Family Stories

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The Lambs of the Prairie

As a child my mother spoke gently of her family’s story and those that went before. She spoke of a special recollection of young children buried way too young on the plains of North Dakota. Her haunting stories spoke of the children buried beneath the plain white markers embossed with fading lambs representing their youth. The Prairie Rest Cemetery is solitary remembrance dedicated to the youngest lambs who died while establishing our state many years ago.

The Lambs of the Prairie

– Clarence Holm

Beneath the broad Dakota blue
On a hilltop kissed with morning dew
Were the silent lambs on prairie old
Lying peacefully, a family’s tears consoled.

Soundless sentinels endlessly resting
Reverent callers gazes arresting.
Their fading faces don’t betray
Machine etched stones, long in decay.

An eternal place of gathering,
Sweet memories in stone are offering
Old stories lost and gone
Waiting together for their eternal dawn.

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My Mother and Beowulf

Clarence and His Mother Hermione, His Grandmother Gertrude Nicoli and Great Grandmother Henrietta (Wolski) Koehn

Clarence and His Mother Hermione, His Grandmother Gertrude Nicoli and Great Grandmother Henrietta (Wolski) Koehn

-Clarence Holm

My mother first read Beowulf to me when I was about 6 years old. She had returned to college that summer to work on an additional minor in drama. One of the courses she was enrolled in was a class called Oral Interpretation. To practice she decided to present the entire story of Beowulf to me by reading it aloud.

In hindsight, a case may be made that the story was at the very least rated “R” for violence (Not to mention the incestuous heritage ascribed to tragic Viking mythology) but I would argue that Wiley Coyote was subjected to far worse treatment on a far greater number of occasions. – Besides I was allowed to close my eyes when she recited the gory passages.

Now to a casual observer, there could be no more pastoral scene then a mother sitting on a blanket next to a gooseberry bush with her son on her lap. The rapt attention I paid to the slaughter of Beowulf’s men in the hall was only eclipsed by mother’s rendition of Beowulf ripping Gwendolyn’s arm off and using it as a club.

As a young man I devoured the story and reveled in it. Later, during an afternoon nap, I dreamed that I was a hero, a true giver of rings.

Actually, now that I think about it, I should be glad that my mother decided not to share the arrow scene from Deliverance with me that same summer.

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Once Upon A Farm

pups

-Clarence Holm

Over the years my family had many dogs on the farm. Each in their unique way performed the duties that were expected of a working animal. A farm dog’s responsibilities included fetching the cows, guarding the chickens, killing rats and defending the house. If a dog could not handle those duties it was replaced. There was no forgiveness for mistakes, a dog that attacked chickens or stole their eggs cost money or at the very least stole food off our plates. Life on a small Dakota farm didn’t allow for tolerance.

That did not mean we didn’t love our dogs and treat them with reverence and respect. A good canine was a companion and friend. They possessed a spirit and seemed to have the ability to read minds and carry out unspoken commands. A good dog took the place of two men in the pasture and could easily maintain control of the herd as we drove them to a meadow for grazing. While the cows fed on the sweet June grass the dog would keep a wary look out as he sat with us on those lazy summer days.

pup 2

Farmers knew each other’s dogs. They recognized which had special skills as herders, hunters or guard dogs and spoke almost reverently of their talents. They were able to identify a dog on sight and recite which farm they worked on.

lassie

When I was young we had a collie named Lassie. She was a smart dog and who did her best to keep me out of trouble. She loved to go with me to the pasture, where she could run and chase the pheasants she’d flush out of the weeds. If she came across a hay bale, she would wait patiently for me to turn it over, exposing the mice nests that were always underneath.

But Lassie lived to round up cattle, as we approached the herd she would quiver with excitement, waiting for the command to “sic-em” whenever a young heifer dared to separate from the herd. The older milk cows would just roll their eyes at the foolishness or the yearlings. They would watch, while lazily chewing their cuds, as Lassie nipped at the hooves of the insolent bovines. However in the back of my mind, I always suspected it was all an act, put on for our family’s consumption. We truly believed when we weren’t around, it was a good bet that the heifers and Lassie were out playing together.

My final year of farming was when I was 10. By that time I had learned to drive the truck and most of the tractors. I could successfully drive a tractor, while towing a wagon to a field to pick rocks. While straw bales were no challenge to throw around, alfalfa bales (at 70-80lbs) were still a little too heavy to throw. (Although I could pick them up by one end and slide them around.) I could sack grain and run the auger; in short I left one year before becoming an official field hand. But by far the hardest thing was saying goodbye to that dog.

We took Lassie over to our Uncle’s farm and left him there. As he had eight children at home, Lassie’s last few years were filled with joy. The last glimpse of her was as she took over her new brood of kids, waiting for one of them to say “Sic-em”.

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Twelve Feet is Less Than Eternity

All wound up and looking for trouble!

All wound up and looking for trouble!

Adventures On The Farm
-Clarence Holm
In the morning, we had fed the pigs, collected the eggs and run up the road to check for mail. By mid-morning we were slaying dragons and hunting wooly buffalo. The afternoon started with a circus, featuring the warted toads along with black and yellow salamanders we had captured near the well to be exhibited as wild animals. We loaded our side show into our red wagons, hooking them up to our bikes and trikes and held a parade. We sang “ta-da” and banged on the oil cans we used for drums.
For three young boys, ages 4, 5 and 9 we knew we had to keep busy. We had learned that people on a farm that didn’t have something to do, were given a job by my mother.
After an afternoon nap we were well rested, so we decided to go exploring and poking around through the old garage. Under a shelf we found a rusted hammer, with one claw snapped off. On the shelf was a can of used nails dad must have put aside to be straightened. Leaning against the wall was some old lumber that we knew could be built into something…
It was Jim, the eldest and most worldly that decided we would build an airplane. We had seen them fly over the farm many times and knew the basic shape. We needed two boards for wings, one longer than the other and a board for the planes body, big enough to hold one passenger. So we grab three boards, precut to length. We found a six-footer for the body with another the same length for the front wing and a four-footer that seemed just right for the tail.
With the nails we found in the shop, we pounded the ship together. It was Jim who remembered we needed to turn the plane over, allowing us to crimp the nails down. “That’ll make it extra strong” he said.
We dragged the plane out into the sun to do a final inspection. We had no wheels to put under it, but once it was flying it wouldn’t matter. 
We took turns climbing aboard imagining the flight. In our minds we soared up high and chased the crows from the sky. Our excitement really grew once we convinced ourselves that this plane could really fly. All we needed was a way to get it airborne.”If we could drag it up on the barn roof, I bet we could do loop de loops” I said. “I know I can fly it!” Eugene the youngest shouted.
“Because Eugene’s the youngest, he should be first.” Jim ruled. “But” he continued, “since he’s so small we should start off a smaller building- like the garage”.
With that bit of wisdom we agreed on a plan. We would climb up on the roof with the old wooden ladder, dragging the plane to the peak. There Eugene would climb on board while Jim & I would push as hard as we could to get him started. Eugene would slide down the roof, gaining speed and would soar off the garage roof out into the pasture where he could land safely.
Just a short test flight!
Next would be me, then Jim, who would go up on the barn for the grand finale. He planned to fly the plane over to our cousin’s farm and wave to them as they looked up in awe.
It was a grand plan – one of our best.
“Clarence” Jim said. “Grab the plane and head up the ladder, I’ll follow and push.”  With that we sprang into action and in no time all three of us were up on the garage roof gazing off into the wild blue yonder. Eugene was excited and wanted to go, but Jim had some last minute instructions. “Hold on tight and don’t fly to far, remember this is only a test flight.” Jim said.  Eugene nodded sincerely.
With a mighty 1-2-3 we pushed Eugene and the wooden airplane off the peak and down the roof.
It never really got going; in fact it skidded really slowly with Eugene bouncing it forward, urging the plane to the edge. As we watched it reached the edge and flopped slowly off the twelve foot drop, disappearing with a mighty crash.
When it didn’t reappear soaring into the sky, we ran to the edge and peered down at our brother- motionless. As we watched we heard him gasp, as if he was drawing in all the air in the world. We knew what was coming next; this was not our first adventure!
Eugene’s scream pierced that summer sky and reverberated off the barn. We knew we had to shut him up, before he attracted Mom. We clambered down the old ladder and ran up to Eugene. “Are you OK?” “Look at how far you flew!” “Do you want to go again?”
Confused at first, he struggled to his feet. After a moments silence he said. “Did you see me fly? I flew the plane, but now it’s all broken.”  Then he shouted out, “Should we find more wood to make another, so you two can have a turn?”
At that moment, Mom called, “Supper” and another day had ended.
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Garden Fairyland

Mary's Garden Fairyland

Mary’s Garden Fairyland

– Clarence Holm

Mary tends a fairyland,
It’s her duty to defend.
She digs and plants to make it grand,
Cause a pixie is her friend.

She hasn’t ever seen the girl
But she knows when she’s been there.
She thought she glimpsed a golden curl
While breathing night time air.

Now if you don’t care to believe in sprites,
I’m sure they won’t be annoyed.
It’s just one part of a summer’s delights
Pleasant dreams to be enjoyed.

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John Holm – My Grandfather

John & Victoria Holm at Home

John & Victoria Holm at Home

My grandfather John Holm passed away August 31, 1951, just a little more than a year before I was born.  As a result he is the grandparent I know the least about.

Because of this, I should start this with the facts I’ve found. John Holm (no middle name) was born September 22, 1883 in Cologne, Carver County, MN the eldest child of John E Holm and Kathryn Ann Ranft. His parents were lifetime sweethearts, who defied the ethnic restrictions and combined their lives around their Swedish and German heritage. The blending of Swedish Lutheran Evangelism and Germanic Roman Catholicism resulted in my grandfather having a deep respect for education and a devotion to the lord. (Tempered with gusto for life enhanced by good German beers.)

In about 1883, he moved with his parents to the hills just west of Valley City. His father’s 1st cousin and boyhood friend, John Anderson, a real estate developer who controlled many sections of land, convinced John Erickson Holm to sell his mercantile in Cologne and bet it all on a new life in North Dakota. All went well until sometime in 1886 when a disastrous fire consumed the entire farm, sending my Grandfather and his family back to live with relatives in Minnesota. Ten years passed until John E Holm tried North Dakota again. (Although he didn’t officially move back to North Dakota till 1896 he actively worked the land near Cuba for many years during the summers leaving the family in Minnesota.) Together with his partner John Anderson he began another farming operation, this time on the flat treeless plains near Cuba, North Dakota (southeast of Valley City). Perhaps it was a testament to John E’s vision that he christened the area Meadow Grove Farm.

As a young teenager, John Jr. helped his father expand the farm to control many sections of land (A section of land is measured one mile long and one mile wide), while establishing a hardware/mercantile store serving the needs of the small Barnes County community. On November 11, 1911 John married Victoria Anna Schiele. Victoria had come to North Dakota to work on the Holm farm to help feed the growing group of hired hands that worked the expansive fields of wheat and durum that North Dakota was known for. Victoria was the sole remnant of her family, who joined the John Schug family when her widowed mother remarried. (John Schug was a cousin of Kathryn Ranft and many of Shug’s children came to North Dakota to work the Meadow Grove Farm).

Upon his marriage John and Victoria Holm were offered their choice of a section of land or the Cuba Mercantile. (It was a source of pride for my Great Grandfather that he had accumulated enough land to marry off each of his children and provide them with their own farm.) Rightly or wrongly John chose to farm and settled with his bride in Norma Township, just southwest of Cuba, ND.

John and Victoria had five children, Dorothy Anna Storbeck, Lucille Mary Kunze, my father Clarence Louis Holm, Evelyn Catherine Grant and Walter Ervin Holm. In each, John and Victoria established a strong work ethic, a love of the teachings of the Catholic Church, along with dreams of adventure and a taste for strong beer. (There seems to be a pattern evolving here)

From federal censuses I can track the family’s growth as sons and daughters married and either left the farm or stayed on the expanding farm. The original farm grew to three sections and provided shelter and sustenance for all who stayed.

From stories I’ve been told, my grandfather enjoyed life and took relish in simple pleasures, like capturing the images of farm life with his camera and tripod or driving with his grandchildren with long cane poles tied to the car, pursuing the wily “Sunnies” that inhabited the nearby Sheyenne River that flowed through the valley just west of his farm. From photos I glimpse a man, well-rounded from good German cooking served with plenty of Swedish meatballs along with an occasional touch of Lutefisk and a side of apple flavored sauerkraut.  If I look closely, I catch in his eyes a twinkle that he retained in the face of a life that included his share of challenges.

I don’t recall my father speaking much of his dad, other than the time my mother decided I should shave off a youthful mustache I had grown in the summer of my senior year of high school. While she went on and on about how horrible it looked and how it would reflect badly on me when I went looking for work, my father waited patiently for the storm to pass and stated, “I never saw my father without a mustache and if a son of mine wants to grow one that would be his decision.” My mother never spoke of my choice of facial hair again.

While I can’t say for certain that he was without faults, I can tell you I know my father loved and respected him and missed him dearly when he was gone.

 

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Goldiva’s Flying Dream #2

“Occasionally, when I leave the top of my fish tank open, I find a dried fish on the floor. I had never contemplated the depth of disappointment. Shattered dream!! My oh my, this dream has led this gold fish to her land of mammon. Oh my gosh, can it be that Goldiva is a pseudo salmon.”

Drying fish spread o’er the floor, ghastly horror, feeds my furor.
Erase this sight, try as I might, hopelessly haunted ever more.

– Jack Holm

Goldiva’s Flying Dream #2

– Clarence Holm
While my brother contemplates an end most horrific
With science I speculate a tale more specific.
While fishes can jump, still it seems we pre-propose
The reality of worlds beyond sensory control
Can exist multiple universes where copies repose
Each with an existence, replete with a role.
If Hugh Everett did dream of a life without end
Where outcomes are varied and made of negative matter
If physics is quantum who dares comprehend
In the end Jack discovered his goldfish considerably flatter.

 

 

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Goldiva’s Flying Dream

– Clarence Holm

We recently set up our pond for the summer and added some goldfish to add some flashes of color to the water. Our pond has a recycling pump that shoots the water through a filter up into an upper pond, where it drains back down. Because the pond is a little smaller I did not put any fish in that level. Two days later while looking at the pond I noticed one fish swimming in the upper pond. The only thing I could figure out was that the fish had jumped from one level to the other

I thought about the will of the fish and imagined what might have inspired it.

Goldiva

Our Garden Pond

Goldiva the goldfish went round and round, twenty-four hours a day,
Her school swam right unceasingly, draped in glistening gold array.
If one slowed down, one sped up, to close up flaws in the rank
Precisely swimming, fins all churning, gently around the tank.
 Her school mates never shared their dreams much less even chattered
No plots were hatched, no songs were sung, play never mattered.
They swam their strokes; they pumped their gills, all in a similar manner
They kept in time; they cruised in line, like soldiers following a banner.
Goldiva kept up with the pace, but watched the waters around her.
And as she went around to the right, a pleasant eddy struck her.
A watery tap had struck a nerve and got her senses going
Next time around she traced the swale and saw the water flowing.
 A separate pond above her head had water gently pouring
Across an edge, it tumbled in, Goldiva’s heart went soaring.
If I could swim up in that pond, life wouldn’t be so arranged
I dreamt one day it could be that way if my fate could be so changed.
 Next time around she thrashed her tail and her stroke grew even quicker
Faster and faster on she went until her fins began to quiver.
Up she soared into the air; it felt as if she was flying
She flew so far she got her dreams; there would be no denying.
And as she opened up her eyes a world of wonder was around her
Things to see, places to go, and new fish surround like treasure.
Her school became a distant memory, as she quickly swam about,
Goldiva’s dreams were captured, once her plan was carried out.
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Release The Gnomes

Image

By Clarence Holm

Northern days are lasting longer,
Summer’s rays are getting stronger.
Winter’s fading, the sky is clear,
Release the gnomes, our summer’s here!
Packs of seeds sent through the mail
Plucked periodicals, our dreams detail.
Black loam is turning, planting time’s near
Release the gnomes, our summer’s here!
Visions of vistas once locked in our head
Fields of blossoms soon will be spread
Streams of fragrance, flowers veneer
Release the gnomes, our summer’s here!
Spring time cries, it forces rains.
Uttering sprouts, the earth sustains.
Boasts of flora, sweet visions held dear,
Release the gnomes, our summer’s here!

 

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The Genealogist Cometh

Recently I heard of a cat named Oscar that lives in Providence, Rhode Island. It seems his accuracy to predict the impending death of elderly hospice patients has been documented in the New England Journal of Medicine. Oscar has successfully indicated impending passing’s in over 25 cases by curling up next to them during their patients final hours. What is even more eerie is that Oscars normal disposition to humans is to be aloof at best. It seems that the cat, which had been adopted by the home, patrols the halls sniffing at the doors, stopping only to visit during the patients last few hours of life.

Doctors are at a loss to explain the phenomenon!

Over the years, I have collected the memories of relatives and kin in hopes of preserving a heritage that is quickly slipping away. While I have managed to document thousands of lives, many of the more than 41,000 names in my records are nothing more than letters and numbers on my tree. With each passing day more information is lost.

I recently read a blog entry by thegenealogygirl in which she quotes Guy Black, who states that “family history is a perishable commodity”. Thegenealogygirl posted it because it addresses a question that had been posed in a discussion group she participated in, “What is the one thing you wish you had known when you first started working on your family history?” She goes on to say that this discussion is driving her current line of research.

Now at first glance the cat mentioned above and the genealogy blog may seem unrelated, but in practice I have struggled with the knowledge that the memories I am seeking are fleeting and in many cases my inquiries requesting information are tied with circumstances, most often than not, associated with death and dying. Much like the cat in the story, my letters to relatives end up resting on the laps of individuals during their last days on earth and unlike the cat I am unable to complete my mission of collecting their memories.

The coincidental circumstances of my letters arrival and the occasion of the relatives recent death always brings a pang of remorse at the missed opportunity to share their hopes and dreams that fed their movements through life. Each lost recipe, each fragrant memory of lilacs in the spring and the smell of bread in the oven are tragic.

Sometimes the realization that I need to hurry to visit one of my older relatives holds me back, like an unconscious desire to prolong their life by ignoring the passage of time. But in the end I know that in the majority of instances, my relatives want to share their information and I have been tasked as the “Family Historian” to gather these golden memories.

As one of the doctors in Oscar’s story postulated, perhaps he was only “seeking a warm blanket”. Sometimes I, like Oscar, am looking for memories to keep me warm on my own journey through life.