7/3/2009:
As we heard on the Wednesday, July 1st issue of "Dakota Datebook," the following story about Hazel Onerheim is taken from her personal notes and diaries that she kept until her death at age 99.
We pick up on Hazel's story in 1907, just after her father dies in Montana of typhoid fever.
Hazel's story reads as such, "It wasn't easy for my mother to raise five children alone in a city. After running a confectionary and several moves, my mother decided to go back to the Turtle Mountains in North Dakota, where she had left a homestead and log house. We lived in Perth for awhile before moving to the homestead. It was close to my Grandfather and Uncle Henry Hendrickson. My mother has a little insurance money left from my father, and she took in borders. We had a real cold house as I remember, but we kept healthy. We went to school in a log school house, which was three miles away."
Her story continues with, "We gradually got some cows and chickens. We were never hungry or without food. We had a country store two miles away where we could get the necessary groceries. We picked berries in the summer time and my mother always raised a garden."
"We were happy with simple entertainment. We didn't have a phone for many years as we were 12 miles from St. John. The 4th of July was always a big affair. We would take lunch and drive with horses to a lake. In the evening, there was a dance and fireworks."
Hazel continues with, "We had box socials in the winter and dances and masquerades. We had a shadow social at our church once where the girls would sit behind a curtain and the boys would "buy" the shadow. We made it a little hard for the boys because each girl would put on a man's big coat and crouch down so the boys couldn't tell who it was."
Her story goes on to say, "Some neighbors taught my sister and me how to chord on the guitar so we could sing. We also would chord to the violin players at dances. Nearly all of the boys could play the violin, self taught."
Hazel Onerheim's story reminds us that simple pleasures, and living simply, make life a joy.
Dakota Datebook written by Jill Whitcomb
Source: personal notes and diaries of Hazel Onerheim Schmid