Episode Transcript
[00:00:04] Speaker A: Welcome to Golden Tidbits, the podcast where we explore the rich lives of everyday people, but with a unique twist. Each of our guests brings at least 70 years of life experience, with most having over 75. Together, we'll journey through their childhoods, friendships, education, and family dynamics, will travel down memory lane, twist through nostalgia, and arrive at a bygone era. Not all of these stories will be seen through rose colored glasses, but they're always real, honest, and deeply human, something we could all use a little bit more of in our modern times. I'm your host, Molly B. Let's dive into today's episode.
Hi, listeners. Before we begin today's episode, I'd like to share an important note in our conversation. We sometimes touch on topics like religion and politics. These subjects are deeply personal and often reflect the unique experiences and beliefs of our guests. I want to be clear that we do not censor our guests views on these matters. Our goal is to provide a platform for open, honest dialogue where each story is told in its full, authentic form. While you may not always agree with everything you hear, we believe these perspectives are an important part of understanding the diverse life experiences of our elder generations.
As always, I encourage you to listen with an open mind and heart. Thank you for being a part of golden tidbits. Let's dive into the episode featured on our first season is Jeannie shepherd. She's lived off the land for her whole life, not batting an eye at a challenge and taking life head on. As a freshman in high school, Jeannie had her own apartment and supported herself through high school with a part time job in Sundance, Wyoming. To start, I would like you to tell me about your home that you grew up in. What was it like from the driveway to your house?
[00:02:09] Speaker B: Oh, it was only just a little ways. We lived right beside the road, and we only had 405 acres. So you were next. And the road ran through, through our place. So it was right close there.
[00:02:22] Speaker A: Mm hmm. So what did your house look like?
[00:02:25] Speaker B: It was four rooms. My great or my uncle had built it for my dad, and it was a kitchen, a living room with an archway that opened into a bedroom. And then there was a porch there. But after mom and daddy got married and had kids, they needed at least two bedrooms. And so they built another little porch on the front of this house.
And so the one bedroom that us girls slept in, there was just a curtain across the bedroom and the living room so we could push that curtain aside and make more room. It was a small house, but it was warm.
We had wood and coal stoves. And many years later, we did get a propane heater, and we had a wooden coal cook stove and no refrigeration to start with. And some people put up ice, but my folks did not. So to keep milk from getting sour overnight, when daddy would milk, then they would. One of them would go pump a fresh pail of water. They'd put these jars of milk in a boiler and put cold water on it to keep them. It cool. And then my mother also made. She took an apple box, which were wooden in those days, and stood it up on end. And I don't know if she had a shelf in it or not, but then she hung a. Like a tea towel over the front. She put little holes in a container, put water in that so it would just drip down over that tea towel and keep it wet. And then that would make it cooler in there.
[00:04:08] Speaker A: Hmm. That's kind of neat. Okay. So there was. You had wood and coal for the heating and the cooking, and so electricity.
[00:04:18] Speaker B: Oh, no. And after.
Well, I remember about, in the early forties, the electric company came around and asked people if they were interested in signing up. And it cost five or $10 to sign up.
My dad never did have the electricity. They were building the line. They got the line built to the house in 1956, and Mama and daddy had gotten the house wired, but the electricity was not turned on until August. My dad died in June of that year, so he never had electricity.
[00:04:59] Speaker A: Wow. And obviously water.
[00:05:02] Speaker B: We had a well, a well that had a windmill on it, but also a hand pump. And it was just right close from the house. So anytime we needed water, we just run down and got a bucket of water.
That was no problem.
[00:05:16] Speaker A: Right.
[00:05:16] Speaker B: And the cook stove had what we called a reservoir on one end of it. And so if you had a fire in the stove while you had warm water to wash and dishes or whatever.
[00:05:30] Speaker A: I don't think I've seen one like that.
[00:05:32] Speaker B: There's one in that cook stove downstairs. There's a reservoir there.
[00:05:36] Speaker A: I've never. Okay. I've never noticed. Maybe I've just seen them from the outside, but never really examined them. So you could heat the stove with either wood or coal or both. Or both. Okay.
[00:05:47] Speaker B: And my dad, he dug a pit. I suppose he dug it by hand. I don't know. Anyway, he had a pit maybe six foot deep. Then there was a house built over it. And then he would hire somebody to bring a truckload of coal in the wintertime or in the fall, and they would throw it down in there. And that would keep the coal from slacking by putting it down in there, in. Inside the ground.
And then, of course, somebody packed the buckets of coal to the house. And then he would go to the timber sometimes with a team and wagon, and he would bring back some logs and stuff that he could split. He had a big wood pile there just away from the house. Away.
[00:06:35] Speaker A: And so when you had to bathe because you had to bring water, tell me what bath time looked like.
[00:06:42] Speaker B: Well, you only took bath on Saturday night before you went to church on Sunday.
[00:06:47] Speaker A: Okay. And, of course, how silly of me.
[00:06:51] Speaker B: And it was at one of the round bathtubs, like you used to wash your clothes. And the youngest one went in the tub first, and there was water keeping warm on the stove. And then you could keep adding warm water to it. More water as each kid went through it.
[00:07:09] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:07:09] Speaker B: And then mama would take a bath after us four girls, and then scrub the floor with the water. Right.
[00:07:16] Speaker A: Okay. Okay.
[00:07:16] Speaker B: And then throw it out the door.
[00:07:19] Speaker A: Oh, that's great. So, okay, so we didn't talk about. You are. So there's other children in the family. So tell me about the kids in the family.
[00:07:28] Speaker B: Well, I was the oldest, and I think you'll find it's interesting where we were born. My mother was from just east of mine at North Dakota, and she came down to visit her best friend that lived just over the hill from my dad.
And Lillian said to. While her husband was going over to see daddy about something, and Lillian told my mother, she said, well, there's a nice bachelor over the hill. Let's go along. She introduced them, and they just dated just a little bit that summer and decided they were going to get married. Mama went back to North Dakota where folks lived. And then daddy drove up there soon after that, and they got married. Well, then, uh, they got married on the 3 September. But by the next year, I was due the first part of September. I was born the day before their first wedding anniversary. But my mother would drive with a 30 something car up over the roads, very pregnant, and go up to her folks house. And that's where us first three girls were born. And each year, Mama had a different doctor that was up there at that time. But there was a doctor close by. But we were born in our grandparents home.
[00:08:45] Speaker A: Okay. In North Dakota. Yeah, but they lived in Wyoming.
[00:08:49] Speaker B: But we lived in Wyoming. So my baby book says that I was baptized when I was five weeks old. And then right after that would have been in October, my mother drove back to Rocky Point, and four years later, why the 14 September my next sister, Carolyn, was born.
Two years later, the 19 September, my next sister was born. And there's a funny story that goes with that.
When Mama was getting ready to go back to North Dakota for Chrissy, my third sister, second sister, and I asked her if she was going up there to get another baby, and she said no, because at that time, nobody talked about being pregnant. You discreetly dressed, so it didn't show or anything if you could help it. And there was no word about babies coming or anything like that. It's so different now.
The baby, they know there's got a baby coming right away. But anyway, I asked my mother, she was going back up there to get another baby, and she told me no.
So just about time for Chris to be born. And there was a lady that I liked to visit up there, and she didn't live very far from grandma and grandpa's, but she had a pitcher pump in her house, and it had this little pump, and you could pump it and pump water right into the sink, and that was fun. And then when she pulled the plug into the sink, the water would run outside the house and I'd go out there and visit, make little ditches and reservoirs and stuff. Well, a day or so later, my uncle showed up and he told me I had a new baby sister. And I was angry, not because I had a sister, but my mother had lied to me. Yeah.
[00:10:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:41] Speaker B: So then a few years later, let's see, it's been about five years later, Mama was pregnant again.
And right away she told me she was pregnant. And Nancy was born in April. So along in January, Mama moved in with a friend in Gillette and stayed there until Nancy was born. So Nancy was the only one born in Wyoming and born in a hospital.
The other three of us were born in North Dakota, and we all three graduated from schools, high schools in Crook County.
Nancy was born in Wyoming, and she did go to school until about her second year of high school. Then she and Mama moved back to North Dakota, because by that time, my dad had passed away and my mother had to get a degree if she was going to keep teaching. And she could get more credits from what she had in North Dakota than what she could in Wyoming, so she moved up there. So Nancy actually graduated from school in North Dakota. Everything opposite of what the rest of us.
[00:11:53] Speaker A: Right, right. So it all just came back. Do you think that your mom didn't tell you she was pregnant because she was concerned about, like, the birth? Or was it just like because it was so taboo.
[00:12:02] Speaker B: It was taboo.
And a lot of the women, if they were teaching school and got married, they made them quit teaching.
[00:12:10] Speaker A: Okay. Yep.
[00:12:11] Speaker B: And there was one girl in high school when I was going to high school, she got married and she had to quit school.
[00:12:21] Speaker A: Yeah. Wow. So what? So four sisters.
[00:12:26] Speaker B: Yes, there was four of us. Yeah.
[00:12:29] Speaker A: Hey there, listeners. I hope you're enjoying this episode of Golden Tidbits. If you're loving the stories and insights from our incredible guests, I've got some exciting news for you. Did you know that there's even more to these conversations than what you're hearing right now? That's right. By subscribing to our extended episodes, you'll get access to our full, uncut interviews, where we dive even deeper into the lives of our guests. We explore their stories in more detail, uncover more wisdom, and share those priceless moments that don't make it into the free version. Plus, as as a subscriber, you'll enjoy these episodes with no interruptions like this one, completely ad free. It's a perfect way to immerse yourself fully in these rich, nostalgic tales for less than the cost of a cup of coffee. You can join our community of subscribers who value the legacy and history of our elder generations. Your support helps us continue to bring these incredible stories to life. So if you want to hear more, experience more, and connect more deeply with the past, head over to goldentidbits, dot castos.com or Apple podcasts and subscribe today. Thank you for listening and supporting golden tidbits.
And so what did your dad do to support the family?
[00:13:50] Speaker B: Well, he had 405 acres. He had some cows. I was born just at the start of the great Depression, and not alone had the economy gone to pot. Daddy had some money in the bank. The bank went broke, so he lost that.
He did not have enough acreage to keep the cows there the year round. So in the summertime, he had to find pasture for them.
And in the summertime, he did some farming to raise hay for the cows. And of course, Mama went out, helped hay, too. And she worked outside, helped Bran, calves, whatever they needed, as well as inside. They always raised a garden to start with. It was a smaller garden close to the house. But then later we had a bigger garden just a little bit west of the house. And we raised potatoes and corn and all the vegetables and stuff. And then Mama did a lot of canning. Daddy even helped, like shelling peas or things like that, or picking. And then he plowed up the potatoes with a team and a plow that he plowed the potatoes out.
And we had a root seller and I, there was bins in there. We could keep carrots and beets and rutabagas and then all the canned stuff. They butchered a pig usually once a year, and Mama would can some of that pork. She also had a, oh, it looked like a great big vaccination needle, but it, she could mix up this brine and then inject it into the hams. And then they would keep longer. You know, they'd hang them up in the cellar in the granary to keep them cold.
[00:15:54] Speaker A: And what was your understanding as. Cause, you know, you really were, I mean, a pretty young child when the Great Depression was happening. What, what was your understanding? I mean, because that would have been your baby. Yeah.
[00:16:06] Speaker B: I mean, so I was a baby. All I know is what they told me because that started in the early thirties and there was a terrible drought at the same time. And they, the government bought up cows and maybe they'd pay them $5 for them and then they'd trail them to. Well, I don't know if daddy had to trail them or somebody else trailed them to Moorcroft.
Anything that the government didn't think was worth trailing, they shot. Just shot them and buried them.
And there people were starving to death. But, and there was grasshoppers, Mormon crickets. They said grasshoppers would just come, like, in lines and ate everything.
And so, but I don't ever remember going hungry because by the time Carolyn was born in 1938, the moisture stuff had improved. So all I remember, we got, we had garden stuff, we had chicken, so we had eggs and meat from them and always had a milk cow.
[00:17:17] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Do you, so do you remember, like, so your dad was always kind of around, right? I mean, like, he wasn't, he wasn't traveling or anything.
[00:17:26] Speaker B: The only time he wasn't around Washington, uh, it was just before, I don't think Carolyn was born yet. So I might have only been about four.
And they had a tent set up pretty close to the well and had a kerosene heater in there or maybe it was a wooden coal stove in there or wood stove in there. Anyway, Mama would be cooking out there because it was cooler than. And Daddy was gone and he was helping bridge, build bridges on the road. County road toward corn crop.
[00:17:59] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:00] Speaker B: And one time my mother was making, cooking some potatoes and then she made some sour cream gravy. And I didn't know what that was. It was the first time she ever made it.
And so I want to know what it was? And she said, well, sour cream gravy. And I said, well, that'll make me sick.
Well, she got the potatoes cooked. She gets, just gave me a little bit and she said, you try it. Well, I think I ate two helpings of it at least. And she said, if what I gave you would make you sick, what you have eaten would have killed you.
[00:18:35] Speaker A: That's funny.
[00:18:37] Speaker B: But, you know, we, Mama did cooking out there. She also made soap from lard and stuff like that. And you mixed up lye and water that went in there too. And you had to stir it and cook it.
[00:18:56] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
Do you remember what it was like, you know, like at meal time, like at supper when your, when your mom would be done cooking or would she call your dad in or would he come in?
[00:19:07] Speaker B: Well, he was usually in there about supper time, but we always ate in the kitchen. We had a table, I think Uncle George had made that too. And we, well, until there got to be several of us girls, why, the table was just shoved up against the wall right by the window. But then, of course, later we had to have it pulled out so we could sit all around it. And then in the evening after dishes were done, why, we had, well, kerosene heater, our lamp that sat in the middle and it had a shade. And Daddy read a lot. He only got to go to about the third grade and in school when he was a kid in Scotland.
And I guess he did go to school a little bit in the United States, but he read and I was always amazed. One of the shows that we would hear on the evenings, which was our entertainment, was listening to the radio and they would have quiz shows. And my dad could answer those questions quicker than the contestants could. But he, like in the winter of 49 and Daddy was there all alone. I'll tell you more about that later. But he ran out of anything to read because the mail wasn't coming through and he usually got the Saturday Evening Post in the collier's magazine. So because he didn't have anything else to read, mama had a set of encyclopedias and he'd read in them.
[00:20:38] Speaker A: Yeah, I remember having a set of encyclopedias as a kid. And now it's like a foreign.
[00:20:44] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, I've sat out here in the office, the school when I was where I was teaching one year, why, they said they were outdated, the ones we had. So I don't know if I had to pay a little bit for them or if they gave them to me because they were putting a new set in the school.
And so I do. I have a complete set of encyclopedias, but that's what daddy read.
But anyway, if you want to hear about my schools.
[00:21:17] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, yeah.
[00:21:18] Speaker B: So then we might get back. Well, we'll get back. Stay here on the food and stuff. I never remember ever going hungry, but one of the things on wash day, my mother would make a kettle of corn soup. Well, that was milk with a can of corn in it, and that was real good to eat. And then sometimes she'd say, well, I'll wait till your dad milks. And then he'd bring in the fresh milk and she would make a big kettle of vanilla or chocolate pudding. And that's what we ate for supper. I look back on it now, I bet she didn't have anything else to cook. And that was something she had.
Sometimes we ate bread and milk and you take bread and break it up and put it in your bowl and then you'd put some sugar on it and some milk.
That was our supper, right? Yeah.
[00:22:15] Speaker A: If you find value in this show, you can support by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player. Even better, you can tell a friend.
[00:22:27] Speaker B: What were you.
[00:22:28] Speaker A: You were going to tell me something more about your dad.
I don't remember what. What I could say to trigger it, though. I don't remember.
[00:22:34] Speaker B: Well, I was going to tell you about. Well, when we went, when I went to school the first year, the year I was six, why, there was no children there close for me to go to school with. And the school board came there to see about what mama and daddy wanted to do. And they said, well, mama was getting ready to go back to North Dakota for Carolyn to be born. So they said, don't worry about it. I said, let's wait till next year.
So the next year, same thing. I was the only kid there. So they built that little schoolhouse that I showed you.
[00:23:11] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:23:11] Speaker B: And we only had six months. I only had six months of school and the teacher was about a mile away. And so daddy go down in the morning when it was cold, he'd start a fire in the stove. So when the teacher got there, because she had to walk that mile, why, it was warm for us. Well, then after we'd been going to school for about, oh, maybe six weeks, why, there was a death in the teacher's family. And so everybody came for that funeral was. One of her nieces was having trouble in school in South Dakota, and so they decided that she could stay there and go to school to her aunt and with me because they thought the teacher could give her a lot of extra help.
And so then I had a classmate.
[00:24:01] Speaker A: So you were in class by yourself?
[00:24:02] Speaker B: I was the only kid there.
[00:24:04] Speaker A: Wow. That's so interesting.
[00:24:06] Speaker B: And so anyway, Darlene went back to South Dakota that next summer, and she wrote me back a letter. And see, people wrote letters in those days. She wrote me back a letter and she said that she had gotten glasses. And she said, you know what? There really are stars. She said. I thought stars was like, fairies imagination. That's how bad her eyesight was.
[00:24:34] Speaker A: No wonder she was having a hard time in school.
[00:24:36] Speaker B: Yeah. So anyway, then the next year, the next summer, they. There was other kids moved into the area there. And so they. About half a mile to the northwest of me, they built a new school.
And it was more like these schools you see around the country, you know, about that size. And so that year, then there was, oh, about five, maybe six, seven of us in school that year.
And there was two, three of us young girls. One was in the first grade, and two of us was in the second grade. And then the other girl, I think, was in about the fourth grade. And then she had three brothers in there ranging from, oh, fifth grade, I think, up to 8th grade. And then there was a. Another boy that came to stay with his grandmother for his 8th grade. And these bigger boys picked on us little girls.
And the teacher did not make a mind. I think she was scared of them.
And anyway, these boys, they. They'd tease us girls. Well, we'd get mad and we'd swear at them, I guess. I know I must have. So they told the teacher we'd been swearing out there, and they thought our mouths should be washed out with soap.
And so they locked me in the toilet one day, and naturally, I swore at them because I couldn't get back out. And this other girl that was in the second grade with me, evidently she swore, too, because we. I can remember yet, standing in front of the teacher's desk, and she had this cloth with soap on it. She washed her mouths out, and I opened my mouth, let her wash away.
Well, it wasn't very long. One of those boys swore. Well, she didn't wash their mouth out with soap, so that ended that.
But one of the funny things the boys did in the fall of the year, somebody brought a whole watermelon to school. Well, they cut it up, and we all ate watermelon. Well, that morning, there had been a little fire in the stove because it was chilly. Well, then the boys, they got through eating first and out the door they went.
Well, then after a little bit, these boys, they'd keep coming in and looking around, and then they'd go back outside and they'd come back and look around, and the girls and the teacher were still inside. Well, pretty soon the smoke started coming out of the stove, and one of those boys had boosted another one up there, and he walked real quietly along the top of the schoolhouse. And they had the end of that watermelon and laid it down over the stovepipe. So the smoke from the fire that had been in there was coming into the schoolhouse.
[00:27:32] Speaker A: I hope they got their butts swatted.
[00:27:34] Speaker B: No, I think she told them, get that down off of there. And the big boys would not pack water. There was no water there. You each one was supposed to carry your own water.
And then in the evening, if you had any water left, you dumped it in the pail and then you could use that for wash water, but you had to carry your drinking water.
[00:27:53] Speaker A: Right?
[00:27:54] Speaker B: Right.
[00:27:54] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:27:54] Speaker B: Well, the boys wouldn't pack any. They'd drink our little girls. So one day when they weren't around there, the teacher let us go out in the road ditch, and there was rubberoid and stuff left from when they built this schoolhouse. And so we'd dig a little hole and we'd put our jar of water down in there and cover it up with that piece of rubberoid. And then the teacher would let us go out when school was in session to get a drink so the boys didn't find our water.
[00:28:22] Speaker A: Wow. And so she just did those kind of workarounds instead of dealing with the problem.
[00:28:26] Speaker B: Huh?
[00:28:27] Speaker A: Do you think it was. Cause, I mean, do you think it was just times being different or do you think that she just didn't, she.
[00:28:33] Speaker B: Didn'T have any discipline? I think these boys were bigger than her and they.
[00:28:39] Speaker A: How old do you think your teacher was?
[00:28:41] Speaker B: Well, I don't know, but probably in her twenties, maybe thirties.
[00:28:46] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:28:47] Speaker B: But anyway, her husband was in the service, and along towards spring, she wanted to go where her husband was. And so my mother finished out that term of school the last month.
[00:29:02] Speaker A: Oh.
[00:29:04] Speaker B: But, uh, there wasn't any of that stuff went on while she was there.
[00:29:08] Speaker A: Right? Okay. Yeah, yeah. Even though she was a mom, a girl mom, she, she knew what.
[00:29:14] Speaker B: But, uh, let's see, I would have been, well, she, mama would have had Carolyn.
I can't, I'd have to figure, see if she had Chris. Well, yeah, she had Chris too. So we weren't very far from the schoolhouse, so daddy must have taken care of Carolyn and Chris while Mama taught that last month of school.
So then the next year that those big boys moved away.
The one thing that did happen, another thing that happened, though, I did come down with chicken pox in school, and so everybody was afraid they was going to catch that chicken pox from me. And these big boys, they made the remark that they were going to put sheep manure in a tank. And if I gave chicken pox to any of them, they was going to drag me through that. But nobody got chicken pox, so we.
[00:30:11] Speaker A: Don'T have to worry about that.
[00:30:12] Speaker B: But then the next year, all those big kids moved away, and our teacher lived just south of Meoways. And she had a girl in my class, which by that time was 3rd, 4th grade, and she had a daughter in first grade. And then there was another girl that had moved in north of us, and she was three years older than I was. And so there was just the four girls and the teacher, in the fall and wintertime, her husband would bring her with a team and wagon or team and sledd. And if I would put my jar of water in the mailbox, they'd pick that up and carry it to the schoolhouse for me.
And that year, this oldest girl, she, if she got cold, she'd get hives. And so one morning we were all sitting around the fire trying to get warm, and she had her shoes off because she was rubbing her feet trying to get rid of these hives.
And we started smelling something, and we looked up and right around the stove pipe, the sheetrock around the stovepipe had caught a fire. So we shoved the teacher's desk over under that, and we all grabbed something to carry snow. The teacher got up there on the chair and we all started going out and getting snow. And one of us grabbed the dustpan, one of us took the wash basin.
I don't know what another one did. The first grader grabbed a spoon and she was carrying snow in the spoon, and she packed snow around that. We got her fire out. Huh?
[00:31:57] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:31:58] Speaker B: So then, well, this Betty, that was in the fifth grade, she moved to her folks, moved to a different place. And then there was other kids farther south. So they hooked onto that schoolhouse. They put skids under it, pulled it across our pasture. They first had two tractors hooked on it. They couldn't move, so they put a John Deere on it, too. And I remember seeing this John Deere when he goosed it. It's reared up, but they, it didn't turn over. But with the three tractors. They pulled that across our pasture, across another pasture and put it about a half a mile southwest of us.
And we had the same teacher then that year that we'd had when she was scared of the boys. But there was only one boy that year, and the rest of us was girls. And that boy, the biggest thing he'd do was pick on his little sister.
And the older girl had long arms and he got to picking on his sister. Why, she'd take a hold of him by the shirt collar and the hair and hold him out at arm's length, and his sister would, and I guess the other girls of us would work him over. So he had to do what we didn't have any problem with discipline with him.
[00:33:13] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:33:14] Speaker B: And then, I can't remember if that was the year. I guess it was the next year.
We had another lady teacher and, of course, had to take ashes out. And I don't know if there were sparks in these ashes or anything, but anyway, the teacher turned the first grade kids out or a little bit early, and they came running back in and the coal house had caught a fire in the doorway. Well, it's from some ashes. Well, the teacher grabbed the water bucket and put the fire out, but that was our water. So I was one of the two oldest girls and then this other older girl, and we walked about, oh, maybe three quarters mile down to a different neighbor and got a bucket of water and we carried that back with us. So we had water for the day.
And that year was pretty tame.
And then the next year, well, then Nancy was born then that next winter. And then they couldn't. They couldn't get teachers. And they told my mother because she had taught four years in north, or five years in North Dakota, and they told her if she didn't take the school, they couldn't find a teacher anywhere. So my sister made the remark that mama and daddy kind of a look passed between them, and Mama said, well, we could use the money.
And so she started teaching then when I was in the 6th grade.
And then she had to go to summer school every summer to keep her certificate in force. But that did kind of help us out on some money and. But she had to board Nancy out and she was just a little baby, and we'd go get her on the weekends and. And then during the week, why? And then one year, grandma and grandpa came down from North Dakota and they stayed with us. And so Grandma took. Took care of Nancy. We didn't have to send her away from home. But then the winter of 49, they moved the schoolhouse again. And that time they went back north and on farther north than when it had been where it was built. And that year, there was us three girls. Nancy wasn't in school yet. She had to stay with a neighbor. And then from the other direction, there was three star kids, and then their hired man's daughter and their granny. Stars, we called her. She just lived just down below where the schoolhouse was. But the star kids had to come a couple miles to school, and we had to come that way. Well, in the winter of 49, we'd already had some snow. And New Year's Day, my dad and mother was butchering a pig. And mother, my mother just had on a sweater while that cold front started coming in. And so she had to put on more wraps and stuff before they were done. Well, then it seemed like every Friday we'd get another blizzard. We couldn't get to school. So by the end of January, it was getting so you just couldn't hardly get through. There had been an oil company in there, and they had tried to plow the roads, and they just kind of made ridges. Well, that caught more snow.
And so finally, old mama and us kids tried to ride two horses. And that one night, the old workhorse we was trying to ride, she. Somebody rattled the lunch pail, and she about dumped us all off.
Anyway, Mama and daddy decided that mama would move back and live in the schoolhouse.
And they took a roll away bed. An army caught a two burner hot plate, took food, and had to have taken a few extra clothes with us.
And we lived in the schoolhouse. The other kids lived with our grandmother, that and the higher girl. And so there we were, right close to that schoolhouse. It didn't matter what kind of a storm it was. We went to school, and so we went. We had missed some days. We had to make up, and so we went six days a week.
[00:37:38] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:37:38] Speaker B: And then on Friday or Saturday night, I would. I was in the 8th grade then, and I would walk the cat ridge home about a mile, maybe a little over a mile. And the next morning, I would start a batch of bread. When mama thought that was should be out of the oven, the other two girls went down and stayed with Granny. Oh, I forgot. She had a granddaughter that had come from Washington, too. So she was there. There was that many of us going to school there. And mama would walk home, and then mama and daddy would bring back food for the next week or whatever we needed, and I would walk back home over the cat ridge. Of course, Mamade walked it going.
And so that's what we did for the winter of 49. And when come spring, we had all our days made up.
[00:38:30] Speaker A: Wow. Yeah. Hi, Molly. Jumping in here to let you know that when I first recorded with Jeannie, since it was my first time recording someone, and it was her first time giving an interview, we missed some important topics. They were topics that were deeply personal to her and very important to her life story. So, a couple months after our first recording, I went back to her home. I recorded an additional interview. So if it sounds a little different or if you're noticing something that we said just a few minutes ago, it's because this portion of the audio was recorded a couple months before the audio that you were just listening to. This is the only time that we've done this type of recording, so in future episodes, you shouldn't experience this. Thanks so much.
[00:39:19] Speaker B: When I was born, my mother was up in North Dakota, and she was a Lutheran at that time. And before she ever went back to Rocky Point, she had me baptized at five weeks. And so I think that was just before she left and went back to Rocky Point. So, actually, I was baptized in the lutheran church in Granville, North Dakota. Then when we got there, around Rocky Point, at first, there was no church, but there were some families that were very.
They were very religious people, and so they would have, like, Sunday school in their houses.
And I don't remember it, but I guess I was pretty little. And when there was snow on the ground, my mother had a wooden box that they fastened to a sled, and they built wings on this sled so it couldn't tip over. And she would pull me to the neighbor's house where they were having Sunday school. Well, then, in time, there was a school that was not being used. It was called the Texas school. And that was where a group of people from Texas had homesteaded. And they had basically left the country, most of them. So I don't know if they bought this building or what. But anyway, the people around Rocky Point moved that Texas school down closer to Rocky Point.
And there was a corner in a piece of land. There was a road that just made a corner, and just across from that was a cemetery. And they moved that schoolhouse in there, and they made a church out of it. And then they.
In time, they built a parsonage there. First it was a basement parsonage, and then they built a top on it. They planted some trees around it. So that building was what I went to Sunday school and church every summer. We had summer school for I can't remember if it was a week or two, but we went all day long for five days, I know for sure.
And also before this was built, it was built a year before. I was Stanley Davidson, who was one of my dad's neighbors, one of them that lived close by. And it was his folks that often had church, I think. But Stanley, when he was only about 15, the year before I was born, he said his dad farmed him out to work on this tabernacle that they were building up in the timber. And I have heard that the timber they used in this tabernacle was actually went through a forest fire and killed the timber. But they cut those logs, and that was the boards they used for this tabernacle. And it was all just plain boards.
They had a raised platform in one end of it, and then they had their altar right in front. They had these huge poles, and that's what they built their building around. And on the roof, the sloping roof, and then the sides. And then the sides had big kind of wings that they could open up, and then they had like a tube of four fastened to each side of the wing, and they could prop these doors up so they could let the air through when it was hot.
And, oh, there's cracks in the boards. I'm sure they weren't cracks in the boards when they build them, but you can see, see daylight out through there. They have put a new roof on it a time or two. They have a metal roof on it now, but that building is still standing.
And every summer they would for ten days, the end of July and the 1 August, they would have camp meetings up there, and they had, like, church service in the morning, and then in the evening they'd have a church service, and then they had a few little cabins there where people would stay. They had one building there where they cooked meals on a wood stove and had couple long tables in there. And I don't know where the rest of the people stayed. I don't remember seeing any tents or anything around there. But anyway, it was pretty. Even when I was a kid, you know, there wasn't really a whole lot there, but one year, and it would have been in 19, 1947 or 1948. Why? Mama let me stay up there for a couple days, and I stayed with a couple other ladies in their cabin, and we just had a kerosene light in the cabin. I don't know where I slept, whether I slept on the floor or the bed. And the evening service, I think it was about the second night I was there. Why? They gave an altar call. And I felt that I should go and ask God for forgiveness of my sins and become a Christian. So I cannot tell the year, but I'm within one year of it. As far as the date, it was the last of July or the 1 August.
That that's where I accepted God as my savior. And so I like to go back there and I was back there, here this, this July. I was there and I was there twice. I was up there on a Sunday. And then I, the minister from the church up here, he and his wife and four little kids, we all went up there. And I told Todd, I said, right there is where it happened.
But anyway, the church up there, part of the time, it wasn't affiliated with other churches. At one time, I know it was associated with the southern Baptist. Another time it was with the Wesleyan Methodist. But anyway, that church was there when I left, but it's not there any longer. But, oh, and when I went up to the altar, the congregation was singing just as I am. That was the song they were singing.
[00:45:47] Speaker A: If you find value in the show, you can give your support by leaving a one time donation to help cover the costs of hosting and equipment. Find the link on our website at goldentidbits.
That's goldentidbits. Dot castos. Castos.com or in the show notes, you told me about what you did for entertainment. You mentioned the radio. So can you. And reading and reading? Yeah. Can you tell me a little bit about, like maybe a radio program that you remember?
[00:46:20] Speaker B: Oh, yes. You know, there was Charlie McCarthy and Edgar Burns. There was Pibber McGee and Molly. There was the truth or consequences show, which was a quiz show. And my dad would answer those questions before the contestants could. And, oh, there were some other shows. And then in the mornings, Daddy listened to his news because he didn't get a newspaper or anything like that. And so when that morning news came on, he was going to get his news and the weather report. And we knew that we kept our mouths shut and was quiet so he could hear that. And our station was coming in either from Denver or from Bismarck, north dakota. And so that we all just listened to the news. We knew what was going on. And then when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, I was in the first grade and we were going to listen to the show, our show that night. And that's when the news bulletins kept coming in about Pearl harbor being bombed. And so I remember that very clearly. And then, oh, for the next week or so, you, anything you listened to on the radio. These bulletins would interrupt. Come in.
[00:47:42] Speaker A: And what was your understanding of war and what that meant or what?
[00:47:47] Speaker B: How was it? Oh, that was very vivid to me, because that mom and daddy got those two magazines, and there would be pictures in there of the prisoners as they were coming out of those concentration camps and half starved to death, things like that. And people were talking about it, and I was at a very impressionable age. And so, like, when this stuff in Israel now, I said, that's just world war two coming right back.
[00:48:16] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:48:17] Speaker B: It's just how men. How people can be so cruel to each other.
[00:48:23] Speaker A: Right?
[00:48:23] Speaker B: Yeah.
And then now they don't want Israel to go protect itself.
Well, why not? They've been attacked, and then they don't. Oh, don't. Just don't do that yet. Don't do this, don't do that. And that Hamas is just waiting to take another whack at him.
[00:48:42] Speaker A: Yeah, I just. I find it interesting because, you know, from my perspective, war really meant, you know, like, when the attack on the World Trade center occurred. Like, that was when it was more real to me. And so I can't imagine being as young as you were and, like, having that kind of hit.
[00:49:00] Speaker B: And I remember the ration books and, oh, yes. Uh, you could only have so much sugar. You could only have so much coffee was another thing that was rationed meat. But we are. We had our own meat, so that was no problem. But, uh, shoes.
[00:49:17] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:49:17] Speaker B: You could only get one pair of shoes. You could only drive 35 miles an hour down the road, even if it was on the highway, because that was supposed to be more energy efficient. And I think we had a couple extra tires, and mom and daddy took them down the cellar so that they wouldn't weather from heat or anything like that.
[00:49:35] Speaker A: Sure, sure. Yeah. When you. How often do you remember going to town to get supplies?
[00:49:41] Speaker B: About once a year.
[00:49:43] Speaker A: Really? Just once a year. Where was town?
[00:49:46] Speaker B: Well, for a while, it was mostly Belle Fouche, and then it got to maybe Gillette. They would go and get a supply of food for winter. And daddy had a wooden box, whether he built it or Uncle George did, and it was covered with tin, and then it was set up on coffee cans or something so mice couldn't get in it. And in there, there would be sugar and flour, salt, a case of raisins, because my dad ate raisins real often, and we did, too. You know, we get a handful of raisins and oatmeal, anything that they could put in there and put it. It was down in the granary. And then when they needed flour, sugar, whatever, why, daddy or mom would go down there and get it out of that box, bring it to the house.
[00:50:40] Speaker A: Did you go with them to town then? Was that a big event of the family or.
[00:50:45] Speaker B: No.
Yeah, we went along, and then after we got bigger, and then daddy would stay home because it probably wasn't room, but I remember one time mama and daddy went to Belle Fouche, and, I don't know, I might have stayed home at that time. I was getting a little bigger. But they came home, and daddy. Mama wanted a refrigerator, but daddy thought a gas cook stove would be nice. And he found the gas cook stove, and then he and Mama talked it over, and they had them bring this gas stove out. And then they did get a gas refrigerator, but they had it out on the porch first. Well, anytime somebody opened or shut the door, that would blow that light or that fire out on it.
[00:51:30] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:51:31] Speaker B: So they had to rearrange furniture and put it in the kitchen.
[00:51:35] Speaker A: Right? Right. So did you. Do you remember, like, buying fabric or. And making clothes or did you buy anything?
[00:51:42] Speaker B: No, my mother made all our. I was ten years old before I ever had a boughten dressed. But you ordered fabric and stuff from Montgomery Ward or so.
[00:51:51] Speaker A: Okay. Okay. And so then that would get shipped to the house, or did you have to go somewhere to get it?
[00:51:56] Speaker B: No, it was delivered right to the mailbox.
[00:51:58] Speaker A: Right to the mailbox, yeah.
[00:51:59] Speaker B: And a lot of times, Mama would have something that somebody handed on down. She could rearrange or, you know, re make it.
[00:52:10] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:52:11] Speaker B: And, oh, she made lace collars for. She tatted and stuff like that.
[00:52:16] Speaker A: They call it upcycling. Now, when you take a older piece of clothing and you change.
[00:52:23] Speaker B: Mom and her sisters, they had kids, you know. Well, I was the oldest, so when a box of stuff would come from one of these other sisters, I never got anything out of those boxes because there wasn't anything there that would fit me. But, you know, Mama would remake them for the younger kids.
[00:52:42] Speaker A: Right.
[00:52:43] Speaker B: And then years later, I got to meet a niece of daddy's, and she was older than me, and I was just starting to teach school, and she gave me two or three real nice outfits. And so I got some hand me downs.
[00:53:01] Speaker A: Yeah. What about. So shoes. How did. How did you go about getting shoes?
[00:53:04] Speaker B: Did you order those from Montgomery Ward and catalog, too?
[00:53:07] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:53:08] Speaker B: And then mama had kind of like a stapler. If a strap came off or come unsold, she could staple that up.
[00:53:15] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:53:16] Speaker B: And then she had the shoe. Shoe tree that she could put a new sole on.
[00:53:22] Speaker A: Okay. Okay. Wow.
[00:53:24] Speaker B: I think there's some of that stuff downstairs.
[00:53:27] Speaker A: Well, I saw that. I saw the shoes. I think that's must be a shoe tree. I just didn't know that was exactly what it was for. So. So she was doing that stuff at home, too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so when you ordered from Montgomery Ward, you guys got fabric. Right. You didn't get, like, sewn dresses or whatever, like, you. Yeah. You made them.
[00:53:44] Speaker B: Yeah, she just. She just buys so much. Or another source of cloth was, back in those days, feed sacks was. Had designs on it, and, you know, you'd get a flower, like flower sacks, and you'd get more than one pattern or, you know. Right. When you got your flower, you picked.
[00:54:04] Speaker A: Yeah, I did see that. That it was. It's kind of been going around on the Internet right now is that they. They found out that flower sacks were being used for that, and so that they started putting patterns on them.
[00:54:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:54:15] Speaker A: And. And so that people could have patterned.
[00:54:18] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:54:18] Speaker A: You know, you. They. Because they use the flower sacks after.
[00:54:21] Speaker B: Yeah. Mama made me, made clothes for us out of that.
She made what she always kind of like a little vest and then garters hooked on it, and then you could. It would keep your. Because you wore brown, brown socks in the wintertime because girls did not wear overalls.
[00:54:41] Speaker A: Right.
[00:54:42] Speaker B: That was. No, no, you could have snow pants, but no, girls went with pants now or then, you know.
[00:54:51] Speaker A: Mm hmm. Right. Love the show. You can get extended episodes. When you subscribe to our premium episodes, go to our website, goldentidbits dot castos.com. that's goldentidbits dot castos castos.com. to learn more or subscribe, write in Apple podcasts with neighbors. Did you. Did you have. I mean, you were on this farm with 405 acres. Do you remember, like. Cause you said there was no other kids.
[00:55:25] Speaker B: Yeah. But there was neighbor ladies I could go visit.
[00:55:28] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:55:28] Speaker B: So a couple of them just over the hill, and I'd go over and visit them, and then.
Oh, there was some kids. Well, there's one girl that. She and I went to school together for three years, and then her folks moved to Minnesota, and we never saw each other again for 74 and a half years. Wow. But when she left, she was in the 8th grade, and she was. Well, she was the one that held the boy at arm's length. But everybody loved her, even the teacher. Everybody loved Betty. And she was an only child. And so when they moved, why they stopped by the schoolhouse, as they were leaving. And they had her dog in there with them, and she came in to tell us goodbye one more time, and we all started crying. And they just went on down the road, and the teacher laid her head on the desk. She said, there's a time to cry. And she was even crying.
[00:56:31] Speaker A: Oh, man.
[00:56:32] Speaker B: But Betty and I wrote to each other pretty regular to start with. Well, then, as we grew up, why, she had six kids and I was teaching school, but we always sent at least a Christmas card to each other and a letter or so during the year.
And so three years ago, maybe it's been four years, whatever, when the COVID was going, you know why, there was a hunter that called, and he wanted to know if him and his wife could come visit because he'd hunted here for a long time and his wife had been here a time or two. And I said, sure, you can come. And he said, well, our daughters will drive us. And so this two daughters drove him up, and we were doing dishes here or something this one night, and I mentioned about my friend down there, and she said, well, if you come down, I'll take you to see her.
And so I had written to Betty or talked to her because it was her birthday right after that, and she said, well, you better get busy on that. And so there was two other people here had gone to school with her. One was in Hewlett, one was in Gillette. And I asked either one of them if they wanted to go with me, and neither one of them could go. So I called a lady in Sundance that had been in the first school I taught, and she's only eight years younger than I am. But anyway, I asked her if she wanted to go with me, and she said, yeah, I'll go with you. We took off in the car and we drove clear down almost to Minneapolis and stayed with this hunter's daughter, and she took us to see Betty the next day, and we had a good visit. And then.
[00:58:21] Speaker A: And that was after 74 years.
[00:58:23] Speaker B: 74 and a half years and a half years. Wow. Because Betty. I didn't realize, but she said it was Valentine's day when they left.
[00:58:31] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:58:32] Speaker B: And this was summer, so 74 and a half years. But we never lost track of each other because we wrote letters.
[00:58:38] Speaker A: Yeah. So speaking of communication, obviously, letters. What. How did you. How did you, you know, communicate with people or decide, like your mother, when she was going to be going and having the baby? Tell me all about communication.
[00:58:52] Speaker B: It was letters.
You didn't have telephone or anything. And I remember anytime mama got a letter.
She would sit down and read it to us, too, because it was from our relation, you know. And one time we were going to go to North Dakota, and at that time, mama wasn't going for a baby. We're just going up to visit. And Mama, by that time, it was in the forties because she had a jeep.
And so we were gonna. We listened to this radio station in Bismarck, and there was one program that they had that people would give talks or, you know, interview them or stuff. And so Mama came up with the idea. We would go to that radio station and us kids would sing a song on that. And daddy, when he heard that, he would know that we got to Bismarck.
[00:59:52] Speaker A: Wow, that's so cool.
[00:59:54] Speaker B: And the song we sang was that Harlem Goat.
[00:59:57] Speaker A: I don't know it.
[00:59:58] Speaker B: That Harlem goat was feeling fine. Ate three red shirts right off the line. Bill took a stick, gave him a whack and tied him to the railroad track.
[01:00:07] Speaker A: Ha.
[01:00:08] Speaker B: The whistle blew. The train drew nigh. That Harlem goat was doomed to die. He gave three groans of awful pain, coughed up that shirt and flagged the train.
And I told that over at the tower when they honored me here two years ago. Huh.
[01:00:25] Speaker A: That's so cool.
Jeannie and I had such a lovely conversation about her life and her story. The interview you get today is only a small glimpse of our interview. The full interview, spanning multiple episodes, will only be available to our premium subscribers.
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Thank you for joining me on this journey through time with today's guests. I hope this story touched you as much as it did me. I'd love to hear how this episode resonated with you. If a particular story or memory struck a chord, or if it reminded you of your own experiences, please send in your thoughts or stories. Find us on the web at Goldentidbits dot castos.com. or you can send us a message on our fan page at Fanlink and we might share your story in a future episode. Your voice is an important part of the golden tidbits community, and together we can keep these timeless stories alive. Don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share this podcast with anyone who loves a good story. Until next time. I'm Molly B. And I can't wait to share more golden tidbits with you.
Uncountable that's not the word. What is the word? Uncountable. Numerous, countless.
