Title
ALEX AND THE DINSDALES
Creator
Florence Dinsdale McEwen (Mrs. Wm. L.)
Coverage
TOWNSHIP 139N RANGE 96W
Text
ALEX AND THE DINSDALES
Alexander Augustus Dinsdale, as a lad of 22, fresh from the Moors of Yorkshire, England, followed his brother, Kit, to the United States in 1902, settling in Dickinson, N.D. His first occupation was clerking in the Dickinson Mercantile Store where men's clothing, groceries and meats were sold. Here he learned to be a meat cutter and a butcher. In 1969 Mary Daley Ser-vis wrote the writer, “Your dad and Archie Grantier were working in the Dickinson Mercantile Store which was next door to the Service Drug Store that is there now. At that time the corner store was Cart-wright's and was a dry goods store and groceries. I was going with Archie Grantier at the time and he and your dad were close friends. So that is why Archie and I were attendants at your folks’ wedding ” Both above mentioned stores were across from the N.P. depot. The two friends were clerking in the year 1904.
In 1907 Susie Jane Bird and Alexander A. Dinsdale were married in the home of her Uncle Frank and Aunt Ann Stone, which was built in 1902, in Dickinson for his family. This house now stands on the southwest corner of west First Street and Fifth Avenue. The avenue at that time was called Wales Street. The home is now occupied by the Dr. Guloien family.
Susie Bird was born in Osakis, Minn., in 1883, and came to Dickinson when a small child with her parents. Her father. J. B. Bird, who was a brother of her Aunt Ann, had a business on the southside of town. Susie graduated from Dickinson High School in 1902; there were ten graduates and each gave a recitation on a given topic. That summer Susie traveled to California to visit her mother, Mary Jane Finley Bird, where she attended the summer session at San Jose State College. Upon her return to Dickinson she taught school in the Green River area — traveling by horseback to and from school. Susie and Mrs. Noark were the only two teachers in the Woodrow Wilson School when it was first built on the southside as a public school in 1923.
Late in 1909 or early 1910, Susie and Alex moved to the Badlands north of Sentinel Butte and a few miles east of Westerheim to her father's ranch. They lived here for several years with baby Florence, and endured the rigors of ranch life of that time. (In 1960 the “root cellar" Alex built into the side of a butte was still there; the elements had not been too hard on it.) When her father moved back to Osakis, to oversee his father's 365 acre farm, Susie and Alex moved back to Dickinson.
With the advance of the automobile, Alex began his own business of delivering gasoline in bulk to farmers, using a red buckboard wagon and a team of horses. The writer often accompanied him with the bribe of a hershey bar.
When his brother, Christopher Moore Dinsdale, known as Kit, became city street commissioner, Alex took over Kit's coal business. The business flourished until the advent of natural gas from Montana. He still maintained the same office, but seed and feed became his principal business. This business, along with a sheep enterprise on the side, continued until his death in December 1948, at the age of 69.
Besides being a school teacher, Susie Dinsdale later played the organ for the Congregational Church, then on the southeast corner of First Avenue and West Second Street. Her daughter, Florence, remembers as a young child, of standing behind the organ and watching some boy or man pump the bellows of the organ so it would play. At the age of 74 Susie was singing in her church choir and still being a teacher, tutoring students in algebra in Santa Cruz, Calif. She passed away at the age of 84 in November 1968.
On July 24, 1924, A. A. (Alex) Dinsdale as grand master laid the cornerstone for the Odd Fellows Home in Devils Lake, N.D. The following June of 1925, he presided at the Grand Lodge session of the North Dakota Odd Fellows as grand master when the dedication of the Odd Fellows Home was held. He was the first grand master of that order to be elected from Dickinson.
Enjoying the family life with Susie and Alex were their children: Florence May Dinsdale, (Mrs. Wm. L. McEwen of Bakersfield, Calif.), who graduated as an June 1932; John Augustus Dinsdale, like his father, is a successful businessman of Dickinson. Two honors have been accorded him during his years in the gasoline business: elected state president of the Gaso-line Retailers Assocation and being named “Dealer of the Year”; Mary Jane Dinsdale (Mrs. O. J. Bag-genstoss of Minneapolis, Minnesota), was the would-be pianist of the family, but more importantly a graduate X-ray and medical technician.
In the past it has been written that “the old order giveth way to the new”, but our roots ever bind us to the land of our birth where memories are much alive with our youth of winter fun in the snow: tobogganing down “Graveyard Hill”, bobsledding around street corners behind a team of horses, stand-up sliding on the ice in the street gutters; of summer fun spent swimming in the NP dyke and out at “Skunk” Brown's. Thus we watch Dickinson grow beyond our imagination as we again visit from time to time with ever continuing interest.
By Florence Dinsdale McEwen (Mrs. Wm. L.)
Alexander Augustus Dinsdale, as a lad of 22, fresh from the Moors of Yorkshire, England, followed his brother, Kit, to the United States in 1902, settling in Dickinson, N.D. His first occupation was clerking in the Dickinson Mercantile Store where men's clothing, groceries and meats were sold. Here he learned to be a meat cutter and a butcher. In 1969 Mary Daley Ser-vis wrote the writer, “Your dad and Archie Grantier were working in the Dickinson Mercantile Store which was next door to the Service Drug Store that is there now. At that time the corner store was Cart-wright's and was a dry goods store and groceries. I was going with Archie Grantier at the time and he and your dad were close friends. So that is why Archie and I were attendants at your folks’ wedding ” Both above mentioned stores were across from the N.P. depot. The two friends were clerking in the year 1904.
In 1907 Susie Jane Bird and Alexander A. Dinsdale were married in the home of her Uncle Frank and Aunt Ann Stone, which was built in 1902, in Dickinson for his family. This house now stands on the southwest corner of west First Street and Fifth Avenue. The avenue at that time was called Wales Street. The home is now occupied by the Dr. Guloien family.
Susie Bird was born in Osakis, Minn., in 1883, and came to Dickinson when a small child with her parents. Her father. J. B. Bird, who was a brother of her Aunt Ann, had a business on the southside of town. Susie graduated from Dickinson High School in 1902; there were ten graduates and each gave a recitation on a given topic. That summer Susie traveled to California to visit her mother, Mary Jane Finley Bird, where she attended the summer session at San Jose State College. Upon her return to Dickinson she taught school in the Green River area — traveling by horseback to and from school. Susie and Mrs. Noark were the only two teachers in the Woodrow Wilson School when it was first built on the southside as a public school in 1923.
Late in 1909 or early 1910, Susie and Alex moved to the Badlands north of Sentinel Butte and a few miles east of Westerheim to her father's ranch. They lived here for several years with baby Florence, and endured the rigors of ranch life of that time. (In 1960 the “root cellar" Alex built into the side of a butte was still there; the elements had not been too hard on it.) When her father moved back to Osakis, to oversee his father's 365 acre farm, Susie and Alex moved back to Dickinson.
With the advance of the automobile, Alex began his own business of delivering gasoline in bulk to farmers, using a red buckboard wagon and a team of horses. The writer often accompanied him with the bribe of a hershey bar.
When his brother, Christopher Moore Dinsdale, known as Kit, became city street commissioner, Alex took over Kit's coal business. The business flourished until the advent of natural gas from Montana. He still maintained the same office, but seed and feed became his principal business. This business, along with a sheep enterprise on the side, continued until his death in December 1948, at the age of 69.
Besides being a school teacher, Susie Dinsdale later played the organ for the Congregational Church, then on the southeast corner of First Avenue and West Second Street. Her daughter, Florence, remembers as a young child, of standing behind the organ and watching some boy or man pump the bellows of the organ so it would play. At the age of 74 Susie was singing in her church choir and still being a teacher, tutoring students in algebra in Santa Cruz, Calif. She passed away at the age of 84 in November 1968.
On July 24, 1924, A. A. (Alex) Dinsdale as grand master laid the cornerstone for the Odd Fellows Home in Devils Lake, N.D. The following June of 1925, he presided at the Grand Lodge session of the North Dakota Odd Fellows as grand master when the dedication of the Odd Fellows Home was held. He was the first grand master of that order to be elected from Dickinson.
Enjoying the family life with Susie and Alex were their children: Florence May Dinsdale, (Mrs. Wm. L. McEwen of Bakersfield, Calif.), who graduated as an June 1932; John Augustus Dinsdale, like his father, is a successful businessman of Dickinson. Two honors have been accorded him during his years in the gasoline business: elected state president of the Gaso-line Retailers Assocation and being named “Dealer of the Year”; Mary Jane Dinsdale (Mrs. O. J. Bag-genstoss of Minneapolis, Minnesota), was the would-be pianist of the family, but more importantly a graduate X-ray and medical technician.
In the past it has been written that “the old order giveth way to the new”, but our roots ever bind us to the land of our birth where memories are much alive with our youth of winter fun in the snow: tobogganing down “Graveyard Hill”, bobsledding around street corners behind a team of horses, stand-up sliding on the ice in the street gutters; of summer fun spent swimming in the NP dyke and out at “Skunk” Brown's. Thus we watch Dickinson grow beyond our imagination as we again visit from time to time with ever continuing interest.
By Florence Dinsdale McEwen (Mrs. Wm. L.)