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.
August 24, 2025
This is a continuation of the stories Wilbert McFarlane wrote in 2000 about his life in Badger as a
young fellow. His story is in the Roseau County Museum research area.
Later, a new depot agent came to town, old Clarence Larson. In a small town, in about three
days, you know who is rich and famous and you also know who is damn poor. I was down at the
depot with his son, Calvin, goofing off. I had a horse on a little stone boat. A stone boat is a little
sled about four feet wide and about 6-8 feet long. I hauled everything on it… including the
famous manure … the road apples … if you were cleaning a barn. He asked me if I wanted to
haul some freight that the train brought in to the lumber yard or the grocery store. The train came
through Badger at noon, went to Warroad and turned around and came back at 4. So I grabbed
onto that quick and boy! That was a booming deal … besides that, pulling a few cars to get them
started. I picked up a buck here and there.
By this time I was getting big enough to want to go to a show once in awhile. I remember me and
Betty and Dennis Urdahl and Beulah Hanson going to show in Roseau … driving around the
country … gas was cheap .. you’d get 5 gallons for a buck and then scream at the station guy to
drain the hose so you could get that extra few drops.
I was about 16 and had saved up a few dollars … which was a miracle … and there was some
land for sale south of Badger. My dad went to the sale because I was too young to do anything
official. He came back and he didn’t get the 80 acres he thought he was going to get … he got a
different eighty. It was straight on across the road from John Penas. So that was O.K. We would
go out there and cut wood to sell or for our own use. There was an old shack on the land, and
later on, when I got married, we fixed it up and lived there.
I was in about 9 th grade and during the war just about anyone could get a job anyplace. I quit
school and went out to Drayton. My sister Edna was living there. I went to work that spring for a
farmer living south of Drayton .. old Arnt Rienleader. There again I was learning something every
day. He was, at the time considered a pretty good farmer. He farmed with an old W-30 tractor
and a little B International.
It was there that I learned to be an illegal fisherman. He lived on, I think, the Snake River, that
runs into the Red. He had his own fish trap.. it was a wire cage about 3 feet square with a funnel
type deal on one end so the fish would go in and they couldn’t get out. So sure enough, he went
down there with me and threw the trap in. I didn’t think much of it for about 10 days when he
said, “Say, why don’t you go down there and get that trap out .. bring it up here and see if we’ve
got any fish.” Well, I pulled that trap out and sure enough we had 8 or 9 fish. They weren’t too
big, but we enjoyed them. But he wasn’t satisfied .. like most farmers and ordinary people ..
greed steps into the picture. So we have to turn the trap around so it would get the fish coming
with the current instead of against it.
So we turned the trap around and threw it in the river. In the meantime, it was before spring work
started, and they were grading potatoes in the potato house in Drayton and at night we’d take all
the rotten potatoes, throw them on the truck and stop on the bridge and throw them over. Well,
spring came and the current was pretty good and we had forgot about the trap .. it rained so we
couldn’t do anything else but sit in the potato house. “By golly, What about that fish trap?”, he
says, “There should be some fish in there.” So I take that little B McCormick, tearing down to the
river. I had a cable from the net hooked on a tree. I hooked onto that and was going to take off
and I couldn’t budge it. All the tractor done was spin in the mud and slide around. So I went back
to the yard and he asked if I got it. “No”, I said, “I can’t pull it.” So he comes with the big tractor
and we ended up with both tractors pulling … it was slippery and wet. We pulled and pulled and
got the trap out of the river. We had one fish and about 500 lbs. of rotten potatoes. Well, that was
my first illegal fishing. I’ve done very little of it since.
Well, then we left there and Ross and Ruby got a job in Grand Forks at Gamble Robinson
wholesaler. And I got a job there, too. That was maybe one of my first real jobs. But that was
good, because there was always a case of something busted. There was good cookies to eat ..
everybody carried a can opener … there was orange juice and everything in there. But I admit I
did go crazy when I found out how bananas are handled. The bananas would come in in a
boxcar .. completely green .. just standing up in the boxcar. So we’d go in .. carry them out .. take
them downstairs to this big warehouse .. it was a two story deal .. hang them on hooks .. and this
room was about 50 feet square. When we got a room full, we had a little gas stove in each
corner … light the stoves … go out and shut the door … and come back in three or four days and
those things were so close to being ready to eat that we were eating on them anyhow. Man, oh
man, did I eat bananas. You talk about gas … if I could have captured that stuff I could have
been a wealthy guy today.
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for letting us share our county’s history with your listeners by donating air time, studio time, and production staff every week.