1/27/2008 | Dunseith Alumni

Loretta Neameyer’s (72) message to Bev Morinville (72):

I thought about Bev all day yesterday (the day of her surgery). Am thankful her surgery went better than previously thought. Bev, you have alot of friends that are thinking of you and praying for you. May you heal and recover quickly.

It’s been fun reading all the e-mails from everyone. I, too remember alot of these memories as we moved to town in 1963. We spent lots of time with Morinville’s, Campbell’s, Malaterre’s, Evans, Hennings, Hagels, Mongeons, Martinson’s, Schimetz’s and Fontaine’s, just to name a few. They were very good times.

Loretta J. Wall (Neameyer)

Ele Deitrich’s (69) message to Deb Morniville (72):

In reply to Deb Morinville—our prayer circle is working….let’s all keep praying and Bev will make a full recovery. I hope that she is reading these as she recuperates as we are all with her in this time of need.

Ele

Reply from Evon Lagerquist (77):

Hi Gary, the teacher’s names that we striked for were Mr. & Mrs. Cloud. I remember him as being sort of a rebel and her as a meek, quiet little woman.

Memories from Gary Morgan (54):

Hi Gary,
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     I have really enjoyed the memories of others so thought I would throw in one of my own….
     Back in the days of iron men, wooden ships and leather football helmets, we played our basketball at the old city hall. It seems like there would be a public dance there about every week so it was necessary to scrub off the dance wax before we could practice. Every morning, after a dance, Big Ed (Ed Conroy, our superintent, not to be confused with Little Ed, our custodian, Eddie Boguslawski) would designate about half a dozen of us boys to go over and scrub the city hall. I can’t believe I considered it a real privilege to be able to go over and scrub the hall rather than sit in a warm classroom, but I did.
     My junior and senior years, it seems we had an open period at the end of the day so we would get to go to the hall for practice about 40 minutes before the coach would get there. Herman Martinson’s bakery was just across the alley from the hall so we would load up on bismarcks and raised doughnuts before practice. I think they were like a dime apiece or if you bought a dozen, it was a dollar. I don’t know if Coach Jerstad ever did figure out why we would get horrendous side aches during basketball practice.
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Gary Morgan
Class of 54

Message from Shirley Brennan (60):

Dear Gary

Want to thank you forthe awesome job you have done putting this project together.

Yes Pat is my sister. She doesn’t have e-mail her last name is Groff and she lives in Bellingham Wash.

Shirley

Message from Marjorie Landsverk (57):

Hi Gary, Jan.26

I just sent you a article from the Good Housekeeping magazine of 1955.

How times have changed. I think that article had to have been written by a man. (Marjorie, it’s a great article. I will include it with one of the future group mailings. Gary)

I have enjoyed reading the different e-mails from over the years and how things changed in Dunseith. I think it only becomes important when we are in our looking back years.

I remember Shelvers Drug store and their soda fountain that had Cherry cokes.

There was a cafe close by too. The Red Owl store and Hosmers, the pool hall when I was younger and the theater where the price to get in was 12 cents . I used to go to K.C.Sines store with my dad, he had a good choice of many things and especially had a variety of penny candy. He would always give me a pear. They lived just across the alley from us. Sy Kadry had a store at the south end of mainstreet and he also had a variety of choices. I got some neat clothes there, a sweater with angora trim and different colored jeans which we could wear to school.

Sat. night was the big night and when the country folks would come to town to get groceries and the street would be full of cars. It was fun just to watch the people. Too bad we can’t get that back!

My mother made a lot of my clothes and the others we sent for in Montgomery Ward or Sears and Roebuck or Speigal.catologue’s.

When I was in highschool we had Mr. Erickson for a band director. I think the band was good. I remember marching in Brandon Canada and Minot. He wore a white and gold uniform with a high fur hat.

There was a lot of snow and cold but we were tough. I went ice skating on the rink by the jail and then we would go in to the jail to warm up. Crack the whip was scary!

Thanks for the chance to share Gary.

Sincerly,

Marjorie ( Landsverk) Fish

Horicon, Wi. 53032

goldfish@powerweb.net

I lived just a half a block so. of the school so I could always make it. I could hear the first bell ring and be there by the 2nd.

My parents had kids from the country staying with them when I was real little.

It must of been harder then to get them to school.

Don Lamoureux’s (75) Memories of Mr. Johnson & the school strike:

I also have great memories of being in Mr. Jonson’s band. I started out playing clarinet, which didn’t seem too cool for me, I hadn’t heard of Benny Goodman. I later switched to the string bass, when that spot opened up, and was even happier when the school bought an electric bass guitar, so now I could play and be heard.
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He also helped me out of a pickle during deer season one year. I was in big rush after school to get to a hunting spot, driving my dad’s 4 wheel drive jeep pickup, and was tearing up the hill past Sime’s to get to a spot before dark. I mean to get to a spot where I could hunt until dark. I rounded a curve to discover that an oncoming school bus and I were going to be occupying the same space shortly. I swerved to get out of the way, missed the bus, but put the truck into a spin, I did a 360 and then went backwards off the road and down the ditch.�
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I know I was closer to some other folks, but didn’t feel like confessing my crappy driving to anyone else, so I walked down to Mr. Johnson’s. He fired up a tractor and we went back to pull it out. The ditch was pretty steep, and the only thing that kept it from going farther down the ditch was the tree I managed to wedge the truck up against. I think Mr. Johnson had to go back home to get a chainsaw. It’s not real clear to me, because I was pretty much dreading having to go back home and face the music there, so to speak. Mr. Johnson tied the truck off to the tractor, buzzed the tree down, yanked the truck out, and sent me on my way. Mr. Johnson must have called ahead to smooth out the waters, because it really wasn’t that bad when I got home. Probably Dad could see nothing was going to make me feel worse than I already did. There still was the inevitable lecture of course, but then he told me of a time as a kid he was driving one of the brand new cars from the garage, and wrecked that.
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I can also recall spending many fall days looking for grouse and pass-shooting ducks at Mr. Johnson’s.
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School strike

I don’t remember if we had any out and out strikes when I was in school, but I do remember there was an uproar when the girls in our class got fed up with having to wear dresses and all showed up in school wearing pants. I can also remember something happened where we all felt school was more like prison, and somebody came up with the bright idea of devising unique prison numbers we could all wear. The first number was our year followed by a zero, followed by where were in our class numerically, based on our last name. So we all walked around with prison numbers for a couple weeks.
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Don Lamoureux (75)