside edge. In that case, think of how a pie is cut, from one edge of the circular pan to the other. These Govert children knew their wheels and they knew their pies, and they knew how to easily entertain themselves.
Entertain themselves they did. Miss Blomberg was sure to add certainty to any indecision over who would be the fox. The fox, of course, was "it" in both nature and on the playground. Maybe James Donohue was the fox. He was one of the older boys that year. Or maybe Marie Kulisich, or one of the West girls was the fox this time. Everyone took a turn at being "it". No one seemed to mind.
The fox took a place in the hub of the wheel while the remaining players, who were the geese, spread out along the circular path, as far away from the fox as they could get. And then the wily fox leapt from the center of the circle and chased the geese. The geese scattered around the circular path and up and down the straight paths. Once the chase was on, the children could not leave the perimeter of the outer circle.
The playground purist might insist that the fox could only follow the straight lines, while the geese could seek escape along any path. But, as with any playground game, you might make your own rules. Who really cares who follows which path when all you want is a good chase and 15 minutes of shrieking excitement. The purist would tell us the goal of the game was for the fox to tag a goose, who then became the hunter instead of the hunted. Miss Blomberg might confide the goal was to consume the excess energy of children who would otherwise wiggle in their chairs during lessons.
These children of Govert, played hard during recess. They ran hard, jumped hard, laughed hard, and the excitement and activity warmed them better than any stove. Recess ended with rosy cheeks, glowing eyes, and numb fingers. Most children are reluctant to give up their freedom for the classroom once again, but our future mothers and fathers, and future ranchers, future teachers, social workers, and artists returned to the cloakroom of their one room schoolhouse, and once again hung their coats and snowsuits on hooks.
Now wait for it ... wait for it ...
Not much time passed before the first child walked into the narrow circle of heat surrounding the pot bellied stove in the schoolhouse. No one seems to mind. Miss Blomberg was cold, too, and didn't discourage the children from leaving their seats and warming themselves at the stove. Another child takes a turn at the stove, and then another. The children warm their hands facing the stove, and then turn around to warm their back side.
What is it about recess that makes children invincible as against the cold?
Listening to the wind blowing through the prairie grass. Kate
[Written with gratitude to the fox and geese of long ago Govert, South Dakota, Marie Kulisich and Alice Mae and Evaline West.]
The memory of Govert as a town includes the memory of wood frame houses with little or no insulation, miserably warmed by a wood or coal burning stove. Goverites had no experience with layers of insulation in their attics measured in inches, with high efficiency gas or electric furnaces, with double paned windows. How cold was it? Cold enough for the pail of water in the kitchen to freeze during the night. Yes, that cold.
But what does this have to do with fox and geese and children? For this story we need a winter scene, so play along.
During the years the Govert community stood on the prairie ... during the 1910's, the 1920's, the 1930's, and into the 1940's ... the only warm place in the house on a cold day was the stove. The stove came in many shapes, and your house might have only one ... the cook stove ... but picture in your mind a pot-bellied stove. From watching their parents, children learned to face the stove to warm their hands and their front side, and then to turn around to warm their back side. Many of the stoves had a foot rail so you could pull up your chair and prop your feet on the stove rail. In winter, life in the North Country played out within the effective radius of the stove. Yes, that cold.
And now on to the fox and geese and children.
A favorite winter game for Govert school children was Fox and Geese, a game of tag. Other agreeable versions of tag could be played before the first snow and after the last snow, but Fox and Geese required a good snowfall. Sitting at their desks in the one room Govert school house, with that first snow calling them by name, the children grew restless for recess, eager to stomp out a new playing field. They fidgeted and bit their lips, made faces, looked around and rocked in their chairs, making scratching and thumping noises.
By the time the children thought they could restrain themselves no longer, the teacher knew their minds were beyond her reach and she called recess. If it was the year Miss Blomberg was the teacher, the children who jumped from their desks were James Donohue, Mercedes Hafner, Marie Kulisich, Billy Lale, Albert Springer, Edwin Springer, Roland Springer, Alice Mae West, Evaline West, and Nona Marie Wald.
For whatever reason of childhood, not even the most unbearable of cold winter days could get in the way of children intent on recess. The children piled into the cloakroom and bundled up, layering on sweaters, coats, mufflers, mittens, snowsuits ... whatever they had taken off and hung on the hooks when arriving at school that morning. They early learned to pull on their snow boots before adding on the last layers of clothing, or they would never be able to bend over and reach their feet.
Scrambling outside to their favorite play area, the children then stomped and shuffled through the snow, one behind the other, like a parade following in the same path. First, the children stomped a path making a circle, a large circle several feet in diameter. Then they stomped straight paths across the circle like a wagon wheel, one rim to the other. The hub of the wheel was stomped flat, too. Shuffle and stomp. Shuffle and stomp.
If you've never seen the wheel of a horse drawn wagon, you might not be able to imagine how the spokes radiate from the hub in the middle to the rim on the outside edge. In that case, think of how a pie is cut, from one edge of the circular pan to the other. These Govert children knew their wheels and they knew their pies, and they knew how to easily entertain themselves.
Entertain themselves they did. Miss Blomberg was sure to add certainty to any indecision over who would be the fox. The fox, of course, was "it" in both nature and on the playground. Maybe James Donohue was the fox. He was one of the older boys that year. Or maybe Marie Kulisich, or one of the West girls was the fox this time. Everyone took a turn at being "it". No one seemed to mind.
The fox took a place in the hub of the wheel while the remaining players, who were the geese, spread out along the circular path, as far away from the fox as they could get. And then the wily fox leapt from the center of the circle and chased the geese. The geese scattered around the circular path and up and down the straight paths. Once the chase was on, the children could not leave the perimeter of the outer circle.
The playground purist might insist that the fox could only follow the straight lines, while the geese could seek escape along any path. But, as with any playground game, you might make your own rules. Who really cares who follows which path when all you want is a good chase and 15 minutes of shrieking excitement. The purist would tell us the goal of the game was for the fox to tag a goose, who then became the hunter instead of the hunted. Miss Blomberg might confide the goal was to consume the excess energy of children who would otherwise wiggle in their chairs during lessons.
These children of Govert, played hard during recess. They ran hard, jumped hard, laughed hard, and the excitement and activity warmed them better than any stove. Recess ended with rosy cheeks, glowing eyes, and numb fingers. Most children are reluctant to give up their freedom for the classroom once again, but our future mothers and fathers, and future ranchers, future teachers, social workers, and artists returned to the cloakroom of their one room schoolhouse, and once again hung their coats and snowsuits on hooks.
Now wait for it ... wait for it ...
Not much time passed before the first child walked into the narrow circle of heat surrounding the pot bellied stove in the schoolhouse. No one seems to mind. Miss Blomberg was cold, too, and didn't discourage the children from leaving their seats and warming themselves at the stove. Another child takes a turn at the stove, and then another. The children warm their hands facing the stove, and then turn around to warm their back side.
What is it about recess that makes children invincible as against the cold?
Listening to the wind blowing through the prairie grass. Kate
[Written with gratitude to the fox and geese of long ago Govert, South Dakota, Marie Kulisich and Alice Mae and Evaline West.]
Thursday, December 12, 2013
Merry Christmas from the Govert, South Dakota, P.T.A.!
"Merry Christmas!" "Hiya, neighbor! Merry Christmas!" "Good evening and Merry Christmas!" "Hey! Merry Christmas!" "Merry Christmas to you, too!"
Voices from every direction called out cheery greetings as Goverites gathered at the schoolhouse for the Govert, South Dakota, P.T.A. Christmas Program. Every man, every woman, and every child, glowing shiny clean and rosy from excitement, was carefully dressed for the holiday celebration. They were ready for the best, the biggest, the most enthusiastic community gathering of the entire year.
Inside the schoolhouse, the children's desks had been pushed to the fringe of the room and rows of wooden benches were lined up facing the blackboard in front. In the swelling anticipation, an evergreen tree decorated with tinsel and colored balls, standing awkwardly to the side of the blackboard, seemed bigger, brighter, and more confident than perhaps it really was. Nine-year-old Marie Kulisich thought this tree, brought in from the Slim Buttes, was the most beautiful Christmas tree she had ever seen.
Darkness closed in on the schoolhouse and, although the weather grew only colder and colder as the evening progressed into night, the coal stove burned hot. Gasoline lanterns, carried in by the Govert neighbors, radiated light and a little heat, brightening the schoolroom. With all the neighbors crowded into the single room of the 19' by 27' schoolhouse, the air became warm, almost steamy.
The desk of the Govert country school teacher, Alma Eleanor (Cox) Schuck, the widow of Walter Benjamin Schuck these last 14 years and more, was pushed to the side of where the stage now sat in front of the benches, on the side opposite from the decorated evergreen tree. Every inch of Mrs. Schuck's desk was obscured by plates holding cakes and cookies, and more plates holding sandwiches piled so high as to threaten to tumble. And coffee. The P.T.A. always served coffee, strong and hot.
With no admission fee, the P.T.A. Christmas Program was the perfect holiday activity for rural Harding County families during the Great Depression. What should Goverites find in the Govert schoolhouse that night in December but a glamorous Christmas tree, hours of laughter and heartfelt entertainment, companionable fellowship with neighbors, and sugary treats for everyone. Who could ask for more happiness than the oh-so-pleasant here-and-now, in that interlude before leaving this bright place to find their way home in the dark and cold of the earliest morning hours?
Like all the years preceding, the P.T.A. Christmas Program for 1939 was an acclaimed hit among Goverites and all the farming and ranching families within reach of the Govert schoolhouse. The performers that year were Mercedes Hafner (2d grade), Marie Kulisich (4th grade), Leroy Scofield (2d grade), Roland Springer (1st grade) and Edwin Springer (2d grade), and Alice Mae West (4th grade) and Evaline West (6th grade). Twelve-year-old Billy Lale was the oldest student at Govert School that year; he was in the 7th grade. Billy joined in the songs and acted in the plays with the other students.
Eager for holiday excitement, the grade school students, their parents, brothers and sisters, and all of their neighbors, including the old bachelors in the township, began the program singing ... quite loudly ... "Joy to the World". The children ended their program much, much later, tired and happy, singing "The Tree That Blooms at Christmas." Between these two songs were plays, readings, recitations, a dialog, and more holiday musical favorites.
By the time the Govert schoolchildren sang the Christmas lullaby, Dear Little Stranger, little brothers and sisters were snuggling in their parents' laps, with mommy's or daddy's protective arms around them. The adults were smiling nostalgically, remembering their happiest Christmas times. Waves of light and sound echoed between the stage and the densely seated benches. These are the voices of children you would have heard: Dear Little Stranger.
Listening to the wind blowing through the prairie grass. Kate
[Based on an article in the Govert Advance, December 28, 1939; with gratitude to Marie Kulisich for assisting with details; Dear Little Stranger, Charles H. Gabriel, 1900; The Tree That Blooms at Christmas, Author Unknown, sung to "Let the Lower Lights Be Burning", Philip P. Bliss, 1871]
Voices from every direction called out cheery greetings as Goverites gathered at the schoolhouse for the Govert, South Dakota, P.T.A. Christmas Program. Every man, every woman, and every child, glowing shiny clean and rosy from excitement, was carefully dressed for the holiday celebration. They were ready for the best, the biggest, the most enthusiastic community gathering of the entire year.
Inside the schoolhouse, the children's desks had been pushed to the fringe of the room and rows of wooden benches were lined up facing the blackboard in front. In the swelling anticipation, an evergreen tree decorated with tinsel and colored balls, standing awkwardly to the side of the blackboard, seemed bigger, brighter, and more confident than perhaps it really was. Nine-year-old Marie Kulisich thought this tree, brought in from the Slim Buttes, was the most beautiful Christmas tree she had ever seen.
Darkness closed in on the schoolhouse and, although the weather grew only colder and colder as the evening progressed into night, the coal stove burned hot. Gasoline lanterns, carried in by the Govert neighbors, radiated light and a little heat, brightening the schoolroom. With all the neighbors crowded into the single room of the 19' by 27' schoolhouse, the air became warm, almost steamy.
The desk of the Govert country school teacher, Alma Eleanor (Cox) Schuck, the widow of Walter Benjamin Schuck these last 14 years and more, was pushed to the side of where the stage now sat in front of the benches, on the side opposite from the decorated evergreen tree. Every inch of Mrs. Schuck's desk was obscured by plates holding cakes and cookies, and more plates holding sandwiches piled so high as to threaten to tumble. And coffee. The P.T.A. always served coffee, strong and hot.
With no admission fee, the P.T.A. Christmas Program was the perfect holiday activity for rural Harding County families during the Great Depression. What should Goverites find in the Govert schoolhouse that night in December but a glamorous Christmas tree, hours of laughter and heartfelt entertainment, companionable fellowship with neighbors, and sugary treats for everyone. Who could ask for more happiness than the oh-so-pleasant here-and-now, in that interlude before leaving this bright place to find their way home in the dark and cold of the earliest morning hours?
Like all the years preceding, the P.T.A. Christmas Program for 1939 was an acclaimed hit among Goverites and all the farming and ranching families within reach of the Govert schoolhouse. The performers that year were Mercedes Hafner (2d grade), Marie Kulisich (4th grade), Leroy Scofield (2d grade), Roland Springer (1st grade) and Edwin Springer (2d grade), and Alice Mae West (4th grade) and Evaline West (6th grade). Twelve-year-old Billy Lale was the oldest student at Govert School that year; he was in the 7th grade. Billy joined in the songs and acted in the plays with the other students.
Eager for holiday excitement, the grade school students, their parents, brothers and sisters, and all of their neighbors, including the old bachelors in the township, began the program singing ... quite loudly ... "Joy to the World". The children ended their program much, much later, tired and happy, singing "The Tree That Blooms at Christmas." Between these two songs were plays, readings, recitations, a dialog, and more holiday musical favorites.
P.T.A. PROGRAM
Joy to the World ...... Song by All
Silent Night ...... Song by Govert School
Just a Hint ...... Reading by Alice Mae West
Our Baby ...... Recitation by Edwin Springer
One Drawback ...... Recitation by Roland Springer
It Came Upon the Midnight Clear ...... Song by Govert School
Tangled Telephone ...... Play by Govert School
Poor Dolly ...... Recitation by Mercedes Hafner
Christmas at Grandma’s ...... Recitation by Leroy Scofield
Put a Candle in the Window ...... Song by Govert School
Christmas Angels ...... Reading by Evaline West
Nurse! Nurse! ...... Dialog by Alice Mae West and Marie Kulisich
A Wise Christmas Gift ...... Recitation by Edwin Springer
Dear Little Stranger ...... Song by Govert School
Christmas Strategy ...... Play by Govert School
Hark the Herald Angels Sing ...... Song by All
The Tree That Blooms at Christmas ...... Song by Govert School
By the time the Govert schoolchildren sang the Christmas lullaby, Dear Little Stranger, little brothers and sisters were snuggling in their parents' laps, with mommy's or daddy's protective arms around them. The adults were smiling nostalgically, remembering their happiest Christmas times. Waves of light and sound echoed between the stage and the densely seated benches. These are the voices of children you would have heard: Dear Little Stranger.
And these are the words:
Low in a manger, dear little Stranger,
Jesus, the wonderful Savior, was born.
There was none to receive Him, none to believe Him,
None but the angels were watching that morn.
Refrain:
Dear little Stranger, slept in a manger,
No downy pillow under His head;
But with the poor He slumbered secure,
The dear little Babe in His bed.
Angels descending, over Him bending,
Chanted a tender and silent refrain;
Then a wonderful story told of His glory,
Unto the shepherds on Bethlehem’s plain.
Dear little Stranger, born in a manger,
Maker and Monarch, and Savior of all;
I will love Thee forever! Grieve Thee? No, never!
Thou didst for me make Thy bed in a stall.
By the time the children reached their finale, "The Tree That Blooms at Christmas", Mercedes, Marie, Leroy, Roland, Edwin, Alice Mae, Evaline, and Billy wistfully sang their wishes for a Christmas tree with presents stacked underneath.
We, with hearts so light and happy
Gather 'round the Christmas tree;
There are gifts that love has given,
Gifts for you, and gifts for me.
Chorus:
See the tapers, lighted, burning,
Sending forth a cheery glow;
See the tree, a-sparkle, turning,
All its dainty gifts to show.
Tops and balls, and drums and every
Gift to mention, swinging there.
What care we, though snowflakes whitely,
Flutter through the frosty air.
For the tree that blooms at Christmas,
With its fruit so strange to see,
Bears amid the shining branches.
Some sweet, dainty gift for me.
As they sang, the children were glad for this holiday celebration at the schoolhouse ... and wondered whether their own tree would bloom this Christmas.
Listening to the wind blowing through the prairie grass. Kate
[Based on an article in the Govert Advance, December 28, 1939; with gratitude to Marie Kulisich for assisting with details; Dear Little Stranger, Charles H. Gabriel, 1900; The Tree That Blooms at Christmas, Author Unknown, sung to "Let the Lower Lights Be Burning", Philip P. Bliss, 1871]
Thursday, December 5, 2013
What’s Happening in Govert, South Dakota: Thursday, 5 December 1940
In preparation for Christmas, 73 years ago today, the Govert Advance published the instructions for Santa’s helpers to craft a four poster doll bed. All a mommy or daddy needed were a cigar box, four wooden clothes pins, four wooden thread spools, scraps of fabric to make a pad, pillow, and bedding, and a bit of paint. This, together with a late night of gluing, sewing, and painting, might be the best a Goverite could offer a young daughter for Christmas after struggling through 11 years of the Great Depression. The good news: only one more year of the Depression. The bad news: America would join the war.
Reading beyond the cigar box doll bed that Thursday night in 1940, a Govert family might have been comforted by their decision to choose a home on the Harding County prairie, 1800 miles from the east coast, far away from the bright lights and the crowding in the cities, and far, far away from the political wrangling.
That Thursday night in Govert, farmers and ranchers shook the creases out of the Govert Advance and read that New Yorkers were now being warned to be alert for suspicious packages. The abandoned box, bag, valise, or satchel might be a bomb positioned by “subversive and destructive elements” in America. "Thank goodness we don't have to worry about THAT," Goverites echoed across the prairie. Why in the world would any subversive, or any foreign spy, waste their time traveling to a place where the two-legged population was far outnumbered by the four-legged variety?
Continuing through the newspaper, they read about the destruction left by Nazi bombs in England. And then the Govert Advance reported a survey conducted by the United States Employment Service revealing 215,000 people registered with employment offices throughout the United States for jobs in defense industries ... should they be needed.
In December 1940 the folks in Govert are less worried about an abandoned valise or satchel left in a place where a bomb might be calculated to cause maximum damage to resources or morale, and they are more worried about Christmas. So what happened in Govert, South Dakota, the first week in December in 1940? You saw it first in the Govert Advance:
Listening to the wind blowing through the prairie grass. Kate
[Based on the news reported in the 5 December 1940 edition of the Govert Advance]
Reading beyond the cigar box doll bed that Thursday night in 1940, a Govert family might have been comforted by their decision to choose a home on the Harding County prairie, 1800 miles from the east coast, far away from the bright lights and the crowding in the cities, and far, far away from the political wrangling.
That Thursday night in Govert, farmers and ranchers shook the creases out of the Govert Advance and read that New Yorkers were now being warned to be alert for suspicious packages. The abandoned box, bag, valise, or satchel might be a bomb positioned by “subversive and destructive elements” in America. "Thank goodness we don't have to worry about THAT," Goverites echoed across the prairie. Why in the world would any subversive, or any foreign spy, waste their time traveling to a place where the two-legged population was far outnumbered by the four-legged variety?
Continuing through the newspaper, they read about the destruction left by Nazi bombs in England. And then the Govert Advance reported a survey conducted by the United States Employment Service revealing 215,000 people registered with employment offices throughout the United States for jobs in defense industries ... should they be needed.
In December 1940 the folks in Govert are less worried about an abandoned valise or satchel left in a place where a bomb might be calculated to cause maximum damage to resources or morale, and they are more worried about Christmas. So what happened in Govert, South Dakota, the first week in December in 1940? You saw it first in the Govert Advance:
- "Herman West and Archie Cornella are hauling hay from the Primm place to the JX Ranch for Howard Sheridan. Howard will winter a band of sheep at the ranch."
- "Chester Phillips has been quite ill with pneumonia and was taken to the Buffalo hospital."
- "Mr. and Mrs. F.F. West, of the West General Store at Govert, were shopping in Belle Fourche, Friday."
- "Ann, Anton and John Kulisich were in Newell Friday, visiting the dentist."
- "Guests at the Bert Ellis home Thanksgiving were Mr. and Mrs. Paul Ellis, daughter, Nona, and son, Harold, Mr. and Mrs. Harry Class, Mr. and Mrs. Mitch Kulisich, daughters, Ann and Marie, sons, Anton and John, and Leonard West."
- "Wesley Horton and wife spent several days with relatives at Whitewood."
- "Nick and Pete Lale took their dressed turkeys to Lead and received very satisfactory prices."
- "Alice Mae West spent the weekend with Marie Kulisich."
- "Mrs. Westley Horton is visiting her daughter, Evelyn, at Custer. Evelyn is taking a Beauty course at Custer and making her home with Mrs. Horton’s sister."
- "Mr. and Mrs. Nick Lale entertained friends Thanksgiving Day."
- "Mr. and Mrs. Louie Frandsen were in Belle Fourche Wednesday to get his pick up repaired. Mr. Frandsen slipped off the grade and turned over causing some little damage."
Listening to the wind blowing through the prairie grass. Kate
[Based on the news reported in the 5 December 1940 edition of the Govert Advance]
Thursday, October 24, 2013
Little Women Go to School in Govert, South Dakota
Like snowflakes, the two little girls danced in the cold morning air in Govert, South Dakota. From a distance, the two little girls appeared no different than any of the other children playing at recess. Close up, Marie and Alice Mae were amazingly different, unique in their beauty. If we were casting Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, Marie would play Josephine and Alice Mae would be Beth. Or maybe Alice Mae would be Amy, as she had qualities of both March daughters in Little Women.
Marie Kulisich and Alice Mae West were born three months apart in 1930, and each lived on her family's ranch in Govert Township. When the time came for the two little girls to start school, each walked through the door of the one room Govert country schoolhouse and, during the years that followed, each little girl eagerly applied herself to her studies. They both liked school, Marie and Alice Mae.
In their claim to Govert and to the country school, they were the same, but all their teachers could see the difference between the two little girls. For one, Marie was a tomboy. When she wasn't in school, Marie played with the goats and the bum lambs on the Kulisich ranch and she wandered the prairie barefoot upturning rocks to see what would wiggle out from the spit of moisture beneath. Alice Mae was as much girl as rugged prairie life would allow. At the West house, a doll could be found, and Alice Mae would play as little girls are known to play.
As different as the two girls might have seemed to some adults, they were best friends in a country school where Marie and Alice Mae were the entire first grade. When they last saw each other after finishing the 6th grade in Govert School, they had no way of knowing that more than 70 years would pass before they would see each other again. But that is putting the cart in front of the horse. That is where we should end, not begin.
When Marie and Alice Mae started the first grade in 1936 at the country school in Govert, South Dakota, they were already familiar with the school building. The Govert school was the only public building in the township other than the Govert Store, which was also the post office. Alice Mae's big sister, Evaline (who would play Meg in our version of Little Women), attended Govert School. Alice Mae's brothers had gone to school here. So had Marie's brothers and sister. The Govert School is where the two little girls went to church when a preacher was available and, from this place after a community social event, they would ride home across the prairie tucked under a warm blanket in the bed of a wagon in the earliest, darkest morning hours.
Like the March sisters, the two little girls were poor, Marie and Alice Mae. Louisa May Alcott would call theirs a genteel poverty. Their families experienced no poverty of spirit, nor did they lack in self-determination, or pride in the labor of their own hands. Still, they were as poor as the school. The school board could never give Govert School new books to start a school year; all the schoolbooks were well-thumbed by other students. Likewise, Marie and Alice Mae never had new clothes to wear the first day of school in the fall.
The two little girls didn't know they were poor. They were born into the Depression, and this modest prairie life was all they knew. Besides, pretty much everyone out there in the North Country was a church mouse. Marie and Alice Mae went to school, did their chores, played games, went on picnics ... and always looked forward to the P.T.A. meetings which offered entertainment so wonderful that the two little girls might squeal anticipating the fun they would have. Oftentimes, they themselves supplied the entertainment with a song or a dance they learned at school. The March sisters would agree with Marie and Alice Mae that being poor didn't seem like such a bad thing when you were loved and having fun.
You never did see two little girls who liked school as much, whether they were tending to their lessons, heads together, or whether they were running lickety split across the schoolyard during recess. The seven children attending Govert School in 1939 would rather have been playing pump-pump-pullaway at recess, but they stood quietly enough, for long enough, that a photographer managed to capture their picture. In the back row, left to right are Billy Lale, Alice Mae West, Evaline West, and Marie Kulisich. In the front row are Edwin Springer, Sonny Springer, and Mercedes Hafner.
Fifteen minutes for recess! Playing tag in a dress was not the easiest thing, but all the girls wore dresses to school in the 1930s and for decades after, tomboy or not. What amazing talent it took for their mothers to sew such style into a dress cut from another dress worn by an older sister, a favorite auntie, or one of mother's old dresses, or made from flour sacks ... such pretty collars and puffed sleeves, and nice lines. Mom probably wasn't happy to see the dirty knees and soiled dresses when Marie and Alice Mae came home after school, but what is a little girl to do at recess but to risk getting dirty? And did a little girl really care at the moment she tore across the schoolyard and slid on her side through the prairie dirt? For sure, Louise West and Nikla Kulisich washed a lot of soiled dresses during the school year ... without electricity, without plumbing.
After an energy-taming recess, Marie and Alice Mae were ready for two more hours of quietly sitting in desks lined up facing the teacher, studying math and spelling and reading. Marie and Alice Mae memorized phonetics from a flip chart, and quizzed each other on spelling words. Then, when Marie went back to school in the fall of 1942, she no longer had Alice Mae to run her through spelling drills. That summer was the last time the two little snowflakes saw each other for years and years to come. They would both have hair the color of snow before they shared the same room again.
Alice Mae started the 7th grade in Newell, South Dakota, about 50 miles south of Govert School. Marie moved with her parents to Newell for high school but, by that time, Alice Mae and her family had moved on to Plainview Academy in Redfield, South Dakota, where Alice Mae went to high school. Alice Mae grew up, went to college, became a teacher and a social worker; she married and raised two children, a son and a daughter. Marie married and raised two sons, and became an artist working in ceramics, glass, porcelain, textiles, and even words. Marie created art in her garden, too. Be patient for a little longer and I will show you Marie's Monet.
Marie and Alice Mae wrote letters over the years, but something more than 70 years passed before they were to meet again. On 16 August 2013, Alice Mae and Marie had a reunion in the Black Hills. This is how Marie remembers the day:
I wasn't there, and neither were you, but this picture allows us to "remember" the day, too. Even though Alice Mae (left) and Marie are standing in Marie's garden, an artistic masterpiece fit for Monet ... and even though the day is warm ... remember these women, once school chums as girls ... remember them as snowflakes, each unique in her own beauty.
That was a good week for Marie, because a few days earlier Marie also had a reunion with Alice Mae's older sister, Evaline West. After leaving Govert and finishing her studies, Evaline became a college dean, a professor and a counselor. All three women, Marie, Alice Mae and Evaline, can call this life that began in Govert, South Dakota, a good one. These are strong, talented women. Real women, honest, resourceful, hard-working, just like their parents who settled in Govert, South Dakota. They believe in God. They believe in family. They believe in community. The same is true for Evaline's and Alice Mae's little sister, Shirley Jean. None of them, not a single one of these four women, became a niminy piminy chit.
If you haven't read Little Women for a few years, you might have forgotten about niminy piminy chits. Don't have a copy of Little Women on your bookshelf? Can't get to the library today? You can read the book on-line or download the book right here: Little Women.
Perhaps Shirley Jean and Alice Mae can tell us who, between them, should be cast as Beth March and who will play Amy March.
Listening to the wind blowing through the prairie grass. Kate
[Written with a tip of the hat to Louisa May Alcott, and with gratitude to Marie Kulisich and Alice Mae West for their memories. Pictures used with the permission of Alice Mae West.]
Marie Kulisich and Alice Mae West were born three months apart in 1930, and each lived on her family's ranch in Govert Township. When the time came for the two little girls to start school, each walked through the door of the one room Govert country schoolhouse and, during the years that followed, each little girl eagerly applied herself to her studies. They both liked school, Marie and Alice Mae.
In their claim to Govert and to the country school, they were the same, but all their teachers could see the difference between the two little girls. For one, Marie was a tomboy. When she wasn't in school, Marie played with the goats and the bum lambs on the Kulisich ranch and she wandered the prairie barefoot upturning rocks to see what would wiggle out from the spit of moisture beneath. Alice Mae was as much girl as rugged prairie life would allow. At the West house, a doll could be found, and Alice Mae would play as little girls are known to play.
As different as the two girls might have seemed to some adults, they were best friends in a country school where Marie and Alice Mae were the entire first grade. When they last saw each other after finishing the 6th grade in Govert School, they had no way of knowing that more than 70 years would pass before they would see each other again. But that is putting the cart in front of the horse. That is where we should end, not begin.
When Marie and Alice Mae started the first grade in 1936 at the country school in Govert, South Dakota, they were already familiar with the school building. The Govert school was the only public building in the township other than the Govert Store, which was also the post office. Alice Mae's big sister, Evaline (who would play Meg in our version of Little Women), attended Govert School. Alice Mae's brothers had gone to school here. So had Marie's brothers and sister. The Govert School is where the two little girls went to church when a preacher was available and, from this place after a community social event, they would ride home across the prairie tucked under a warm blanket in the bed of a wagon in the earliest, darkest morning hours.
Like the March sisters, the two little girls were poor, Marie and Alice Mae. Louisa May Alcott would call theirs a genteel poverty. Their families experienced no poverty of spirit, nor did they lack in self-determination, or pride in the labor of their own hands. Still, they were as poor as the school. The school board could never give Govert School new books to start a school year; all the schoolbooks were well-thumbed by other students. Likewise, Marie and Alice Mae never had new clothes to wear the first day of school in the fall.
The two little girls didn't know they were poor. They were born into the Depression, and this modest prairie life was all they knew. Besides, pretty much everyone out there in the North Country was a church mouse. Marie and Alice Mae went to school, did their chores, played games, went on picnics ... and always looked forward to the P.T.A. meetings which offered entertainment so wonderful that the two little girls might squeal anticipating the fun they would have. Oftentimes, they themselves supplied the entertainment with a song or a dance they learned at school. The March sisters would agree with Marie and Alice Mae that being poor didn't seem like such a bad thing when you were loved and having fun.
You never did see two little girls who liked school as much, whether they were tending to their lessons, heads together, or whether they were running lickety split across the schoolyard during recess. The seven children attending Govert School in 1939 would rather have been playing pump-pump-pullaway at recess, but they stood quietly enough, for long enough, that a photographer managed to capture their picture. In the back row, left to right are Billy Lale, Alice Mae West, Evaline West, and Marie Kulisich. In the front row are Edwin Springer, Sonny Springer, and Mercedes Hafner.
Fifteen minutes for recess! Playing tag in a dress was not the easiest thing, but all the girls wore dresses to school in the 1930s and for decades after, tomboy or not. What amazing talent it took for their mothers to sew such style into a dress cut from another dress worn by an older sister, a favorite auntie, or one of mother's old dresses, or made from flour sacks ... such pretty collars and puffed sleeves, and nice lines. Mom probably wasn't happy to see the dirty knees and soiled dresses when Marie and Alice Mae came home after school, but what is a little girl to do at recess but to risk getting dirty? And did a little girl really care at the moment she tore across the schoolyard and slid on her side through the prairie dirt? For sure, Louise West and Nikla Kulisich washed a lot of soiled dresses during the school year ... without electricity, without plumbing.
After an energy-taming recess, Marie and Alice Mae were ready for two more hours of quietly sitting in desks lined up facing the teacher, studying math and spelling and reading. Marie and Alice Mae memorized phonetics from a flip chart, and quizzed each other on spelling words. Then, when Marie went back to school in the fall of 1942, she no longer had Alice Mae to run her through spelling drills. That summer was the last time the two little snowflakes saw each other for years and years to come. They would both have hair the color of snow before they shared the same room again.
Alice Mae started the 7th grade in Newell, South Dakota, about 50 miles south of Govert School. Marie moved with her parents to Newell for high school but, by that time, Alice Mae and her family had moved on to Plainview Academy in Redfield, South Dakota, where Alice Mae went to high school. Alice Mae grew up, went to college, became a teacher and a social worker; she married and raised two children, a son and a daughter. Marie married and raised two sons, and became an artist working in ceramics, glass, porcelain, textiles, and even words. Marie created art in her garden, too. Be patient for a little longer and I will show you Marie's Monet.
Marie and Alice Mae wrote letters over the years, but something more than 70 years passed before they were to meet again. On 16 August 2013, Alice Mae and Marie had a reunion in the Black Hills. This is how Marie remembers the day:
I'm grateful for this joy
that came to me today
Alice Mae and I
are 83 years young!
How many times
can we start a story at six
and continue it for 70 years
with such love and affection?
I wasn't there, and neither were you, but this picture allows us to "remember" the day, too. Even though Alice Mae (left) and Marie are standing in Marie's garden, an artistic masterpiece fit for Monet ... and even though the day is warm ... remember these women, once school chums as girls ... remember them as snowflakes, each unique in her own beauty.
That was a good week for Marie, because a few days earlier Marie also had a reunion with Alice Mae's older sister, Evaline West. After leaving Govert and finishing her studies, Evaline became a college dean, a professor and a counselor. All three women, Marie, Alice Mae and Evaline, can call this life that began in Govert, South Dakota, a good one. These are strong, talented women. Real women, honest, resourceful, hard-working, just like their parents who settled in Govert, South Dakota. They believe in God. They believe in family. They believe in community. The same is true for Evaline's and Alice Mae's little sister, Shirley Jean. None of them, not a single one of these four women, became a niminy piminy chit.
If you haven't read Little Women for a few years, you might have forgotten about niminy piminy chits. Don't have a copy of Little Women on your bookshelf? Can't get to the library today? You can read the book on-line or download the book right here: Little Women.
Perhaps Shirley Jean and Alice Mae can tell us who, between them, should be cast as Beth March and who will play Amy March.
Listening to the wind blowing through the prairie grass. Kate
[Written with a tip of the hat to Louisa May Alcott, and with gratitude to Marie Kulisich and Alice Mae West for their memories. Pictures used with the permission of Alice Mae West.]
Thursday, August 29, 2013
Govert, South Dakota, on the Move with Thrall Academy
Nevertheless, as an adult, Gus settled into farming in Minnesota, even had his own farm for a while. Then, sometime before 1920, Gus turned his back on the barn and the haystacks and moved his family to the lake town of Bemidji where Gus sold "Travelers Auto Assurance". In 1929 Gus turned around again, packed his car with his wife, two youngest children, and every possession he could wedge around them, and drove to Govert, South Dakota. This was April, before the Stock Market crashed in October, almost as if Gus knew what the future had in store for America.
Gus was old in terms of starting over yet again; he was already 51 when the Tobles left Minnesota. His three older daughters chose not to join this family exodus; life in rural America held no appeal for them. Maybe son Eugene who was 17, and daughter Evelyn who was 15, would have stayed in Minnesota, too, had they been given the choice.
Gus Toble's greatest talent was not farming, although he had some farming skills, and his greatest talent was not ranching, even though he was seen working on ranches in the Govert area. His greatest talent was picking up the necessary "know-how" to persevere, and to find a measure of success in any environment.
What does any of this have to do with the Thrall Academy in Sorum, Perkins County, South Dakota? After I tell you about Thrall Academy, I'll restore Gus to his rightful place in the history of the Academy.
Thrall Academy was a high school, a missionary project of the Congregational Church. The Academy was organized in 1913 at Sorum, maybe 28 miles from Govert, assuming you conscientiously followed the roads. Young men and young women throughout northwestern South Dakota attended Thrall Academy, some returning to their family homes at night if the distance and weather allowed, while other students boarded at the school. Perkins County hosted Thrall Academy, not Harding County, but Thrall Academy had Harding County connections in the community of Govert.
One of the Govert connections was Katie Lale (pronounced with a short "a" and long "e"), a boarding student at Thrall Academy. Katie climbed through every grade the Govert country school offered ... but for high school, Katie would have to leave her family behind on their Govert homestead. Fortunately for the Lales, Thrall Academy wasn't far away. When recently set to the task, cousins Katie Lale and Marie Kulisich, whose fathers both homesteaded at Govert, came up with the names of near a dozen neighbors who attended Thrall Academy: Alva Bekken, Amanda Bekken, Signey Adela Bekken, Dixie Blomberg, Mirelda Grandpre, Chris Lale, Katie Lale, Ralph Meyers, Edward Meyers, Herman West, and Richard West.
Herman and Richard West were the adopted sons of Forrester West, a Govert rancher. With his sons boarding at the Academy, Forrester spent the school year alone on his Govert ranch more often than not. His wife, Louise, was the Academy cook and housemother. Their three-year-old, Evaline, and her wee baby sister, Alice Mae, had their own jobs at the Academy as favorites among the Thrall Academy students. Today Alice Mae and Evaline rave about their mother's cooking, as if only yesterday their mother urged them to play quietly so the cake in the oven would not fall. These two grown women, together with the youngest West daughter, Shirley Jean, make the strongest among us yearn for even a whiff of one of Louise's cakes.
Thrall Academy has another Govert connection as well. Linda Shelton brings Gus Toble back into the story. Linda has a picture taken in about 2009 of a house near Bison, Perkins County, South Dakota. This was Gus Toble's last house in South Dakota. Little more than two years after the Tobles unpacked their car at Govert, Amy Birdie Hinton Toble, the woman who loved Gus enough to follow him from Minnesota to South Dakota, was killed when their Govert home burned. That was 1931. The entire town of Govert was horrified by poor Amy Birdie's death. Gus was devastated and mourned Amy Birdie without ceasing. After four years, Gus was given another chance at marriage when he wed the Widow Byers, who was Linda Shelton's Grandmother Elizabeth ... Amanda Elizabeth Williams Byers.
When I saw Linda's picture, something about the house was familiar but, I knew with absolute certainty, I had never visited this place where Gus Toble, formerly a resident of Govert, lived with his second wife, the Widow Byers.
According to Linda, her Grandfather Byers moved two dormitory buildings to the home site outside of Bison using logs and two teams of horses. These buildings he joined together to make a home for Elizabeth. "Dormitories" was a good clue, fully substantiated by an article about Thrall Academy in my files. In the picture below, the girls' dormitory is on the left and the Academy building on the right, with the boys' dormitory on the upper floor of the Academy building.
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| Thrall Academy circa 1915 (The American Missionary, January 1916, page 623) |
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| Toble-Byers House circa 2009 (Photo used with permission of Linda Shelton) |
You'll see a perhaps surprising fringe of trees in the picture of the Toble-Byers house. The prairie is not known for an abundance of trees. Pretty much, if you wanted a tree, you had to plant it. Linda's Grandfather Byers planted a hundred cottonwood trees ... not 10 or even 50 trees, but a hundred trees ... making the home a soft green oasis to a visitor driving up the lane.
Linda was disappointed her grandmother's house had completely disappeared before she drove by in spring 2013. So am I. But I'm grateful someone took one last picture of the Thrall Academy ... just in time.
Listening to the wind blowing through the prairie grass. Kate
[Written with gratitude to Marie Kulisich, Katie Lale, Linda Shelton, and Evaline, Alice Mae and Shirley Jean West]
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