Day 98, "Every picture has a story"
This is Grandma Lee's (my grandma) family. It was taken in Iowa as one can see on the bottom right, Cresco, IA. I am pretty sure Grandma is sitting in front. Her siblings that we knew in North Dakota were Anfin, Sig, Bennie and Henry. Trond lived his adult life in Iowa. I do not know how the family came to move to ND. I am guessing that there was another baby later as there is a girl, older than Grandma, standing in the back with the boys I count 6 but there were 7 children in all. I THINK that may be Kristen but sister Joan would know for sure. I may even have the name wrong. Sig and Bennie had farms west of us. Anfin lived in a trailer house on Sig's farm. I think Henry lived around or in Havana and later he lived with Grandma as he never married. I am guessing this picture was taken around 1900 or so. It appears that the family was not poor as they went to a studio for the picture and the dress of everyone looks very nice. Notice the ruffles on the boy's shirts. I know back then boys were often dressed almost like girls in their early childhood. Some place there is a picture of my dad, maybe at the age of 2 or 3, with long curls. It would be interesting to know where that custom came from.
I took a little extra heavy cream with my FP today and enjoyed it so so much!
AND
The year was 1956 and school was almost out for the year. The storm had taken our wind charger off the roof of the house and all that was left was the metal that had held it up. It did not matter as we now had electricity in the house. That meant that we could listen to the radio at ANY time and we had bright lights all night. NO dimming as the charges on the basement batteries went low. I thought now why do we not get a TV? Neighbors George and Rollof had one. Uncle Halvor and Aunt Alta had one and we, nope! It was a fun Saturday when we could finish our work and then Dad would drive the family to Halvors to watch pro wrestling Saturday night. Oh my but they got so mean and nasty but it was fun to watch them. Sometimes we would even stay late enough to watch, I Love Lucy". The years went by and by and still NO TV. The think I wanted TV so we would watch Saturday baseball. One rainy day we drove to Halvors and watched Dizzy Dean broadcast Saturday baseball and the Braves were on. I could have watched it all day. Three years later, in 1960 (I think) Mom gave us good news. Ronald was coming home for the weekend and he had told Mom a few weeks earlier that he would have a surprise! I had NO idea what his surprise would be but I knew it would be good. Everything that Ronald did was good. I had given him money and he had purchased a real leather baseball glove for me. I still have it. It had pretty much taken all my summer savings, $10. Then there was the Winchester Model 50 22 that he gave me. Oh my I could shoot with the rifle! So what could it be this weekend? Late morning I climbed the light pole by the barn and walked over to the west side of the roof. It was there I would lie until I could see a trail of dust on the gravel road 2 miles to the west. If that dust stopped and then started coming east it would be Ronald. I did not have to wait long. Shortly after noon I saw this cloud of dust start at the lake and stretch south. Sure enough it slowed down and then came east towards us, it had to be Ronald. I scampered up over the roof and then down the pole. Racing towards the house I yelled to Mom, "Ronald is coming" and sure enough as I entered the house and Mom looked out the south window he pulled into the driveway. He stopped near the house and he had this huge grin on his face AND a big box by him in the front seat. I stared and thought to myself, "That can't be true!" It was a TV. Oh my we were going into the modern world right now! Ronald lifted the box out of the car and I marveled at how strong he was. I opened the door wide and into the house came our first ever TV. There was an antenna too! After Ronald and Dad got the TV out of the box and set up they took a long cord and attached it to the back. Dad opened the window on the south side of the living room and uncoiled the cord outside. Ronald came from the shed with the old wooden ladder and hoisted the antenna onto the roof. He cut some wire and attached it to the old frame that the wind charger had been attached to. After connecting the cord to the antenna it was SURPRISE time. We had TV just like the rest of the neighbors. It was actually Saturday afternoon and there was baseball on with Dizzy Dean's loud voice proclaiming "it is a frozen rope to center field"! For a moment I was a bit puzzled as the picture almost looked snowy but the I quickly realized it was a compromised picture and not the weather. That was it. We were modern, we had TV and Ronald was my hero AGAIN.
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