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.
January 4, 2026
Today’s story was written by Gladys Miller of Roseau. It was found among her papers after
her death in February 2002, and contributed by her family to the Regional Ramblings
publication of September 2002, a supplement to the Roseau Times-Region. Gladys’s story
was called “Endurance in Earlier Days”.
Let me take you back to the severe winter of 1934. With lots of snow and wind, roads were
blocked most of the time. The only way to open the roads was to use homemade snowplows
pulled by horses. Then farmers would hurry to haul their cream to town before another storm
blocked the roads again.
On February 4, men with 15 teams of horses were patiently and slowly plowing through
huge drifts while a very pregnant woman (me) watched from her kitchen window and
wondered why the men had to work so hard on a Sunday. Why didn’t they wait ‘til Monday?
But it was lucky for her that the roads were open at four o’clock the next morning when the
old, cold stork circled her chimney, carrying not only one bundle, but two – both wrapped
warmly in blue blankets. Two six-pound baby boys and one exhausted stork!
What excitement! Find a hired girl for mother. Find a hired man for father, who was almost
overcome by the stork’s generosity. Kind neighbors brought gifts, food and sympathy. (The
mailman, who also had twins, stopped to see if the babies looked like him.)
Tasks were soon on schedule – bathing, weighing, feeding and changing diapers. Passing
neighbors would count the diapers hanging like frozen ghosts on the clotheslines; we had no
Maytag washers or dryers in those days. Even worse, we had no running water, electricity or
summertime refrigeration. In winter, the three-room house itself was so cold that ice formed
on water pails in the kitchen overnight.
I clearly recall that I never left home from Christmas Day until April 14 when we took the
babies to the parsonage in Roseau to be baptized. Looking back, I am amazed that I
maintained my sanity – or did I?
Try to imagine being cooped up in a small house with two cribs, two babies, a four-year old
daughter (Betty), who also needed attention, and a hired girl who would rather milk cows
than wash diapers. I must admit she was very helpful in caring for the new twins. What a
treat to get outdoors, even for a few moments each day!
As time passed, we added two high chairs and two potty chairs. How excited we were when
the first tooth appeared – for both boys on the very same day.
At eleven months it was time to walk and it was “where thou goest, I will go.” Across the
room they went – together. They’ve been doing things together ever since. Soon they were
very daring. One day I came in from outdoors to find them both standing on the ironing
board. I almost had heart failure.
It was not unusual to hear them laughing after I had put them to bed. The reason? I had put
them in the wrong cribs and they knew I had mixed them up.
At age two and a half, they decided one day to make a cake while I was outdoors. They
climbed on the counter, emptied a box of Oxydol into a mixing bowl and added a box of salt
and some water. They were about to empty the vanilla bottle when I walked in.
For Christmas that year, we decided to have photos taken at the Holm Studio. This was the
time for their first haircut from a barber so they’d look their best on the picture. They were
shy of the barber, but agreed to the haircuts if they could each have a package of gum. One
said, “I’ll let him cut my hair, but I don’t want a shave.” Lacking experience, I gave them the
gum before setting them in the barber chair. They took one look at the barber and with gum
in hand ran out the door and down the street. The Christmas photograph shows that there
was no haircut.
Time marches on. Soon they were ready for school, dressed exactly alike and carrying
dinner buckets, which always had to contain a surprise. Poor teacher! She couldn’t tell who
was who, so as she said “Good morning” to them, she would casually turn in the shirt collar
on one of them, but then she’d forget which one he was so she was still confused.
High school brought more confusion, only now it wasn’t only the teachers who were
confused, but young girls as well. I remember the fun and excitement of two class rings, the
prom and two corsages, and for graduation, new suits and shoes at Penney’s. I met the
boys at the store during noon hour.
They were in a hurry; they had girls waiting in their car. One said to the other, “I’ll try on the
suit; you try on the shoes and let’s get out of here. The clerk was floored. He had never
made such a quick sale in his life. Two suits and two pairs of shoes in five minutes! They are
grown men now with sons of their own. Many similarities still exist. It’s not unusual to hear
someone ask “Are you Jim or Jerry?” Some people even have their wives mixed up.
You heard it said that lightning never strikes twice in the same place, but, on a warm May
morning when these two boys were nine years old, that same old stork circled the chimney
on the same old house. This time he was carrying a pink bundle (Donna) and a blue bundle
(Don) – not as heavy as before, but equally as exciting!
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.