Letter from Gram (Jessie Maud Smith Hall) to her daughter, Alma

At the dining table Sat. 7:30 PM August 17, 1940, International Falls

Dear Alma and all the Crums:

At last everything is quiet and I have time to take a breath. No one in the house but George and he is taking a nap on the davenport. He is all in tonight and I think his father is working him to a frazzle. He goes to work at 8 in the morning, is on his feet all day with, any times, only 20 minutes for lunch and doesn't get thru till five and it is often six o'clock before he quits. Anyway, he came home tonight and I got him a good supper and he poured out his troubles and then relaxed enough to go to sleep.

The rest are all out to supper and to spend the evening so he can sleep til nine o'clock, then Red will be back from Virginia and they will go out to the cottage for the night. Marge and her cousin, Mrs. Made Lymond, have been here two weeks and Ann Mudge came up from Duluth Thursday and is going home tomorrow.

Eddie didn't get up here at all this summer as he has been taking care of his mother's golf course since he finished summer school. Marge and Mrs. L. are leaving Monday then I will have a couple of easy weeks before the teachers get here.

They have all helped with the work and have included me in all their good times that I had time for and I've enjoyed having them here.

That Kenora trip was certainly a treat. Mr. Millard had planned to take us just to Nestor's Falls but when Do Mi (Doris Marie) told him I'd never been to Kenora--the rest all had--he said, "Well, my goodness. Then we'll go right on thru!" It was such a contrast to the riding I had been doing over the prairies. The road is thru the woods nearly all the way, and is windie and twisty so you never know what is around the next corner. But when we got about a third of the way up there, bend after bend of the road brot us to a lovely lake with rocket hills all about and the pines growing right down to the water's edge.

There are summer resorts all along the way and we drove in to Moose Lake Resort on Crow Lake where Andy Devine spend his vacation last summer. We met a Mr. Clark, a newspaper man from St. Paul and he told us that a part of 71 flew in there from New York the day before. They were all business men on a week's vacation and they had to parcel them out to the different resorts around the lake. No one resort could accommodate so many. We stopped a while at Nestor's Falls to enjoy the scenery; and again at the Narrows, where two bays of Lake of the Woods almost meet at the road. The lake is like Rainy Lake, thickly dotted with islands; and even at Kenora you can't see so very far on account of them. Big boats were making regular two-hour trips around among the islands form two docks, but we didn't have time to take the ride.

It was after one when we arrived there and took nearly an hour for dinner, then we walked around town and enjoyed their wonderful landscaping. Several of their finest buildings, mostly banks, are made of stone and date back to 1890-91-92 & 97. I think it was the post office, a brick building, that had the date 1900 over the door.

We drove on a few miles to the town of Kewatin to see the big saw mill and the bigger flour mill and then turned for home.

We had had a big dinner, and we were kind of tired and it kept getting hotter and we all got so sleepy we couldn't keep our eyes open. Poor Marge was driving while the rest of us snoozed for about an hour. Then we roused and she said if we hadn't, she was going to run us into a tree for she was too sleepy herself to see. So we stopped at the next resort and sat in front of a big open window with the breeze coming right in off the lake and each drank a bottle of cold pop and got woke up. Then Do.Mi. (Doris Marie?) drove us home and we pulled in about 8 PM.

Now I didn't start in to tell you about the Kenora trip at all. but I got started and there didn't seem to be any place to stop until we all got home again.

It was the Montana trip you wanted to hear about but I'm wondering if you can stand it to get the two trips in on letter. If not, you can put the rest of this away and read it next month, like a serial in a magazine.

Let's see! I think I wrote to you from Aunt Elsie's so I'll go on from there.

Uncle Albert, Aunt Else, Kathryn, Edith and I drove into Minot right after dinner on Monday. I could have taken an air conditioned night train and gone right thru to Havre. But I wanted to see the county I was riding thru and the day train from Minot only went to Williston where I had to stay all night and take the 7:00 train to Havre the next morning.

I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw that Minot train. There were two passenger coaches int he middle of a train of 43 freight cars and be bumped along stopping to switch off some cars at nearly every station. When I got in, a farmery looking man in stripped overalls and a dirty shirt and cap stood by the steps and asked about my ticket. I had a notion to tell him it was one of his business but it was a good thing I bit my tongue and counted ten for he proved to be the conductor.

But shortly have leaving Minot I forgot all about discomfort in watching the scenery. We were riding thru the hills on the north edge of a wide valley that looked as if it had been made by a mighty river, it was so level. On both sides the hills just seemed to fold and fold and fold with sometimes deep creases between and sometimes shallow ones that were all deep green with boxelder, cottonwood, and willow trees or just buffalo grass.

There were farms on the floor of the valley and the highway ran along skirting the fields and hay meadows and was joined occasionally by a trail running straight down one of the hills. Other valleys led into this one and they had the same folding hills for banks. This formation lasted until it got too dark to see and was one of the most beautiful things I saw.

Instead of getting into Williston at 9 PM, as we were due, it was after 11. I asked the conductor if there was a hotel near the depot and he said there was one a couple or three blocks up the street. Two boys about 14 and 16 sat just across the aisle from me and when we got off, I asked them if they were in a hurry to get any place. They said no so I asked them to carry my bag up to the hotel. They were nice kids and one of them lived in Williston. So we started out and had gone about a block when the younger boy looked back and stopped. I looked around and saw an old lady stumbling along half a block behind us. The kid said, "She almost fell of the walk". So I said, "Let's go back and help her." He ran back and took her bag and I took her arm and she told us she had been up to Minot and had a cataract taken off her eye but couldn't see very well yet. She hadn't let her son know she was coming home, but knew her way when we got up to the hotel corner.

The hotel Great Northern had a very nice cafe where I got a sandwich and cup of coffee before going up to my room. Northing modern about that. The old washbowl, pitcher and slop jar kind but clean and cool. They had running water in a little cubby hole of a toilet, but none in the rooms.

Sunday 10:30 AM

Here we go again. Down to Kabetogama this time for a picnic dinner. Intended to take cold lemonade in the gallon thermos jug and eat out under the trees, but when we got up this morning and found the temperature at 62 degrees, decided to fill the jug with hot coffee and eat in a cabin.

Last night I was interrupted by callers: Mr. & Mrs. Gordon, who sang in our choir for years. Mr. Gordon is a customs officer and was moved to Pembina two years ago.

Sunday 5 PM

This seems to be sort of a diary. You will know how I'm spending my time anyway. We had a lovely day at the lake and ate out doors, in the shelter of the rocks, after all.

Now let's go back to Williston.

I got up that morning at six, had breakfast and took a taxi to the depot and the train left at seven. The conductor told us to set our watches back one hour and it was a queer sensation to know I was reliving on a train an hour I had just spent in Williston. But I lost it again coming back. The track ran west along on the floor of a valley and shortly after leaving Williston, I noticed a heavy line of trees on the south edge of the valley. We were on the north edge. In that country trees mean water and I thot "That must be the old Missouri" and actually prayed that I might have one glimpse of the water. So you can imaging my excitement when the line of trees began to curve toward the track, and, sure enough, there was the river coming right at us and making a big curve back to the south again. Four times it made those curves back to us and on that side of the valley the trees were gone, washed out by the muddy old river changing its bed, so the view was fine. As thrilling as the sight of the river itself were, the bluffs on the south edge of the valley. Their rough faces were seamed and scarred by rain and frost and people on the train told me they were beginning of the Bad Lands. Before we left the valley, the bluffs curved near enough so I could see a tinge of green along their tops that was buffalo grass.

About 9:30 the conductor came thru and drew down all the blinds on the south side of the train for it was getting pretty hot. So I transferred to an open window on the north side and visited for a while with the Luke brothers, men well up in the 70s. They were raised in Montana but had left years ago. One came west from Philadelphia to Williston and me another who had come east from Oregon and they were going up to Jurick (this must be Zurich) to visit a third. I saw him when they got off and he was just a youngster of 60.

At Glasgow I first saw the irrigation ditch running along parallel to the track and the shallower cross ditches running thru the fields.

A nice cowboy and his 7 year old son got on at that station and they had the time of their lives. The kid's first train ride and the father's first in 10 years. They ransacked that train from end-to-end and finally settled down to eating peanuts and candy right across the aisle from me. You know me, so won't be surprised that we soon got to talking and he told me the story of the damming of the Milk River at Ft Peck; and there was the river winding back and forth, outlined by its trees, just like the Missouri and almost as wide. They got off at the second station and a man and his wife got on, going home to Havre. He was boss of the gravel gang at the dam and told me I would soon see it from the train. Sure enough we had a good view of it with its muddy water running over the top and filling the big ditch so farmers could raise more crops while all over Dakota and Montana the government was paying farmers to summer fallow strip after strip of their land to cut down the crops. Sounds kind of silly to me.

I kept a lookout for adobe houses but the nearest to them that I saw were some small log houses plastered all over with mud and having sod roofs.

Our train was a local and stopped at every station, sometimes waiting 15 minutes for another train to thunder past us. There was no diner on and when we stopped at a station about noon, the conductor never said a work about it, just disappeared as usual, and we didn't know whether we would be there 5 minutes or 20. It proved to be 20 but none of us got any lunch. I really didn't mint it for I had been overeating at Elsie's and it didn't do me any harm to fast. But I thot it was queer that the conductor didn't announce 20 minutes for lunch.

I have read so many western stories about Chinook that I was glad our train went thru there. Then the next station was Havre.

When I got off there was Charlie right in front of me. It was the first time he had been to town since last October. He looked so surprised! I had written him to tell whoever met me to look for a little, dumpy, greyhead and they couldn't miss me. He said, "I expected you to look like this", and he made a big circle with his arms. "And here you are no bigger than Sarah". Sarah is the youngest daughter and had been married about a month before and moved to Butte.

We started for the street and there, leaning against the corner of the depot, was a big sixfooter with laughing blue eyes who stuck out his hand and said, "I'm George. Why you aren't bigger than a minute but I'd know you were Dad's sister!" Charlie said, "Didn't I tell you she was a little shrimp."

That was about all that kind of compliments I could stand on an empty stomach so I said, "Come on! Let's head for the ranch and supper." When they learned I hadn't had dinner, they wanted to take me to a restaurant but I said I'd rather wait and eat at the ranch. However George disappeared while Charlie and I walked over to the "pick-up" and soon came back with three "Bear-hugs", great gobs of chocolate ice cream covered with thick chocolate and having a stick handle. We ate these when we could spare time from our chatter and after we had started on our 40-mile ride home.

About 20 miles out the road crossed a coulee and George said, "This is Spring Coulee." Another 5 miles up hill and down, along side of great wheat fields and big meadows, and we crossed another coulee. Again George said, "This is Spring Coulee." We kept going straight north, over the rolling hills, with scarcely a tree in sight, and when we got to Simpson, which is only a small store and post office, we could see the Smith buildings about 4 miles off to the right. I saw a line of brush and trees on beyond the buildings and asked, "What river is that?" and George said, "That's Spring Coulee." "Well", I said, "Does Spring Coulee wind all over Montana?" "For about 25 miles", George answered. Parts of it dry up after the spring freshets, but some spots are fed by springs and have water the year round.

(Coda: In talking to people (blurred....)about Charlie's ranch, they (blurred....) "Oh yes! That's up in the wild horse country in the Sweetgrass region on the border." The only mountains I saw were the Bear Paws which are just south of Havre. In fact, Havre lies right at the foot of them and I had a good view of them from the tops of the hills as we drove into town.)

When we drove into the yard Aunt Jennie came running out and altho she isn't much bigger than I am, she picked me up and gave me a regular bear hug. She is a perfect little jumping Frenchman and talks even faster than Walter Winchel.

We soon had supper with antelope for meat, and after Jennie and I washed the dishes and George did the milking, we settled down and talked till nearly midnight.

Of their 15 living children, the 7 girls are all married and in homes of their own and all of the boys except George, Allen, and Glenn, are too. Allen and Glenn are working on ranches 10 or 15 miles away and George is running the home ranch.

Uncle Charlie is 81 years old and pretty well crippled up in his hands with rheumatism but does a lot of work too. He works in the garden, cleans the barns, and runs the washing machine on wash day. He has a big easy chair and a long curved pipe and isn't separated from either of them more than an hour at a time. Some lady in town sends him a big stack of magazines every little while and he has a cupboard under the chimney where he keeps them. The house has 4 big rooms downstairs and 4 upstairs and the walls downstairs are finished in compo board, about the first insulite board that was made. Some of the walls upstairs have it too but some are just lathed. They built the whole thing themselves when the oldest boy was only about 14 years old. Charlie said the first 15 years they were on the ranch he spent most of his time hauling things out from town. Their first house was a 'dobe but it was all gone now. He has a chicken house made of 'dobe, tho, so I saw 'dobe after all.

The first years he just raised horses and only cultivated a garden. But when the bottom dropped out of the horse market, they began to put 350 acres of their 600 into grain. Now, in order to beat the dust storms and comply with government regulations, they summer fallow one strip, plant the next, summer fallow the next, etc. They call it stripping the land and the government pays them for what they plow up.

They have an immense hay meadow and were busy haying when I got there and had a man to help. But that night it rained so they couldn't work in the morning and George took us all in the pickup, over the hills and thru the sagebrush, cactus, and greasewood, 5 miles to Iva's home. She is the oldest girl and married Irling Simms, a young man quite above the average farmer out there, in breeding and education. Their home is in a big coulee -- everyone builds in a coulee if he wants trees around his buildings and he has to plant them.

They have a lovely grove of boxelder, willows, and Russian olives. They have a rabbit house a 100 feet long and have 500 angora rabbits which they clip every 3 months. Each rabbit yields about 1 1/4 lbs a year and they get a big price for it, but I've forgotten just what.

They keep goats instead of cows and milk 4 of them. I liked Iva so much. They have a boy, Phillips, 8 years old, and a girl, Phyllis, six. Iva has Grandpa Smith's old family bible and is trying to keep up the family tree. So she was glad to have me make her an outline so she would have a list, as she said, of the aunts, uncles, and cousins she had never known.

Irling went to town that day and someway got word to Glenn that I was there.

After supper he came driving in and stayed till midnight. Glenn is the artist of the family and especially a jack-knife artist, carving several fans and connecting chains all from one piece of wood. He sent one to a friend in Norway and showed me a newspaper the friend sent back, containing a column and a half about it. About all we could read of it was the name of the friend and Glenn's name and address. Glenn is a fine looking, brown-eyed man. He and George love to tease their mother, but you can see thru all their nonsense how much they think of her.

Charlie had told me that some days they could look off to the west and see the tops of the 3 Sweetgrass Hills, so the first morning I stood in front of the west window of my upstairs room and could see them plainly. That was the only time the atmosphere was clear enough to see them while I was there. I got out there Tuesday night, spent Wednesday at Iva's, Thursday Charlie and Jennie washed and used a machine like Uncle Billy used to make in Fergus Falls. He gave Charlie the patterns and this is the 3rd one they have made. They have a shop with everything in it to make whatever they need on the farm: a carpenter's bench and all kinds of carpenter's tools, a blacksmith's forge and anvil, an immense iron kettle in which they make all the soap they use, except for toilet purposes, having a big box of white bars they made this spring.

In the afternoon Jennie had some baking to do and I went to the barns with Charlie so we could keep on talking while he cleaned them out, then we wandered thru the garden, saw the 'dobe chicken coop, looked George's pet calves over, and enjoyed ourselves generally.

I was to leave Havre at 11:30 Friday nite and the boys had quite a lot of business to do so we drove in, Charlie, George and I, right after dinner.

Irving, the 2nd son, lived in town and we went right to the house to see him, his wife, and 4 little girls. They were getting all packed up ready to leave for Oregon the next week, where Irving had a good job waiting for them--and I guess they needed it.

Then we went ack down town and spent the afternoon in the stores, meeting a number of very nice people, many of them having known Charlie as long as he had lived there. The boys wanted to be home by 7 to do the chores, so about 5 we had supper at a nice cafe where George seemed to know everybody and we had lots of fun.

They took me to the Fair Hotel to wait for my train and Charlie kept saying, "By George! I hate to go off and leave you." Well, I hated to have him and didn't particularly enjoy the prospect of the long wait alone but knew it couldn't be helped. So I told him I'd get a magazine or got to a movie -- or both -- and they finally got away.

It happened that the Elks were having a convention that day and their drum corps had headquarters at the Fair. Talk about fun! They came downstairs first with women's wigs on and dressed in women's underwear. Out on the street they went and paraded for half an hour. The I went to a movie. When I got back, here they were dressed in outing flannel nightgowns and one fellow was carrying a slopjar. All over town they went again with their bugles and drums going full blast and the crowd in stitches.

I read a bit while they were gone and finally became conscious that a young man was standing gazing right at me. I thot, "I wonder if he thinks I am someone he knows" and looked up and there was George just behind him and Jennie and a young woman with a baby in her arms and two little boys were behind George. Well, they proved to be Fred and his wife, Rose, and their family. They heard some way that I was there and drove about 30 miles after supper getting to Charlie's after eight. George said, "Auntie's train goes at 10:30 so we would hardly have time to drive in to see her." "Her train does not go until 11:3" his mother said in her quick, emphatic way. "Hurrah! Come on!" George yelled. So they all piled into Fred's car and away they went to town. It happened that the train was an hour late, so we went over to the corner and bot a flock of popcorn and went down to the depot and visited till 12:30. Some of them couldn't remember Aunt Ede's visit but I'll bet they won't forget mine after the crazy time they had.

That night train goes straight thru to Minot without changing at Williston. There was no diner on but in the morning a porter came thru with coffee, rolls, and doughnuts and we got into Minot at 10:30.

I took a taxi to the Leland Parker Hotel where I had agreed to meet Kay and Albert, but their jalopy had broken down and was in the garage at Cranville, so they didn't show up.

I did some shopping, had dinner at the hotel, and at two took a taxi back to the depot. When I left the taxi, a young boy stood there grinning at me and said, "Don't you remember me? At Williston?" It was one of the kids who carried my bag. So we sat together and chatted like old friends till we got to Rega, where Kay met me. He was Marvin Thompson of Grand Forks and his father had worked for the Great Northern 28 years, so they had an annual pass and he had been having a bit of vacation.

Avis and her girls were gone, so Else and I had more time for a real visit and of course they were all interested in my trip. What I told wold remind Kay of something that happened while she was out there and she would tell about that. I stayed over Sunday and had sent Ralph word that I would be in Devil's Lake Monday to stay till Tuesday. Monday morning Else said, "If I had five dollars I'd go to Devils Lake with you." Immediately Albert handed her $10 so she went too. And we had such a nice time. We stayed at Armin's, as they had an extra bed and Ella, Ralph's wife, was taken with a chill that afternoon and feeling none too good.

Armin had a car and showed us all the improvements in town, then drove out around the lake and over to the airport. It was getting dark by that time and the young people -- Barbara -- (rest of paragraph blurred by water).

The next morning Ralph came to get me and I stayed out there all day. Elsie's train left at noon and mine at seven in the evening. The train was late getting into Grand Forks so instead of a 2 hour wait, there I just had time to run across the street and get a sandwich and a cup of coffee.

The long wait was at Bemidji. I didn't mind it tho, for a nice young college boy meets the train there. He took me to Markham Hotel where (blurred.......) couch and slept till five (blurred.....) Back to the train and I got home (blurred....). Doris Marie waiting to take me (blurred.....) My month's vacation was over.

................................ (End) of letter from Gram (Jessie Maud Smith Hall) 8/17/1940