My greatest adventure

By Robert Erickson of Sartell

I was born in Willmar in 1933, but my life did not begin until a cold wintery February morning in 1939 at about 2 a.m.

My sister Phyllis, age nine, and I were asleep in our home in Willmar when we were awakened by people talking downstairs. Curious, we were walking down the stairs when mother met us and told us to go back to bed and she would soon be up. About 3 a.m. she came upstairs, set us on the bed, and said, “Daddy’s not coming home.” We did not fully understand.

Our father Earl Erickson was an engineer at the Willmar Municipal Power Plant and was working the night shift when he had an accident that took his life.

From that morning on, memories of the past were wiped from our minds. We were later told this often happens to people, usually young, after a tragic accident.

I only had one memory, when I saw a wooden box containing two fish late at night. I was later told that was when dad had speared them on the fish spawning run (it was legal in those days).

Phyllis had three memories, but none about our family. It was already difficult times, with the ending of the Depression and the beginning of World War II.

Mother immediately looked for and found a job, but she also had two young children to care for. She was fortunate my father’s parents, Art and Ida Erickson, lived in Willmar and could help take care of Phyllis, and mother’s parent’s, Carl and Katerina Jenson, lived on a farm near Wakonda, S.D. and would care for me until school started.

Mother’s first job was running a small hamburger shop with eight stools. She also boxed pastries and, of course, in Willmar, coffee. This was a six-days-a-week job, 7 a.m. until 5 p.m.

Mother drove me out to grandpa's, about six hours, and back the same day. My first (new) life was a great adventure, as I had never been on a farm before.

Grandpa’s farm was small and he raised two cows, some calves, and some pigs. Grandma was a hard worker like grandpa, and both had immigrated from Denmark, but about 10 years apart. She had a large garden and raised chickens, ducks and geese. She raised the ducks and geese to dressed and to sell and the chickens to sell eggs and set on duck eggs to hatch.

I had an immediate job, locate the duck nests and bring her all but one egg. I would leave one egg so the duck wouldn’t abandon the nest.

The ducks seemed to wise up to where to hide their nests. They would be under buildings, in the weeds, brush, and a favorite spot in grandma’s large raspberry patch among the thorns. That was a hands-and-knees crawl. Once in a while, I would find a new nest with four to six eggs and I would get a big hug. Every day was a new adventure, and my greatest adventure was in the cow pasture.

A few weeks before I came, there had been a fierce windstorm and it had ripped many strips of tar paper off the buildings and blown into the pasture. Tar paper was popular in that era to make building repairs.

Lifting up one large piece of tarpaper, there was a maze of small trails in the grass, and I saw a mouse race off. Under the next tarpaper there was again a maze of trails, but with a mouse in a nest with her tiny pink babies that she would not abandon. I slowly lowered the tarpaper. I would check the paper about every other day and usually saw a mouse or two, and sometimes vacant mouse nests.

One day I lifted the tarpaper and there was a large snake. Running to grandpa, he said it was a bull snake. He said they are a farmer’s friend, as their main diet is mice. This could explain the empty nests.

There were many grasshoppers and one specie was brown, about three inches long, and could fly. I made a small net and it could be hours of fun catching them.

Grandma would buy a few items in metal cans and I asked grandma to save the tops. They would be my “frying pan.” I would lay them in the sun, catch a few hoppers, pull off their heads, and lay them to fry. I would then feed them to the ducks.

One afternoon I left my shirt in the pasture and coming back the next day it was full of holes, from a pin hole to the size of a pencil eraser. I was afraid to show it to grandma, but she laughed, “It was hoppers.”

She had a gander with six geese in his harem. Dressed, they were a big sale for Christmas, Thanksgiving and others.

One day a car drove in the yard and apologized to grandma that they had run over one of her geese and was going to pay her for it. She saw it was her gander and really got upset. In several words, she told him to just leave!

The geese were apparently along the road and when the car approached, the gander came out to protect his harem.

Grandma was very frugal and when picking the fowl she would save all the feathers. She would have to discard some, but would use the smaller soft ones for pillows and larger ones for quilts and mattresses. Grandpa’s mattress was about 12-inches thick until he laid on it, and he was a large man. 

The best day of the week was Saturday evening when they went to Wakonda for the few groceries they purchased. There were wooden benches in front of the store where the men could sit and chat as the wives did the shopping. I was given 25 cents and it would go a long way.

The evenings before I went to bed were always fun. Grandma would read me some children’s books, my favorite Uncle Wiggley, as grandpa would be reading by the light of a kerosene lamp.

My greatest adventure.

When my summer came to an end, mother couldn’t take off work, so I would be going home on the train, and I was excited. Grandpa took me to Viborg to catch a 10 p.m. train to Sioux Falls, for a train that left for Willmar at midnight. As I think back, I can recall the sorrow in his eyes as he lifted me into the train car, and as we waved as I left the station in Viborg.

I could not have understood his emotion until I talked to one of my aunts, about 50 years later. She told about grandpa’s early life coming over from Denmark with other family members, most went to South Dakota where other members had gone, and mostly farmers.

Grandpa was robust and quickly had one of the finer farms in the area. When he became established, he began looking for a wife and met two sisters who were both attracted to grandpa.  After four years, my grandpa and one of the sisters had two daughters, my mother Gladys and younger sister Viola.

Then the plague hit in the early 1900s and his wife died. The other sister was not married yet and rushed at grandpa. She wanted grandpa, but wasn’t interested in the kids. They soon got married and a short time later she passed away from the same disease.

Grandpa now had a problem, with a large farm and two children, so he hired a housekeeper, Katerina, also an immigrant from Denmark. In these days it was considered improper to have a live-in housekeeper, so they were soon married.

Then came the Depression and grandpa lost the farm, and my aunt told me a lot more about his life. Hearing that, I could now understand his sorrow in seeing me leave.

Getting to Sioux Falls the depot master watched over me as I stood by the rails waiting for the trains. Finally I heard a loud whistle, then white smoke, and then the tracks vibrating. The conductor lifted me into the rail car, showed me my seat, and said he would soon be back.

The seat was more like a hard bench. It was about five-feet long, with a hard leather seat with a wood edging and the back the same.

When the conductor came back he asked for my ticket. I wasn’t sure what he meant. He emptied all of my possessions from a paper grocery bag onto the seat, looking for a ticket. I then began to understand what a ticket meant. He found no ticket, but could see my fear. At the age of six, he comforted me and said it was all okay.

It was interesting as the train took off. First there was a loud whistle, a clank as the cars started to move and the clanky wheels. I enjoyed watching the lights of Sioux Falls disappear, and then total darkness except for a few car headlights. There would also be an occasional farm light. I then wanted to examine the train.

As the conductor went to the next car he had to slide open a metal mesh door and lay down a metal platform to walk across to the next car.

I went to examine the door. Looking down through the mesh door there was a massive metal car connector and I could see the rails flashing by and the clicks as the wheels would cross the rail joints.

I did not sleep the entire trip and would enjoy when the conductor would call out the next town and blow the whistle. The conductor would check on me every few minutes and tell me how far it was to Willmar. It was exciting to hear him call out “Willmar.”

It was great to be in mother’s arms again, not knowing what my next adventure would be.

Robert Erickson has written and published five books. He has made nine volunteer trips to the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica and Jamaica to share his skills and has also been an “extra” in five big-screen movies. He is 91 years old and still writing.