These stories can also be heard on Sunday mornings around 9:00 am on WILD 102’s “Look Back in Time” program. Each week’s radio story will be posted here on our website.
Weekly radio stories are researched, compiled, and read by Sheila Winstead, RCHS Board Member.
October 11, 2026
Audrey (Helstad) Jensen’s extensive family history, many parts of which I’ve shared with you,
also included a section about her own upbringing that she titled “A RAMBLE THROUGH TIME”.
She was the child of Oscar and Isabelle (Dokken) Helstad. I’ll start reading from it today.
I was born on January 3 rd , 1918 during the First World War. The army draft board was ready to
call Dad up for service but the family doctor, Dr. J. L. Delmore, held off signing Dad’s draft
papers hoping that I would be born before the deadline. He hated seeing Dad leaving a young
first-time mother. It worked – I was born before the day for Dad’s departure day came and he
was then deferred, and continued his job at the power plant in Roseau. I was the first of their
three children.
I was too young to remember anything about living in the house in Roseau, but I have very vivid
memories of our home at the homestead. Let me just ramble through some of them.
Gunner and Mia Nelson lived across the road from the saw mill he and Dad owned, and we
lived a little ways north and east from there. Our house had a large kitchen and pantry, a living
room and bedroom downstairs. The house had an outside stairway on the north side of the
house and led to the upstairs sleeping quarters [for people] that worked for Dad at the saw mill. I
can’t recall much about what it looked like up there, but I remember the downstairs very well.
The floors were bare wood boards scrubbed white with soap and water with homemade rag
rugs scattered around in traffic areas. The kitchen had a large table, a black wood burning cook
stove, some kitchen chairs, a wood box, a washstand and a couple home made benches we
called kraaks. The pantry was on the east and had a window with a work counter below it and
open shelves for groceries, dishes and cooking equipment storage.
The living room had two windows with semi-sheer curtains trimmed with a hand crocheted
insertation border. The furniture I remember was a sofa with wooden arms and the back and
seat upholstered in real leather that opened up into a bed. There was also a wooden rocking
chair, a library table, a sewing machine and a wood burning heating stove.
The bedroom had a brass bed covered with a white heavy crash bedspread that was woven into
a special design, a small sewing rocker, a white painted homemade dresser and a “quilt box”.
This box was padded and covered with a light colored printed challis. I believe this was Mom’s
hope chest and very precious to her. She still has it. The curtains were panels with blue birds
woven into the material.
One think I can not remember is where I slept. To me this is strange because other things are so
very clear to me. I asked mother about it and she doesn’t remember either. I wonder could it
have been on the sofa in the living room? Eleanore slept in a cradle by the bed.
Other things I remember is the frying pan hanging on the end of the wood box, the little round
hole in the cellar door, and the calendars on the wall, the register in the living room ceiling. I
used to talk on the telephone which hung on the west wall in the living room. I’d turn the crank to
ring one long ring and then tell the operator that I wanted to talk to my “Gramma”. The operator
recognized my voice and knew just who to call. Things were personal then – not mechanical like
today.
Wild animals were numerous and one day I spied a woodchuck gnawing on the edges of a
wooden pail standing on the north side of the house. The pail contained salt herring, and no
doubt he craved the salt. Mom and Mia were picking wild raspberries, and I was watching out
for Eleanore. We were sitting on an old blanket on the edge of the road when a big bear stood
eating berries right across the ditch. Mom and Mia had not seen it until I called to them. We
hurried home!
I did have other fears, too. When one of the men would go down into the cellar and stick his
finger up through a little hole, I was afraid because I thought it was a mouse. Another fear I had
was of the picture of Aunt Jemima on the label of the molasses pail. I used to love getting into
the dough when Mom was baking. All she had to do was to set the pail on the table and I’d
leave the baking alone.
Our buildings were on a sandy knoll and I can remember running in the fine sand on the road
going to Lahte’s, loving the feeling when I’d squeeze the sand between my toes. We had to
cross a slough to get to Gunner and Mia’s, though. The road was just a trail with no ditches.
This stretch of low land was a corduroy road. A corduroy road is where they lay logs and slabs
of wood on the ground to build a bridge across the wet ground.
Gunner and Mia had no children and I was their pet. In their eyes, I could do no wrong. Once I
sat under their table scraping the frosting off a cake stored in a metal box. They thought it was
so cute. Mom didn’t, and I can now understand why she scolded me.
Other neighbors out there were the Cambell bachelor brothers who lived southwest of us along
a high ditch grade. The Louis Langs and Gordon Butlers lived across the road from each other
about a mile south of us. About the only other point of interest was the tiny school house. I
visited there one day and was horrified because the teacher went outside and vomited several
times. This school closed before I was of age to attend.
My sister Eleanore was given her bath in a small basin on the kitchen table. Other memories of
her are when she sat on the floor hitting Mom’s ivory comb into the brush and breaking half of
the teeth out of the comb. Mom was angry but Eleanore knew just how to handle the situation.
She would just grab Mom by the leg and stand on Mom’s feet. It worked every time and
Eleanore worked this strategy to get her way until she was so heavy Mom couldn’t take it any
more. These tactics did not work for me. Eleanore would just push me away and possessively
say “My Mommy!”
Next week I’ll continue reading from Audrey Jensen’s memories.
Thank you to 
for letting us share our county’s history with your listeners by donating air time, studio time, and production staff every week.