Montana

In April 1913 our family left a small village in Minnesota and moved to a 160-acre farm in northern Montana. They homesteaded this plot of land. Our family consisted of Joseph and Nellie, both 24 years of age at the time, and two daughters, Alice, age 2, and myself, Mildred, 4 months old.

Joseph was a carpenter and blacksmith in Minnesota and was the village smithy in that village, named Milan. His plans were to do carpenter work wherever he could find it.. He traveled around to many different jobs, while Nellie and we two small girls stayed at home.

On the land we had a small three-room house and a chicken coop. Later, Nellie would raise chickens there. Our house was located a few rods north of Highway 2, which crossed the entire United States. It was known then as the Jefferson Highway. Running parallel to the highway were the Great Northern railroad tracks, also from coast to coast. The highway was narrow and covered with sand and stones.

It was impossible to raise a crop on this barren, drought-stricken land. It was supposed to be wheat country, but most years were complete failures. Someone said, "If you get a wheat crop once in 10 years you are lucky." The land was flat, with no vegetation or trees in sight.

This land was located about 10 miles west of the city of Havre, MT, also less than 100 miles from the Canadian border. The only trees in the entire area were on the banks of the Milk River, about one mile north of our place. This river flowed in a southeast direction and soon entered the Misssouri River.

When we looked in a southwest direction we could see one perfect, beautiful mountain far in the distance. This could have been as far away as 100 miles, and the beginnings of the Rocky Mountains.

Often, winds would blow down from the mountains during a cold spell. These winds were called "Chinook" winds, and they would raise the temperature 50 to 60 degrees in a short time. In a few hours the snow would be melting and water running from the melted snow.

The days were hot in summer and the nights were cool. Winters were brutally cold. One winter we had temperatures as low as 60 degrees below zero. Nellie said that in one cold spell they burned half a ton of lignite coal in a day and a night. Lignite was soft coal, very dirty and smoky, but cheap because it was found on top of the ground in Montana.

Very often, large flocks of sheep would be herded on the highway, railroad tracks and the open fields. They were on their way to the livestock yards in Havre, and later to other markets and points farther east. It was an incredible sight to see these huge flocks, expertly guided by the sheepherders on horseback, and the hard-working, efficient Border Collie sheep dogs. Bringing up the rear of these huge caravans were the chuck wagon and supply wagons, all pulled by horses.

The Family Grows

In August 1915 our sister Alma was born, with only the assistance of a midwife. It increased our family to three little girls. Our first brother, Harold, was born in February of 1919.

Life was hard for Nellie, with only the simplest things needed to survive. We had no electricity, no telephone, no means of transportation except walking, and hitchhiking along the highway, catching a ride with one of the few cars that passed our house. We had a well and a pump, and that was the only convenience we had.

Nellie's brother, Albert Hagen, spent several years with us and lived nearby. He and Joseph did many jobs together. About 1917 Albert bought one of the first cars in the area. It was a Dort roadster, and we had many rides in it. They said Nellie drove it a lot, too. Later in life, she never drove a car.

Nellie's sister, Gina Hagen, visited us many times. We loved our aunt Gina, and she helped Nellie a lot. One day, Gina and we girls were walking on the highway when we came across a big rattlesnake, coiled and ready to strike. Gina had a stick in her hand, and killed it right there. What a scare it was, because we were all barefoot.

About a half mile east of our place was a small one-room country school, which Alice and I attended from 1917 to 1919. The total number of students was five: the two Sather brothers, Annabell, who was four years old, and Alice and myself.

The school was just south of the Great Northern Railroad tracks and Highway 2. The railroad repair crews went on the tracks every day, transported on their small handcars. These were powered by hand pumps to move them along to their repair jobs where needed. They soon learned that we were going to walk to school, and every morning they waited and gave us a ride, and later in the day to give us a ride home. Many times, they even let us drive the handcar.

One day the teacher asked us what we wanted to be when we grew up. One of the Sather brothers said he wanted to be a sheepherder, and the other brother said he wanted to be a section boss for the railroad. Annabell and Alice wanted to be teachers. Then she asked me, and I said, "I want to be a mama.."

We carried our lunch to school every day in Karo syrup pails. Our lunch was always the same - a slice of our mother's homemade bread, well soaked in evaporated milk. If we did not have evaporated milk we stayed home from school that day. I can't remember that we ever had any fresh milk.

A Touch of History

A few miles north of the city of Havre was a national military fort named Assiniboine. This fort was famous in history because it was one of the stopping places of the Lewis and Clark Expedition's search for the Northwest Passage to the Pacific Ocean in 1803. There were several hundred small brick buildings there. About 1918, the fort was put up for sale. A man who had a huge dairy operation of several hundred cattle purchased the fort and dismantled the brick buildings. He was using the bricks to build many huge dairy barns.

Joseph obtained work there as a carpenter to build the barns. One day, when he was on a scaffold, one brick wall collapsed just exactly where he was working. He was almost buried by the bricks, and was terribly hurt. His coworkers panicked, and he said he had to direct them to hoist up an old couch on the ground. They used ropes to get the couch up to the scaffold to get him down. Joseph, then 28 years of age, had both of his legs crushed below the knees, and a broken left arm.. He spent many months in the Havre hospital.

Every year, the Indian tribes would gather at Fort Assiniboine for their annual war dances. They were dressed in full war regalia and beautiful costumes, including head dresses made from colored feathers. The childlren also took part in these dances.

About half a mile west of our place was a watering station for the Great Northern Railroad. This was named Burnham, and consisted of huge round watering tanks made of wood. A great number of the big coal-burning steam engines stopped regularly every day to take on water.

Almost all of the men who worked there were Japanese, and could not speak English. Because we lived so close we got acquainted with most of them. They were very kind and helpful people , and did many things for us. The long freight trains were often huge cars filled with wheat from the western markets, and headed east to the bigger markets. Sometimes they were so fully loaded that huge piles of wheat were spilled along the tracks. These wonderful men often gathered the wheat and brought it over for Nellie's chickens.

One day when there was an extra large amount, one of the men, who did not have a pail to put the wheat in, took off his pants, tied up the pants legs, filled the pants with wheat, and pulled it along to bring more wheat for Nellie's chickens.

We spent a lot of time at Burnham, watching the big trains. We also got well acquainted with the men working there. Nellie said that Alice had learned Japanese from then, and could speak their language fluently.

A Childhood Accident

When the weather was warm, Nellie washed all her clothes outdoors. They were all rubbed by hand on a washboard in a washtub. Most women also boiled their clothes in a boiler of boiling water. Joseph had made an outdoor fireplace, where a boiler could be placed, and the clothes boiled.

One day, I got a little too close, and pulled the boiling water and all of the clothes on top of me. I was a year and a half old at the time.

Nellie had no help, and no means of transportation of any kind to get needed medical assistance for me. She took me, screaming from the pain, and Alice, who was 3 years old, and we walked down to the highway. There, we waited for one of the few cars to come along, then hitchhiked a ride to Havre and the nearest doctor.

I had been burned on my right side from my ear to my elbow. To this day, I still have a scar on my right shoulder.

We all spent three days in the Havre hospital. Although I was only a year and a half of age, I can still remember my mother carrying me in the hall of the hospital, and also even the dress that she was wearing. It was a small-flowered blue calico dress.

Can any of us even imagine what she went through to get to the hospital and the necessary medical attention? Almost too much or a young mother who was 25 years of age.

Almost five miles west of our place was a small town named Kremlin. Joseph worked in Kremlin many times. He walked to work and carried his tools. The days were 10 hours long and they worked six days a week.

He built the bank, the lumber yard, and many other buildings there. The big grain elevator was the center of this town and was managed by Albert Hagen, Nellie's brother.. Later, Albert, who was a jack of all trades, also was the government agent for an indian reservation, raised wheat on many farms, and even went on to mine gold. He married Marie, a girl from Sweden, who owned and operated the restaurant in Kremlin.

I can still remember the muddy streets and walking on the wooden sidewalks in Kremlin.

An Eccentric Grandpa

Jacob Shellum, Joseph's father and our grandfather, bought a place a few miles from us. There was only one building on his land, and that was a small one-room tarpaper shack. It looked very lonesome and desolate across the flat country surrounding it. He picked lignite coal on top of the ground and used it for heating and cooking. Many times, he would come and stay at our house.

Nellie was never too happy to have him come because he spent many hours singing hymns in bed. This would certainly irritate anybody. Jacob taught me how to tell time and also how to tie my shoes.

Back to Minnesota

In August 1919, when Harold was 6 months old, the family made plans to leave Montana and move to Fergus Falls, MN. There had been a terrible cyclone that summer in this city. Seventy-six people had been killed and much of this city of 6,000 people had been destroyed. Joseph needed work to support his young family, and chose this place because much help was needed and carpenter work was plentiful.

Joseph had already gone to Minnesota and Gina Hagen, Nellie's sister, came to help us with the big move. Gina and Nellie worked many days getting everything ready. They butchered all the chickens and pepared the meat to be used for sandwiches to be taken on the train trip. Many loaves of bread were baked to make enough food for all of us on the two-day trip.

The sandwiches were all packed in a big water pail and covered with dish towels. They were all the food we had. What an undertaking to do with no refrigeration of any kind, or any way to keep them cool.

I remember that we were in bed in a sleeper car, close to a window3.We met many trains on another track in many towns. The big steam engines, called iron horses, that pulled the trains, are relics now and can be seen only in railroad museums.

Joseph was staying with his aunt and uncle, Carolina and Thomas Wollan. They welcomed us when we arrived and we stayed with them until we could get our own home. They had four little children of their own, but being the wonderful people they were, they made room for all seven of us. Thomas was a mathematics professor in a Lutheran junior college in Fergus Falls.

We finally rented two upstairs rooms in a farm house on the edge of town, and we moved there. We had no furniture or household goods. We slept on the floor on straw ticks, or mattresses. It is hard to imagine how they could survive with four small children, one of them a 6-month-old baby.

Joseph was able to buy a used bicycle and used that to go to work. It was not until 1925 that he bought his first car, an Overland open touring car.

Our family grew by twin sisters, Esther and Edith, and two younger brothers, Kenneth and Robert, to a family of eight children. 'We remained in Fergus Falls until most of us were grown.

In 1935 I was the first one to leave home, when I moved to Wisconsin and married Holden Swenson, a young dairy farmer. We lived on the family farm until the mid-1950s. In 1956, we moved to Madison, WI, where I still reside today.

We had two children, Ruth and Thomas. I have seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. Holden passed away in January 2001, a few months before our 66th wedding anniversary.