Summer of 1930, Liden Girls

Summer of 1930

In the summer of 1930, my grandmother would have been 15 years old.  Life on a farm was a struggle for many, as this was part of the depression era.

In her memoirs, she wrote:  "Our farm had one hundred sixty acres, which was the average size of the farms people claimed as homesteads.  The farm was a mile and a half south of Thief River Falls.  The home that my father built here had a large kitchen, a large bedroom and a large living room with two porches - one in the front and one in the back.  There were two large bedrooms upstairs, one for the boys and one for the girls. 

Living on the farm we always had plenty of food to eat and clothes to wear.  We had a very large garden where we grew all our own vegetables.  The staples were potatoes, corn, carrots, onions, beans, peas, rutabagas and turnips.  There were a few things we couldn't grow very well because of the cold winters and short growing year like tomatoes.  Yet we did grow enough to get us by.
Under the house was a large cellar where we stored our fruits and vegetables.  We had a lot of potatoes.  A large box of sand is where we stored the carrots and they stayed fresh all winter.  We would dry the ears of corn, beans and peas.  The onions and rutabagas were stored down there too.  In the winter when it was very cold my folks would hang a lighted lantern down there to keep it from freezing.  My mother would place a dish of water on the step going down there to see how cold it would get. If it looked like it would get cold enough to freeze she hung the lantern.

When we got home from school it was our job to slop the hogs, pick the eggs, feed the chickens, then it was up to us to milk all of the cows.  We did it all by hand as there were no milking machines then.  We had a water pump and we would have to pump all of the water for the animals to drink.  It took so much water it seemed we just pumped and pumped and pumped.  We had to take turns.  It took a lot of water to water all of our animals.

When the depression of 1929 hit the country, we hardly knew it on the farm.  The only things we had to purchase were coffee and sugar.  One day my father sent a cow to the herd stockyards in St. Paul but the price of meat was so low it didn't even pay for the freight so my father had to send them money instead of him getting anything for it.  He never sold any more."

At Home on the Farm

A distant cousin, Pat, sent me a copy of something "written in long hand on yellow lined paper".  Harriet is the older sister of my great grandmother, Luella Laidley Pape.  I found the tidbits Aunt Harriet jotted down as amusing and entertaining.  You certainly get a feel for what life was like.  And it's funny how life back then intertwined with other families:  Roy Gowan is related to Jim Gowan, who married my mother's sister Margie!    And just to help with the family line, Uncle Tom and Aunt Edith is Harriet's father Joshua's brother and his wife.

At Home on the Farm

by Harriet Isabell Laidley

I was born on Oct 8, 1905 in the home near Manvel, ND.  I was the 7th child of Joshua and Susie Laidley.  Effie, Roy, Wilmer, Bernice, Elsie & Della all came before I did.

I started school when I was 6 in a school near Uncle Tom and Aunt Edith's farm.  The little white school has been hauled away.

The family moved to another farm not too far away.  We all loved that farm and hated to move again.

When I was about 10 we moved to the Roy Gowan place near Oslo.  That is where we had our picture taken of the six girls.

The harvest was always in full swing about the time we started to school.  We wanted to stay home and watch them thresh the grain.

Every fall we filled our bed tick with fresh straw.  We thought it was great to get it filled.  Just like having a new bed. 

Most all country homes had an upstairs where we children slept.  Sometimes the snow would seep in onto our bed.  In the morning we'd get up and grab our clothes and run downstairs and stand around the warm old stove where it was warm and we'd dress ourselves.  Dad was always up early and had the fire going.  The stove ha a tray for the ashes and that was our job to empty that everyday.  Also to fill the wood box with split wood for the kitchen stove and front room stove.

Mother baked bread for the whole family -- 6 loaves at a time.  She kneaded the dough and let it rise and shaped it into loaves.  She always had a big garden and would can some of the vegetables.  In the Fall we would pick potatoes and garden vegetables and store them in the big cellar.

We pulled mustard weeds out of the grain fields and carried a pail and board to sweep the potato bugs into.

It was fun riding in the bob sled behind two horses.  We always loved to have the bells on the harness.  It made a joyful sound.  The wagon box was put onto sleigh runners.  We also had a one-horse sleigh.   I remember riding with Dad (I always wanted to go places.)  We had hot irons wrapped in cloth to keep our feet warm.

Christmas was the highlight of our lives.  Mother would say "Off to bed early so Santa can come."  I remember when we heard sleigh bells and we ran like mad up the stairs to bed (must have been Dad shaking the bells that went on the horses.)

At Easter Dad would say "Get up early tomorrow and see the sun dance in the water."  He would set a pan of water on the porch and of course when the sun came up it looked as though the sun were really dancing! 

We had cattle, horses, dogs, pigs and chickens.  We butchered a pig and a coy every fall and let the meat hang from a branch of the tree over night.

Mother made soap in the big black kettle hanging over the fire.  She used lye and grease.  She stirred it.  It was a hot job.  Poured and then when cooled it was cut into cakes of soap to wash our clothes.

Wilmer was called off to war in 1918.  He didn't like it.  He and cousin Alonzo Lindsay went at the same time.  They didn't go overseas.

When we lived near Manvel, Alice and Ted Buck came over and we would swing on the rope swing together.  Baby came and we all wanted her to be named Alice so that's what it was but she died.  Ted Buck married Lillian.  They live on our old home place -- new house.  He's gone.

We lived near Warren.  I said "I'm going to high school."  Della said, "I'm going too."  We graduated in 1925.  Vera and Luella graduated too (from East Grand Forks). 

We lived near Bob and Mary (unknown last name).  Popcorn at their place.  We played ball in the yard and they'd see us out and come down.

Popcorn at McClearys.  She would pop a whole dish pan full.  That's why we kyds always wanted to go to their house. 

We put plums that weren't quite ripe into the hay mow.  We went every day to look at them but it took many days for them to ripen.  We'd find baby kittens in the hay mow too.  They were born with their eyes closed.  Soon they would open.

The church from near Oslo was brought up here (East Grand Forks) to the Heritage grounds.

My brothers fished with a lantern for catfish.  Wilmer would shoot rabbits and we had rabbit meat for supper.  Roy was too kindhearted to hunt.  He couldn't stand to kill anything.  He had poor eyes and we always wanted to look through his glasses because everything looked differently.

I was married at home to Ed Betts.  I walked down the stairway as Elsie played "Here Comes the Bride".  Donna was born Dec 7, 1930.  She would always tease me and say "You were married Dec 2nd and I was born on the 7th".

(I'm guessing this is the photo she's referring to with all six sisters)