Listen to the Weekly Radio Readings by Sheila Winstead, RCHS Board Member
Recorded October 2020
October 4 & 11, 2020: One of Moranville Township’s schools was written about in the Warroad Pioneer on November 29, 2000. It was Isabelle Weitemier’s memories of school days in Moranville. Here is her story: I attended District 82, commonly referred to as just 82, as a first grader in 1941. It was a two-room school located approximately a mile from my Grandma and Grandpa Platt’s farm where my mother and I were staying during my dad’s employment on the Alaskan Highway. At that time it was operating as a two room school with grades 1 to 4 in the back room and 5 to 8 in the front. It had a divided privy with one side for the girls and one side for the boys. The girls side was a three or four hole bench style seat, and I assume the boys was the same. There was no running water; but a counter near the back of the room with a bucket, dipper and basin served for hand washing. The dipper was also used for drinking. I think we all must have stayed as healthy as we did from frequently challenged immune systems. There was a well and pump not far to the right of the front door, and some of the older kids were assigned to water duty.
It was in this school that I first learned about cousins. We had never lived near any relatives before, and here I had several cousins in each room. All of them were the children of my Aunt Naomi and Uncle Martin Hokanson. Two boys, Clifford and Blanchard, were in my room. The teacher’s name was Olga Green. She knew my parents. I think they had gone to the Warroad Normal School together. 82 was quite a change from the modern kindergarten I had attended in Two Harbors, Minnesota.
We had to walk to and from school. It was about a mile from my grandparents’ home, but some of the kids had at least two miles to walk…listen for the rest of the story.
October 18 & 25, 2020: Today’s story is about a homesteader in Stafford Township. His name was Peter Olaf Nelson. His granddaughter Muriel Fevold shared a letter he had written to his second wife, hoping they could be married soon as he had a large family to take care of after the death of his first wife. She also gave me some details of his history.
Peter married Mary Roseen in 1897. Together they had 10 children: Willie, Selma (Mrs. Charlie) Skoglund, Oscar (married to Edith), Albert (married to Hildi), Alice (Mrs. Albin) Hedlund, Edith (Mrs. Leanard) Olson, Muriel’s mother Mildred (Mrs. Lawrence) Olson, Alfred (married to Ruth), Emil (married to Marie, the original owners of Nelson’s Café), and Marie (Mrs. Elbridge) Pike. His wife Mary died in 1921 shortly after the birth of their 10th child, Marie. She died of postpartum infection and sepsis. The doctors did not wear gloves back in those days, and Penicillin had not been discovered yet, so it was not an uncommon fate. The youngest children stayed with neighbors and relatives until he remarried.
Peter married Anna Peterson in 1922 and they went on to have two more children: Ruth (Mrs. Clayton) Erickson, and Della (Mrs. Odean) Anderson.
Here is the letter his family found that he had written to Anna after he had proposed marriage:
January 9, 1922
Dear Anna,… listen for the rest of the story.
Thank you to 
for letting us share the history of our county with your listeners.