OLEO!!!

I am dedicating this post to all of us who are butter eaters and NOT oleo margarine eaters.

Although many of us raised in Minnesota knew oleo to be a off white blob in a sealed bag with a red M&M like button somewhere, oleo in 1918, was being sold.

It is said, according to Minnesota Historical Society, Helen Richardson papers, that her father found out that more oleo was being sold than butter AND it was being used in the dining rooms at the University of Minnesota where his daughter, Helen, was attending.

When her father stormed into the deans office with blood in his eye, the dean told him he knew nothing of it and if the teachers and dining room where using it to cut cost and keep down the price of board, so be it.

Mr. McGuire insisted the students be allowed to vote to have which ever they wanted. (Underlined, Underlined). The vote was taken, 40 voted for butter and 180 voted for oleo. ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

Shirley and I will stick to the butter, Thank you very much! We will say, "Well, butter my biscuits NOT oleo my biscuits.

e

A CHRISTMAS TREE

Old Trunks is looking at a picture of a group of people looking in awe at a Christmas tree in 1912.

There are fourteen people in the picture and none of them are tots. That surprises me because the toys under the tree are for kids. Little puppies and little dishes as well as a book with Scrooge across the front. There are also several pictures of people, unwrapped in ornate frames. Oh! I see a xylophone! There are cloth bags hanging on the tree.

The decorations are strings of popcorn and berries. Let me try to explain another decoration: Do you remember making May baskets by rolling paper to be shaped like an ice cream cone? Those are plentiful on the tall tree which brushes a twelve foot ceiling. Another decoration is those honey comb bells, which as we all know, don't fair well from year to year.

Perhaps these people are enthralled because the lit candles are glowing. Maybe they all have a section they are to watch in case of fire!

Most of the women are dressed in high collar dresses with there hair in an upsweep. All the men are dressed in suits with high collars. All the men's hair from this angle of the picture are sheared above their ears. Of the two younger men, one wears a loosely tied tie, he is wearing knickers, heavy socks and work like boots. Beyond the setting of the tree is a bed with a picture of a women and a small child in an oval frame as well as a picture of a flower in a square frame.

If you have pictures of your family around a tree, what is there? What can you imagine. I am in a funk that the kids that will get the toys aren't in the room to see what the tree looks like! Perhaps this was the era when the tree was put up on Christmas eve while the children had visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads!

Joy to all that enter in.

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VEGETABLE COMPOUND

Old Trunks wants you to think about what female maladies were the most popular in the early 1900's and if you are a nurse, if they are still the most common complaints. OR if you are a female, did you have or do you have these complaints.

Lydia Pinkham put her name on bottles of vegetable compounds which is a positive cure. Yes, readers, another snake oil story!!!

It is for all those painful complaints and weaknesses to the female population.

All ovarian troubles
Inflammation and ulcers
Falling and displacements
Spinal weakness adapted to the change of life
Dissolve and expel tumors from the uterus
(includes cancerous tumors)
Faintness
Flatulence
Destroys craving for stimulants
Relieves weakness of the stomach
Cures bloating
Cures head aches
Cures nervous prostration
Cures general debility
Cures sleeplessness
Cures indigestion
Cures depression

That feeling of bearing down, causing pain, weight and backache, is always permanently cured by its use. It will, at all times and under all circumstances acts in harmony with the laws that govern the female system.

Six bottles for $5.00. Sent by mail in the form of pills or lozenges on receipt of price. Send for pamphlet.

Question is, does it make you hair shine?

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SNAKE OIL AGAIN???

By now you know that Old Trunks loves snake oil stories.

RESTORED MANHOOD

Dr. Mott's Nerverine Pills

The greatest remedy for nervous prostration and all nervous disorders of the generative organs of either sex, such as nervous prostration, failing or lost manhood, impotency, nightly emissions, youthful errors, mental worry, excessive use of tobacco or opium, which lead to consumption and insanity. Old Trunks wonders what youthful errors means.

For every $5.00 we give you a written guarantee to cure or refund the money. Sold at $1.00 per box, 6 boxes for $5.00.

Maybe we should buy a few gallons for a jolly holly day? What do you think?

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Hinckley Fire of 1894

Fargo had a fire in a 128 year old house which had been converted to four apartments. While a man slept in his apartment on the top floor after taking his daughter to school, a person on the floor directly below, tossed his cigarette onto the balcony and the leaves caught fire. The sleeping man got out. Fortunately, his daughter was away. The house is a loss. The people in the apartments are displaced.

But what happened to people from the 1890's when most people owned their own homes. Granted it may not be lavish, often it was referred to as a shack, nevertheless, a home is a home.

From the fire museum in Hinckley, MN we learned Minnesota's Governor appointed a commission for the relief of fire sufferers. If you had insurance, you did not qualify. Although insurance was slow to come to families that were burned out.

It was September of 1894 when the little town of Hinckley was destroyed and several smaller communities. Four hundred people were killed. The train managed to get 276 people out of town; five minutes after the train crossed the bridge, it collapsed.

The train caught on fire. People got off and started to run. One person, thinking he had left his suitcase on the train, went back to get it. He was safe but found his family in a pile of dead people, including his family.

Let's talk about this relief fund.

The applications were as such:

Surname
A: Hanson
Given name
A: Mrs. Henry
Born at?
A: Sweden
Number of children?
A; 6: George, Frank, Harold, Walter, Hilda, and Baby 10 months.
Are you supporting others
A: No
Were any of your family hurt?
A: Yes, Husband burned to death
Where were your dead found, if any?
A: Hinckley, near house
By whom identified?
Residence at the time of the fire?
A: Hinckley
Length of time in Minnesota?
A: 13 years
Occupation?
A: Husband worked in saw mill
Business for yourself?
A: No
Owns his home?
A: Yes
If Mortgaged, for home much?
A: Owes $100
What property was destroyed by the fire?
A: House, barn, and contents. House $900, barn $300
Had insurance?
A: No
Had life insurance?
A: No
Had Accident insurance?
A: No
What property left and its value?
A: Two cows worth $50
Do you have property somewhere else?
A: No
Where are your relatives?
A: Hinckley, parents burned out
Can you get help from them?
A: No
Do you have an income?
A: No
Do you have pension?
A: No
Do you have pressing debts?
A: Yes, $35 in store bills
What are your needs?
A: Everything
What do you need most?
A: Home and clothing enough for the children for winter.

Mrs. Hanson requested transportation to North Branch for herself and six children. The six is crossed out and 5 inserted. What happened to the sixth child?

Was it

George 8
Frank 6
Harold 5
Walter 3
Hilda 2
or the ten month baby?

Did they get relief from the government? Yes, some. Most of the donations came from private funds.

We have all heard about fires. As Cliff Rye said, "You don't even have a toothbrush."

It is a good time to think about what we have and what others need. Don't you agree?

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WHO IS ROGER RANUM?

Ah, the mysteries of geneology.

Who was Roger Ranum? How is he connected or is he? The answer to the question is yes.

How do we know that? The obit in the Thief River Falls Times states his father was Stanley A Ranum, (1921-2005).

Stanley A Ranum was the son of Alfred and Hulda.

Alfred's parents were Knute N Ranum and Seri Dicken

Knute and Seri also had a son named Benhard, who was my grandfather.

Benhard and Julia had a son name Stanley K Ranum.

Stanley K Ranum and Ella Lundberg had Elodee

That makes Roger and I second cousins.

I didn't know this branch of the family. I knew there was another Stanley Ranum because at the time one addressed Christmas cards as Stan Ranum, City, we got their mail. Confusing as it was, mother and daddy almost always knew which SR the card belonged to. Mother would tape it up and resend it.

Roger was born in Thief River Falls: His father was born in Wannaska which is in Roseau County. Alfred and Hulda and later Alfred and Clara were the 'relatives from, (as grandpa would say), Rose ee o, County.

Ancestry can be confusing if one has a spouse die and a remarriage happens. Old Trunks would not venture to guess how many step children and half brothers and sisters there are, let alone and number of family members with the same name:

2 Lloyd
2 Stanley
2 Michael
2 Gregory
2 Knute

You are encouraged to keep an eye out for the double names, they are totally different people. It may be a good time to take a break from the bustle of Christmas and trace just one person.

Loving thoughts and prayers to the family of Roger Ranum

e

IT'S DECEMBER

It's December, and generations of families of our ancestors have been burning wood to keep warm; wood, that had been cut later in the fall, mostly soft wooded variety which did not burn has hard as oaks. Yet, they cut the wood near them hoping to cord up enough to last several months.

Although my family were not lumberjacks by trade, they all did, starting with Gust and Olaf, chop down trees and load them on the train cars to be shift south. Daddy did his share of logging around Itasca State Park as a young man.

I have a friend, who until this fall, burned wood to keep their house warm. It was the main source of heat although there were a couple of wall heaters to take off the chill if the fire in the wood furnace burned down. She stated last early last spring it would be the last year in the house. Old Trunks is certain you will understand why this statement was made, as her husband had a heart attack after lumber jacking one day. She kept him alive by beating on his chest. It was, like this part of the country can be, a stormy night and getting him to necessary attention on a blustery night added even more certain. Happily I can say, they are living in a home with central heat.

Daddy was raised in a house with heat only in the kitchen. The water pail in the kitchen was frozen over in the morning. He dedicated his life to have his children have a warm house with no drafts where you could play on the floor without ever being cold.

Daddy also told me that if I had a flat tire in the winter to drive home on the rim because he didn't want me subjected to the brutal cold and he promised he would do the same. One of those icy still nights when we lived on the farm one could hear a scraping sound. Someone was coming home on the rim. He said he walked to Thief River Falls from Rosewood in the winter and he vowed he would never be that cold again.

Everyone talks about the weather in this part of the country. Mother said it was important to know what it was like. Even in the summer. Okay, here I am, a product of North Dakota for ten years and have become, as my sweet Thomas, a wanna bee weather man!

Let's hope all of us have a warm winter. Shall we start talking about Christmas?

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