Title
FRED M. DOHRMANN
Creator
Fred M. Dohrmann
Coverage
TOWNSHIP 141N RANGE 93W
Text
FRED M. DOHRMANN
I was born in Richardton Sept. 17, 1942. My parents are Clarence and Lorraine Dohrmann. They tell me it was before there was a hospital in Richardton and the bulding that they used at that time was an old house. Dr. Dukart was the physician that delivered me. I was raised on a farm north and west of Taylor in a little house that was on the same farm that belonged to my grandfather, Fred Dohrmann. I don’t remember anything of living there until I was old enough to have little sisters. After they came along I remember many of the experiences we had living in the little house on Grandpa's farm. We had a 55 gallon barrel rigged up on top of the garage and during the summer the sun would heat up the water so my dad and I could take a shower with solarly heated water. Monday was wash day and you could hear the sound of a Maytag motor running my mother's washing machine.
Of course, for a child of that age, the most important thing was that we had a well pit to keep our watermelon, milk and cream cool. There was cement curbing that went down several feet into the ground where it was cool and a wooden cover over it and after supper we’d go out and pull on the rope and up would come a pail with the watermelon in it and it tasted so good.
Sometime before I started school my grandad had bought some lots in Taylor and decided to build a house in town. I can remember spending many days with him working on this house. He and Aaron Iams did the carpenter work and old Jim Vranna dug the well pit. About that time I had to start school. They had moved the old country school, 1948, to a more centrally located spot and we commenced to have school with five boy students. Lyle Dohrmann and myself were in the first grade, Eugene Focht and Robert Jurgens in second and Bill Dohrmann in the third. Miss Helen Duckwitz was the teacher. That was also the year of the big snow (1948 and ‘49). Helen stayed at our house so every morning when it was time to go to school I had to be ready to go at the same time the teacher did and because we heated with coal there were many times when we would get to school and find that the fire had gone out. There were many mornings we had our class conducted while sitting around the stove to keep warm. For weeks we couldn’t get to town because of the snow and we spent several weeks driving back and forth to school with a team of horses and a jumper sled. Incidentally, I just fixed up that same sled this last year (1976), made a new box, bought a team and have driven it around a few times during the winter. It was physically the hardest year of my educational career yet I never missed a day of school.
There isn’t too much that sticks out in my mind about the rest of grade school except we probably had one of the first hot lunch programs in the area because the families took turns bringing something hot for noon lunch and we would put it on the stove for a couple of hours and have a hot meal at noon. We belonged to Young Citizens League and once a year we would go to Dickinson for a meeting. Everyone bought squirt guns and had some real battles between schools. I got to high school and things changed a little, we started to get out into the world a lot more and had to get used to having more than one teacher. I graduated and went on to college at NDSU. I have a B.S. degree in agriculture and have completed the course work for a master's degree in ag. Economics.
I live on a grain farm north of Taylor (Sec. 33-141-93) with my wife, Barbara, one daughter, Jacqueline (age 12), twin boys, Joshua and Jeremy (age 6) and our boy Jason (age 5).
I presently feed cattle both here, where I background them, and in a commercial feedlot in South Dakota where they go to be finished and slaughtered.
Times change so fast I’m looking forward to what will come and happen. I remember before we had a 110 generator and I used to go down to the basement to check water levels in the 32-volt battery. Right now we are seeing cheap and abundant electricity become less abundant and not as cheap. I will live to see technology allow us to store solar energy efficiently and feasibly.
By Fred M. Dohrmann
I was born in Richardton Sept. 17, 1942. My parents are Clarence and Lorraine Dohrmann. They tell me it was before there was a hospital in Richardton and the bulding that they used at that time was an old house. Dr. Dukart was the physician that delivered me. I was raised on a farm north and west of Taylor in a little house that was on the same farm that belonged to my grandfather, Fred Dohrmann. I don’t remember anything of living there until I was old enough to have little sisters. After they came along I remember many of the experiences we had living in the little house on Grandpa's farm. We had a 55 gallon barrel rigged up on top of the garage and during the summer the sun would heat up the water so my dad and I could take a shower with solarly heated water. Monday was wash day and you could hear the sound of a Maytag motor running my mother's washing machine.
Of course, for a child of that age, the most important thing was that we had a well pit to keep our watermelon, milk and cream cool. There was cement curbing that went down several feet into the ground where it was cool and a wooden cover over it and after supper we’d go out and pull on the rope and up would come a pail with the watermelon in it and it tasted so good.
Sometime before I started school my grandad had bought some lots in Taylor and decided to build a house in town. I can remember spending many days with him working on this house. He and Aaron Iams did the carpenter work and old Jim Vranna dug the well pit. About that time I had to start school. They had moved the old country school, 1948, to a more centrally located spot and we commenced to have school with five boy students. Lyle Dohrmann and myself were in the first grade, Eugene Focht and Robert Jurgens in second and Bill Dohrmann in the third. Miss Helen Duckwitz was the teacher. That was also the year of the big snow (1948 and ‘49). Helen stayed at our house so every morning when it was time to go to school I had to be ready to go at the same time the teacher did and because we heated with coal there were many times when we would get to school and find that the fire had gone out. There were many mornings we had our class conducted while sitting around the stove to keep warm. For weeks we couldn’t get to town because of the snow and we spent several weeks driving back and forth to school with a team of horses and a jumper sled. Incidentally, I just fixed up that same sled this last year (1976), made a new box, bought a team and have driven it around a few times during the winter. It was physically the hardest year of my educational career yet I never missed a day of school.
There isn’t too much that sticks out in my mind about the rest of grade school except we probably had one of the first hot lunch programs in the area because the families took turns bringing something hot for noon lunch and we would put it on the stove for a couple of hours and have a hot meal at noon. We belonged to Young Citizens League and once a year we would go to Dickinson for a meeting. Everyone bought squirt guns and had some real battles between schools. I got to high school and things changed a little, we started to get out into the world a lot more and had to get used to having more than one teacher. I graduated and went on to college at NDSU. I have a B.S. degree in agriculture and have completed the course work for a master's degree in ag. Economics.
I live on a grain farm north of Taylor (Sec. 33-141-93) with my wife, Barbara, one daughter, Jacqueline (age 12), twin boys, Joshua and Jeremy (age 6) and our boy Jason (age 5).
I presently feed cattle both here, where I background them, and in a commercial feedlot in South Dakota where they go to be finished and slaughtered.
Times change so fast I’m looking forward to what will come and happen. I remember before we had a 110 generator and I used to go down to the basement to check water levels in the 32-volt battery. Right now we are seeing cheap and abundant electricity become less abundant and not as cheap. I will live to see technology allow us to store solar energy efficiently and feasibly.
By Fred M. Dohrmann