Lee Epps

Blackcap sauce over cooked rice was an original family recipe and “comfort food” on a Houston County farm on South Ridge in the 1940s. Most food, including berries, came from the family garden, but blackcaps (small black raspberries resembling caps) were a rare wild treat.

Delivering milk all over Spring Grove before school was his first job, earning $2 a week. In 1930, that had the purchasing power that $38 has in 2024. During the Great Depression, many jobs were lost. Any job was better than no job, especially for a schoolboy like Mervin Dvergsten. Although on stage in all the high school plays and musicals, Dvergsten worked many jobs during high school, Class of 1933.

Moist air was good for wool is what wool buyer John Redding told teenager Cliff Orr, who had asked why there were so many pails of water in the shed near the railroad stockyards. It was May or June, about 1909, and “market day” in Houston, Minn. About 15 years old, Cliff had the job of driving the “two-seater” horse-drawn buggy that transported five women, including his sister, mother and aunt into town.

Houston Girls Flag Football 2024. Left to right, in back: Coach Joffre Pedretti, Lydia Pedretti, Makenna Pedretti, Caidence Frauenkron, Claire Frauenkron, Aubryana Boldt, Jaycie Ronnenberg, Ainsley Rice, Olivia Yohe, Julia Swenson, Karlee Frauenkron and Coach Dale Moga. In front: Emily Baumann, Delana Stampka, Kayla Klunder, Bella Rodriguez, Ellasyn Carrier and Aspen Peterson. Photo submitted

The 2023 high school volleyball season saw Mabel-Canton (14-0, 36-3) win its second straight Section 1A title and make state for a second straight year. Caledonia (9-1, 28-7) won the Section 1AA title and also made state. Each took fourth on the big stage. Fillmore Central (8-2, 23-8) was 1A runner-up, Chatfield (10-0, 26-3) made the 1AA final four, and Spring Grove (12-2, 22-7) also won 20-plus matches. LeRoy-Ostrander (11-3, 19-11), Grand Meadow (11-3, 14-13), Lanesboro (7-7, 14-10), and Rushford-Peterson (4-6, 15-13) won more than they lost while Kingsland (5-9, 8-18) and Houston (4-10, 6-22) were below five-hundred. Chatfield won the TRC, M-C the SEC-East, and L-O and GM split the SEC-West. Six kids from the above schools made All-State. M-C, Chatfield and SG specifically return talented teams while strong programs Caledonia and FC will have to retool. Four of the All-State players return. It again should be a strong season of volleyball for the Journal-covered teams.

An abundance of wood and water, especially water power, brought about the birth of many commun-ities, such as Sheldon in Houston County, Minnesota. The village was named for Julius Sheldon who came from Suffield, Conn., and impressed with the excellent water power, purchased land. In 1853, John Brown a native of Scotland built the first dwelling and took advantage of the water power by establishing the first sawmill in the township. John Phelps constructed a grist and flour mill nearby.

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.