Lee Epps

There was not much happening on one lazy summer Sunday afternoon in the 1930s when several (eight or nine) girls went for a walk down the dusty road in Houston County leading out of Sheldon toward Houston. Their usual turn-around point was Hank Johnson’s driveway, one mile out of Sheldon. As they approached that location, the older girls began talking about Hank Johnson’s watermelon patch, the epitome of melon patches in Beaver Creek Valley – and evidently, far beyond. With melons being ripe at the time, mouths began to water, and thoughts turned to how wonderful one would taste after a summer Sunday stroll near Sheldon. A melon could be purchased, but no one had funds for fruit.

“Played cards, checkers, dominoes in the evening before the radio came around. Then we listened to the radio, “answered Ilyn Ingvalson Musser (born 1910) when asked about recreation during her youth on a Houston County farm southwest of Spring Grove.

History has surely been written about the resourceful, the successful, the achievers. However, there were those, who also extraordinary, accomplished absolutely nothing of historical significance. But they often, for good or bad, contributed to the everyday experiences of their neighbors. Local Houston, Minn., historian and author Ingrid Julsrud wrote about not only what she termed “the most distinguished citizens” of her hometown but also those “from the opposite end of the social ladder.” She recalled from her youth during the first two decades of the 1900s, three who might be considered misfits who nevertheless were “prominent.” Two, in later times, might be termed retarded, handicapped or underprivileged, but those words were not used during their lifetimes.

In the early 1900s, there was a throng of men in front of Dave Schleich’s saloon, promoting a petition be presented to the village council, to prevent automobiles from being driven on the streets of Caledonia. During those horse-and-buggy days, newfangled motorized vehicles scared the horses, which would bolt away, thereby endangering the safety and possibility the lives of those on horseback or on foot.

One of the first two automobiles in Houston, Minn., was the 1908 International Harvester Auto-Buggy, belonging to Dave Lord. Children were enthralled by that amazing machine, which looked much like a two-seated buggy heretofore pulled by a team of horses. The tires were small and made of hard runner about as big around as a one-inch garden hose. The vehicle had two seats, which were elevated, probably to avoid dust or the splashing of mud or water. There were no fenders.

“We never heard of trick or treat,” wrote local historian Ingrid Julsrud (born 1900) about her childhood in Houston, Minn., during the early 1900s. However, on Halloween, she and her childhood friends did dress up “funny” to visit their neighbors to have them guess who they were. She recalled Halloween being not as much for children as for “grownups who played pranks around town.”

Hard-working farmers in the late 19th Century (late 1800s) needed no extra exercise, but recreation was good for the mind and spirit as well as the body. Among adult pioneer men, hunting, target shooting and bowling were among popular pursuits.

During pioneer days of the late 1800s in southeast Minnesota, fishing and hunting were more necessities than recreation. However, as well as securing food for the family table, each did provide enjoyment. Other activities, mostly on Sundays, existed only for recreation, two of which – target shooting and bowling – along with hunting, were featured last week. Considering this week: fishing and sledding plus competition in horseshoe throwing and baseball. William J. Langen (1869-1960) left an invaluable written memoir of those olden days.

“Commies” were not communists, but there were those who “lost their marbles.” The idiom “lose your marbles,” thought to have originated in the United States in the late 1800s, referred to someone behaving in such a silly or strange manner that they might have become insane. But some boys of that era literally lost some or all their marbles in competition with their companions. In the game of marbles, it was part of “playing for keeps” and might have been the origin of the idiom that has long outlived the popularity of the game.

Some thriving villages in southeast Minnesota, established in the 1850s and 1860s, especially those served by stagecoaches on territorial roads, met their demise when bypassed by the first railroad tracks in the late 1870s. Contrarily, the village of Newhouse was founded by the Caledonia, Mississippi & Western Railroad Company, which built a station and grain elevator in Spring Grove Township, one and half miles north of the Iowa state line and about halfway between the villages of Spring Grove and Mabel.