Listen to the Quiet: Part 6

What are the memories that warm the heart after the years have swept past? Is it not the simple things? . . . and so it is with the Kientz family.

Fifty years ago, the town of Shelby, Mont., was rolling out the red carpet in preparation for the World’s Heavyweight Championship fight between Gibbons and Dempsey. The main road, which is the route of Highway 2 now, was experiencing muddy conditions, so the traffic was rerouted north. The sparsely-traveled Frenchman Creek Road became a bypass road for many travelers en route to the fight and the Kientz home overlooking this road became a “ringside seat.”

Threshing machines or separators, as they were sometimes called, were a frequent sight since there was more and more cropland in the area. Otto was on many threshing crews and for several years managed entire outfits himself, such as Jess Miller’s.

At this particular time, Otto’s in-laws once again came to visit. John Tollefson, who owned a car, brought the Prechels out from Saco. Lizzie’s dad was then hired by Mark Wright to pitch bundles. “He wasn’t too old, about 70, and he worked like a good fellow,” remarked Otto. In 1924, Otto ran George Mellen’s threshing machine, “a big outfit, 36-inch cylinder.” This rig was followed by a cook car borrowed from Mauchs. This crew was fortunate enough to have their own cook, a lady by the name of Mrs. Goldman. The threshers started at the Saco flat where George Knudson Jr. now lives. Others in the area who hired the crew were Roggness, Breipohls, Fred Erickson and others. After finishing on the flat, they went north and crossed the river and threshed all along the Frenchman Creek for various neighbors. Another time, Otto ran Martin Hanson’s separator, going west in the Forks area, threshing for Otto Schleunner, Stan McNamara and Sam Gater, “Black Sam,” only to mention a few.

It was this same year, 1924, but on another threshing crew that “Rattlesnake Olson,” one of those men who had helped Otto locate on his homestead, met his death by falling off a loaded bundle wagon and being run over. This occurred on the Jim Whiteman place, now occupied by George Soennichsens.

After an absence of 13 years, Minnesota became the destination for a trip in June of 1926. This was a surprise venture, “We didn’t tell anyone that we were coming and we didn’t tell anyone we were going,” said Otto. The family camped and picnicked along the way. With a tent which fitted over the car and which extended 6 feet away from the vehicle, everyone managed nicely. Otto and Lizzie slept outside the car, protected by the extended tent while the two little girls slept inside the car. This was a most practical arrangement, enabling the family to roll up bedding and tent and depart early in the morning while Leona and Luella slept undisturbed. Whenever their route took them anywhere close to a city, they managed to travel during the early morning hours, thus avoiding traffic. You can well imagine what a delight this was for the tousled-headed, sleep country girls, peering from the Model T Ford car, trying their best to absorb every detail of the new sights along the way.

To those unfamiliar with a 1914 Model T car, it can be described as barely adequate, as there was no door on the driver’s side, plus cloth curtains and eisenglass side windows. [Note: The material was celluloid, although people referred to it as isinglass.] Otto claims that you could tell the speed you were going by the amount of noise made by the flapping of the windows! The travelers experienced many flats during their trip and once the connecting rod went out. A replacement was purchased right there at Worthington and Otto put the rod in right there in the park and they were soon ready to continue their trip.

In preparation for the trip, Otto had constructed a regular cupboard, which fit into the opening on the driver’s side and which rested on the running board. The cupboard could be raised and served as a table in this position. This handy invention was also the storage cupboard for their food as they traveled. A toolbox, which was standard equipment for this type of automobile, also rested on one of the running boards.

This 1914 Model T Ford car had been originally owned by Otto’s brother-in-law, his oldest sister’s husband, who had traded it in on a Chevy. Walter Kientz, in turn, bought it for $100, drove it out here to Montana and resold it to Otto, also for $100. Years later this car was sold for $15 and is in excellent condition somewhere in Minnesota once again – a collector’s item whose present owner wouldn’t think of parting with it, although he has been offered a good sum for it.

Strange as it may seem, some of the Minnesota relations gave the Kientz family a cool reception upon their arrival at Blue Earth. Not recognizing them, one person threatened them with a hoe and another said he would call the police when Otto insisted on camping there. Even the little girls receiving the brush-off when they would go up to the door of the relative and ask for cookies or maybe supper. It was all a practical joke, instigated by Otto with his grassroots humor, and still is amusing [to the] relations whenever they get together and reminisce how the Minnesotan relations didn’t recognize their own blood relations from Montana. This vacation was an enjoyable and rare treat for [the Kientzes,] who had been away from the state of their birth for 13 years, and for Leona and Luella, who had never met their relations before, with the exception of their maternal grandparents and an uncle.

There were 40 first cousins of Otto’s on his dad’s side, and almost as many of his mother’s side. They, along with their offsprings, added up to quite a group. Lizzie had very few relatives except her immediate small family. Although Kientzes stayed six weeks away from Montana, it was virtually impossible to visit everyone. On their way back home, they stopped off at Tolley, N.D., to visit Lizzie’s youngest brother, Arthur Prechel, who was a bachelor at that time. Leona said she can still recall the taste of that delicious sausage which they had for breakfast at her uncle’s home. During an outdoors band concert at Tolley, Otto spied a cousin who had lived in earlier years at Blue Earth, so this also was a pleasant surprise to once again renew this acquaintance.

When the Kientzes arrived back home to the prairie, they were greeted by a mother hen and several new offsprings, which had hatched during their absence, much to the amusement of the two girls. The Whitbreds had done the chicken chores during their absence of six weeks.

Neighborliness was at an all-time high during these early years. The homesteaders assisted one another with different types of chores such as butchering, putting up ice, etc. One winter day the Hess children, Maud, who is Mrs. Ernest Erickson, Mary, who was the late Mrs. Herman Knuth, and their brother, Cecil, skied over to their neighbors to the north. Tied onto their skies was a package of pork – a “thank you” to Otto for helping with the butchering of a hog.

The midnight ride of Paul Revere seems like children’s play in comparison to an errand of mercy made by Otto upon the request of a neighbor. An elderly neighbor, Mrs. Andrew Hjort, had passed away one night and so Otto bundled up, saddled up a horse and rode into Saco, the distance of 23 miles – this wasn’t April weather as Paul Revere enjoyed during his famous ride – but this was in the fierce cold of December to deliver the message to the A. J. Erickson family, as some of the Ericksons had moved to Saco for the winter. Mrs. Erickson was the daughter of the deceased, Mrs. Hjort. Otto said he could hear Mrs. Erickson cry over the loss of her mother during the night. Otto shared a bed with Harold Erickson until the next morning. Consider the fact that the Kientz family had no way of knowing if Otto had reached Saco safely or was lying somewhere frozen to death in the subzero temperature.

In these days, it was taken for granted that a physician would travel to his needy patients, regardless of the miles involved. Once Dr. Minnick, living at Saco, was called to deliver a baby on the east side of the Frenchman. The central operator, for the Mutual Telephone Company, Mrs. Herman Knuth on Turkey Track, was not at home, so Jansey Tieden, who understood the workings of the phone system, manipulated the wires for this emergency and was able to reach Dr. Minnick and ask him to come out north to the home of Walter Kientz. In due time, Dr. Minnick arrived and was met by the expectant father. They rode double on horseback across the raging spring water at the Frenchman Creek, but by the time they reached the home, the baby had been born. Lizzie, sister-in-law of the new mother, had everything nicely under control so Dr. Minnick took a nap before he returned to Saco. A typical day in the life of a rural doctor.

Helen DePuydt is a regular contributor to the Courier and a member of a homesteading family in the Saco area. All of her stories are true.