These stories can also be heard on Sunday mornings around 10:05 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 25, 2026
Today I’ll continue reading from Audrey (Helstad) Jensen’s story of her growing up days.
Mother was suffering seizures very frequently while I was growing up. Any unexpected noise
could trigger an attack. We tried to be quiet both at work and at play, but one day after Mom had
already had one spell, I dropped a few pieces of silverware on the floor and Mom went right into
another seizure. Dad was quite concerned and without thinking, he shouted, “Now see what you
did.” From then on, I always felt it was my fault every time she got sick. To make matters worse,
soon after that I heard our pastor talk about demons. For some reason my childish mind,
already harboring a guilt complex, began to think that I had driven demons into my mother and
that every time she had a seizure, those demons were trying to leave her and enter me. Not a
very pleasant feeling for a child to live with. I was terrified for at least a year and have never
been able to tell anyone about it until now. This experience did nothing for my self image, but it
made me feel very responsible for my actions. I still carry the feeling that my desires don’t
matter as long as everything is kept on an even keel.
I well remember the night my brother Jerome was born. The date was November 14, 1929.
Mother was going to deliver on the sofa bed in the living room, so Eleanore and I were sent
upstairs. The doctor (Delmore) came [and] brought a Mrs. Dahlquist along to act as a nurse. I
wonder just how many times we tip-toed down the stairs to see if we could peek through the
crack around the door. We even used the drink of water trick, too, but nothing worked. We were
absolutely awestruck when we heard the baby cry. I was twelve and Eleanore eight at the time.
Mom’s half-brother’s wife, Mrs. Ole Dokken (Betsy), came the next day to take care of Mom and
the baby and stayed with us for two weeks. In those days a new mother was kept in bed for 9
days after delivery. Aunt Betsy was a very motherly woman and I really enjoyed her being there.
The next years are a part of the great depression. I was too young to recall the actual hardships
so some of my conclusions are based on things I’ve heard my parents and their friends talk
about.
The nation was very prosperous after the first world war. Prices were high and stock market
speculations were pushing them way out of hand. Money became so plentiful that it lost its
buying power. Without this buying power, there was little spending. Without the spending, the
stock market crashed. This led to demands of repayment of loans.
Here is where people in our area were most affected. Many, or maybe even most of our
neighbors lost their farms. They had purchased land and equipment at prices that were
escalating much as they have been now in the 1970s and 80s. People felt safe paying high
prices and interest rates because the monetary value on these products kept going up.
Suddenly the dollar was worth little and couldn’t buy much. Without the buying power there was
little spending. I believe this was a major cause of the market crash. This could happen again!
There wasn’t too much panic in our small rural area when the banks closed because very few
people had any money to bank. A few of the wealthier people declared they had been wiped
out, but they were few – nothing like it must have been in the cities.
Our family life was affected by the depression though. Our family had always been thrifty but we
learned to economize even more. Living on a farm helped because we could produce most of
our own food.
Our home was an old log cabin with two rooms downstairs and two small bedrooms upstairs.
This upstairs would now be called an attic because the roof went way to the floor. Our bathroom
facilities consisted of a small stand with a wash basin and a water pail with a dipper. Waste
water was collected in a pail underneath the wash stand. Everyone drank from the dipper. All
the water was carried in pails from a well dug by hand with a shovel. Baths were taken in a tub
set in front of the open oven door. Our toilet was a little house by the edge of the woods. This
little house had a box shaped seat with two holes above a pit dug into the earth below. The
Sears Roebuck catalog was our toilet paper. Toilet tissue was a luxury unheard of!
Our home was heated and our food cooked on wood stoves. In the summertime when the
outside temperature outside was 80 or 90 degrees or more, the kitchen was unbearably hot.
Mom and Dad had a regular bed with a spring and felt mattress, but we children slept in a home
made wooden box with legs and a tick filled with new straw every fall at harvest time. This tick
was our mattress. After a few years we had saved up enough feathers from every chicken that
died or was butchered to replace the straw in the tick – a great improvement. Some of these
same feathers made a tick to fit the crib Harry made for our first baby. By then our beds all had
regular mattresses. Quilts were made by shearing wool from our sheep and washing and
carding it by hand. This was then placed between two layers of cloth made by piecing together
the better parts of our worn out clothes. These three layers were then tied together with wool
yarn every three or four inches.
Our stockings and mittens were also hand knit from this wool. The rest of our clothes were
made mostly from gray or blue chambray or checked black, red or blue gingham. Mom tried to
make us a new dress for Christmas, but most of the time they were made from hand-me-downs
from a friend of hers. We were really excited one year when Mom got a few yards of silk pongee
and made us new dresses trimmed with lace. Changes were few – usually one to wear and one
in the wash.
There is more to tell from Audrey Jensen’s memories next week.
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.