[00:05:09] Speaker B: My father had a very, very tall windmill with batteries in a dirt basement under the house, and that created electricity for us.
[00:05:24] Speaker C: 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. We'll 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.
[00:06:17] Speaker A: Hi. You are?
[00:06:19] Speaker B: Joanne Jewett.
[00:06:21] Speaker A: Joanne Jewett. And where would you say you grew up?
[00:06:25] Speaker B: Red Elm, South Dakota. And Dupree, South Dakota.
[00:06:30] Speaker A: Okay. And so red Elmore, like the tree?
[00:06:34] Speaker B: Yes, it was a tree. And that's how red elm got his name, because of this big tree.
[00:06:41] Speaker A: Huh. I'd not heard of it. I'm going to check it out on the map now.
[00:06:44] Speaker B: Yeah, it's no more town.
[00:06:47] Speaker A: Yeah, right, right. So how many years of life experience do you currently have? Also, meaning, how old are you?
[00:06:53] Speaker B: I am 93 years old.
[00:06:55] Speaker A: Wonderful. And so that puts you born in what year? Yeah.
[00:07:00] Speaker B: 30.
[00:07:00] Speaker A: 119. 31. Okay. And so how many children were in your family?
[00:07:07] Speaker B: There was three. Three of us. Girls. Just three girls.
[00:07:11] Speaker A: Okay. And were you older, younger?
[00:07:14] Speaker B: How did I. I was the youngest one. My sisters were five and six years older, so I was the baby.
[00:07:22] Speaker A: The baby. And by a bit, you know, five and six years can be. They were right next to each other, but then.
[00:07:27] Speaker B: Yeah, they were real close.
[00:07:28] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:07:29] Speaker B: You're apart, and I was later.
[00:07:31] Speaker A: Right.
So for me, I just feel like I grew up in the country and so when I would come home from, like, a long trip, like, we'd go to rapid. That was a long trip.
[00:07:42] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:07:43] Speaker A: There was no feeling like when you're getting close to home, you know, that feeling of, like, oh, we can finally relax. And so I always love to have people tell me about their home, like, when you're coming up to it, like, from the driveway up to the house or something like that.
[00:07:56] Speaker B: Well, in red elm, there weren't renaissance houses, so we had just. I lived right by the highway and the railroad track, not far from either one. And there was maybe only four families in that town. So really I had.
Well, one family had quite a few children. The other one had only a little boy, and he was my age, and so he was kind of my playmate.
[00:08:31] Speaker A: And so was the railroad really active? Was there a lot?
[00:08:37] Speaker B: Oh, yes, the railroad was active. Fact is, when the railroad men were working on the track, we would ride up and down on their little. I don't know what they called it. They went up and down. The railroad or the workers.
[00:08:53] Speaker A: Huh. That's interesting. Today they would just throw a fit. That'd be dangerous, you know?
[00:08:58] Speaker B: Yeah, no, they let us.
[00:09:00] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:01] Speaker B: Go up, down the track a little ways.
[00:09:04] Speaker A: And that was you and your friend?
[00:09:06] Speaker B: That.
[00:09:06] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. That's so cool.
So what was your home like? How big was your house? How many bedrooms?
[00:09:14] Speaker B: There was two bedrooms, and all three of us girls had one bedroom upstairs, and the folks had one. It was a small house, but we had lots of company and friends. Lots of people stayed overnight. I don't know how they did, but I think there was a bed on the enclosed porch.
[00:09:37] Speaker A: Oh, okay. So we're both the bedrooms upstairs, then?
[00:09:40] Speaker B: Just one.
[00:09:40] Speaker A: Just one was upstairs, and that's where the kids went. And all three of us had that bedroom. And then your parents were downstairs, and then you had probably a living room and a kitchen.
[00:09:50] Speaker B: A kitchen, living. A dining room. Living room.
[00:09:54] Speaker A: And did you have. Did you have plumbing? Did you have water?
[00:10:00] Speaker B: We didn't have running water, but we had a pump, you know. But then eventually my father had a very, very tall windmill with batteries in a dirt basement under the house, and that created electricity for us.
[00:10:22] Speaker A: Really? That's very cool.
[00:10:24] Speaker B: So we had probably one bulb in each room.
[00:10:28] Speaker A: Yeah. And so that you remember from being really young or what age do you think you got the windmill?
[00:10:34] Speaker B: Oh, I was just young, probably, I don't know, five, six, somewhere in there, because we only lived in when I was ten. We moved from Renault to Dupree.
[00:10:48] Speaker A: Oh, okay. And so then you moved homes, but.
[00:10:52] Speaker B: Moved the house and all.
[00:10:53] Speaker A: Oh, the house and all. Okay. I love that they did that so much back then.
[00:10:58] Speaker B: That house is still in Dupree.
[00:11:01] Speaker A: Wow. Okay, so what caused the move? What happened that. That they moved the house.
[00:11:07] Speaker B: They moved the house because my sisters were in high school, and, of course, Red Elm just had a little country school where all eight grades were together, but they were in high school, so.
[00:11:22] Speaker A: So they went into Dupree to go to school.
[00:11:24] Speaker B: So we moved to Dupree, and then my dad kind of business, he had a.
Hauled gas through the ranchers and farmers, then had a service station in Texaco. Service station.
[00:11:39] Speaker A: And your dad had a Texaco service station?
[00:11:42] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:42] Speaker A: In Dupree?
[00:11:43] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:44] Speaker A: Oh, that's very fun. You're actually, my other guest has also. His dad owned a service station.
[00:11:51] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:51] Speaker A: So that's crazy.
[00:11:52] Speaker B: And he had the John Deere business, too.
[00:11:55] Speaker A: Oh, wow. He was quite the entrepreneur then.
So how did you guys heat your home, then?
[00:12:01] Speaker B: Well, in red elm, we had kind of a kerosene stove in the living room, you know, for heat. And then the kitchen. We had the cook stove.
[00:12:15] Speaker A: What did the cookstove use to heat? Was it wood?
[00:12:20] Speaker B: Coal, mostly.
[00:12:21] Speaker A: Coal?
[00:12:22] Speaker B: Coal, mostly.
[00:12:22] Speaker A: Okay. Okay, cool. What was your mother's role in the household?
[00:12:26] Speaker B: Her rule?
[00:12:28] Speaker A: Yeah. What did your mother do? Did she stay at home?
[00:12:30] Speaker B: Well, yeah, she stayed at home then, and she did. I remember she did all dad book work, and we entered. She entertained a lot. We had a lot of company.
[00:12:46] Speaker A: Okay, so people coming over and stuff.
[00:12:48] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:12:49] Speaker A: Mm hmm. And then, so your dad obviously operated the service station and the John Deere dealership.
[00:12:56] Speaker B: Well, yeah. Well, his brother helped him with a service station, and. But then he hauled. Had this gas truck and hauled gas way out to ranchers.
[00:13:08] Speaker A: Mm hmm. In those tanks? Those storage tanks?
[00:13:11] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:13:11] Speaker A: Yep. My. My grandparents were getting fuel hauled, even when I was little, out to their.
[00:13:16] Speaker B: Place, so that for many years.
[00:13:19] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay.
Okay. So you didn't ever have a new sibling coming along, so you didn't. You didn't get to experience mother having a child, but did you have any, like, little cousins or anything like that?
[00:13:31] Speaker B: Not really. We had cousins, but they were our age.
[00:13:35] Speaker A: Oh, they were your age.
[00:13:36] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:13:36] Speaker A: Yeah.
Okay, well, tell me, what was. What was bath time then? Like, what was the bathroom like, what did you have about.
[00:13:44] Speaker B: We never had a bathroom till I was in high school, but a junior.
[00:13:49] Speaker A: Mm hmm.
[00:13:50] Speaker B: And so then we were living in Dupree then, and Dupree got water.
My dad was even the mayor for a few years.
[00:14:00] Speaker A: Oh, really?
[00:14:02] Speaker B: When I was in college, and he got a sewer system and water system going in the town. We had water in Dupree, but he got sewer system going in the town of Dupree. About 500 people.
[00:14:16] Speaker A: Right. Yeah. So before that, how did you just do a tub in the kitchen for bath time or.
[00:14:23] Speaker B: Yeah, we'd have a tub, and then we'd take turns, you know, in the kitchen and by the cook stove.
[00:14:31] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:31] Speaker B: Then finally we got a, you know those old camp beds that used to fold up there were canvas. We had one with the ends so we could take a bath, open that thing.
[00:14:46] Speaker A: Oh, okay. And so you use that instead of a tub?
[00:14:50] Speaker B: Yeah. Not very long, but yeah.
[00:14:53] Speaker A: So how often were you jumping in this tub then?
[00:14:56] Speaker B: Once a week.
[00:14:57] Speaker A: Once a week. I've heard this before. So that's why I'm asking every Saturday. Every Saturday. So you could be ready for church on Sunday.
I'm starting to pick this up.
[00:15:07] Speaker B: Okay. Polish all our shoes and get ready.
[00:15:11] Speaker A: Yeah. So speaking of, like, shoes, clothing, all of those things. How did you get those things? And what, how did you. How did you get clothed and shoot?
[00:15:20] Speaker B: Well, very seldom we would go to Mobridge.
[00:15:25] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:15:26] Speaker B: Mobridge and get things. And then, I don't know. I think it was mostly Mowbridge. Later, we'd go to rapid, but I was probably senior or so before we started that. Well, before that, because I went my junior year in high school to Rapid City high school. So it was.
We moved rapid for about a year and then came back because of all my dad's businesses.
[00:16:01] Speaker A: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. So what did you. So you went and bought, like, you bought clothes from the store? You didn't make your own clothes?
[00:16:12] Speaker B: Mother made printer, all our clothes.
[00:16:14] Speaker A: Oh, she did? So she'd go. You'd go to Mobridge and buy fabric?
[00:16:17] Speaker B: Well, not really. She just redo old clothes.
[00:16:21] Speaker A: Oh, okay.
[00:16:22] Speaker B: Coats. She'd take them apart and make us coats.
[00:16:26] Speaker A: Nice.
[00:16:27] Speaker B: And I didn't have a button coat till I was bought. A junior senior.
[00:16:32] Speaker A: Wow. And. But shoes you bought in Mobridge, like, at the store?
[00:16:37] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:16:39] Speaker A: Did you order a lot of stuff from, like, the catalog?
[00:16:41] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, Sears catalog. We'd order things, but, yeah.
[00:16:46] Speaker A: When you sent off for things from the catalog, where were you sending to? Would it be, like, a local? Like, you know, how they had, like, a Sears and Roebuck and deadwood? Did you mail to the deadwood one, or did you mail to some central place?
[00:16:59] Speaker B: I don't know where we got it from, really.
[00:17:02] Speaker A: I've always been fascinated by that.
[00:17:04] Speaker B: I'd pick it out. Mother. Right. To order. So I didn't pick.
[00:17:09] Speaker A: Oh, that's wonderful.
[00:17:10] Speaker B: When we. Mother and I ran the telephone office in new prix.
[00:17:17] Speaker A: Okay. Okay.
[00:17:18] Speaker B: Well, you plug in and say, number, please? And.
[00:17:22] Speaker A: And then you do the switchboard.
[00:17:24] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:17:24] Speaker A: Yeah. Huh. So, okay. Did you. Did you. Did your parents ever go out on dates? Did you ever have a babysitter?
[00:17:34] Speaker B: I don't think so. We all babysat girls. Oh, you're other people.
I now think of any babies that are.
If the folks went somewhere my sisters were old enough to.
[00:17:51] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:51] Speaker B: Take care of me.
[00:17:52] Speaker A: Right, right. That makes sense. Cause they were five. Five years, six years older. So did you. So do you remember any of your neighbors or any of those friends you played with? I know you talked about the kid in red owl or Red elm, but, you know, can you tell me about any of your friends or any of your neighbors that maybe impacted you?
[00:18:11] Speaker B: There was a family that lived in Red elm for a while and had a bunch of kids, and one girl was my age, so I had a friend there, too. And, of course, we all went to the country school, and kids would rise in the school on their horses. We had a little barn at the school for the horses when the kids rode in to. So there was a lot of, you know, kids to be friends with.
[00:18:43] Speaker A: Mm hmm. That's really cool. I've never had anybody say they had a barn at the school before.
[00:18:47] Speaker B: Yeah, it was a shed.
[00:18:48] Speaker A: Yeah. And then the horses would hang out while you guys learned.
[00:18:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:18:52] Speaker A: And. Huh. That's very exciting.
So did you. How did you keep in touch with people then? How did you keep in touch? How did you communicate with people?
[00:19:06] Speaker B: I I don't know how. I just. They were all close in that little town, so we just run back and forth.
[00:19:15] Speaker A: Okay. You weren't calling, certainly.
[00:19:18] Speaker B: No.
[00:19:19] Speaker A: Do you remember the first time you got a telephone?
[00:19:23] Speaker B: I I don't even remember.
Um, I suppose when I was in high school, of course, when we run the telephone office.
[00:19:34] Speaker A: Right. You obviously knew then. Yeah, but, yeah.
So what kind of chores were you responsible for in your house?
[00:19:42] Speaker B: Choice?
[00:19:43] Speaker A: Chores.
[00:19:44] Speaker B: Chores. Feed the bum lambs. And I was. My sister said I was very spoiled. Cause they did the work and I played.
[00:19:55] Speaker A: Siblings are that way, aren't they?
[00:19:59] Speaker B: But I don't think I helped.
[00:20:01] Speaker A: So you guys had bum lambs?
[00:20:03] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:20:04] Speaker A: Yeah. Did you have any other.
[00:20:06] Speaker B: We had a milk cow.
[00:20:08] Speaker A: Oh, okay.
[00:20:08] Speaker B: But I never learned to milk.
[00:20:12] Speaker A: Mm hmm. Was something your mother did?
[00:20:14] Speaker B: My dad.
[00:20:15] Speaker A: Your dad and then you. So you had fresh milk all the time.
[00:20:18] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You couldn't go to the store and get it?
[00:20:21] Speaker A: No. No. Did you have a fridge or how'd you keep things cold? How'd you keep the milk cold?
[00:20:28] Speaker B: Well, you had a ice box.
In the winter, the ice would freeze really thick. I wonder. Never does now, I don't think. But then all the guys, men would get together and go chop ice in chunks. And we had an ice house. It was halfway in the ground, and there was a roof. They put the ice in there and cover it with sawdust.
And then whenever we needed ice, we'd go. My dad would go, the ice house. We had a kind of a big ice refrigerator.
[00:21:07] Speaker A: Right. And so then the ice is what kept the fridge cool.
[00:21:11] Speaker B: Yeah. Not, that was the ice box. I guess we didn't.
[00:21:14] Speaker A: Yeah. Right. Well, right, yeah. I'm trying for people who are not familiar with what an ice is. I'm trying to break it down.
I personally have not used an ice box.
[00:21:26] Speaker B: Yeah, it was a pretty big ice box. I remember that.
I've got a little one in my kitchen.
[00:21:33] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, really? I'm gonna have to check that out.
[00:21:37] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:21:37] Speaker A: Did you, so did you have chickens or anything for egg?
[00:21:43] Speaker B: I suppose we had a few chickens.
Must have. We had a barn for the cow, and we must had a few chickens. I don't remember much chickens about that.
[00:21:55] Speaker A: Yeah. So what did you do for entertainment? How did you keep yourself entertained?
[00:22:01] Speaker B: Oh, we kids would get together and play games and, I don't know, we just played games and.
[00:22:10] Speaker A: What kind of games? Do you remember any hopscotch.
[00:22:13] Speaker B: A lot.
[00:22:14] Speaker A: Mm hmm.
[00:22:15] Speaker B: And. I don't know. We go down to the park where that big old red elm tree was. There was a little park there, and we had community dinner, you know, picnics, and it was so we could walk down there and have picnics. We had a big cream cart that we put cream cans in. We'd take that cart and two or three kids, we'd push them down there.
[00:22:44] Speaker A: So it became a wagon instead.
[00:22:46] Speaker B: Push us back.
[00:22:47] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. Do you ever remember traveling as a family? Like, did you ever go on any vacations or anything like that?
[00:22:55] Speaker B: Oh, not where we go to North Dakota once in a while to see my father's parents and our cousins there at Elgin, North Dakota, which just crossed the line, but.
And then eventually when we got older, we did take trips to California.
[00:23:15] Speaker A: And is that where your mom's family was?
[00:23:17] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:23:17] Speaker A: Okay. Okay. I'm finding quite a few people have ties to California. It's pretty interesting.
[00:23:23] Speaker B: I remember going, we went when the world's fair was in San Francisco.
[00:23:29] Speaker A: Oh, really?
[00:23:30] Speaker B: But I was young enough. I didn't get to go with them.
[00:23:33] Speaker A: Oh, no.
[00:23:33] Speaker B: I didn't like that.
[00:23:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:23:36] Speaker B: I had to stay home with Grandma.
[00:23:38] Speaker A: That's terrible.
[00:23:39] Speaker B: Yes, it was, because I was about nine.
[00:23:42] Speaker A: It's not too young. Oh, I'm so sorry.
You could have told me about it. Darn them.
Oh, gosh. Do you remember what age you went to school? Did they have kindergarten in the country school?
[00:23:56] Speaker B: They. I was six when I went first grade.
[00:24:00] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:24:00] Speaker B: They had first.
[00:24:01] Speaker A: No kindergarten, no kindergarten. Yeah, I kind of, then there were.
[00:24:04] Speaker B: A couple young women that would come every summer and have a Bible school at the schoolhouse.
[00:24:13] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:24:13] Speaker B: And all the kids would come into that.
[00:24:15] Speaker A: Okay. So you could go to that too. And keep yourself busy all summer.
[00:24:19] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:24:20] Speaker A: Huh. That's very fun.
[00:24:21] Speaker B: Be there for a couple weeks.
[00:24:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:23] Speaker B: They'd stay with somebody there.
[00:24:26] Speaker A: Right, right. Somebody put them up and then they'd.
[00:24:28] Speaker B: Do something that was really great.
[00:24:31] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:31] Speaker B: They had a program and everybody came in.
[00:24:34] Speaker A: You followed through with that and enjoyed it. Obviously. You could fondly have it. So what was your school like? And did anybody, any of your teachers really inspire you or.
[00:24:44] Speaker B: No. No, not that I remember. We just all.
[00:24:50] Speaker A: Don't tell any, your teacher.
[00:24:54] Speaker B: If something happened, I've dismissed it and forgot it.
[00:24:57] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:24:58] Speaker B: No, I think.
[00:25:00] Speaker A: Do you remember what the schoolhouse looked like? What was the building like?
[00:25:03] Speaker B: Oh, it's still there in Red elm. Oh, it is, huh? It was just a big white building and it was fairly new. And they had a bucket of water with dipper in it. And we all drank out of the dipper. Put the dipper back in the pail and we survived.
[00:25:21] Speaker A: Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. So you didn't have to bring your own water?
[00:25:25] Speaker B: No. No, we never, I don't even know where the teacher would have. She'd start the fire in the furnace and we had a furnace.
[00:25:34] Speaker A: Oh, you did? In the furnace.
[00:25:36] Speaker B: Real school.
[00:25:36] Speaker A: It had a basement.
[00:25:38] Speaker B: Yes, it had a basement.
[00:25:39] Speaker A: This is very famous.
[00:25:40] Speaker B: When it was winter, we'd go down there and recess and play hopscotch and other games.
[00:25:48] Speaker A: Yeah. So you wouldn't be as cold outside.
[00:25:51] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:25:52] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:25:53] Speaker B: But we just had one bucket of water and all dipped in it and put the dipper back and I guess we made it.
[00:26:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:26:02] Speaker B: Germs and all.
[00:26:04] Speaker A: Oh, man.
[00:26:05] Speaker B: Now they would just die.
[00:26:07] Speaker A: They really would. I hadn't even thought of that. Oh my gosh. It's like the garden hose kids, you know, you drinking out of garden hose is terrible now or something.
Do you remember any punishments that you got, you know, at school or at home?
[00:26:23] Speaker B: Well.
[00:26:23] Speaker A: And what did you do to deserve it?
[00:26:25] Speaker B: I don't know what I did. I was memorized in fifth grade. Whatever I did, my mother was really mad at me. She had hairbrush in her hand, so she took after me with that. It hit me with it, and it flew across the room and broke. So then I was really in trouble.
[00:26:45] Speaker A: With your fault that it broke after she hit you with it.
Oh, mother.
Oh, that's funny.
[00:26:53] Speaker B: Well, it's the only time I really remember.
Probably a lot of times I don't remember.
[00:27:00] Speaker A: Yeah.
Oh. Um. So how did you get information? Like, how did you get the news or anything like that?
[00:27:10] Speaker B: Um, radio.
[00:27:13] Speaker A: Okay. Tuned in and listened to the radio.
[00:27:16] Speaker B: Yeah. Every Saturday night, I listened to the hit parade, and that would be the ten most popular songs of that time.
[00:27:26] Speaker A: Oh, really? Okay.
[00:27:27] Speaker B: And I have a few of those that I wrote down in my scrapbook somewhere.
[00:27:34] Speaker A: Really? And so then you'd listen. It was kind of like the hot music.
[00:27:39] Speaker B: They play all the favorite songs of the week, and you. A lot of them.
[00:27:47] Speaker A: Yeah. You really enjoyed that. What. What did you. Did you ever get a. When did you get a tv? Or what did you think of tv?
[00:27:57] Speaker B: Tv. I never had a tv till I was married for about a couple years.
[00:28:02] Speaker A: Oh, really? That's very neat.
[00:28:05] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:28:05] Speaker A: Did you guys get a newspaper?
[00:28:09] Speaker B: Well, we had the local paper, and the guy that edited the paper at Dupree was.
He was deaf, but everybody write things, and he got along very well.
[00:28:26] Speaker A: Oh, very, very neat.
[00:28:28] Speaker B: We called him teefy.
[00:28:33] Speaker A: Oh, goodness.
[00:28:34] Speaker B: I mean, the adults and everybody call him.
[00:28:37] Speaker A: Yeah.
Huh. So what did. What role did religion play in your life?
[00:28:44] Speaker B: Very much. Very much. There was a couple young men from Lehman, I think, or somewhere. They came and had a revival at the school, and so my folks went there, and then mother had Sunday school at the school every.
[00:29:09] Speaker A: So your mom taught Sunday school?
[00:29:11] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:29:11] Speaker A: What was that like? Did you like Sunday school because your mom taught it or did that?
[00:29:15] Speaker B: Yeah, we. That was the thing. We didn't have a. We just had Sunday school, no church.
[00:29:20] Speaker A: Oh, really? And so how come you didn't have church? Was there not a preacher or.
[00:29:26] Speaker B: Well, we just had Sunday school and for a while, but then we got. So we drove to Dupree to church for a while, and. I don't know.
[00:29:38] Speaker A: Do you remember the car?
[00:29:39] Speaker B: You guys had the car? Oh, yes. My dad sold Hudson cars in the thirties.
[00:29:46] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:29:47] Speaker B: So we always had a.
[00:29:48] Speaker A: It was a Hudson then.
[00:29:49] Speaker B: Yeah, Hudson.
[00:29:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:29:51] Speaker B: So.
[00:29:52] Speaker A: And was it a thirties Hudson?
[00:29:54] Speaker B: Yeah, it was.
[00:29:56] Speaker A: Yeah. That's so funny.
[00:29:57] Speaker B: Sold those when they lived around because moved to Dupree when I was ten.
[00:30:02] Speaker A: Mm hmm.
[00:30:03] Speaker B: And so he sold cars all the time, so we always had a car, man.
[00:30:09] Speaker A: Your dad was running around doing all sorts of stuff. He was selling John Deere, selling Hudson, selling gas, Hudson car.
[00:30:18] Speaker B: And then in the war, he sold Kaiser Fraser. During World War two, he sold what? Kaiser Fraser.
[00:30:26] Speaker A: Oh, I don't know.
[00:30:27] Speaker B: That's the only. During World War two, it's about the only car you get, really.
[00:30:32] Speaker A: I'm not familiar with them. I'm gonna have to research that.
[00:30:35] Speaker B: Kind of disappeared.
[00:30:37] Speaker A: Right. Right.
[00:30:37] Speaker B: Then he sold Chevys.
[00:30:39] Speaker A: Mm hmm. Oh. And then he sold Chevy's. My goodness.
[00:30:42] Speaker B: We got to drive everybody's trade in.
[00:30:47] Speaker A: Oh, so you got that. That's funny.
Oh, my gosh. So how did you. How did you guys celebrate holidays? Which holidays? Do you remember being all special?
[00:31:03] Speaker B: We always have the holidays at our house, Christmas and Thanksgiving.
But Christmas was a big one, and everybody came. And my aunt and uncle and mother's sister and their kids were the same age as we were.
We'd go ice skating in the afternoon with our uncle, with my uncle, my dad, and then we'd have a big dinner. I can't remember. It was noon or night, but we'd have gifts, and then the minister from Dupree would come over and they could play the piano, and my aunt could play the piano. So we'd sing.
Everybody would sing.
[00:31:53] Speaker A: And this was in your house?
[00:31:55] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:31:55] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:31:56] Speaker B: In our house, everything.
[00:31:58] Speaker A: So it must have been really full because you said it was a small house.
[00:32:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:32:02] Speaker A: And so there were a lot of people in there.
[00:32:04] Speaker B: We didn't know the difference. We just spread out the dining room, kitchen.
[00:32:08] Speaker A: Yeah. Did you. Did you celebrate, like, thanksgiving very heavily, or was more Easter?
[00:32:15] Speaker B: We always celebrated, but nothing. Christmas was a big one.
[00:32:19] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. That sounds pretty fun, though, if you went ice skating and all of those things, you know, and then you sang, and so, you know, I would be terrible at that. I'm not a singer, but I know that people who sing well probably would enjoy that.
[00:32:34] Speaker B: We do. Well, some of us aren't either, but I still have all the holidays here.
[00:32:40] Speaker A: Oh, at your house? Yeah. So I'm gonna have to come over for Christmas.
[00:32:44] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:32:45] Speaker A: I'll just invite my Christmas and Easter.
[00:32:47] Speaker B: And Thanksgiving, the 4 July. Always here.
[00:32:52] Speaker A: Always here. Did you. So you did you say you went to high school in Rapid City?
[00:32:58] Speaker B: One year.
[00:32:59] Speaker A: One year.
[00:32:59] Speaker B: When I was a junior, the folks moved there one year. Mother always wanted to live in rapid, but then dad was still doing car business, and he had a station, so we moved back when I was a senior.
[00:33:19] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:33:20] Speaker B: That's when we run the telephone office.
[00:33:23] Speaker A: And so you actually graduated from Dupree?
[00:33:26] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:33:26] Speaker A: Okay. Do you remember which high school you went to?
[00:33:29] Speaker B: Well, there was only the one big one downtown. You know that building is still there?
[00:33:33] Speaker A: Yes. And they think they have a middle school in it now.
[00:33:36] Speaker B: That's where it was.
[00:33:37] Speaker A: That's where it was. Okay. Yep. Yep. I can't remember. I don't even think it has a middle school anymore. I think they moved that, but I know the building is there.
[00:33:45] Speaker B: Yeah, the building's there. They don't have school.
[00:33:48] Speaker A: Yeah, because it was a middle school when I was there.
[00:33:50] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:33:51] Speaker A: But now I think it's, um.
[00:33:53] Speaker B: I don't know.
[00:33:54] Speaker A: What do you remember? Uh, so when was the first time you got paid to work? Was that at the telephone office, or did you have a job before that?
[00:34:01] Speaker B: No. When we lived in rapid, I worked at a cafe.
[00:34:06] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:34:07] Speaker B: Waitress. That was the first time. And they were, um, greek people.
[00:34:12] Speaker A: Oh.
[00:34:13] Speaker B: And, um, I don't know if you got $0.10 tip. You really thought you must, but she really taught me how to wait tables.
And then we moved back to rapid, and she. They came to Dupree, and they would ask the folks they couldn't adopt me.
[00:34:38] Speaker A: Was the answer no?
[00:34:39] Speaker B: Oh, I didn't want to go with them.
I thought that was odd.
[00:34:49] Speaker A: Well, you must have really been somebody that they. They liked and enjoyed.
[00:34:54] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:34:56] Speaker A: Anyway, was there ever a job that you had that you just weren't good at babysitting?
You weren't a good babysitter?
[00:35:06] Speaker B: Oh, I did a lot. Not a lot, but quite a bit. When I was nice, it was all right.
[00:35:13] Speaker A: It's funny. Oh, that's funny. I like that.
Okay. What was it like when you were in high school, for example, and people dated?
What was dating like?
[00:35:26] Speaker B: Oh, we. I don't know. We dated, but I guess we went to ball games and just, you know.
[00:35:37] Speaker A: Mm hmm. Were they doing where.
[00:35:39] Speaker B: Go to somebody's house for party, and a lot of times we just play games and singing, but, yeah, we always dated everybody. I mean, everybody. Not everybody.
Yeah.
[00:35:54] Speaker A: Yeah. Did you, um. How did you flirt? How did you know you liked each other?
[00:36:00] Speaker B: Um, I don't know. Just talking to each other. And in the summer, I remember we'd go on picnics, and pretty soon you.
[00:36:12] Speaker A: Were hand in hand and.
[00:36:14] Speaker B: Yeah, wasn't too exciting. Drive around, probably. Yeah.
[00:36:20] Speaker A: Yeah.
Do you remember something that was cool when you were a teenager that older people thought, this is no good. This is terrible that these young kids are doing this. Do you remember anything like that?
[00:36:35] Speaker B: Well, kids. Kids in high school did things like they do now, but not as much or as. I don't know. No, I just.
I don't know. On Halloween, we're kind of mean, remember? We moved much of my dad's stuff at the John John Deere place, blocked the road into Dupree.
[00:37:04] Speaker A: That was like, kind of like the senior prank that the kids do here. You guys blocked the road and the highway.
[00:37:11] Speaker B: Well, he was off the highway. You drove into Dupree.
[00:37:14] Speaker A: Okay. Okay. The main road. Yeah.
Gosh.
[00:37:19] Speaker B: Out in front of his John Deere place. And that was a lot of work.
[00:37:26] Speaker A: So that was. That was work to be naughty. Did you do that very often? Are there any other examples I need to know about?
[00:37:33] Speaker B: No.
[00:37:36] Speaker A: All right. Can you think of an invention or something that was new that you thought either was ridiculous or you were suspicious of it? You thought, this is for the birds.
[00:37:47] Speaker B: Can't think of anything offhand.
Somewhat invention.
[00:37:52] Speaker A: Yeah. You know how tv had come into your life or telephone had come into your life. Now we've got cell phones, the Internet. There's so many things that have changed over your lifetime.
[00:38:04] Speaker B: I'm not very good at. I have a cell phone, but I'm not sufficient like I should be and doesn't make any.
[00:38:12] Speaker A: Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:38:16] Speaker B: I get. I use it, but not like most people.
[00:38:19] Speaker A: Right, right.
So what were you. What did you think about tv then? You didn't get one until you got married.
[00:38:27] Speaker B: Well, we enjoyed it, you know, it was good.
We just kept it limited to what our kids could watch.
[00:38:37] Speaker A: Oh, okay. You didn't show stuff that didn't. You know, the kids shouldn't be back then.
[00:38:42] Speaker B: It was all good. Not like now.
[00:38:45] Speaker A: Right, right. Yeah. Right. There was a lot of.
[00:38:48] Speaker B: It was news and good. I don't know.
[00:38:52] Speaker A: So when did you get married? How old were you?
[00:38:56] Speaker B: I was just about three weeks from 23.
[00:39:00] Speaker A: Oh, okay. Yeah.
[00:39:02] Speaker B: So I just say I was 23.
[00:39:04] Speaker A: Yeah. What. How did you meet your husband? And what was that?
[00:39:08] Speaker B: He lived in Isabel, and we lived new pre witches.
[00:39:12] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:39:13] Speaker B: And he was out of high school before I got in, and I'd see him playing basketball for when they'd come and play, but I don't know, then I guess when he was in college, he went several places, but he went to Chicago for optometry.
See, I met him on the train one time. I was going to Minneapolis, and he was going to Chicago. I knew who he was. You know, he came and sat by me, and I didn't think him then he was going to write to me, but he didn't know how to spell my last name, so he asked his mother, and she never told him.
[00:40:02] Speaker A: So she was Arnery.
[00:40:04] Speaker B: No.
[00:40:05] Speaker A: Or was she trying to protect you?
[00:40:07] Speaker B: Yeah.
Oh.
[00:40:10] Speaker A: Anyway, that's funny.
[00:40:12] Speaker B: Then he came. Dupree and. I don't know, we just dated because he came to Dupree every week for his optometry office.
[00:40:22] Speaker A: Oh, he had an office there in Dupree?
[00:40:24] Speaker B: Here and there. He'd go once a week, and I was working at the bank. His office was in the back of the bank, so.
[00:40:33] Speaker A: Okay, and you had a job at the bank in Dupree?
[00:40:36] Speaker B: Mm hmm.
[00:40:37] Speaker A: Okay. So he was keeping eyes on you?
[00:40:39] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:40:40] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Okay. And then. And he had an office here?
[00:40:43] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:40:44] Speaker A: Okay. And then. So after that, you guys ended up deciding that it was good enough to get married.
[00:40:50] Speaker B: Yeah, we did it on the weekends, you know, and I don't know what we did, but I. Anyway, we got married.
We just eloped.
[00:41:00] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. I think that was a lot more common, to not do a big production and just focus on being thought.
[00:41:08] Speaker B: I'd have a big wedding, but I didn't.
[00:41:10] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:41:10] Speaker B: And it lasted anyway.
[00:41:13] Speaker A: Yeah, right, right. And you saved all that money and, you know, because weddings are expensive, so. Okay. Well, um, what about. So you. So you lived, then in Bell, and you guys had an office here for a long time, and he had a.
[00:41:28] Speaker B: He practiced here for a year before we were married.
[00:41:32] Speaker A: Oh, okay.
[00:41:32] Speaker B: He practiced one year in rapid. And then one year here. Then we got married and lived in an apartment. He had a house, but his sister and her family were living there, so he was living with him.
And so when we got married, we rented an apartment and let them stay in the house.
[00:41:54] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. Especially if they had kiddos.
[00:41:56] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:41:57] Speaker A: That was nice of him.
[00:41:58] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:41:59] Speaker A: So. And how many kids did you guys have?
[00:42:01] Speaker B: I have four.
[00:42:02] Speaker A: Four very wonderful.
[00:42:04] Speaker B: Two boys and two girls.
[00:42:06] Speaker A: And so, as in your adult career, did you.
Did you work or did you support him with the business?
[00:42:14] Speaker B: I worked at the office a lot.
[00:42:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:42:17] Speaker B: Not full time, but always work Saturday mornings and whenever anybody wanted off. Then sometimes I was the only one that in between.
And that at the optical, I worked with Steve for a long time.
[00:42:38] Speaker A: Oh, okay with your son? Yeah. That's awesome. Well, I don't really have any more questions.
I'm sorry.
Well, so you're off the hook. I'm going to stop the recording.
[00:43:00] Speaker C: Thank you for joining me on this journey through time with today's guest. 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
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