Farming in Ward County, ND

Ed's Day Wednesday

Dear FOLKS,

The following is a small set of "stories" collected by Edwin "Ed" Ostrom, my late "cousin" and research buddy. As promised I am sharing his work with weekly Ed's Day Wednesday posts.

Douglas, ND --

The topic of interest for this week's story is early farming near Douglas, Ward County, North Dakota. Douglas was established in 1906 along the Soo Line Railroad line, also called the Minneapolis, St. Paul, & Sault Ste. Marie Rail line, in the southernmost part of the county.

At the time, trains were pulled by steam-powered locomotives. The boilers on these locomotives would periodically need its water replenished, so railroad companies started to establish small depots every so often along their tracks to supply the water. The government saw the advantage of having post offices established at these depots and soon a small town started. Douglas is one such example. This little town was just getting a good foothold in the area at the same time as Oscar Ostrom was settling in and beginning to make the required improvements on his homestead.

The following photograph, from a 1908 postcard, shows three tall grain elevators that supported the local farm industry that was just starting up and are alongside of the railroad track there.

IMAGE: 1908 Main Street Looking North Douglas, N.D.
Postcard shared by Ione Peterson Schooler, 
Ed Ostrom's first cousin 1x removed. This scanned 
image is from Edwin J. Ostrom's photo collection.

The postcard shows two horses are hitched to a long wagon in front of building. In the background box cars are on railroad. The three names on the far left elevator say Lyon Elevator Co., C.L. May Flour, and Wally Milling Co. The far right elevator says Minnekota Elevator Co. Main Street already has about ten buildings that appear to be for business purposes.

IMAGE: 1908 Postcard Douglas, N.D. (back). This scanned

image is from Edwin J. Ostrom's photo collection.

Transcription of the postcard:

[Post Mark]
DOUGLAS
SEP 24 A.M. 1908
N. DAK.

POST CARD

THIS SPACE FOR MESSAGE

Hello Ida. I recev your postal. I was very glad to hear from you, we are all well

From sis Christine

THIS SPACE FOR ADDRESS ONLY

Miss Ida Brekke

Dalton Minn

R.F.D. no. 2

End of transcription. Christine and Ida were sisters of Anna Brekke, making them Ed's maternal aunts. I plan to cover the Brekke family soon,

But I digress and need to get back on track. I shared this picture of Douglas to give you a visual image of a small country town during this time. Douglas was an important place to many in Ed's family [and mine too].

Sod Shacks --
Tom Ostrom commented in one interview, "One neighbor, Elmer Siebold had a shack made all of sod. You cut the grass down and cut it up in pieces. We called em shacks. There was little lumber, folks would what they could find, gather it up and assemble it to live in . That’s about all there is to it. Shacks... and they were shacks, I’ll tell ya too! Probably one window but they had a kerosene lantern for light. The biggest part of 'em would go to bed in daylight and get up at daylight too. They had heat in the winter time when it would get cold. In the summer time they’d use cow manure to get warm. Cow pods they’d call it. Use it in the stove even the cooking. Just one room. You’d cook, eat, sleep and everything else in just one room."

"Some homesteaders had a well and if they didn’t maybe some neighbor had one. You would have to go over there and borrow that. Take a pail along and bring a pail full of water home. Just a dirt floor too.I can’t remember our old shanty. I remember our new house because I hauled the lumber. The old house was you might say just a shanty. Pa homesteaded on it. It was just a shanty and we added on as more of the kids come. We had just one big room there. I know we had 2 beds in there and Ma done everything in one room until we got the new house. Then of course we had rooms for all of us, 4 bedrooms."

"Some of the roofs of these shanties were sod too. They put the same sod on the sides as on the top of it. Some of them they would make it of straw too. They would put plenty of straw on it but sometimes that would blow away. To keep the wind from blowing it away, they would put boards across it, then fill it up with straw and put sod on top of that again."

"I’ve never heard of anybody freezing to death but I bet a lot of 'em was darn good and cold."

The Homestead --

Last week we learned Oscar Ostrom was issued his land patent for a homestead in 1908. Here is a link to that article http://homefolktales.blogspot.com/2016/02/sod-breaking-in-north-dakota.html.

IMAGE: circa 1916, Oscar Ostrom Homestead near Douglas, ND
From the photo collection of Edwin J. Ostrom

Location: Oscar Ostrom’s homestead near Douglas ND. 

Occasion: Plowing with his two sons

Photographer: Ida Brekke Peterson

 Left to right:

1.  Oscar Ostrom              b.  2-29-1884

2.  Clifford Ostrom           b. 12-8-1908

3.  Edwin "Tom" Ostrom  b. 12-23-1911

  

Oscar and his two sons are clearing the land from its rocks so they can plow the virgin prairie and plant grain. The granite rocks are called "erratics" and are left over when glaciers melt.  

Tom tells this to Ed; 

Tom: "You hooked a chain around the rock and rolled it out of the ground. The rocks were very hard. They were impossible to break. When you hit them with a sledge hammer, it bounced back at you. 

The horses are big Belgian work horses. These are some of the kinds of horses Pop always had. They were good horses. He had them matched up and the harnesses would be good. 

There is probably a dog somewhere. Pa always had to have a dog along."

Ed's Comment: "Tom rebuilt these harnesses one winter when he broke his leg at age 16. He took them all apart in the basement. He wove 3 strands together to make one strand then glued them together with a special kind of tar."

Terminology of harness parts [additionally added by Ed for clarification]: 

• Lines -- lead from Oscar’s hand to the horses. 
• Breeching -- the horizontal wide strap around the rear of the horse below the tail.
• Hame -- the wooden device around the neck.
• Tugs -- are the leather straps leading from the side of the hame down past the horse's belly to the hind legs.

It was important for Oscar to keep up the hard work of clearing more land.  As he would clear it, then he could plant wheat. Wheat was his main cash crop. He also had enough horses to help with the work of the farm, a few cows, cattle and pigs to run the family. There would also be chickens to provide the family eggs and an occasional dinner. Care of the chickens would be the job of Anna and the children. Periodically work would become available for Oscar away from the farm.  It would work out well if this work came about when it was quiet time on the land. Outside work would provide him with some cash.

IMAGE: Layout of buildings on Oscar Ostrom's homestead.
Drawing made by Edwin J. Ostrom

Here is the legend of the buildings, with a few added comments:

1. Sod shanty - 14' x 14', one-room, flat roof with hay. Torn down in 1920.

2. New house - built in 1920. 24' x 30', two-story structure.

3. Big barn - 30' x 50', all wood, steep roof, full hay loft. Doors east and west side, middle aisle. Cows on long north wall, horses on south wall. Calves east end, milked cows.

4. Feed shed - 12' x 16' steep roof near barn. Gasoline operated grinder to grind oats, barley, and some corn together to feed cows

5. Loafing shed - 40' x 80' for protection from storms, 30-40 head of cattle, wood walls on all by south wall. Big 15' openings for cattle so they won't tear walls down on east and west. Wooden pole, flat roof with straw on  top.

6. Bill hill

7. Big straw pile

8. Granary - Bins for various grains. Preacher stayed in here while building the house. Tried to preach to Tom and his siblings here.

9. Well

10. Outhouse

The House --

One of the first buildings that Oscar would have built was a place to sleep, eat and stay out of the bad weather.  We have it that his and Anna's first home was a wooden and sod "shack." Some would call it a "shanty." I haven't yet found a photo of this structure although I have read that as his family grew, Oscar added on to it a few times. To learn more of this kind of dwelling, ask your favorite web search engine about "North Dakota sod house" and you'll see many examples.

By 1920 the crops were large enough that Oscar had been able to set aside funds to build their first wooden structured house.

IMAGE: New house for Oscar and Anna Ostrom. Located on
the Ostrom homestead northeast of Douglas, ND. From the
photo collection of Edwin J. Ostrom

Date photo taken: 1925 

Location: Oscar Ostrom’s 160 acre homestead house built in 1920 east northeast of Douglas, ND.

Occasion: Oscar and Anna's second house [after the shanty]

Photographer:  Anna Brekke Ostrom

Notes from Oscar's son Edwin "Tom" Ostrom:

1. The glassed in front porch faced south. The first house  was a wood and sod shanty located quite a ways away that was built in 1908 by Oscar Ostrom, Barney Roberts [a neighbor who would marry Oscar's sister-in-law, Christine Brekke] and Jake Swenson [a bachelor and neighbor to the south of Oscar's homestead]. That shanty was torn down or burned when this house was finished. An off-duty preacher, whose name is unfortunately forgotten, built this house in 1920 using only a handsaw and hammer. He lived in the barn on the site. Tom hauled all the gravel and lumber from the nearby town of Max with a team composed of two horses and a wagon. [ed: Tom was only 9 years old in 1920.] The builder/preacher taught Tom how to use a hand-saw efficiently by saying, “Let the saw do the work.”

 2. Oscar patterned the house after an existing one he liked in Douglas. The original color was brown and trimmed in white.

In an interview between Ed Ostrom and Ione Peterson Schooler on 12-23-2001. Cousin Ione shared, "My brother, Kenneth and I spent a lot of time here at the farm. The girls room was upstairs. We had  the two windows above the south facing porch. The boy’s room was on the opposite end. Once Uncle Oscar caught Verna smoking upstairs."

Ione Peterson Schooler said Anna put blankets on the inside of the windows of the porch when there was a hail storm for protection from broken glass. Oscar caught Ione, Verna and Mabel smoking home-rolled cigarettes out the second story window above the front porch. [Living] said he and Arvid peed out the second story north window.  [Kids will be kids, no matter the time in history.]

Social Events --

Getting with others for a break from the continual work was also an important part to the folks who lived on the prairie.  On occasion the family would all don their freshly laundered good clothes and get together with others. It might be a dance, a picnic, a church festival or just a visit to the neighbors but that is when photos are often taken. I found this photo of Oscar and Anna's daughters exceptional.
Look how tickled little Verna is and how watchful the older Julia appears.

IMAGE: (L) Julia Ostrom (b. 1910) and (r) Verna Ostrom
(b. 1917). Circa 1917, in barn yard of Ostrom homestead.
Photo from collection of Edwin J. Ostrom.

I am so glad you joined me this week and I hope you enjoyed the story. Please plan to stop by next week when we will learn more about Oscar and his family.

The URL for this post is: http://homefolktales.blogspot.com/2016/03/farming-in-ward-county-nd.html.

Copyright (c) 2016, Darlene M. Steffens. All rights reserved.

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