The following is a letter from Rosemary's twin grandsons asking her questions about the "olden days".  Following their letter to her are Rosemary's answers to their questions (with help from John Mattison).

McKinley Elementary School
Second Grade, Mrs. Mary Link
724 West Laurel
Fergus Falls, MN 56537
November 22, 2001

Dear Grandma Rosie,

    We are studying Communities and Families at school. We would like to know more about the "olden days". Could you tell us about some of these things when you were young?

What was your grade school like?
What kinds of stories did you read?
What kind of clothes did you wear?
How did you travel?
What were your favorite foods?
What kind of toys did you play with?
What happened if you got sick?
What kind of chores did you have?
How did you celebrate special times?
How was life different than today?
Do you have any good stories to tell?

    We will look forward to hearing from you. Thank you for sharing these things with us.

Andy and Billy Eerdmans (Rosemary's twin grandsons)

COMMUNITIES AND FAMILIES

FROM THE “OLDEN DAYS”

School Years Fall of 1943-Spring of 1956

Rosemary (Wolf) Meier

December 5, 2001

    I grew up in Spring Valley, a small rural community in Western Wisconsin. Our village population never reached 1,000 while I lived there, but it was close, hovering around 950.

    All of the students, kindergartners through high school seniors, were taught in the same building. The kindergarten through sixth grade classes were located on the ground floor. Usually, each room had one teacher and two grades (first and second, third and fourth, and fifth and sixth). Sometimes we would have the same teacher for two years in a row. My class was a little larger than some of the others, so in sixth grade we were moved to the second floor and we had a few fifth graders with us. The second floor was a whole new experience for us “little kids”, because some of the high school classrooms were there and their lockers, plus the principal’s office. It was a little scary at first. In seventh grade, we were again in a two grade room with the eighth graders at the other end of the second floor. In eighth grade, we stayed in the same room, but we were the only class. By this time, a few of the county schools had closed and our class was getting bigger every year. In kindergarten, we started with about ten students. We had twenty-three eighth grade graduates and forty-seven high school graduates. My husband, Jim Meier, and I started started kindergarten the fall of 1943 and we graduated from high school together in 1956. Most of that original kindergarten class graduated with us. People did not move around as much as they do now.

    When I first went to school, we were off for an hour mid day and we walked home for lunch. We liked to be invited to one of our friend’s houses that lived close to school for lunch, then we would have more play time. Sometime during our elementary years, a cafeteria was added to the gym/auditorium building and we could eat the cafeteria food or carry a lunch.

    My first reading book was about Dick, Jane and their dog, Spot. There must have been a father, mother and probably a cat (?Fluffy), but I don’t remember their names. Over the years, we read about children from other states and countries. On my own, I had a set of books about Meda and her friends and their  adventures, also Black Beauty and Lassie. I also liked comic books. In seventh and eight grades, our teacher always started the day by reading out loud to us. I really liked that. She picked some very interesting books and we always hated to have her stop. It was a good way to start the day and get her teenagers’ attention focused on learning.

    I think we had recess morning and afternoon. We didn’t have any playground equipment just open space. Usually, we jumped rope and hop scotch or played Red Rover, marbles, and softball. In the winter, we’d stand close to the school building in a little group and tried to keep warm and hope the teacher would come and get us soon.

    I think the girls always had to wear dresses to school. In the winter, that meant long brown or white stockings with garter belts. We could wear snow pants or slacks under our dresses for more warmth. When we were in high school, we could wear slacks on “game days” (football or basketball games). I had a lot of knee socks.

    During the school year, I walked to everything. In the summer, I rode my bike. If our family traveled out of town, we went by car. I lived next door to my father’s parents, so both households shared one car. Usually, it wasn’t too much of a problem because neither my mother nor my grandmother drove. We only lived three blocks from “downtown” and six blocks from school. In the summer, my mother and I would take the Greyhound bus from Red Wing, Minnesota to Viroqua, Wisconsin to visit her parents and my uncles, aunts and cousins. We would stay one week. Sometimes, my dad, would drive down to pick us up. We also used to drive to Viroqua for a couple days at Christmas time. We were in a few bad snow storms.

    One of my favorite foods was a tuna casserole that my girlfriend’s mother used to make. It had tuna, peas, milk, mushroom soup and a bag of potato chips. She also made good chili. Another girlfriend’s mother used to make a great angel lemon pie. My mother and grandma used to make good graham bread. At the time, I didn’t appreciate it, since most of my friends had sliced, white store bought bread. On Sundays, we always had a “Sunday dinner” at noon. It was a full meal, chicken, pork or beef, potatoes, salad, vegetable and my grandma usually made a pie or my mother would bake a cake. They always divided the baking that way. I don’t ever remember my mother baking a pie, but she made some great angel food and pineapple upside down cakes. It was my job to set the table. Whenever jello was on the menu, I was the jello stirrer.  During the week, our meals were pretty simple because my parents and grandparents ran a hardware store and everyone would be very tired when they closed up for the night. It was usually some top-of-the-stove corn chowder or elbow spaghetti mixed with stewed tomatoes. Once in a while, we’d have a “T” bone steak. My dad got the big side, my mom got the tenderloin and I got the bone. Luckily, they’d leave some meat on it for me.

    I played a lot of make believe, so that didn’t involve too many toys - a few dolls, toy  dishes, colors, scissors, paper and paste. Since I didn’t have any brothers and sisters to bother us, my friends liked to come to my house to play. My parents were usually at work too. We used to make elaborate houses in our attic in the summer. It was usually very hot up there, but we didn’t seem to mind. We would dress up in my mother’s clothes that were hanging up there. We also pretended to manage stores and teach in a school using dolls and stuffed animals. In the winter, we played a lot of card games, Monopoly, and went sliding and tobogganing on a nearby hill. We skated at the local rink by the school and at a creek a block from my house. There were quite a few kids in my neighborhood, so there was usually someone around outside to play with.

    When I got sick, my mother would put Vicks VapoRub on my neck and chest and then wrap a wool cloth around my neck and pin it with safety pins. She would have me drink a concoction of water, fresh squeezed lemon juice and baking soda. I had to drink it really fast because the soda made it foam up. Sometimes it would bubble up my nose. When I was really sick, my grandma and mother would make a mustard plaster and put it on my chest. It would make you warm. I don’t know how they made the mustard plaster. If I had an upset stomach, my mother would put a couple drops of peppermint extract on a sugar cube and have me suck on that. My usual food during the times of sickness was a piece of buttered toast served in a bowl. The toast had warm milk poured over it and salt and pepper. My dad usually bought me some orange sherbet and Jergen’s hand lotion to lift my spirits. When I was in first or second grade, I was very sick with pneumonia and missed quite a bit of school. I still have the letters and cards that I received from my classmates, teacher and family friends. They all hoped I’d be able to go to the spring class picnic. I don’t remember if I got to go or not.  

    I didn’t have too many chores to do at home. I took music lessons, so I was expected to practice. It seemed a good time to practice was right after supper, so my mom did the dishes alone. There usually weren’t too many anyway. In the summer, I helped with the washing. We had a wringer washer, so you had to be careful not to get your fingers caught in the wringers. At the beginning of wash day, the water was really hot, and we’d take the white clothes out of the water with a long dowel and put them through two tubs of hot rinse water. The last things to be washed were my dad’s blue and white stripped work bib overalls. They would be quite dirty and greasy. Before we would put them in the washer, we would lay them on the basement floor and scrub them with brushes and lots of hot soapy water. My favorite part of washing was hanging up the clothes and taking them down. They smelled so good when you folded them.

    As I mentioned before, my family had a hardware store, so I had many chores there. I’d arrange and dust the display tables of dishes and utensils. I’d wait on customers, help post the charge slips, used the adding machine for adding the columns in the ledgers and later I typed letters for my dad. My grandma and mother were the bookkeepers and worked in the main store. My dad oversaw the shop where they cut pipe, made furnace ducts, puttied windows, cut glass, fixed milking machines, etc. He and the “shop” men, installed milking machines and furnaces, did plumbing, and electrical work. We also sold appliances like heating stoves, cook stoves, washing machines, refrigerators, sewing machines and later TVs, automatic washers and dryers. It was an all purpose store. They always told me, if anyone came in to rob the store, just give them the money. The upstairs of the store was also a great place to play with all the big boxes. Most of my girlfriends’ parents had family businesses. They were expected to work there too. Two families had restaurants, one had a bakery and one owned the telephone company. This was during the time when there was a telephone operator that connected all the calls. I’d like to go to the telephone office when my girlfriend was working. We would “listen in” on some of the calls. Most everyone was on a party line, so there was a lot of “listening in” going on every where. In late elementary school years, I used to help my grandma look after my grandpa. There was no nursing home in town, so as our grandparents aged many of my friends had a grandparent or two living in their homes. We lived next door to my grandparents, so as the years went by my mom, dad and I spent more and more time taking care of them. After my grandpa died, I stayed nights quite often with my grandma. We had some nice talks. She helped me learn my lines for the Junior class play.

    I suppose birthdays and Christmas were always “special times.” I always had some sort of birthday party, just girls. As I got older, the group got smaller. We had our parties at home and our moms did the cooking and managed the games. My birthday was in February, so we were usually in the house. My friends’ birthdays were in July, August and October, so we had a lot of treasure hunts and out door games as part of their parties. At Christmas time, our church had a Christmas program. We would recite little poems, sing songs and as we got older we did the Christmas Carol and had a nativity tableau. I was an angel quite a few times and in eighth grade I was Mary. I also played my accordion at some of the programs. Every year for Christmas, my mom and dad and I would drive to my mother’s home town. There would be my grandma and grandpa Moore, five aunts, six uncles, many married first cousins and their babies. Quite a lively affair. It was definitely a change from my small family in Spring Valley, that consisted of my grandma and grandpa Wolf, my mother and dad and myself.

    I think one of the biggest differences of life in the “olden days” and now is that  we weren’t driven anywhere unless it was out of town. We either walked or biked. Of course, the town was small. There were no organized sports for elementary students, we just got together on the school playground or on the dead end street in front of my house. We did have Boy and Girl Scouts and church youth groups that were lead by adults, but otherwise we were pretty much on our own to roam and explore. Of course, in a small town there were many watchful eyes making sure we didn’t get into too much mischief.

    Four of my girlfriends and I had a club from the time we were in third grade until we graduated from high school. We had many adventures over the years. Beside being friends, we were all in Girl Scouts and we all played clarinets, so we were together on many camping and band trips, birthday parties, swimming lessons, etc. One year, we decided to have a float for the Farmer’s Day parade. We decorated my dad’s work truck. We used red, white and blue crepe paper streamers and had a big sign that said “Famous Women in History”. My tallest friend was the Statue of Liberty, another was Betsy Ross. She sat on a nail keg sewing a flag. Florence Nightingale was tending to a doll laying on top of some orange crates which served as a hospital bed. Clara Barton was kneeling on the tailgate of the truck helping a wounded doll. I was Pocahontas. With my bow, I shot sticks that had balloons attached. Good thing I didn’t hurt anyone.

    I thought you might be interested in what it was like going to a one room school “in the country” at the same time that I was going to school “in town”. So, I called one of my high school classmates, John Mattison. The following are some of his remembrances.

    John went to the Locust Grove Elementary School, Gilman District #4. Eighth grade graduates of this school would then continue their education at the Spring Valley High School. John’s parents went to that same school and he thinks maybe one of his grandfathers. There were several different buildings at the same location over the years. Several burned down. John’s school had one room, there was no running water or indoor bathroom. The water was carried every day from a near by farm. I’m sending along a picture of the water cooler with it’s bubbler. There was a bell in the bell tower of the school. The teacher would ring the bell for the start of school and when it was time to come in from recess. The school was heated with a stove that burned either wood or coal. The desks were hooked together in groups of about four in a row. They had several different sizes. There was no kindergarten class. There was one teacher and usually about twenty-five students in grades one through eight. John’s grade had from three to five students during his grade school years. In the late fifties, all the one room schools in the Spring Valley School District were closed and two elementary schools were built. One east of town and one west of town. I don’t know if the town students were bused to these schools or if they still had an elementary school in town.

    It seems the popular beginning reading book of the time “Dick and Jane” was also used at the country school. I have a couple of the elementary books from the Locust Grove School that I’m sending along for you to see. It must have been a challenge  for the teacher to have so many subject preparations everyday. I don’t know about the daily recess activities. But, when the weather was good, I think softball was very important. They would have games against other neighboring schools, walking to the games. Before Christmas, many afternoons were spent preparing for the annual school program.

    In the early elementary grades, the boys wore coveralls or bib overalls. In the later grades they wore blue jeans. I’m sending along a school picture from the spring of 1945. Notice John standing in the front row on the left, being careful not to stand too close to his classmate, Barbara Blegen.

    John thinks the country schools were located, so that no students had to walk more than two or two and a half miles. If John walked or rode his bike on the road, he had to go two miles. If the weather was good, he walked or skied through the woods and it was one mile. If the weather was really bad, the neighborhood families used to take turns driving the kids. The first car John remembers his family owning was a 1928 Chevrolet and the second was a 1939 Ford. The Ford was previously owned by the owner of the Ford garage. It was a special deluxe.

    Everyone brought their lunch to school. John carried his in a two quart syrup can. He could take hot dish in a pint jar, put it in water that was heating on the stove and have “hot lunch”. John always had homemade bread sandwiches with probably roast beef. He really envied one of the boys whose sandwiches were made from store bought bread and had a thin round slice of baloney.

Speaking of food. At home their meals were usually meat, potatoes and a vegetable. His favorites were pork chops fried on the top of the stove, ham, fried chicken, sauerkraut and wieners and homemade bread.

    One of John’s favorite toys was a wind up train. He doesn’t know what happened to it. He wishes he still had it. He also liked his Chemistry set, a sled, and skis. On Sunday afternoons, he would go over to a neighboring farm that had a good skiing hill.

    When John was sick, he didn’t go to the doctor. He would stay home from school and lay in bed upstairs where it was really cold in the winter. The cold was okay if there were enough blankets. He didn’t want to stay home too long unless he was really, really sick. It was rather boring staring at the ceiling all day.

    John’s job every day after school was to bring in wood for the two stoves, the cook stove and the heating stove in the living room. During the winter, his dad would get up in the night and put more wood in the stoves, but it would still be cold in the morning when they got up, especially upstairs. On the weekends, John would help his dad clean the barn and chicken coop and shovel snow.

    They didn’t have birthday parties in their family. When he came down to breakfast on his birthday, his cereal bowl would beturned over and he would find some money underneath it.

    On Christmas day, when the children came downstairs the presents under the tree from Santa Claus wouldn’t be wrapped. Presents from his grandparents would be wrapped though. John and his family would go to his grandfather Halverson’s for Christmas dinner. His grandfather’s household also included John’s great grandfather Hans Rodum, great aunt Della and uncle Leonard. Great aunt Della cooked all the traditional Norwegian foods: lutefisk and meatballs (for non-lutefisk eaters), lefse, krumkaka, sandbakkels, rossettes, fattigman, and rommegrot. John is a descendant of Norwegian settlers that came to Wisconsin in the late 1800s. He still lives in Wisconsin and is a Green Bay Packer fan.

    How is life different now than in the 40s and 50s? On their farm, they didn’t have a TV, a computer or air conditioning. They didn’t have electricity until John was six years old and they didn’t get inside plumbing until he was eight or nine.

    One story, John told, took place when he was five years old. He was sitting on the seat of a a horse drawn plow that his dad was leading. The plow hit a rock and John flew into the air and when he came down he hit the lever, splitting open his lip. He said his dad probably got in trouble with his mother for that accident. The farm where John grew up had Holstein dairy cows, Leghorn chickens, for a few years they had ducks, a pig for butchering, a lot of barn cats, a dog that could go in the house and a couple years he had guinea pigs that lived in the barn.

    I hope you have enjoyed hearing about the “olden days” from Spring Valley, Wisconsin.