Folks,
I have been kind of busy and have not been able to get a blog posted since last Saturday. Bernadette has not been well either. Today though she has bounced back and seems to be much better. Today is our bowling day, so I managed to get this put together and distributed before leaving at about 11:30 am.
Gary
Happy Belated Birthday Peggy Sime Espe (’60): Dunseith, ND
Happy Birthday Patzy McKay Heggen: Dunseith, ND
Neola Garbe and Jim Kofoid’s first cousin
Happy Birthday Mike Brudwick: Fargo, ND
Betty Hackman Schmidt (’68) Mesa, AZ not well
Report from Larry Hackman (’66): Bismarck, ND
Gordon, my sister Betty’s husband called with bad news. The doctors had
taken him and their family into a room and told them that Betty’s organs
are starting to shut down and that she isn’t going to make it, and that
they are too call family and let them know.
The doctors did not install the Cheney heart pump as they thought that she is to weak,
that she would not survive the operation.
Sorry for the bad news.
Now, we all need to pray for a miracle.
Thank You for all your prayers.
Larry
Such sad news Larry. Our prayers are with Betty and all of her family.
Reply to Judy Allery Azure’s (’65) Birthday picture
From Ginger LaRocque Poitra (’65): Belcourt, ND
Gary,
I just wanted to say, hey Judy! I haven’t seen you since we graduated high school. Wish you would’ve come to our reunions.
Would’ve been nice to see you!
Ginger LaRocque Poitra class of 65′
Reply to Lyle Olson’s posting
From Vickie Metcalfe (‘’70): Bottineau, ND
Gary and friends,
Thank You to Lyle Olson for the feedback and comments recently shared on this blog about ‘Jacks Story’.
Lyle, I Loved Lorraine ( Metcalfe) Olson – Somers, your Mom. I
didn’t know her when I was a little kid like I knew her brother,
‘S’milin Jack, the banjo picker’.
Somehow, we grew together, sharing common familial ties, stories, and work while employed side by side at Dunseith Public School
We were cousins, we were friends, and we were comrades in developing the Metcalfe Family Reunion held in the early 80’s, and we enjoyed countless adventures.
Lorraine was kind, non-judgmental, and unwavering in her beliefs.
With Lorraine I always knew where I stood. She was so good to Mom and Dad which I am grateful for.
My heart gladdens with fondness thinking and remembering Lorraine’s laughter; which was an uplifting bright spot in some rather tough situations. I will always miss her.
Hang on to the laughter~!
Later, Vickie
Reply from Ginger LaRocque Poitra (’65): Belcourt, ND
Gary,
I was going to write about my grandfather Martin Bergie and my uncle Joseph Bergie , but I need prior written consent by the authors.
I did know a lot of information about them before they wrote this book about them. I suppose they will think I took my information from their book.
I do have a newspaper article about my uncle Joseph, it might have been from Montana, my only aunt on grandpa’s side of the family gave it to me many years ago. Not sure at this time where it is.
I need to get busy and put things where I can find them. Lol
I’ll get back to you at a later time.
You might want to put this on the blog it will explain to the readers why I won’t be writing about my grandfather and uncle’s accomplishments.
Thanks Gary,
Ginger (LaRocque ) Poitra class of ’65
Reply to Tony & Ginger LaRocque Poitra’s wedding posting
From Vickie Metcalfe (‘’70): Bottineau, ND
Gary and friends,
What a great “Happy Wedding Day’ photo of Ginger and Tony Pottra!
I got to know GInger within the past couple years.
Thanks Ginger for sharing treasured family photos and comments of your brave American Veterans!
Ginger and I found something in common; our parents childhood friendship, is a common factor.
When visiting, I find she too recalls people I remember my father talking about.
Many names I recall in discussions with his siblings and friends; Art & Eva Seim and Emil & Genevive Morin.
Ginger’s mother, Madeline (Bergie) LaRocque and my dad were class mates.
For years in the late 1920’s early 1930’s together they attended Hilltop (Bergan) Country School.
I accompanied mom and dad to many dances at Kelvin on Friday or Saturday nights.
My cousin’s Janice and Raphael, promoted many local musicians and bands.
Ginger’s parents Joe and Madeline LaRocque were also often in attendance at dances.
After a ‘set’, Dad would say to mom, “I am going ask Madeline to dance”.
They’d glide across the floor, recalling and laughing about fond childhood memories.
Kelvin dance floor would be brimming with people of the hills and a few from the prairie,
Waltzes, Two Steps and Fox trots were finely and smoothly executed.
In unison, couples circled the dance floor. and,……. I loved learning to dance from the best!
Usually people who enjoyed dancing were in attendance at those dances.
NO one stood around at the door watching. Everyone participated in dancing.
Among them,my Uncles and Aunts, the Simes, Mr. & Mrs. Pritchard from over by Ackworth, from across the highway;Lorraine & Duane Peterson, Jim & Ruby Birkland,the Carl Millang siblings and their spouses,
Mr. & Mrs. Allard from St. John, Pat & Johnnie Myer, and Lorraine Haladay and another couple from Boisevain, Canada.
Oft times, Jennie Handleland & Hilda Strong would dance together.
It was Jennie who taught me how to dance the Schottsche with a the jukebox tune at the old Kelvin Bar before it burned, one hight so long ago.
Over and over patient Jennie and I practiced until I finally caught the stepping.
Dancers are a joyful lot who love dancing to “Old Time Music” .
My parents watched for particular music; They were fond of Jack & Lorraine, and Ole with the Stump Jumpers.
The Poitra Boys Band , who were the sons and grandsons of Frank Poitra
Everyone also enjoyed dancing to the Tommy Belgarde Band which was another band with ‘good timing’.
Jimmie LaRocque often played double string fiddle with Tommy s’ band.
All of this brings to mind, Robert Fulghum’s Story from the book “It Was on Fire When I laid Down Upon It”.
One short tale nails a feeling I recall , I felt while dancing with those wonderful dancers;Dancing with an Old Geek Dancer/
In his book Robert Fulguhm’s short tale about dancing is entitled “Old Geek Dancers”.
The ending goes something like this;
“There is something said about the Hopi’s. They believe there isn’t much difference between praying and dancing; both are necessary for a long life.”
“They say to be a useful Hopi is to have a quiet heart and take part in all the dances.”
I believe all those folks who made music and enjoyed taking part in dancing had quiet hearts!
With plans to keep dancing where ever I can through life!
Perhaps someday, I too will be called, an old geek dancer……
Giving thanks to you Gary, your blog, has certainly aided in promoting
and restoring old familial friendships.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Vickie Metcalfe
Road Trip Through The Hills – Sept. 25/26, 2015
Story from Larry Hackman (’66): Bismarck, ND
Gary
I hope this little report finds you and your family doing well.
I’ve been working on this story for awhile trying to get ahead of the spin put on it by Dick and Mel, on previous blogs.
This time of year, from Labor Day to New Years Day always seems to go by too fast.
Hope you and all our friends enjoy the story.
Larry
Road Trip Through The Hills – Sept. 25/26, 2015
It was fall in the Turtle Mountains of North Dakota and the trees were dressed in colors to impress. The sun upon your face was warm with a slight hint of coolness in the air. When you stepped into the darkness caused by the thick canopy of the trees and with heaven sent shafts of shining light breaking through the shadows, and with the rustle of the leaves as a breeze blew through the tree tops, made the world go away. It made me want to go for a walk in the woods or string up a hammock between a couple of trees and lay back with the warm sun upon your face and enjoy the sweet smell of nature, to observe the colored leaves against the bright blue back ground beauty that is the sky. To feel the calmness and the beauty that is nature on a beautiful fall day not only through your eyes but through every sense and pore of your body, “to be as one with nature”. O-hell it made me homesick is what it did.
Yes, Henry and I decided to take another road trip through the Turtle Mountains of North Dakota this year, taking advantage of an invitation that our wives received to attend a wedding in Rugby, ND for their great nephew, their sister’s grandson. We pulled our campers up to Rugby and camped out in the RV Park, owned and operated by Jim Rocheleau who once farmed about twelve miles south of Dunseith. Contrary to what Mel said, we did not park our campers in the Shopko parking lot, although that probably would have been fun. Camping in the RV Park has a few more conveniences than the ShopKo parking lot does. We decided that the wives would use Henry’s truck to get around and to visit their relatives in the Rugby area. Henry and I used my truck to tour the Great Turtle Mountains and to visit our relatives and friends that live in that area.
Henry and I decided to start in Bottineau, ND and work our way east. I had brought along on the trip some new information I had obtained on the Hackman family genealogy and because of this material I wanted to stop and see people who I knew would like to have it added to their books. The first place we headed for was to Cousin Lorraine (Handeland) Mallang’s place. We drove by slowly noticing the garage door was open and that her car wasn’t home.
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We decided to keep on going and tour Bottineau and have an early lunch as we figured she had maybe ran uptown for groceries or something and intended to be gone only for a short time. We each had a bowl of delicious chunky homemade roast beef with vegetables soup at the Bottineau Bakery. We drove back over to Lorraine’s and there she was visiting with some people parked in her driveway. We waited politely for her to finish visiting and as the people drove off, she came over and greeted us with big hugs and invited us in for cookies and coffee. She always serves us cookies and coffee. We finally told her that we had come by earlier and didn’t stop because we didn’t see her car. She said that she had been home all morning and that someone else had borrowed her car right out of her garage, and without her permission. She says that she always goes out in the morning to fetch her paper from the box along the curb, on the way she opens the garage door to let the sun shine into her garage. She said that she loves to see the warm glow of the sun filling her garage in the morning as she sits and reads her newspaper. Well, this morning she just threw the newspaper on the table and went downstairs to throw a load of laundry in the washer. When she got back upstairs she sat down at the table preparing to read the news of the day and when she happened to glance out the kitchen door into the garage and to her surprise there was no car. She said, she thought to herself “oh no” maybe when I parked it I forgot to set the brake or that it slide out of gear and had rolled out into the street. She said that she ran out in the garage and looked out into the street but there was no car to be seen. She couldn’t believe her eyes, where did it go? She said she started calling everybody and the Police. She was having a very busy morning. The policeman came over while we were there and introduced himself to all of us. We found out that he was a LaRocque and had grown up in St. John, ND. He said that he was no relation to the LaRocque’s in Dunseith or Belcourt. I than asked if he knew Mel Kuhn from St. John? He started laughing and said that he did and you know for the rest of the time that we sat there at that kitchen table, the man had a continuous smile upon his face. I don’t know what it is about Mel, but he seems to have that affect on people? I have heard that the police in Fargo North Dakota stopped a man who was driving a car that
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he had taken in Bottineau, ND. I am hoping that this car was not Lorraine’s as I heard that he was shot and had to be taken to the Hospital. It was busy at cousin Lorraine’s as relatives, friends, neighbors and the police were all concerned and curious about her well being and what had happened and all wanted to help. News travels fast in a small town and every one there was showing her the love and concern they have for her. Henry and I did not like leaving such friendly and comfortable surroundings but eventually we had to, and proceeded north from Bottineau up into the beautiful Turtle Mountains. Ahh the clear blue sky, the lakes like huge pure blue marbles laying in a nest of lush emerald green vegetation surrounded by trees dressed in their festival of fall colors between the rolling grass covered hills that are, The Turtle Mountains. Beautiful.
We proceeded East onto Highway 43 and toured the Lake Metigoshe area and then traveled south on Willow Lake Road to Bob’s and Cousin Barbara (Boucher) Rivards farm for a visit. Yes, we were doing another (pop-in) visit. We caught Bob and Barb at home. Barbara was baking bread and making wine from home grown grapes. Well, I actually don’t know what Bob was doing? Maybe he was sampling the wine as he did seem glad to see us. Actually they were both glad to see us. Henry and I also got to sample the wine. They were doing a good job. It was late afternoon when we left the Rivard farm. We continued south on the Willow Lake Road thinking that we would pop-in and see Cousin Duane Handeland. Well as you know, when you do the pop-in visit thing sometimes people aren’t home. It’s when you call and let them know you are coming and they aren’t home that you have to become a little suspicious. Duane was not at home and looking at the clock we talked it over and decided to head for Dunseith as it was getting close to Jumbo Burger Time. We pulled up in front of the motel building, the one that George is gutting out and turning into a meeting area, just south of the restaurant. Henry I just started walking across the end of the drive through road toward the restaurant, when there was grinding of brakes, the sliding of tires upon gravel, and the honking of a horn. Cousin Duane Handeland had just pulled up and asked, with a huge grin upon his face, what hell are you guys doing up here in the sticks? We explained that we were visiting relatives and friends while
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our wives were at a wedding. Duane’s reply was, “so they are attending a life funeral, huh”? Duane is always a pleasure to visit with. We visited only for a short time before Duane sped off in his car with a cold case of beer in the passenger seat, and a smile upon his face.
Henry and I went into Dales and we each had a delicious Jumbo Burger. We just automatically do this, as we think it’s just crazy to drive that far and not have one. We must have hit the dinner rush hour as Dales was really a busy place. After eating our dinner we traveled south on Highway #3 to visit our Uncle Bill Kraft and his wife Janet (Fountaine) Kraft. Guess what? She was busy baking homemade buns. We had a great visit about old times. Henry and I both worked on Bill and Janet’s farm during our high school summers and played a lot of pinochle and drank a lot of beer, year round. As we were going out the door and saying our goodbyes, Janet handed us a bread bag full of freshly baked buns. Them buns smelled like we should eat them but with our tummies full of jumbo it just wasn’t in the cards. We got back to Rugby late so we went directly to our campers. Surprisingly the women weren’t home yet so we figured they were having a good time at the wedding, (life funeral).
The next morning my wife Marion was making sandwiches out of them freshly baked buns from my Aunt and that good tasting Cloverdale Tangy Summer Sausage made right here in Mandan , North Dakota. There was no noticeable activity over at the Henry Hackman camper yet, so I grabbed a couple of the freshly made sandwiches and took them with me up to the RV Office to visit Jim Rocheleau. Somehow in a previous conversation with the man it had come up that when him and his family use to run around with my uncle Bill’s family that they sometimes would have lunch afterwards, at someone’s home or at a restaurant, and that he loved to go to my Uncles place and eat, because Janet would always serve sandwiches made with delicious homemade buns. It was a pleasure to share a sandwich with Jim and talk about days gone by. It was about that time that Henry and his wife and my wife came in the door informing us that a huge elm tree had blown over in the camp ground and had scared the hell out
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of them. Everyone had come out of their campers to see if the world was coming to end. It was amazing that it missed all the campers and did no damage to anything but itself. Jim said that he knew it was in bad shape and had already arranged for it to be taken down at the end of camping season. It looked to me like the wind had just saved him a whole bunch of money.
Henry and I grabbed that bag of sandwiches my wife had put together, and headed for the hills for our second day of visiting. We traveled north on Highway #3 to Cousin Jim and Ruby Birkland’s place, with a huge tail wind. The wind was blowing hard out of south that day but it must have decided to blow around the hills instead of over them as it was quiet up there. Jim and Ruby really enjoyed their 80th birthday party the weekend before at the Dunseith Lutheran Church. In fact some of the relatives had just left for Oregon the day before we got there. We could tell they were a little tired from all the celebrating, but were happy. I added some pages into Jim and Ruby’s (Hackman/Hackmann Genealogical book). Jim’s mother Josephine is my dad’s oldest sister. After some conversation and goodbyes Henry and I were on our way.
We headed north and east from their house and ended up at Dick Johnsons shop as that is where he always seems to be. We caught him and his son working on an old D-8 Caterpillar dozer. Now Dick was sure happy to see us. He came right over and started jawing with us. His son just kept on a working on that dozer, stopping by for introductions and occasional advice from the old man. Well, that boy had that dozer going in no time. I think he was grateful that we occupied some of Dicks time. Now, old Mel explained to me, that is the way work gets done over at Dick’s shop. Mel said, when he’s invited over to help old Dick out that is the way it always seems to work out, “he is doing the sweating and Dick is doing the jawing. I know, hard to believe, right? Now to be fair, Mel gave the impression in his memoir that Dick starved, Henry and I well we over there, and it was up to him to step in and fatten us back up with some freshly made apple pie. I’m just glad Mel felt that way. You know how it is Gary; it’s hard to pass up a pie. Anyway, it was in the middle of the afternoon and Dick did offer us water or beer,
and I guess because we are old, Henry had a bottle of water and I didn’t have anything because I was the designated driver. Henry was sure impressed with that dozer. He has talked about it a lot. He just couldn’t believe that they did all that work on it and went parked it in the trees. I think, Brother Henry wanted to take that baby out and knock down some trees, and level off some ground. Oh hell, he wanted to operate it, pull some levers, and make that old D-8 snort and blow some coal black smoke into the air, is what he wanted to do!
After leaving Dick’s place we headed back down south of Jim Birklands to the Ed Walter farm/ranch. It’s hard to do a pop-in on Cousin Ed, because that man is always working. He is 75 years old and still works hard from sunup to sundown. We had a nice little visit with his wife Bonnie and his daughter Pam and gave them some pages, to add to their Hackman/Hackmann book, and were on our way. They did not know when Ed and Ben were going to be back, so we decided to go up north to our dad’s old farm and visit Brother Anton. Brother Anton wasn’t home either. That is what happens sometimes when you’re doing the pop-in thing, sometimes you pop-out.
Henry and I did some driving around the country side and found a spot on top of a hill with a nice scenic view of the beautiful Turtle Mountains. We pulled out that bag of sandwiches that my wife had made with the tangy summer sausage and my aunts homemade buns. We opened the doors of the truck and sat and ate in silence, as our eyes and bodies soaked in the beautiful surroundings, on a beautiful fall day.
The shadows of the trees were starting to get long when we departed that site and headed for St John down the scenic road that is Highway #43. Yes, we were on our way to see our old buddy Mel. Guess what? Mel and his wife Kathy were waiting for us. They had baked a whole bunch of apple pies for the occasion. I knew I could smell fresh baking pies from atop that hill that we were parked on. Mel said them pies were for the bake sale at the church tomorrow, but that he was willing to share one with us, and that he would pay his wife extra for all her work in making this pie, so the church wouldn’t be out anything. I could tell that
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his wife actually believed every word that was coming out of Mel’s mouth. Actually, I think that was when she got up and left the table. Yes, Mel did actually get up and pull her chair back for her, when she got up? I think he wanted more pie.
It was as dark as dark can get when Henry and I left Mel’s place and traveled through St. John, and proceeding west on Highway #43. Around a curve and topping a hill a skunk ran across the road in front of me, and for some doggone reason he made a U-turn and came directly back towards my vehicle as the pickup wheel thumped over its body. Yes, Mel I left a “dead skunk lying in the middle of the highway”. Isn’t there a song about that? http://www.jango.com/music/Loudon+Wainwright+III com/webhp? (sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=Dead+Skunk+Lyimg+in+the+Middle+of+the+Highway)
Now I know Mel is going to ask me what color was the skunk? Mel, “it was black with a white strip”. Now I know his next question is going to be if I ran over his right side or his left side because I know Mel knows I would not cross the white stripe, “not intentionally anyway”? Mel, “I ran over its front side”. Mel’s, next question will be, “How do you know that”? I know that because it made no scent. “Get it Mel”? It would have definitely made scent if I had run over the other end. I hope this explanation saves me from writing another email to him, explaining it all over again? Can you get skunks in different colors?
Yes, it was a fun trip, there is always something special about revisiting where you grew up, visiting The Turtle Mountains. We had a great time visiting with everyone. We didn’t get to see everyone we wanted to, or everywhere we wanted to go, but we have already decided that we have to do it again sometime. Thank you to everyone for the conversations, the laughs, and the food.
Thank You,
Larry Hackman
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Blog (382) posted on February 27 , 2009
02/27/2009
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