Excelsior, August, 1917



My Great Aunt, Ellen Nilsson and the "Hopkins" in Excelsior Bay.

A Winter's Morning

In the 40's, most houses were not insulated. Our house, built in the 20's, was no exception. After a hot summer day, we'd lay in bed, windows wide open, praying for a breeze. In the winter, I'd watch the ice form on the window panes and, since my bedroom was in the northwest corner of the house...and the cold arctic winds blew from that direction, I'd sleep as far from the wall as possible, covered by layers of wool blankets.

Our home was heated by an oil furnace...natural gas had not made it's way out into the country. The large tank occupied a corner of the basement with the filler pipe outside, next to the foundation. Normally, the oil man would come to fill the tank once a year, in the autumn...but if the winter was overly cold, he'd come back in January or February...alerted by Dad who'd look at the simple gauge on the top of the tank.

The furnace heated water for the radiators throughout and worked very well. Mom was seemingly always cold so she turned the thermostat up to 75 during the day. Heating bills were not a large problem, however, since the price of fuel oil was merely pennies a gallon. Even on a limited budget, most people had warm houses during those long Minnesota winters.

The air inside the house got extremely dry during the winter. To avoid the nosebleeds and colds, Mom and Dad placed water pans on top of the radiators...the kind that were made for that purpose so that their water chambers fit over and around the radiator's fins. We also used the radiators to dry wet mittens and socks...which gave off a distinctive smell to the room. Leather mittens could burn, however, so they had to be watched carefully.

As I've stated, we lived on a hill overlooking the creek between Long Lake and Lake Minnetonka. The school bus picked me up at the corner of Brown Road and Fox Street, along with Steve and some other kids. This meant I had to walk that quarter mile of road every morning and evening, regardless of the weather.

This particular morning, the snow had started falling before sunrise and already coated the frozen gravel road to a depth of two or three inches when I left the house. I had brown boots that came up about half way to my knees. They had a lining of some kind of fake lambswool but required me to wear only my socks inside. I wore a pair of cotton socks covered by a pair of Dad's wool hunting socks. I carried my school shoes in a plastic bread bag along with my lunch and workbook in another.

Although the wind was blowing out of the northwest, it was not particularly cold out and I had the hood of my jacket pulled tight around my face. It took about 5 minutes to reach the corner where the other kids were already waiting by the row of mailboxes on wooden posts, everyone standing facing the road so that their backs were to the wind.

This wasn't the first snowfall of the season and the snowbanks from the previous plowing filled the ditches on both sides of the road and rose to a foot or so above the roadway.

The bus must have been late because Steve and I got tired of standing there. We stuffed our bags of things into our mailbox...it was the biggest one...and started fooling around. We climbed up the snow banks and slid down on our feet to the road. Then we crossed Fox Street to the southwest corner where the ground fell off into the swamp surrounding the creek. The snowbank was higher here and made for good sliding and some "king of the hill" roughhousing.

We must have been engrossed in our playing, or perhaps our hoods pulled tight around our heads blocked out the sound...but all of a sudden...coming down Brown Road from Long Lake...was a huge truck with a V plow on the front. He was moving at a good clip...the snow shooting out from either side of the plow...as he bore down on Steve and I.

He didn't even see us standing on top of the snow bank. I saw just a glimpse of the truck through the sheet of snow flying out and then...we both were flying backwards toward the creek in an avalanche of heavy snow. It rolled me over and over until I finally stopped, buried under that heavy and hard compressed snow that comes from a plow. Steve was in the same predicament. We struggled and strained to get on top of the now, very deep snow.

We managed to get out and get back over to the bus stop. Our jackets, our boots, and our mittens were packed full of snow. The other kids waiting there made fun of us...and we laughed as well...embellishing the entire experience so as to impress them with our manly fortitude. Of course, we also told everyone at school. Neither of us, however, mentioned it to our Mothers that evening. That would have been unwise.

Birthday Party, April 1, 1949

My seventh birthday party. Mom and Dad had decorated the basement with balloons and made a large, and suitably low, table for the kids. Mom wrote that I had invited 15 kids to the party. Unfortunately, not all 15 show up in this photo.

Those that do...starting with me at the far left making the silly face, two unknown behind me, Don Short, Bruce Lindeman, Diane Dick, (my cousin), Bobbie Mitchell, Anne Mitchell, Doug Hawkinson, Merillee Helms, Steve Kaster, and Sandy McClintock. I'm just guessing that those not pictured would be Russ Ferrin and Scott St. John.

Mother wrote, (in my Baby Book which she updated through Christmas, 1949) that I received "many guns and holsters" and a cowboy outfit. Who could ask for more?

School Days

Each morning at the beginning of class, one child would be chosen to come to the front of the room, next to the teacher, and hold the flag for the Pledge of Allegiance. We all stood at our desks, hands over our hearts...more or less...and recited the Pledge. In some years we also sang "America the Beautiful"...though I don't remember singing the National Anthem...perhaps it was judged too difficult for young voices.

Although the classroom in the picture is not ours, the similarities are striking. The long blackboard on one side, the row of tall windows on the other, and the desks mounted on wooden planks. The upper windows were opened on hot days with a long pole with a "window hook" on the end that the teacher kept in the corner. The desk seats folded up to make for easy entry and exit and were especially handy when we had to get under our desks for the "duck and cover" atomic bomb drill.

The desks had a hole in the top...for an inkwell which we actually used one year. Each of us had to bring a bottle of ink, Schaeffer's Skrip...which had a little built-in well inside the bottle for easy filling of a fountain pen. I think we learned how to write with them...and then they were through. Can't imagine doing that with a room full of kids...

Of course we pulled the pigtails of the girl in front of us...particularly if we happened to like her. We also were not above putting gum on the seat of the person in front of us...though that meant serious trouble. We were not allowed to chew gum in class. When we did...and we did...and when we were caught...and we always were caught...there were two forms of punishment.

Usually, we were instructed to stick the gum to the bridge of our nose...much to the delight of the rest of the children...and keep it there for a length of time judged sufficient by our teacher. This would be followed by marching up front and dropping the gum into the teacher's wastebasket. Occasionally, under "special circumstances", we would merely be required to spit the gum into the basket.

As I've said, the recess at lunch was the longest of the day. In the warm weather, a few of us boys would sneak out of the gate at the far north end of the playground...it bordered on the street...and run down the 3 or 4 blocks into Crystal Bay to the old store. Naab's Hardware was on the right, (where we bought our fishing poles), and a little general store was on the left.

In front of the store, on the concrete , was a coke machine. It was one of those that resembled a chest. You had to lift and hold the top open, choose your flavor from those available, and slide the bottle through a series of rails into the jaw-like release. Then you put your nickle or dime into the machine, and hopefully, it would let you pull the bottle out.

We didn't go to the store for pop, however, we went to buy Chum Gum. Chum Gum came in a package of 5 sticks, just like Wrigley's, but the packaging was less fancy. Rather than the foil package, Chum Gum was mere paper...and each stick was also wrapped in thin paper. The good thing about it was that it only cost 2 cents a pack!

We'd each buy a pack or two, start chewing, and head back to school before we were missed. Chewing Chum Gum became a game among the boys. Before we were to go inside after recess, we would take the entire pack, 5 sticks, and put it in our mouths. On a young boy, 5 sticks of gum shows relatively easily...not to mention the drooling sugar coming out of the corners of our mouths as we attempted to chew. Some guys would eventually try more than a pack...this was considered very, very neat.

Mrs. Anderson, our 6th grade teacher, had an especially sharp eye when it came to gum-chewing. She was a small woman, perhaps not much more than 5 feet tall, thin, impecably dressed, with dark curly hair showing just a little gray. She wore glasses sometimes...gold, wire rimmed spectacles. She was very tough...and a very good teacher.

Mrs. Anderson caught me with more than a pack of gum in my mouth one day. "Charles", she said in that stern voice that meant trouble..."do you have gum in your mouth?". I could barely pronounce the words "Yes, Mrs. Anderson"...I managed, having to swallow as much of the sweet liquid in my mouth as I could to keep from drooling excessively. "Come up here and spit it in the wastebasket", she said.

Standing and lifting my seat, I made my way up to the front of the room...muffled giggles from the kids accompanying me... I stood there, next to her desk, returning her no nonsense look with a kind of gleepy half-smile...then bent my head over the wastebasket and let it go. The wad of gum was huge...enormous...the best ever...and the wastebasket was empty. The loud "CLUNK" was greeted with laughs from the class...and I think I even saw a tiny smile in the corner of Mrs. Anderson's mouth.

Afternoon recess would be spent in the classroom writing " I will not chew gum in class" 100 times on the big blackboard...it was worth it.

Hill School Playground

I think it was 1950 when they built the "new" Hill School, just west of the "old" Hill School. We all moved over to the new school then but the old school remained and we would use it again in just a few short years.


The playground shared by both schools was enormous. Mainly open fields to the north of the schools, there was a baseball diamond in the northeast corner of the old school playground. All of the playground accesories remained there as well. I think that today none of them would be acceptable because if you behaved stupidly, you would certainly be hurt.


The swings were the least worrisome. Board seats with long, rather heavy chains supporting them with well-worn dirt depressions beneath each. The chains could pinch your fingers, especially if you went really high enough to cause slack in them. If you were holding them wrong, you received a nasty pinch when the slack was taken out. Naturally, the game for the boys was to swing as high as possible and then jump off onto the grass.

The teeter-totters were very long boards with concave cut-outs toward the end for young legs to hang down. They had metal handles and rested on a horizontal pipe, long enough to allow room for three or four boards. Under each board was a steel bracket which rested on the pipe and had three different positions available to balance differing weights. Of course we would try to get the girls in the air and then jump off...leaving the board...and girls...to come crashing to earth. It really hurt!

There was a long slide, metal, with a hump in the middle. Someone got the idea of throwing sand on the slide "to speed it up". Whether you went faster or not was debatable, but your school trousers certainly suffered causing Mother some degree of consternation.

Speaking of clothes wearing out, it was not uncommon, especially toward the end of the school year, for boys to have patches on their knees. Kids then were outdoors all the time and they played hard...so it was natural that the school clothes would get worn. However, most kids only had a couple of sets of clothes for school, purchased in the preceding fall...or inherited from an older brother. It really wasn't in the budget to buy new clothes until the next year.

I certainly don't mean to imply that we went to school looking like a bunch of scrufty little hobos...quite the contrary...cleanliness was very important...washing one's hands was mandatory due to the fear of polio...but parents took some pride in making sure their son or daughter went to school in clean...if not new...clothes.

Girls pretty much wore dresses or skirts and blouses. In the winter, they'd put on jeans or cords under their skirts to keep their legs warm, taking them off when they came to school. The teachers, particularly in the younger grades, spent an awful lot of time helping children on and off with their clothing in the winter. And they did it for each recess and when it was time to catch the bus. They must have had a great deal of patience.


The crowning jewel of the playground, however, was undoubtedly the merry-go-round. Composed of steel pipes, worn shiny by generations of little hands, and dried out wooden seat boards, it lacked the later addition of a kind of sprocket gizmo which kept the thing from smashing into the center pole. If you were uncareful enough to have a leg or an arm hanging over the inside, it would give you serious damage. Girls would hang on as boys ran at top speed around the thing, pushing it as fast as they could before jumping on themselves...at which time it would begin it's eccentric wobble. Kids were injured...but the teacher would bandage the cuts, and soothe the tears...and all would be well at the end of the day.

The tennis courts were concrete-walled and surrounded with a chain-link fence with a couple of gates. This was the site for kick-ball and "war"...kickball without the kicks...just throwing it as hard as possible to damage your target. In the spring, it was the home of myriads of june bug beetles which we caught and raced...if they were in the mood.

In the back of the playground, and reserved for lunch recess which was much longer and more or less unsupervised, was a neat heavy grove of tall old trees surrounding a little pond. We weren't supposed to play there but we did...coming back only when we heard the teacher ring her bell from the back steps.

The boys played softball, the girls could always be found playing jacks or hopscotch on the sidewalk or in the tennis court.

We had around 30 kids in each class. We had 3 recesses during the long day and the teachers did all the work themselves...yet the Minnesota schools were the best in the nation...and the US schools were the best in the world.

School was a wonderful place to be.

Pictures Added:

I finally got my new scanner today so I've scanned some old pictures into the existing posts. From now on, I'll add them as I write. To enlarge them, merely click on each. Thanks for visiting!

Hill School: First Memories

Hill School was in Crystal Bay. It was already an old building when I went there. Strangely, I haven't seen a picture of how it looked at that time...all show it as having wooden clapboard siding. Even a few years ago before they began remodeling it into a new private school, it had wooden siding. When I went there, however, it had a very rough stucco exterior...so rough that if you brushed it when playing, it would give you a serious scrape...or tear your clothes. I'm talking about the "old" school...the "new" one was built in 1950, I believe, and was next door across the tennis courts and playground.

The first day of 1st grade was a little bit scary. I had attended Long Lake the year before, and, except for Steve, whom I'd played with all summer, I knew no one. I seem to remember that for at least that first year, we had both 1st and 2nd grade classes in the same room...the one on the west side of the building. It must be so for when I was introduced to the class by my teacher, the big cheerful face in front of me turned around and, with a huge smile said, "Hi Charles". It was Don Short and I knew immediately that he was going to be a good friend.

As you entered the front door of the school, on the right, in a tiny little room, was our library. Filled to the ceiling with books, the little place barely had room for the small desk in the corner where we could sign out our choices. As I said, television had not yet caught on with the general public, stations and hours of broadcast were limited, and the cost was high. Books, therefore, were highly valued by kids. We could check out books anytime but had to return them before we could get another.

On the left side of the entryway, was the cloak room framed by the boys and girls bathrooms. We'd put our coats, boots, mittens and caps in here along with our lunches that each of us brought, either in a paper or bread bag, or in a lunchbox. Lunchboxes had become really a big deal and I had a Red Ryder one.

Looking toward the north end...the end away from the front door...were two rooms, side by side, with a long row of high windows on the outside wall of each. The inside wall was covered with a long blackboard, ( on which I wrote many, many times things like "I will not talk in class"). The teacher sat at her desk in the front of the room, (the north end, or back of the building). A large dark green metal garbage can sat on the floor next to her desk...(especially useful for naughty boys to throw their gum after wearing it on their noses). An American flag mounted in a metal flag pole stand was in the corner.

Perhaps a little humorously, I hear people today rant about the phrase "under God" in our Pledge of Allegiance...apparently they don't know that the phrase wasn't added until 1954. I remember saying the pledge that year and thinking how strange it sounded with the new words.

We sure had a lot of recess time in those days it seemed. We'd play after the bus brought us to school but before the old bell rang; we had a morning recess for half an hour; a long lunch hour recess governed only by how quickly you could eat your sandwich; an afternoon recess; and the time before the buses came to pick us up.

The teacher in the younger grades would be with us, teaching and playing games with us. I remember playing something called " cut the pie" in the winter. The children would walk around in a circular pattern, making a large pie in the snow. Then, we'd make the slices the same way. I don't remember exactly how it was played, but I do know you were in trouble if you "cut the pie"...that is stepped out of the tracks.

The basement was the lunchroom. We'd take our lunches down there, get a little bottle of milk...for which our parents paid 2 cents, and eat quickly so as to get outside for recess.

I have many more stories of our days at Hill School and will continue them in the future.

St. George Parish

Since we were Catholic, we attended St. George church in Long Lake. Fr. Nolan was the pastor at the time and lived in a small house at the rear of the church. Every Sunday, after Mom had put the roast in the oven, dressed in our Sunday best, we'd drive the three miles or so to Mass. On Saturdays, Steve and I would go to Catechism classes taught by the nuns in the Church basement. We'd ride our bikes to Church, carrying our paper lunch bags, and sometimes, if we had any, a few cents to spend in town after classes. We had only one problem: just before we'd get to the church, two big kids from Long Lake, (whose names will go unmentioned), would pull in front of us on their bikes and take our money. When we protested, they'd bang their bikes menacingly into ours...making certain we knew what lay in store for us if we failed to fork over the dough.

When I was seven, it was time for me to have my first communion. For a number of weeks beforehand, we had classes instructing us in the theological mysteries involved in this holy action. I must confess to being terribly confused and somewhat nervous about the whole idea of swallowing Jesus...being careful not to even let the host touch our teeth.

When the day finally arrived, the weather was perfect. It was late spring and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. My parents had invited many of their friends to the big event. Everyone met at the church, attended the Mass, watched me, wearing an all-white suit that I think we must have gotten as a hand-me-down from my cousins, go up to the front of the church and receive the communion host on my tongue. What no one could see, however, was that all of a sudden, my mouth became as dry as dust. Try as I might, I simply could not swallow Our Lord's Body. I could not manufacture any moisture to ease His passage into my throat.

I felt my face starting to burn and knew I must be bright red...then I knew that since I was bright red, and could not swallow Our Lord, that everyone in the entire church was staring at me. So I got redder, and hotter, and tried to manouver that wafer into my throat.

Finally, I managed to break it up with my tongue against the roof of my dry mouth, and, mustering all my courage, began to swallow...hoping that I wouldn't choke and that Jesus would forgive me for treating him so badly.


The party turned out great. Dad cooked hamburgers on the grill, Mom made potato salad, and I got to wear that white suit all day long while playing with my cousins and friends.

After our first communion, Steve and I were tapped to become Altar Boys. In those days the Mass was said in Latin which meant that we would have to learn the Latin responses. Mrs. Kaster volunteered to be our teacher and she suffered no nonsense on the part of her two pupils. Every day at a set time, I'd ride down to Steve's house to memorize our Latin. We had small booklets with the words of the priest, the expected movements of the Altar Boys, (because the Mass was very formally structured at that time, both the movements of the priest and of the servers was critical), and our expected, and prayerful, responses. It seems that we did this for a couple of months until Mrs. Kaster deemed us ready to assume our responsibilities at church.

In the beginning, younger guys like Steve and I, would be teamed up with older and more experienced boys. I remember serving with Pete Rettinger on more than one occasion and feeling great relief... for I knew he'd whisper over to me what I should do next if he had an indication that I was lost...or sleepy. Within a few months, however, Steve and I both became quite confident and often served daily morning Mass by ourselves.

Eventually, when I was about 10, we left St. George's and switched to St. Bartholomew's in Wayzata. I heard something about Dad arguing with Fr. Nolan about something...but I don't know the reason for certain. I continued my Altar Boying ...this time for Frs. Demetrius and Marcellus.

Sweets and Treats

When I was a child sweets were something special. Unlike today, kids simply did not have access to a lot of candy. Perhaps some of the reason was economic, I think, however, it was more a complete difference in lifestyle. Fast food simply didn't exist. There were no McDonalds or Burger Kings on every streetcorner...people actually made food at home and sat down as a family to eat three times a day. Most people did not keep soda pop at home, opting instead for Kool Aide in a pitcher with ice for a sweet drink.

I used to look forward to Sundays for my sweets. Sunday morning Mom would put a roast in the oven and we would drive to St. George's church in Long Lake for Mass...always leaving the doors unlocked. When we got home, we would change out of our "Sunday clothes", I'd go out to play for a while, and Mom would finish preparing our large Sunday meal. After dinner, as it was called, Mom would make fudge. Although I'm not certain, the recipe, I think, consisted of Hershey's cocoa powder, lots of butter , and cups of sugar. She'd heat it on the old stove, knowing somehow when the temperature was just right. If it was either too hot or too cool, the fudge would either crystallize or never get solid enough to pick up.

The difficult part was waiting for the stuff to cool. Then, when it had, Mom would cut squares, put them on a plate, and we'd sit in the living room, listening to the radio and eating fudge. That was the extent of my chocolate exposure most of the time.

Two other opportunities for sweets existed: When Mom would bake a pie...cherry was and is my favorite, or a cake...invariably yellow cake with chocolate frosting...both from scratch using, I believe, Bisquick for the pie dough and Softasilk cake flour for the cake. One day when my parents were both away, suffering from a lack of sugar, I decided to make a cake. Unfortunately, we had no eggs. I proceeded following the recipe on the back of the Softasilk box...less the eggs...and put it in the oven to bake. It turned out quite flat.

The other great opportunity for sugar consumption was at Steve's house. Mrs. Kaster canned everything from her large garden. She also made the very best strawberry jam in the entire world. Each morning, it seemed, she would make bread...lots of bread...she had a lot of big, strong boys to feed. She had an old wood-burning stove with the oven on the side. We could smell the fresh bread from outside when she took it out of the oven to cool...and we always made a beeline in to the kitchen to beg the first piece.

We'd get a thick slice of that wonderful, still warm, thick crusted bread, load on the home made strawberry jam...so much so that it literally ran down the sides and down our hands, and go sit on the back steps to enjoy our wonderful treat. We'd get a glass of milk...unpasteurized from their own cows...and be in absolute heaven.

As I've said, economic times were such that kids did not really have any money...of course...we really didn't need it. But occasionally, in the summer when we weren't fishing, Steve and I would have a craving for "real" candy...and "real" pop. The only way we could buy it was with our own money. That meant collecting bottles.

I really don't know if we still have a bottle return fee in Minnesota any more, but at that time we did. It was 2 or 3 cents per bottle. That may not sound like a lot but consider that a candy bar cost a nickel and a bottle of pop was 7 cents...later it went to a dime. If we could collect enough bottles, we could redeem them at Emma's Cafe in Long Lake and get a candy bar and bottle of pop in the deal.

We'd hop on our bikes and ride slowly along the road, Willow Drive now, a gravel road with weed-filled ditches on the sides, scanning the brush for the telltale glint of glass. Finding something promising, we'd park our bikes...right in the middle of the road...hop off, and explore the ditch for a bottle or two. The entire trip to Long Lake must have taken an hour or more. We both had baskets mounted on the front of our bikes to carry the bottles in.

Arriving at Emma's, we'd carry the bottles into the cafe and put them on the counter. The older lady, I don't know if it was the "Emma" or not, was very kind to us, counting the bottles and sliding the pennies, nickels and the occasional dime across the counter as the rest of the customers watched bemusedly. Normally, we'd have enough to buy a candy bar and bottle of pop for each of us. I usually chose a 3 Musketeers...they were then by far the biggest candy bar available...the top indented so that the bar could be broken into 3 pieces...each as big as today's entire bar. For pop, I chose Sarsaparilla...actually Root Beer...but I'd heard one of the radio cowboys, Roy Rogers or Gene Autry, order it when he went into a saloon.

We'd usually sit outside on the sidewalk to enjoy our treats, basking in the warm sunshine and watching the infrequent traffic go by. We didn't wander away yet because we hadn't been charged the bottle deposit so we had to return the bottles before we left. There was a feed store across the street at that time and we'd ride over there just to look around and visit with the farmers who came to town to buy feed for their animals.

As long as we'd ridden all this way, we'd make our trip to Long Lake worthwhile by going down the street to the Buckhorn and standing on the fence that surrounded the real buffaloes in the back down by the lake. Then, a walk through Kip Hale's Buckhorn...looking at the seeming millions of neat things he had adorning the knotty pine walls. The guns of every possible configuration were favorites...and the stuffed animals...the strange ones and the exotic ones. Not one person ever asked us to leave as we walked through the bar, up and down the aisles of diners, or through the bowling alley.

If we thought we had time after the Buckhorn, we'd sometimes ride down to the pool hall...I think it was "Jakes" but I'm no longer sure of that. An old building, clapboard siding with high tin ceilings, it was a favorite for the "old timers" of the area to hang out at. There was a bar, some high-backed booths where men played cribbage, and pool tables. It was dark and a kind of old dusty feeling filled the place. We'd talk to everyone.

We'd usually come back home on Brown Road as it was much more direct and the only paved road in the area. Once past St. George's, it was also pretty much downhill all the way to Steve's house. The end of a fun day.

My World

This is obviously a current map. Many of the roads did not exist when I was a child. The Luce Line Trail was a train track behind our home with daily steam locomotives running back and forth to Minneapolis. Wayzata Country Club did not exist, though Woodhill and the Orono Golf Course did. The mark is the approximate location of my home.

At the Hamm's

From 1946 until 1948 we lived at the William Hamm estate on the corner of Fox Street and Orono Orchard Road. The estate consisted of perhaps 20 acres, the very large white main house, barns and fields for horses, a home for the caretaker and his family, and the guest cottage, where we lived.

Mr. Hamm was William Hamm, Jr., grandson of Theodore Hamm who was the founder of Hamm's Brewery. In 1933, he was kidnapped while walking to his St. Paul home by the Karpis Gang and held for $100,000 ransom, a huge fortune at the time. While the Hamm home in St. Paul is famous, the Hamm estate in Orono is hardly known at all.

At that time it was normal for people who worked for the wealthy families, to be given living accomodations on the estates. Since Dad worked for the family, we were given the guest cottage to live in. Small and cozy, it was a white clapboard bungalow with a screened front porch and an enclosed side porch. Entering through the front porch with it's gray-painted plank flooring, you entered the kitchen, perhaps the second largest room in the house. It was complete with a white linoleum floor, an oven/stove combination...one of those steel models that rose up on tall legs from the floor, a refrigerator and a modicum of counter space.

Immediately off the kitchen to the left was the bedroom..."master" bedroom would be a little too grand to describe it...where Mom and Dad slept. If one went straight ahead from the porch, through the kitchen, the main room was the entire length of the house with large windows overlooking the tennis court to the west. I bedded down in the enclosed porch which was entered through french doors from the main room. My bedroom was nice in the summer with an entire wall of windows that could be opened, not so nice when the temperature fell below zero. I remember waking up on a cold winter morning with my blankets frozen to the wall.

Heat to the cottage, and the main house for that matter, was supplied from an old coal burning furnace which occupied most of a half cellar which was entered through a door cut into the foundation where the ground fell away from the house. It was a "gravity" furnace...common at the time...heat rising warmed the house. Unfortunately, coal fired furnaces were notorious leakers and coal dust usually found it's way onto Mother's white curtains causing her to wash and iron the things constantly.

I loved investigating things...perhaps all young children do...and one of the things I truly loved investigating was the coal bin...the storage area for loose coal...in the cellar. Cool, damp and dark, and populated by only the coal and that enormous old furnace, it was an enticing place for a four year old in the summer. I would invariably leave my exploration and return to the house covered in black coal dust, much to my Mother's chagrin. I also met the most terrible creature I had ever seen up until then down there...a large yellow and black salamander...who scooted away as fast as I did, though without the screaming.

Dad bought me a dog...a little black puppy which I named "Pudgy". I absolutely loved him. We'd play together all day long...wrestling and running. Unfortunately, Pudgy didn't stay pudgy very long. Pudgy grew to be very large. He was still my very best friend...but...one day when he was eating his food on the front porch...Dad came home and walked in. Pudgy wasn't fond of even me when he was eating...but Dad was not his favorite at any time. He refused to let Dad in the house...growling severely and showing his, by now, quite large teeth. Dad decided to show Pudgy who was boss and went in. He bit Dad. Pudgy left to live with a nice farmer two days later.

I was an only child...I had no brothers or sisters to play with...so I invented my own excitement. The tennis court was clay...meaning that it required a great deal of preparation and maintenance. In the spring, the caretaker would rake the surface and then roll it with a large water-filled roller pulled or pushed by hand. The top was covered with new green clay chips every year and after any hard rains...and the stripes were white cotton tape, tacked into the soil. It was a lovely court and the Hamm's would often have friends over for tennis parties. Of course, everyone wore their tennis whites...and Mom would dress me in mine...white shirt and shorts and little white tennis shoes.

I would sit betwen our cottage and the court, on the lawn, watching the tennis matches. Mr. Hamm appointed me the ball boy...at four years old...and I would gleefully wait for a ball to come out of the court so I could chase it down and return it to the players. I heard one lady ask who I was...Mr. Hamm told her...she stated that I was "just darling"! I told my Mother.

Friday and Saturday evenings were scheduled for dinner parties at the homes of the wealthy families of the lake area. At 5 or 6 in the evening, the long line of black Cadillac limousines would begin arriving. Driving up the circle drive in front of the main house, each, in turn, would stop at the front door, the chauffer all dressed in black with a black cap would exit the car, walk around to the rear door closest to the entry, open it, and stand while the lady of the car, dressed in the finest of fashions, would exit. Usually, the man would get out on his side and walk around to walk with his wife to the front door. The people were always the same and alternated their weekends between hosting and attending.

While the guests were inside, the chauffers would pull their cars down the back drive, turn them around to face the front door, and wait for the party to end. In the summer they'd get together and smoke a cigarette and enjoy a cup of coffee that the kitchen staff would bring out. In the winter, they'd all huddle in two or three cars, the engines running and the heaters on throughout the party.



In the fall of 1947 I started kindergarten at Long Lake School, (now the museum). Mother walked me out the long driveway past the barns and the caretaker's house, to the side of Orono Orchard Road. I remember a girl also being there but I don't remember her name. It wasn't too long before a brand new 1947 Ford station wagon, a "woodie" as we now call them, pulled into the driveway with a lady driving. There were already two other kids sitting on the wooden floor in the back. The girl and I crawled in with some help getting over the lowered tailgate, and scooched around to find ourselves a spot against the sides of the car. Up went the tailgate, down came the back window and we were off to school.




I remember very little of kindergarten...except the lovely nap times we had. Each of us had to bring a little rug to school where we kept them. At nap time, we'd have a small bottle of milk and some crackers and then roll out our rugs on the auditorium floor. Mrs. Virginia Bird, our teacher and a lovely lady, would turn off all the lights except a few dim ones on the stage. Then she'd start a record playing on an old 78 rpm folding suitcase-like record player...soft music for us to nap by. A funny little memory just came to mind: Mom and Dad would always say "Mrs. Bird is calling all her little birds" when it was time for me to go to school... Wonderful.

After kindergarten was over, we moved down Fox Street to our "new" house...the one that many of these letters are written around.

Fox Street Visitors

Although we lived in the country on an out of the way gravel road, we did enjoy a steady...if infrequent...stream of visitors. Our milkman was Herb Meyer...of the locally famous Meyer Bros. Dairy...who came by in his light green van...doors open in the summer...on a weekly basis to deliver the milk, cottage cheese and occasional ice cream.

Although we did have a "milk box" on the step outside the back door, more times than not, Herb would knock on the door...open it, and call for my Mom. Mom and Dad were friends with most of the people in the area and Mom would usually come out and "visit" with Herb. They'd exchange little bits of local gossip for a minute or two and then Herb would go back to the truck and return with the square bottles of milk and the smaller bottle of cream that Mom loved for her coffee. The bottles all had the little paper tab tops. I'd ask Herb...Mr. Meyer to me...if it was ok if I rode along with him to the corner of Willow Drive, a quarter mile west. He'd usually let me ride along...standing on the step next to the open door...looking out at the familiar scenery. Then, when we reached the intersection, I'd hop out...say thanks...and stroll back up the road home.

This was before the days of the supermarket...people who lived in rural areas around the lake either got their food from their gardens...went into town...Long Lake or Wayzata, or bought from the people who came to them. One of my favorites among the latter group was the "Bambi" man. He had a van like Mr. Meyers but painted brown with a picture of Bambi the deer on the side. He delivered bakery goods. Mom always bought bread and donuts...the donuts the result of my excessive begging, I think...and usually some coffee cake for her and Dad. I'm sorry that I don't remember his name but I do remember that he was also a very nice and friendly person. I only got to ride in his truck one time though...his boss told him he couldn't allow it. Big letdown!

People who lived around the Lake were fortunate to have a wonderful grocery store in Wayzata that also delivered right to their homes. Waytonka market, for years a fixture on Lake Street, was owned by, among others throughout the years, Vic Petit and Harold Peterson...both lifelong friends of Mom and Dad. Mom would spend the evening before grocery day making out her list of items she would order the next morning.

At around 10 the next morning, she'd ask the operator to connect her to Waytonka and she'd talk to either Vic or Harold about her order. Often, the chatting could last for half an hour. Mom would ask how the peaches were...or if they had a "real nice pot roast". Later on, in the afternoon, one of them would drive up in the truck and deliver the groceries. Again the cursory knock at the back door...then he'd walk right in to the kitchen, carrying the groceries in a folding wooden crate that he'd set on the counter.

He'd unload the groceries while he and Mom visited...her taking the items and placing them either on the table for future filing...or into the refrigerator...the "icebox" as we still called it. Usually, two crates did the trick...he'd fold them up...which, for some reason enthralled me... then bid Mom goodbye. I'd try to go through everything before it got put away...searching for some special goody.

One visitor that came seldom, thankfully, but who was loved by everyone in the area, was Doc Riecke..."Duke" as his friends called him. A great big man with the sweetest, happiest face punctuated with a small, brush of a mustache, I'd ever seen on anyone...Doc Riecke probably healed as many patients with his joyous countenance as with his medicines. Once, when I was very ill with pneumonia, he came to the house carrying his black leather "doctor bag" and sat down by the side of the bed. He talked in such a gentle voice that I felt better just having him there. I didn't even protest when he got the huge silver syringe out, asked me to roll over, and gave me that shot of penicillin. Then he'd spend a few minutes talking to Mom and Dad and he'd be out the door to his next emergency. He did this, driving all the way from his offices in Wayzata...across the country roads often covered with unplowed snow, whenever someone needed him. He was a kind and gentle soul.

There were others who managed to find their way out into the country. The Fuller Brush man would make his rounds every couple of months, and Mom would buy a hair brush or scrub brush from him...again, with minutes of conversation during the sale. He'd share what he'd seen somewhere in Wayzata...or even Minneapolis...the news being greatly appreciated by Mom. Once a year the Jehovah Witnesses could be counted on to show up on the front step. That was a dead giveaway that the visitor was a stranger...no one came to the front door who knew my family. Mom would always be gentle but firm in refusing the proffered "Watchtower" and they'd leave to knock on the next front door down the road. The Culligan water softener man would come once a week to replace the big tank in the basement. He'd also knock at the back door, call out "Culligan man" and muscle his two-wheel cart and tank in the door and down the basement stairs...returning in a couple of minutes with the old one. He was friendly but constantly in a hurry so not much chatting got done.

One reminder of my mother that illustrates her kindness sticks in my mind. One summer day the road crew was working on grading the road and filling in the low areas. It must have been 90 degrees that day and the guys were soaked with sweat. I was out sitting on the grass watching them when one big guy came over to me and asked if he could get a drink from the hose rolled up alongside the house. I told him that he sure could so he went over, turned it on, and let it run out onto the grass to get cool. Mom came out on the step and asked if the guys would like some Kool-Aide with ice. They all stopped working, left the trucks and road grader on the road, and came over while she poured glasses full of iced Kool-Aide for them. They were so thankful.
That was my Mom.

The Neighbors

The neighborhood in the late 1940's was agricultural with open fields and widely-spaced homes. Most were small...but some were very large estates. In the just over two miles from Orono Orchard Road to Old Crystal Bay Road, houses were limited to the north side, with the exception of one near Brown Road and one near Old Crystal Bay Road. The land was comprised of gently rolling hills interspersed with low, swampy areas. I knew almost every person who lived along that road from both helping Steve deliver newspapers and selling the occasional Cub Scout raffle tickets.

Beginning at Orono Orchard, the William Hamm estate, (the William Hamm who was the subject of the infamous kidnap case of the 1930's, and...where I lived for a couple of years), occupied the entire northwest corner and the small area just south where the estate's back driveway exited through two stone gates. West from Hamm's and back from the road was Mrs. MacMillan's home. Continuing westward, from the top of the hill to the corner with Brown Road, a small home sat on the south side...the only people I didn't know...with the north side filled completely with the Ruxton Strong estate.

The Kaster family, (my friend Steve), owned the land on the northwest of the Brown Road/Fox Street intersection. Half way between Steve's house and mine, bordered on the west by our field and the south by the creek and half way up the hill was the Helms family and my friend, Merillee, and her baby sister, Connie. Connie suffered from cerebral palsy. Merillee's mom used to read us stories on the lawn on summer evenings. There were no other homes between ours and Mr. Redpath's which was just on the western side of what is now called Willow Drive. In those years it was a gravel road that we considered the back road to Long Lake and was completely devoid of homes along its entire length.

A funny little memory of another, relatively unknown resident of the area comes back to me. Just west of Redpath's farm, around the corner and surrounded by trees which had grown between the fields and the road, sat a tiny little unpainted, weathered grey wooden house. It may be generous calling it a house for it could not have contained more than a single room. A few paces away was an equally unpainted outhouse. They just sat there, almost hidden by the tall weeds and drooping tree branches...and, if you had been driving a car along the road during the day, you certainly would not have seen it. In the evening, though, the dim orange glow of a kerosene lamp could be seen shining from the one window on the road side of the little house. For some reason, and I can't remember what that might be, all of the kids called the resident "Batch"...short for bachelor. The story was that he was a very old man who lived there all alone. I remember walking along that road on a dark night...I must have been 8 or 9 years old, and taking some comfort from the sight of that lantern shining from the little window. There was nothing frightening about it at all...but kids in those days hadn't been spooked by the television monsters of today.

From Batch's place to the corner of Old Crystal Bay Road, were two houses and the Presbyterian Church. Russ Ferrin, "Rusty" we called him because of his red hair, another friend of mine, lived in the only other house on the south side, and next to the church, on the north side lived Scott St. John. Scottie's mom always gave us chocolate covered graham crackers which were delicious. West of the intersection was the Velie estate...John Velie was our friend also. His parents hired a swimming instructor to give lessons to all of us at their pool one summer. His name was John Hartmann and he scared the dickens out of me.

South of the church on Old Crystal Bay Road lived Don Short, a year older than the rest of us, but a good friend nonetheless, whose dad owned a Culligan water softener company...and a little further on lived Ron Meyer, of Meyers Brothers dairy...also a year older and a buddy.

That was it...that was the gang. We went to Hill School together, belonged to Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts together, and rode our bikes together.

Bicycles

It was a late summer afternoon and I was playing in the garage...rummaging through the dusty old tools that the previous owner had left behind. There was a two-handed scythe with a huge curved blade that I had dragged outside and was trying to figure out how to hold...I was about the same size as the tool. It took all my strength to lift it off the gravel driveway...and swinging it was impossible.

I could hear the car coming up the road before I could see it...the rocks on the road pinging off its' underside...then the cloud of dust that kept pace and surrounded it...dust that made my Mom furious...but that's another story. I saw that it was Dad when he turned into the driveway...the light blue and wood Ford station wagon rattling all of its' loose-fitting wooden parts. I dragged the scythe back into the garage and leaned it on the other old tools against the wall and went out to see Dad.



He had a smile on his face when he saw me and turned toward the house, calling for Mom to come outside. He told me he had a present for me!

At this time in our lives, presents were...well...relatively non-existent. I did, certainly, get presents at Christmas and for my birthday...small things...and the dreaded clothes...my Swedish grandmother gave me pajamas and my German grandmother gave me monogrammed handkerchiefs...every single year...but that was it. So a present in the middle of the year for no apparent reason was...well...just exciting as could be!

Mom, wearing a "housedress" and an apron, came out of the back door and walked over to the car where Dad and I were standing. I was still trying to figure out where exactly this present Dad had brought me was hiding. Mom asked Dad what was going on. He told her he had gotten "Chuckie"...my nickname at the time...a special present. Mom was as excited as I was.

Dad walked around to the back of the station wagon...Mom and I following close behind...he lifted the window...I wasn't tall enough to look in though I surely tried...then dropped the tailgate, caught by the two cables that kept it from falling straight down. Dad reached in and pulled the wonderful present out...a beautiful bicycle! I screamed...Mom smiled and said something like "oh my!" but approvingly. "Is it for me" I asked. Dad assured me it was and held it there...for me to look at.

It was an old bike...probably from the 1930's...it was blue with chrome fenders and handlebars...the embossed metal plaque on its' front said "Stutz". The chrome fenders had patches of rust and it was dusty...but it was certainly a beauty! Dad told Mom that he'd gotten it from Mr. Krogness. The Krogness' lived next to Woodhill Country Club on a hill in a beautiful large home (on right) and Dad had worked for them.


Mom thought it was too big for me...it was, after all, a full-sized bike and I was only 7. Dad assured her that it would be fine when he adjusted the seat and handlebars. He left me to hold the Stutz while he went into the garage to find a wrench. I walked the bike around the driveway, onto the lawn and back again, reaching across the center bar to grasp the other side of the handlebars. Dad came back and, with some struggle and a few strong but muffled words, managed to lower both the seat and the handlebars to their lowest positions. He held the bike and had me sit on it to test the success of the adjustments. I could just reach the pedals at the bottom of the stroke. He determined that it was perfect.

"Are you going to teach him to ride it?" Mom asked. Dad said he would. I asked, "when?"...Dad said "Well...how about now?"

Oh my goodness! I was excited and absolutely terrified at the same time...but Dad was there and if he thought I could do this...then I guessed that I could. He held the bike and had me climb up on the seat and put my feet on the pedals. Then he walked beside and a little behind me...one hand steadying my steering, one hand on the rear fender...down the driveway toward Fox Street.

He helped me turn west on the road...him taking his hand off the handlebars now and holding only the rear fender. I wobbled...then...as we began going a bit faster...my steering got steadier and I set a course straight down the middle of the gravel road. Heaven! Smooth, quiet...with only the occasional "pop" as a rock scooted out from under a tire...what a wonderful thing this was!

Then alarm bells went off in my young head! I heard Dad say "You're doing great!"...which was all well and good but the voice wasn't coming from my back fender...it was way, way behind me! That meant...I was on my own!

I absolutely froze on the spot. My feet, which had been dutifully pedaling...stopped...allowing the bike to coast. My hands froze...gripping the Stutz' handlebars as tightly as a seven year old could. I could faintly hear Dad, alarmed now, yelling something like..."keep going"..."steer"...but it was all for naught. Though, to my credit, I didn't tip over...I did steer an arrow-straight course to the side of the road...the south side...that fell off into a deep ditch filled with brush...and over the edge I went...ending in a heap, the blue Stutz on top of me.

Dad rushed to my side and helped me pull the bike back up to the road. He asked me if I was all right and I assured him that I was great. I had ridden my new bike!

By the end of the day, after a few falls, I was riding up and down our long driveway with ease. I could hardly wait til tomorrow!