Good Morning Gary, 

I finally am looking at my e-mail — I haven’t opened it for about a month!  My health problems (cancer of the bladder that has spread to the lymph nodes) has really been giving me problems – I had surgery in Dec. 23rd and Dec 26th and am still recovering from those.

I will give some thought to your request for “memorabilia” and/or “stories” on growing up in Dunseith.  My family did not move to Dunseith until 1949 and lived there until 1955.  My grandarents (Oakes and Crum) were pioneer settlers in Dunseith.

I have 249 unread e-mails that I need to look at.  It was nice to talk to you the other night.  Keep in touch.

Millie (Crum) Rude

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Hi, Gary:   My daughter, Shannon, has sent me so many of your interesting e-mails that I have finally succumbed to participating in the process.  I was into it a few years back but you have developed such a network and I have thought it would be fun to send along a few of the unique memories I might be able to dredge up from the depths of a fading mind.

Bruce Poeppel was a special grade-school friend.  He was the best around in two unique skills.  And I don’t mean just a little better that most of the other boys—-he was way on top.  One activity was playing marbles using a four or five foot diameter circle.  He would cradle that “shooter” marble in his thumb/finger grip, breath on it once (for moisture) and fire it at a target two or three feet away.  The “shooter” nearly always flew like a rocket, unerringly, knocking a marble out of the ring while the “shooter”  sat spinning exactly at the point where the target marble had been.  Then Bruce usually cleaned out all the rest of the marbles.  It got to the point where he’d have to take a handicap in order to find competition.  I was amazed, always, when I was at his house at the buckets and buckets of marbles around the place.

Bruce was deadly with a slingshot.  Most of us might fire off a pile of rocks at a sparrow or a bottle and occasionally nail something.  I rarely saw Bruce miss anything he aimed at.  Of course one of the secrets to his success was the fact that his missles weren’t rocks.  Bruce fired off marbles.  His supply was, of course, never-ending thanks to we foolish hopefuls who thought there was a chance of maybe winning a few marbles occasionally.  With Bruce, it just didn’t happen.  I never thought much about it when we were kids but Bruce was extremely careful about the shape of the slingshot crotch.  It had to be in the form of a “U”.  Everyone else used the much more common “V” shape crotch.  Bruce would search for days to find that perfect shape.  In that era no one bought a commercially made slingshot.  They may have been around but I never saw one until years later.  When I did finally happen to notice a good-quality slingshot years later in a sporting goods store it was interesting to see it was of the Bruce Poeppel “U” shape.

Bruce POEPPEL – U.S. Social Security Death Index
Birth: 24 Jan 1938  State Where Number was Issued: North Dakota  Death: 24 Apr 2001

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Hi Gary & All,
Another Adrian Egbert Story…..I remember one day Adrian came into the lumber yard to discuss, with my dad, the feasability of a concrete vault for his grave.  Seems Adrian had been to the cemetary and observed what he considered and inordinate number of fat, well fed, gophers running around.  Adrian did not want his remains to end up as gopher poop. (unlike Dick Johnson, I can’t write like Ade talked) I don’t know whether Adrian got the concrete vault but if you visit his grave at Riverside Cemetary, you will note the concrete slab covering his grave.
Incidently, to round out the cast of “Desperate Ambrose”…Jim was Jim Footit and CC was Cecelia (sp?) Carbonneau. 

Gary Morgan
Class of 54

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Hi Gary, 

Today’s email included a response to Flavia, but I don’t remember seeing anything from her.  Did I miss an email?  I thought I had read them all, but if you wouldn’t mind resending her missive, I’d love to read it.

She and I were classmates and friends the year she came to Dunseith.  I would love to hear any news of her life…

Trish

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to patti metcalf: was it not amazing how well mom and dad could bowl, none of it rubbed off on their kids tho, the closest would be brenda, i remember the trips to water hen and hated those early mornings to

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