These stories can also be heard on Sunday mornings around 10 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.
December 15, 2024
My mother’s youngest sibling, Phyllis McGregor, died this month. Her funeral was this week. She was
such a sweet, kind person, and always took an interest in the next generations of kids and grandkids and
saw the best in everyone. She was the last of her family so we don’t have anyone left to ask the questions
that we have about the family. It’s a good reminder to visit those older relatives while you have them and
hear what they have to say about their younger days.
A few years ago, I asked her sister Betty Lou Olson to tell me what she remembered about Christmases
past.
She was just eight years old when her father Victor Emanuel Nelson died from what they believe was a
heat stroke in the summer of 1935. They had moved to rural Thief River Falls before that happened. He
was 42 and left behind a 37-year-old widow, Tilda (my grandmother) and seven kids twelve and under.
They had only been married 13 years and Tilda was, of course, devastated; and like most people in 1935,
they had already been living modestly. Now their only source of income would be their farm. Tilda’s
oldest child was my uncle Gene Nelson (born in Malung where Victor grew up) and he had to take on a
lot of responsibility around the farm.
The next child was June, who had been born in Salol. She was about 10 and had to work in the house
while Grandma helped Gene outside with animals, garden, and farm duties. Betty Lou was only eight
and had been frail after a bout of rheumatic fever as a little girl. While Gene helped outside, and June
worked inside cooking and cleaning, Betty Lou was assigned babysitting duties since she wasn’t as
strong as the older kids. There was a brother named Jack (born in Falun) who helped Gene outside as
much as he could and three younger girls born after their move to Thief River Falls. Marian was about 4,
my mom (Kelly) was about 3, and the youngest girl Phyllis was only 3 months old when their dad died.
So even the babysitting job would have been quite a responsibility for an 8-year-old girl. Of course, her
big sister June also helped keep the little girls happy.
Grandma and her seven children carried on the best they could, but Victor’s sister Mae Hetteen and
brother, John Nelson, visited and could see that Tilda was very depressed as Christmas was coming and
there were no funds to make a festive Christmas. Betty Lou remembers hearing them talking together.
She said what they decided to do next made what could’ve been the worst possible Christmas into what
Betty remembers as the most heart-warming Christmas of her childhood.
There were seven children, and Victor had seven siblings who came up with a Christmas plan. Those
siblings were Uncle John Nelson, Auntie Mae Hetteen, Auntie Betty Erickson, Auntie Hilda Perrett,
Auntie Sissy Hetteen, Auntie Anna Jensen, and Auntie Edith Roseen. They decided to each buy a gift for
one of the seven children when it was convenient for them and, over the time leading up to Christmas,
mail the gifts to the children one at a time. But first they gave a gift to Grandma. They Calcimined the
walls of her living room! In case you’re not familiar with that word, Betty said it was a type of
whitewash, and it brightened up the interior and made it cheerful and fresh. With light coming from
kerosene lamps, and heat coming from a wood-burning stove, it wasn’t easy to keep walls and ceilings
looking clean.
Betty remembers that the heating stove was poorly positioned at the bottom of the stairway in their
little two-room house. She fell down those stairs once coming down from the attic, falling all the way to
the bottom. Her hand landed on the hot surface of the stove, leaving her with a big blister. Betty said
one of their two rooms was the kitchen, of course, and the second room was simply called “the other
room”. Everything not done in the kitchen was done in “the other room”. No one called it a living room
at that time. It was where they slept at night and hung out during the day. The two boys slept upstairs in
the attic, which was cold. Betty remembers frost on the nail heads.
But Betty talked about the exciting days leading up to Christmas as the gifts arrived one by one,
addressed to each child in turn from one of the aunts or their Uncle John. It was an exciting day as each
package came and was brought into the house. They were put aside until all had arrived and were then
opened at Christmas time. Betty’s gift was a dolly about 15 inches tall with a molded face and a cloth
body. She had little black shoes that Betty would take off at bedtime and put under the bed with her
own so the dolly could sleep with her.
Betty said those gifts made that whole time joyful for them. I’m sure those aunts and their uncle John
had no idea how meaningful that act of kindness would remain even 85 years later. Like I said, it was
1935, and no one had much to spend, and the aunts had their own families to provide for, so it was truly
a big act of generosity to help their widowed sister-in-law and her family. It’s a good reminder for all of
us that a little kindness goes a long way.
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.