MINNESOTA AND ITS COMMON LOON

Old Trunks would have thought more Loon legends would be available on the Internet to weave into the pictures from the lake this last weekend. One would think with its solid bones, its big feet, and its inability to walk on land would offer more that a story about the Native Americans throwing them into the water because they were clumsy on land and always knocking things over.

For all of us who have heard the cries, the coos, and the warning songs, we are enamored by them. Even Paul, a stoic, mayor-like person who lives next to us at the lake, was out with his camera taking pictures of a loon on her nest. He emailed me his picture, which was taken in the same place I had taken mine!

Every lake appears to have a nesting pair. At a lake with an earthen launch, and no cabins along its shoreline we found a pair back in a cove. I laid down my rod and watched and photographed these magnificently marked water fowl as it preened, scooted along the water, raised up and spread its wings. The Loon didn't seem to care if we watched it clown about as Tom moved the boat about to catch the best angle of the sun on their jet black and snowy white feathers. It was a magnificent experience; I found myself holding my breath. When we stopped watching, my arms ached from holding the camera steady on that windy, water rolling day.

It isn't only Minnesota that has Loons. They can be found in Wisconsin, Michigan , even Wyoming talks about them. In the winter, they go south and to the Pacific area as in Washington State. Here they are in their winter coats and look nothing like they do in the summer.

Now, we will wait for the hatch and watch as the parents carry them on their backs. The parents will feed them for about three months. It is said they will fly in eleven weeks.

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WHAT IS THAT WABBA WABBA?

He came in from outside with a puzzled look on his face. He asked if I had heard it. No, I had not.

"You didn't hear that wabba wabba?"

Again I said, "No, I did not."

It was early morning and I had yet to drink my coffee.

He went back outside and walked around the deck looking up into the sky.

Again he came in and asked if I had heard that wabba wabba sound.

The day passed with another look to the sky and the question about the sound from above.

Fishing came and went. The wind was strong and the bite was poor; something about a frontal system coming in. Rather than took to the sky for wabba, wabba, I scanned each cranny of the lake of many islands for loons. Certainly 275 acres were enough to host at least a pair.

We did find the loons and watched and photographed one clowning and preening for a possible mate for most of an hour. Although watching a bass walk on the water is truly exciting for me, photography is more likely ahead of it. Heaven.

Clouds came up and with five minutes to spare, we were driving back to camp in a big drop rain. It stopped just as we pulled in and I came inside to upload the pictures to the computer and dump them out of the memory stick; promising as soon as I previewed once, I would make dinner.

Tom was outside parking the boat and pulling out the tackle. He came in and asked for the camera. He had heard the wabba-wabba and wanted to get a picture.

The bird flew high, in circles. It went up high in the air with its tail scrunched, then dove with it acting as a rudder. We made additional notes about it, it had short wings, a white under belly, and it made a wabba-wabba sound. The photograph only showed a speck in the middle of the image.

I was invited outdoors. I listened as he pointed out where the bird was. I head wabba wabba. It was real. A bird book in the rack showed no book with those sort of clues. Every page I turned I look at the sound of the bird on the page. Kit, cheer, groans, grunts, clicks, but no wabba-wabba.

Still on the quest, Tom took the high power field glasses out and watched. Another clue, it had a long beak like a shore bird. Tom picked up the book again and read, not the sounds they make, rather the mating ceremony.

It appears that early in the nuptials, the female does the flying and diving first. The wabba-wabba we heard was not 'talking' rather the sound of the air threw the feathers as the dove. There was no sound as they ascended. Our little bird book had not failed us, it was a SNIPE!

Upon arriving home, I looked in the BIRDS OF AMERICA book published by Double Day and Company, Inc. in 1917. The illustrations are beautiful paintings and the information is none richer that our book.

Have a mystery? Stay on task.

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TAKE A HIKE

Daddy walked to town from Rosewood when he wanted to go. It is not known why this was his choice, why didn't he take the train? By foot, it was about a 2 1/2 hour walk. Different, isn't it as we crawl into our cars and drive at 75mph on the Interstate and be border to border in a state like North Dakota in the same amount of time.

Two and a half hours to me as a child was forever. Driving 300 miles from Minneapolis to Thief River Falls was a great time to sleep. But as soon as we got to Plummer, that last stretch of 17 miles dragged by.

I was one of those kids who stood on the hump on the floor in the back seat and jabbered away in my dad's ear. "Daddy, Daddy, how far is it now?" "Daddy, Daddy, I have to go to the bathroom!" Or "Daddy, what kind of car is that?"

It was mostly two lane highway most of the way home. The cars were new or nearly new and he did drive hard passing everything that got in his way. He was, I thought a good driver, although mother seemed to make movements that said otherwise.

There was a gas station/cafe in Detroit Lakes back in the fifties. We always stopped there on the way home. It meant gas, bathroom, and if you were hungry--get something to eat, (never in the car in those days). That is eat and have a car moving.

I was thinking about my parents today when we were out on the lake and how, on Sunday afternoons, on a day like today, sunny and warm, mother would pack a little lunch and fill the insulated container with coffee and we would take a drive out by Rosewood somewhere.

We didn't stop to visit, rather, they would stop somewhere and the two of them would drink coffee from red plastic cups which were unscrewed from the insulated bottles which were, of course, glass lined. After they were done, mother would pack everything up in the plaid plastic zipper top tote.

On the way home, we would stop at the Rosewood Store and daddy would put on a few dollars worth of gas from an old fashion pump with ball on the top. Nothing so special as that was seen in Thief River Falls!

As a child, I thought Rosewood was ahead of the town where I lived. It had a sleepy sort of Sunday noon atmosphere not found in the city. I knew that daddy had grown up there and I have yet to understand the strong pull that brought him to the area so often on warm, sunny Sundays.

In my travels to cemeteries in the New Solum area, I have tried to 'feel' my way along all the county roads and wonder if I have ever been on them before. Most of the area remains foreign to me.

When daddy and I went on those drives by ourselves, we always went visiting. Where was the Myrom farm? Where was Olaf Hall's house where Babe the pony was farmed out and we went to see her colt, born in late summer with a full curly like coat. Where was Jashaw's? Where were all the red barns my grandfather built?

I seem to always know where my grandparent's lived in Rosewood. I can always find where Gust Opseth's house was, later to be Anderson's. I can find the school's and the Rindal Church.

Personally, I have never walked ten miles at one time in my life. Cycle, yes. I asked my sweet Thomas about it, he walked a lot as a young man and didn't think any thing of walking several miles because that is what was done. Maybe daddy felt the same way.

Remember your knapsack!

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KILLDEER

Although Old Trunks is on the hunt for pictures of swans and eagles, one can not over look the precocious Killdeers that build their nest in the rocks in the lake neighbors garden.

On out way to fish at Little Sand earlier, we saw the mother and three babies running amok in a parking lot and into the grass on either side.

Not many birds are born with their eyes open and as soon as their downy feathers dry and off and running, although a bit wobbly. Killdeer do this. I wonder if baby chickens do that.

They are 'cute' little birds with banded chests and the markings of the chicks are the same as the adults, which is something else one doesn't see often.

Killdeer are from the shorebird sort of family; although they might live on the shore, they appear to mix well with man and may live on roads, and in parks in busy areas.

Ever seen one? If you have, I am sure you remember how they run in short bursts one way and then another.

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May 28, 1943 DIONNE QUINTUPLETS

Five identical girls were born near Corbeil, Ontario, today to French-Canadian couple Oliva and Elzire Dionne. At the time, the odds of giving birth to quintuplets was 57-million-to-1 and medical experts were not aware of a case in which all quintuplets previously survived more than 50 minutes. Remember, this was 1934. This was NOT fertility drugs nor neo natal units.

They are identical and were created from one single egg cell. Dr. Allan Roy Dafoe is credited with the birth of the quintuplets. However, originally, his diagnosis of Elzire was only a "fetal abnormality". He delivered the babies with the help of two midwives, Aunt Donalda and Madam Benoit Lebel, who were retrieved by Oliva Dionne in the middle of the night. The births were registered in nearby Corbeil. The order that they were born is not known. All that is known is that the three bigger ones were born first. The babies were not weighed or measured. The quintuplets were immediately wrapped in cotton sheets and old napkins and laid in the corner of the bed. Dr. Dafoes didn't think that the babies would survive. At the time of the birth, the father could not be found and shortly after, Elzire went into shock. Dr. Dafoe thought that Elzire was also going to die, but she was better within two hours. The babies were kept in an ordinary wicker basket borrowed from the neighbors with heated blankets. They were soon brought into the kitchen and set by the open door of the stove to keep warm. One by one, they were taken out of the basket and massaged with olive oil. Every two hours, for the first twenty-four, they were only given sweetened water. By the second day they were moved to a laundry basket, which was slightly larger, and heated with hot-water bottles. They were watched constantly and often had to be roused when it seemed that they were losing life. They were then fed with seven-twenty formula. It consisted of cow's milk, boiled water, two spoonfuls of corn syrup, and one or two drops of rum for stimulant. News spread quickly and the family benefited from much assistance during the first several months. At four months, they were taken from their parents.

"Mrs. Dionne, 24 years old, and the mother of six other children, one of whom died, was stated by the physician to be in good condition," an article in the Winnipeg Free Press read on May 29, 1934. "Birth of the quintuplets, announced by Dr. Dafoe, created no great fuss on the Dionne farm, two miles from this northern Ontario settlement, which is nine miles southeast of North Bay. When reporters arrived Monday afternoon everything was quiet at the home, and the 31-year-old father was busy about his usual tasks."

The births, which came at the height of the Depression, certainly worried the Dionne family since money was already tight. However, shortly after the quintuplets were born, the parents lost control of the babies when the Ontario government appointed a board of guardians to manage their welfare. The five identical girls were put on public display and didn't even live with the rest of their family until 1943. Movies were made about them, companies used them as a hook in their advertisements, and books have been written about them. The three survivors sued the government for taking them from their parents for nine years. For a fee, one could watch them play in a fenced yard or from behind a glass. Although their parents did not have direct physical contact with them, they were close by; father sold souvenirs while mother sold 'magic rocks' from the farm for 50 cents each.

Each girl had a color and a symbol to mark what was hers. Annette's color was red with a maple leaf. Cecile's color was green and her design a turkey. Emilie had white and a tulip, while Marie had blue and a teddy bear, and Yvonne had pink and a bluebird.

Emilie, died in 1954 at age 20 of an epileptic seizure. It is said she was in the convent and was left by a sister who was to be watching her. She had a seizure, rolled over and smothered in her pillow.

Marie died at home at age 36 of a blood clot in the brain. Marie was living alone in an apartment and her sisters were worried because they hadn't heard from her in several days. One of the other sisters' husbands broke down the window and found Marie who had been dead for days. The coroner determined it was a blood clot in the brain.

Yvonne died of cancer in Montreal on June 23, 2001

Cecile is 75

Annette is 75

For videos of the girls, go to U TUBE and keyboard Dionee Quintuplets.

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AND THIS IS THE BREATH THAT GIVES LIFE TO OLD TRUNKS

As those of you who follow Old Trunks, you know most of what I have written about comes from the New Solum Township, Marshall County area. My great grandparents lived in the area, as did the children's ancestors on their father's side.

Recently I received the following note:



I am a descendant from Torinus (Welgaard) Mellem and Pauline Mellem both were born in Trysil Norway. Torinus 10/10/1854 and Pauline 9/5/1856. They came to Strip (Rosewood) Minnesota in 1884.Torinus parents were Mr. and Mrs. Thore Mellem. and Pauline's parents were Mr. and Mrs. Peder Mellem. Out of their children they had a 5th child named Peter who was my grandfathers father. He married Caroline Lappegaard 10/18/1907. She was born 2/2/1890 and he was born 3/21/1887 and died in ND 9/22/1966.Out of Caroline and Peter Mellem's children their 4th son Clarence Rudolph Mellem was my grandfather.However in looking for information of the brothers and sisters and parents of both Torinus Welgaard Mellem and Pauline Mellem I have hit a brick wall, if you have any information I would greatly appreciate it I have been searching endlessly to find more ancestry further back.

What I adore about this is Peter talked about in the above paragraph was a wonderful fellow who was married to a great gal. To Shirley and I, they were Pete and Lena. After Peter died in 1966, Lena became Mrs. Pete.

Thank you Kendra!

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HARRY MYROM HAD A DAUGHTER

Mardella Myra Myrom was born March 7, 1923 on the family farm in Norden Township, Pennington County, the daughter of Harry and Minnie Myrom. She was baptized and confirmed into the Lutheran faith in Thief River Falls. She attended country school, then Lincoln High School in Thief River Falls. Her funeral happened on 26 May of this year.

I did not know Mardella but I knew her grandfather, Harry Myrom. What a wonderful, soft spoken man he was. The first time I saw him work his gentle personality was in the winter of 55-56. We had ponies and needed additional hay as the winter was longer than usual.

Daddy had known Harry for years, and according the the Rosewood News, worked the farm for him at one time, (perhaps during planting or harvesting).

My dad, uncle, and I went to Myrom's to pick up wild hay that had been cut and bundled by Harry. The hay was stacked away from the house and my uncle, who was driving the flat bed construction truck, would back up and go forward with the chained tires to make a path to the stacked hay.

Harry had adopted a yellow lab from some people in town. The dog had gotten ugly and since it was a menace to the neighborhood, it needed to be out of town. Harry took the dog in and changed her diet taking away all meat and the dog became a wonderful dog as all labs are. The dog was helping and got in the rut the wheels had made. Uncle did not know she was there and by the time he stopped, the dog's leg was broken.

Harry gathered her up in his arms and took her to the basement of the house where he talked to her gently and set her leg and splinted it. Afterwards we had lunch in the kitchen where Harry drank his coffee off the saucer which had been poured from the cup.

Harry had a heavy brogue, as many people in the New Solum area had. Once he came to our house on the farm to clean the fish daddy had caught. Harry knew how to fillet fish and asked mother for a thin knife, but he said, "Tin knife". Not able to give him a tin knife, mother invited him to look through the cutlery drawer to find a good knife for filleting fish. He did find one and after that, is was forever called the 'tin knife'.

Old Trunks takes this moments to salute the family of Myrom and Sabo.

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