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.
March 16, 2025
In 1978, a couple from Ross, Minnesota, celebrated their 50 th wedding anniversary and were interviewed
by a local newspaper. Here’s the story that was written:
She was masked as the group of carolers stopped at a Ross farm to sing. She shook hands with a young
man there, thinking he “was a nice-looking boy.” He later bought her basket at a basket social. “And
that’s how we first got together.” Nels Braaten and Nellie Edwardson have been together long enough to
observe their golden wedding at Ross last Sunday.
He was born on the farm on which they still live. She was born West of Fox and moved to live with her
uncle and aunt near Badger when her father died. She went to teachers college in Moorhead and Bemidji
and then came back to teach school. “He’d come riding horseback after school,” she recalled. Later Nels
bought a Model T “and then I really was it,” he laughed. He also came courting with a team and caboose.
The were married on August 10, 1927 at the home of her uncle, Julius Nelson, in Moose Township by
Reverend Olson. They moved “across the road” from their present farmstead on land belonging to his
dad. His dad had homesteaded there in 1890 and when Nels’s mother died, they moved onto the home
place where they have lived since.
Their first house was “a cold house” Mrs. Braaten recalled, “but we never had a cold there.” The flowers
froze there, the water froze, but two of their children were born there. Nels met Dr. Berge East of Fox
with a team for the birth of their fourth child. “The roads were blocked and I had to use a toboggan,” he
recalled. Dr. Delmore delivered their first two children.
They started farming a quarter of land with horses. “We had chickens, pigs, turkeys, sheep, and we
milked cows and always had a big garden,” Mrs. Braaten recalled. “We still have,” Nels added, pointing to
the growing things.
She canned a lot, they did their own butchering and she also helped with the milking. “When I needed
help in the house Nels would help me and when he needed help I would help him,” Mrs. Braaten said.
She recalled once she held a rope when he was to butcher a critter. She hid in the grainery. Nels missed
on his first swing and the animal took off, dragging Mrs. Braaten into the air until Nels took another swing
and got the job done.
She often carried the two children into the barn, milked, carried the milk to the house and then came
back for them. It was fun on the farm in early years, though. They had a lot of neighbors “all around”.
Mrs. Braaten said it was “cozy to take the horse and toboggan and go visiting on Sunday afternoon.” They
played whist, got together for meals and visited while the kids played on the straw sacks.
Nels recalled the roads were pretty bad and only a Model T could get through. . . . but he got stuck with
that, too, and had to carry his wife to solid ground and then come back for a team to get the vehicle out.
“The roads were just trails,” he laughed.
The neighbors worked together during harvest and Mrs. Braaten recalls cooking for 14 people at a time.
Nels said she drove tractor many times on the farm and she revealed that “Nels can bake pretty good
bread, too.”
She recalls the hard work of carrying water and wood . . . getting in the garden and canning, “But work
doesn’t hurt anybody. No one ever killed himself by working hard,” she said.
Nels has been active in community affairs all his life. He was on the school board for many years, some as
treasurer; he was on the Ross creamery board and was its president; he was clerk on the town board of
Dieter and was on the board of the Roseau County Cooperative Association for 24 years. He was also a
member of the Ross-Pinecreek Improvement Association. He was a director of the Badger State Bank for
years and is treasurer of the church board which he has served since their marriage.
The Braatens were named Valley Farmer-Homemaker in 1953.
Mrs. Braaten is a member and has been president of the Concordia Ladies Aid and of the ALCW. She is
still a member of Homemakers (since the beginning) and the Ross Garden Club, which she helped found.
She was a 4-H leader for many years and taught Sunday School for years also.
Mrs. Braaten looks back on her teaching career with fondness. “The kids in school were good,” she said.
“They behaved in those years.” She taught at Mudcreek for a time (she was always afraid of the big attic
in the building there), building fire and carrying water; then in the Frosaker School. Some of her students
were the Messelts; Lawrence Wellen, Hilman Wellen, Lilly Wellen, and Selvin, Edgar and Connie Erickson,
Mildred and Clarence. “I even took care of frozen ears in those years,” she recalled.
They build new buildings on their farm, a new home in 1939 and then another in 1966 when they retired.
They live there now, enjoying some trips South in winter and Nels enjoys still helping with farm work
occasionally.
They raised four children: Romelda, Lila, Marvin and Maynard. They have 12 grandchildren and one
great-grandchild and feel that the years growing with their children were the very best.
Nels used to fish and he likes to read, watch TV and “Keep busy.” Mrs. Braaten knits, crochets, loves her
garden and flowers and enjoys her hobby of collecting spoons. Nels says she’s a good cook. “The best I’ve
had,” he jokes. They enjoy their home with its modern conveniences and look back on the tough years as
part of life. “We never really had a total crop failure,” he says.
They are thankful for having had good health and for having their family. Nels is renting his remaining
quarter to his grandson “who is going to be a farmer,” he says. “That’s what makes a good community.
The young people.”
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.