You can also hear these stories on Sunday mornings around 9:00 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.
September 13, 2026
I’ve been reading for the past few weeks from Audrey (Helstad) Jensen’s remembrances of her family members, starting with her great-aunts and uncles on her Helstad side, then the great-aunts and great-uncles on her Dokken side. After that, she continued on with her parents’ siblings. Last week I read about her half aunts and uncles on the Dokken side, the children of her grandfather and his first wife Bergit. Today I’ll read about her full aunts and uncles, the children of her Grandfather Ole Dokken and his second wife Ingaborg. Ingaborg also brought a child to the marriage named Anna who became another of Audrey’s aunts. Here is Audrey’s telling of that part of her family.
My full aunts and uncles on my mother’s side are Ingwald, the only uncle, Biddy (Betty), Clara and Margaret. Margaret was the only one with dark hair and looked — like herself. The rest all carried a strong family resemblance.
Ingwald, a salesman, was married to Gertrude Jack (or Jaque). Their marriage ended in divorce. Their two sons Richard and Kenneth lived with their father but also spent a lot of time at Grandpa Dokken’s. Richard also spent some time at our house when I was about 16 or 17 years old. He was about 15 or 16 and was on parole for some juvenile offence.
Ingwald passed away at the age of sixty-one. He must have suffered a heart attack because we were told that when he was found, it appeared that he had just fallen as he was getting out of bed.
The rest of the family? Who knows! We do know that the beautiful Gertrude married at least once more, and my memory seems to tell me that she remarried several times. Kenneth played drums in an orchestra at a ski lodge in Idaho. He never married and was killed in an accident when a very young man. Richard — what shall I say? He went out west but kept moving from place to place. The last time anyone heard from him personally was when he came to Roseau for his father’s funeral. He was accompanied by a woman, but there was some doubt as to whether they were married. Most of the time he kept his activities unrevealed. No one knows anything about him at the present. We don’t even know if he is still alive.
Aunt Betty married Edgar Wold and they had four children. They are Norman, Ruth and Kathryn. Their second child Bruce died from a bleeding stomach ulcer when he was a very young man. I believe Edgar was a farmer until he was elected Roseau County Auditor.
Mom says Aunt Betty paid me a lot of attention when I was a baby. I was her first niece and filled a void for her at a time when her fiancé was in the army. I stayed at her house the year I was a freshman in high school.
Betty was a lover of flowers and was an expert flower arranger who won dozens of county and district championships. She was also given state recognition for her activities in horticulture.
Edgar died while sitting in his chair in 1967. Betty lived alone in their house in north Roseau until she became too senile and was moved to Eventide, a home for the aged in Roseau when she was about 90. She hated it there and a year or so later they sold her house and furniture and she went to live with her daughter Ruth in New Ulm, Minnesota. She is now soon 93 and in good health, but needs a lot of personal care because her mind has deserted her. One of the hazards of old age.
Aunt Clara married Arne Barstad and they spent their lives in various towns in North Dakota. He was a banker and died from cancer in 1978. His sons are now the bankers in his bank in Harvey, North Dakota. They are Robert and Roland. Their daughter Lois, Mrs. Loren Adolphson, lives in Fridley, Minnesota and is in real estate. She has also been a school teacher and an interior decorator.
Harry says that of all my aunts, I am the most like her in personality. I used to look forward to her coming to Roseau but would also dread it because I knew she would hug and kiss me, and that would be so very embarrassing. My family was very undemonstrative and never hugged or kissed. She was a very out-going person who enjoyed life a lot. She passed away just before Christmas in 1982 —- another cancer victim.
Aunt Margaret’s first husband’s name was Oscar Erickson and they had two sons, Russell and Harold. Oscar and Margaret operated a business at Fox, Minnesota. The building housed a store that sold everything from groceries to hardware and household supplies, a cream station (the forerunner of the creamery) a gas station and the U. S. Post Office. He passed away from a ruptured appendix when his sons were only about 5 and 7 years old. Margaret continued to operate the business for some time after he died. I remember spending a couple weeks with them to watch over the boys one summer. I also helped out at the store when they closed out the store in the fall of 1936. Oscar comes to mind frequently when I am in church because Margaret donated the altar picture in his memory.
Her second husband was Albert Forslund. They lived in Roseau where he operated a filling station for “City Service”. Later they ran a hardware store in Red Lake Falls, Minnesota. From there they moved to Enderlin, North Dakota and then to Mora, Minnesota where she lives. He passed away in 1978. They had two sons, Curtis and Charles.
Margaret had a very good soprano solo voice and sang frequently at church functions. She once said that she had never said “no” to singing at a funeral. In those days they were never paid for singing either.
That concludes Audrey’s descriptions of her aunts and uncles, and great-aunts and uncles. Some time soon, I’ll read what she has written about her parents, Oscar and Isabelle Helstad.
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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.