Title
MABELLE CONRADSON FAMILY
Coverage
TOWNSHIP 140N RANGE 93W
Text
MABELLE CONRADSON FAMILY
I was born at my mother's parents home near Taylor. For the first year I lived on a ranch in Dunn Co. and then moved with my family to a farm three and one-half miles north of Taylor. The event I remember in my preschool years happened on a Sunday. We were going to church in our shiny black two-seated buggy with a top and curtains, when the wheels on one side slid into a deep rut in the half-frozen muddy road and the buggy tipped. I climbed up the bank and got my new patent leather strap button shoes full of mud. I remember too, when my father shaved off his mustache and I wasn’t sure who it was.
I went to a new rural school located in the corner of our pasture half a mile from the house. It had a brand new fire break plowed around it so we used the sod pieces that were held firmly together by grass roots to build a play sod house that, with some repair, stood staunch against the weather and cattle for the three years I was there. My teacher was Matilda Stoxen and my best friend was Rose Sattler. After that the district consolidated and we were bused to Taylor School. One year. Bill Hecht had the route and hauled us in a seven-passenger car, but usually we rode in a covered wagon or covered sled. We enjoyed the long, slow rides except when Ralph Sattler had a successful skunk trapping season and brought the pelts along in the bus to sell to Elling Helmer. My parents were always “school supportive.” My father served on the school board many years. When car roads were impassable he rode horseback, sometimes in below zero weather, to get to a meeting. My mother packed bountiful school lunches for us and always had clean warm clothes ready for us to wear. We used the bottom of the kitchen walls, which were painted dark green, for a chalkboard to “work” our arithmetic. They were so interested in all that we thought or did. I’m sure my nostalgia for many of the old story books like Five Little Peppers, Elsie Dinsmore and Jane Eyre comes from remembering my mother reading to us. My entire youth was happy and content.
I think I always planned to be a teacher and that is what I did after one year at Dickinson College and one at Valley City. After many years of “off and on” I married my eighth grade boyfriend, Herrid Conradson, in 1938. We lived one year in Florida where Hernd was in the Merchant Marines, and then came back to Taylor where he painted buildings for a couple of years and then became manager of the Occident Elevator in Halliday. We had four children: Diane, Dorman, Leonard and Mary. Diane spent most of her waking hours with her father. Dorman would try to mimic everything he said and did. Hernd nicknamed Leonard “Spunky” and they spent much time together while Herrid couldn’t work. Mary never had the chance to know her father — a remarkably affectionate positive person. Herrid died of heart failure in 1945.
I earned a degree in education by driving to college in Dickinson and then taught in Taylor for five years. When Mary finished high school in 1964 we moved to California where I taught for 12 years. I retired in 1975 and moved to San Diego. Diane lives on Maui where she teaches high school business classes. She is married to Henry Meyer. Dorman lives in Juneau, Alaska, and works in food preparation at the dinner club Yancy Derringer. Leonard married Ellen Ness and is a doctor in Canada. Mary married Terence Newton and lives in California. Diane, Leonard and Mary each have two children — a girl and a boy.
I was born at my mother's parents home near Taylor. For the first year I lived on a ranch in Dunn Co. and then moved with my family to a farm three and one-half miles north of Taylor. The event I remember in my preschool years happened on a Sunday. We were going to church in our shiny black two-seated buggy with a top and curtains, when the wheels on one side slid into a deep rut in the half-frozen muddy road and the buggy tipped. I climbed up the bank and got my new patent leather strap button shoes full of mud. I remember too, when my father shaved off his mustache and I wasn’t sure who it was.
I went to a new rural school located in the corner of our pasture half a mile from the house. It had a brand new fire break plowed around it so we used the sod pieces that were held firmly together by grass roots to build a play sod house that, with some repair, stood staunch against the weather and cattle for the three years I was there. My teacher was Matilda Stoxen and my best friend was Rose Sattler. After that the district consolidated and we were bused to Taylor School. One year. Bill Hecht had the route and hauled us in a seven-passenger car, but usually we rode in a covered wagon or covered sled. We enjoyed the long, slow rides except when Ralph Sattler had a successful skunk trapping season and brought the pelts along in the bus to sell to Elling Helmer. My parents were always “school supportive.” My father served on the school board many years. When car roads were impassable he rode horseback, sometimes in below zero weather, to get to a meeting. My mother packed bountiful school lunches for us and always had clean warm clothes ready for us to wear. We used the bottom of the kitchen walls, which were painted dark green, for a chalkboard to “work” our arithmetic. They were so interested in all that we thought or did. I’m sure my nostalgia for many of the old story books like Five Little Peppers, Elsie Dinsmore and Jane Eyre comes from remembering my mother reading to us. My entire youth was happy and content.
I think I always planned to be a teacher and that is what I did after one year at Dickinson College and one at Valley City. After many years of “off and on” I married my eighth grade boyfriend, Herrid Conradson, in 1938. We lived one year in Florida where Hernd was in the Merchant Marines, and then came back to Taylor where he painted buildings for a couple of years and then became manager of the Occident Elevator in Halliday. We had four children: Diane, Dorman, Leonard and Mary. Diane spent most of her waking hours with her father. Dorman would try to mimic everything he said and did. Hernd nicknamed Leonard “Spunky” and they spent much time together while Herrid couldn’t work. Mary never had the chance to know her father — a remarkably affectionate positive person. Herrid died of heart failure in 1945.
I earned a degree in education by driving to college in Dickinson and then taught in Taylor for five years. When Mary finished high school in 1964 we moved to California where I taught for 12 years. I retired in 1975 and moved to San Diego. Diane lives on Maui where she teaches high school business classes. She is married to Henry Meyer. Dorman lives in Juneau, Alaska, and works in food preparation at the dinner club Yancy Derringer. Leonard married Ellen Ness and is a doctor in Canada. Mary married Terence Newton and lives in California. Diane, Leonard and Mary each have two children — a girl and a boy.