In 1901 Harold Westover was born in a log cabin, his father a homesteader, his mother only one of three white women living between the Sioux and Manitou rapids Indian reservations. Harold noted that at time there was a population that registered many bachelors and not many ladies. He also iterated there was no such thing as bakery bread and that folks ate pancakes and bannock which he described at a thicker pancake dough baked in an oven.
Corinne Jonson It was March of 1923, Corinne was 9 years old, her brothers, 5 and 2. Their parents decided to emigrate, and they left their homeland Dalarna, Sweden, on what she termed as a “stormy voyage” from Gothenburg that lasted almost three weeks before they arrived in New York City.
At one time Fairland, Minn., was among other area communities that were considered for the county seat when Koochiching was formed. Mirriam Ollikkala’s first year of teaching was 1935-1936, The Fairland School was located about 25 miles south and west of Loman on the Black River Road.
ABOUT HISTORY In May of 1987, these folks were well-seasoned and all of similar vintage, and reminisced and tested their memories while ruminating about what befell them. Glen remembered when as a youth living on the banks of the Rainy River; each spring he would sit on the banks of the river and watch the ice go out.
The seamier side The early 1900’s in Koochiching bring to mind the migration of settlers; how hard they labored, how they managed just to survive overcoming the many challenges and thrive in difficult conditions. It seems unlikely that there would be a seamy side but historians have offered a perspective that included gambling, liquor issues and though unseemly, prostitution.
ABOUT HISTORY Today’s different social media types allow for no end of pros and cons and leads to much protracted discussion. Not be out done, the social life in the Koochiching frontier had its own diversions.
Joe’s ruminations V In the winter Joe’s Canadian neighbors would travel the river on the ice and their horses had sleigh bells on them, he related that you could year them coming for miles He remembered there were quite a few horses and cutters across the river, and they had robes and foot warmers. Saturday nights was when you could hear the bells as they were on their way to town or a dance at a school house, he added that on his side of the River for years no one had horses.
Joe and his brother Russel bought an upright Stickney gasoline engine, a feed grinder and a saw rig. The engine had two flywheels one on each side; it was started by turning them. The gentleman they bought it from showed then how it started and other details about how it ran. Note: the boys nor their dad knew nothing about engines. So, one day they got everything lined up to grind feed and they couldn’t get it to start. They discussed the why and after working on it half of the day they decided to go and get the man they bought it from.
Joe Mannausau was 16 and wanted to buy a bicycle. One morning he got up early and walked to Loman He asked for a job at Camp Six where they sorted logs for the pulp mill in International Falls but was told he was too young by the camp foreman, as he sat mulling the over rejection the foreman returned asking if he would hoe and weed their garden, he jumped at it.