The Big Move to Glendive, Montana

Dad was unhappy in this new type of work so when his brother Lorin wrote asking him to open a Karl Johnson  Co. in Glendive, Montana, 80 miles east of Miles City, Mom and Dad were  both elated and made plans for Dad to leave.

Lorin had had the opportunity of transferring from a Penney's store in Billings to manage a Karl Johnson Co. in Miles City. He became a partner and they decided to open  a Karl Johnson Co in Glendive, where a family-owned store was going out of business.  It was a wonderful opportunity for Dad and he left for Glendive in February 1934.  The store opened on March 24, 1934.  

In May 1934 we traveled by train from Ogden to Glendive where Dad already had a home for us.  Dick was the oldest at 10 years of age and I the youngest at 15 months.  My Mom told me I entertained myself by taking my socks off and and putting them on again.  She said when we arrived in Glendive it seemed to be the end of nowhere.

Glendive is located between the Badlands and the Yellowstone River, and is the center of an agricultural area of eastern Montana and western North Dakota.  There are large grain farms and ranches surrounding Glendive now,  but in 1934 the government was purchasing Dawson County cattle for only $5 to $20 per head.  Nearly all labor in 1935 except for a skeleton railroad force was from the government Works Progress Administration.  It offered work to the unemployed on an unprecedented scale by spending money on a wide variety of programs.  Business was at a low ebb until the start of the Buffalo Rapids Irrigation Project in 1937.  This was also work by the WPA labor in conjunction with the reclamation bureau.

Glendive Main Street

Glendive's main street is one-sided with a huge railroad yard and roundhouse on the other side.  The population when we moved there was a little under 5000.  It is not much different today though it has been larger.  The store that Dad opened was in the middle of town, right on Main Street.   It would be the focus of our lives for many, many years.

Badlands

The Badlands or Makoshika (before it became Makoshika State Park)was our playground growing up. There are unusual rock formations, gumbo, and many prehistoric fossil and dinosaur bones and wonderful hills to hike. 

Glendive's motto is "Good people surrounded by Badlands."

Early 1934 in Ogden

In one of my earliest pictures I notice I had a very suspicious look on my face which probably set the tone for how I viewed life, always a little suspicious and doubtful of anything that appeared too good or too easy.

I have always thought of myself as a Doubting Thomas and lean more toward the negative possibilities instead of the positive ones.  "Always waiting for the other shoe to drop" but very thankful when it doesn't.

In another picture with my Mom and Aunt Ellen I notice that Mom had both Marilyn's and my dresses in her hands so we could not get away, and I had the chubby legs which have stayed with me for life!

In Ogden, Mom had the friendship of her sisters and brother plus all the other relatives.   It must have been very hard for her to leave all her family and travel 1600 miles away to an area she knew nothing about.  Plus she traveled with five children on the train by herself.

Mom has always been a great partner to Dad.  She took care of the family and he took care of the income.  She said the depression brought out the best of everyone and there was much good done for those less fortunate.  She also felt it lasted longer than it should because those who had money were too embarrassed to spend it.

Yellowstone Bridge

Our first house was one block from the big Yellowstone Bridge and across the street from a small grassy park.  The Williams next door had a son my age named Billy, who wore long curls and he was my special friend, Billy Boy. Down the block and across the street was the huge Krug home and they had wonderful play things in their backyard.  We soon moved to the other side of the railroad track, the South Side.  And yes, it was the cheaper place to live.  With five children and a depression this was very important.

The Schultz's lived next door to us and were always such good friends. They had a daughter Pat, Jeanne's age, and Donna was a year younger than me but became a very special friend.  A funny sight was the day Donna ran outside in the rain with nothing on; we watched her Mom carry her back inside, under arm, bottom side first, as if she were a little piggy.

When the Schultz's moved to the North Side, we moved into their white house on the corner.  I was one of those children who wholeheartedly believed in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.  Every Easter we had baskets of candy and eggs to find and I never doubted who brought them.  Evidently I also believed in fairies because Carole reminds me of a story that Mom told her. We were visiting at the home of Mom's friend, Bertha, and Mom said she needed to go home and finish the dishes unless the fairies had already been there.  I quickly darted home and back again to inform my Mom that "Nope, the fairies hadn't been there!"

One Christmas on the South Side was especially bountiful with a Mix Master for Mom, sleds for the boys and dolls and buggies for the girls. The dolls we had to find by following strings throughout the house. Even David got a doll, it was the Kayo from the comic strips.

One of my favorite songs which we sang together was:

Jolly old Saint Nicholas, lean your ear this way!

Don't you tell a single soul what I'm going to say:

Christmas Eve is coming soon; now, you dear old man

Whisper what you'll bring to me; tell me if you can.

When the clock is striking twelve, when I'm fast asleep

Down the chimney, broad and black, with your pack you'll creep

All the stockings you will find hanging in a row

Mine will be the shortest one, you'll be sure to know.

Bobby wants a pair of skates, Suzy wants a sled

Nellie wants a picture book, yellow, blue, and red

Now I think I'll leave to you what to give the rest

Choose for me, dear Santa Claus; you will know the best.

I always felt that song was really about me.  Another Christmas we received a blue tricycle and rode it into the bedroom (Marilyn driving, me on the back) to show Mom and Dad. Funny things stick in my mind like spilling hot lemonade in bed when all three of us girls had the chicken pox and Mom had to change the sheets, and being caught up in the front yard tree when Dr. Danskin came to check on us. He didn't see me though and after he'd gone in the house Dick helped me down and I ran around to the back door and came into the living room so he wouldn't know I'd been outside.  I always wondered if he knew.  He was a very caring doctor. 

We used to play that scatter rugs were boats and I would get my brothers and sisters drinks from the toilet. I wonder if they knew?  One time I fell asleep on the toilet and when I woke there was Dave, Jeanne, Marilyn, and some other friends. Evidently they had charged their friends money to come look at me.

The first missionaries arrived in the summer of 1937 and David and Jeanne were ready for baptism.
Two Elders I remember very well were Newell Tingey and David Smith. Newell always had me on his lap it seemed and gave me a kiss to give his mother in Utah when we went to visit relatives. I said I would deliver it to her but I was very shy and when she asked me for it I just hid behind my mother. Aunt Ellen always liked to give us a big kiss when we visited and I dodged that as much as possible also. I did not like people hugging and kissing me or brushing my hair. Marilyn always wanted to pick my scabs (we had a lot of scabby knees) but I didn't like that either.

I was still a preschooler or first grade when I had a vivid dream of God and Jesus standing at the foot of my bed. I am sure it was precipitated by a picture illustrating the Joseph Smith story. It seemed very real to me and I can still visualize it just as I saw it. 

Our lives began to change at the start of the Buffalo Rapids Irrigation Project in 1937. Business began to pick up and best of all for my Mom it brought our first Mormons to town. The Neely's were a wonderful LDS family that lived in Glendive until I was in about the first grade. We began to have Sunday School in our home and Primary, too, though I remember very little about that.  Barbara was near my age and we always wanted to sing "In Our Lovely Deseret". We would both stand between our Daddy’s knees and sing as loud as we could on that song. I am sure it is what impressed us all with the Word of Wisdom. My favorite Primary song was "Little Purple Pansies". I still have the Deseret Song Book published in 1909 with that song in it.

I had a great imagination as a child and always talked about when I was up in Heaven and had looked down on my brothers and sisters. I felt very close to Jesus and because I had to go to bed earlier than the others I would lay there and talk to Him. I used to say I wanted to die so I could go live with Jesus.   My brothers' bedroom was actually a sun room with windows all around two sides from which you could watch everything that went by our house. I always liked sleeping in there and watching the cars go by. Sometimes Marilyn and I played the game of pretending every other one was hers or mine.

We played "Kick the Can" and "Red Light, Green Light" in the streets. I was still a preschooler so was a tag along. One time when boys were kissing girls and one tried to kiss me I bit his leg. There was one big, mean boy who carried a knife. I was afraid of him. There were a lot of tramps begging for food and Mom would give some of them a little work and food.  However, she did warn us about them. One day the bell rang when I was using my blackboard.  I peered out and saw the tramp at the door.  Mom was gone so I hid behind my blackboard so he couldn't see me through the front glass panels. I was frightened.

Marilyn and I were afraid to be alone at night but one time when Dick was supposed to tend us he gave us a nickel to stay by ourselves. She parked at one end of the couch and I at the other, scared as bunnies till Mom came home. Did Dick ever get a scolding!   

In the winter we would go up to the attic and push snow on whoever was walking between the house and the garage. It was probably Dave that instigated that.  Another happy memory was a little grocery store within walking distance from our home that sold vanilla ice cream cones with red candy cherries on top and licorice strips with pink sugary drops on it and cutouts which actually punched out.



I was five years old when Dad purchased our first car.   I had a recurring nightmare about it that I can still visualize in my mind. I was driving with my Dad in the car and he would have to stop and keep opening gates in the dark alley and when he was out of the car someone would pull me out of a hole in the bottom of the car and put me in a big gunny sack. I never found out what happened to me in the gunny sack but when I would wake up I would finish the dream myself with my Dad cutting open the gunny sack and saving me. Somewhere I had heard a story about some puppies that were put in a gunny sack and thrown in the river and I suppose that is how it all started.

We had a big brown Tom Cat who I dearly loved. He would let me do anything to him and was very gentle. One night he and another cat were having a fight outside and Dad went to break it up. We never saw Tommy after that, he may have been poisoned or hurt or just run away. That was the last cat I remember having until I had children of my own.

 

 In winter all of us girls had long stockings. These were heavy cotton and usually brown. White stockings were only for Church and special occasions. The stockings were held up by elastic straps which were worn over our shoulders, attached around the waist and then hung down with garters to clip on to the stockings. The garters were in front and back so if you happened to sit on the back garter it was very uncomfortable. Obviously these were not fun to wear.  After we moved to the Heights the neighbors sometimes used our clothesline.  I don't know what possessed me but I took Shirley's white stockings off the line and when Shirley and her Mom came to the door to see if we had removed a pair of Shirley's white stockings by mistake they all looked over at me and there I was in white stockings.  As I recall I blurted out something like "I thought they were mine".  I hated those brown cotton stockings.

We had no TV in those days to baby sit us but loved listening to the radio to programs like Jack Armstrong, Inner Sanctum and Fibber McGee and Molly. Sometimes you had to sit really close to be able to hear. One time while listening a bolt of lightening shot across the room. We were supposed to unplug all the electric items during an electrical storm. Glendive had big thunder and lightening storms and many times there were huge hail storms as well.  Most people had lightening rods on their roofs.

Since I was the youngest of the children I was called Baby Anderson. This was soon to change. Carole Myrene was born on November 12th, 1938 and was the only one of us with blond hair and blue eyes. We thought she was as pretty as a doll. We were able to visit her in the hospital and I was impressed that the nurse gave us a drink of milk straight from a cow. Our milk at home was delivered by the milkman and in the winter the cap would be pushed up by the frozen cream and it would rise a couple inches above the bottle. This was delicious to eat, like ice cream (which it was). Milk was not homogenized in those days so the cream was always separated and on top of the milk.  Mom did not like us eating it as she would scoop it off the milk and use it for desserts.

Many of  the businesses decorated huge floats for the 4th of July Parade.  We children would ride in the float and I notice in this picture Carole is making her debut sitting on Marilyn's lap.  I am not sure she rode the whole way.  I am sitting in the rear.

In 1939  Dad was able to purchase the store and gave it the name of Andersons's.

A large family named the Roalds lived across the street from us and one of the older girls worked at Woolworth. Because they did not have a phone she often called our house and I would run across the street and deliver the message. She would bring candy treats after work and I especially liked the huge orange Halloween sucker with life savers for eyes as if it were a pumpkin. The thing I wanted most of all was a real banana split which one of the older Roalds had told me about. However, it wasn't until I worked as a soda jerk in high school that I was able to have my first banana split. I can still see myself looking in the mirror, sitting at the counter, enjoying my vanilla with chocolate topping, strawberry with strawberry topping and chocolate with marshmallow topping with a cherry on top.  I was pleased as punch.

Once in first grade I forgot my panties and didn't discover it till I leaned over to get a drink. I'll never forget the boy who threw up at our reading table, his name was Duane and I've never liked the name since. One boy was such a slow reader--I felt sorry for him. I loved school and have many happy memories of first grade at Lincoln School. The principal, Miss Hennigar, would often take our picture. She was a large, jolly lady whom we all loved. I liked books and reading and especially the box of words which we could take and make in to sentences. Since my birthday was in January I was one of the older children in school and it was always easy for me. At the school Christmas program I was wrapped in red and white cardboard like a huge candy cane.

We could also walk to the library from our house on the South Side and check out lots of books. My favorites were "Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka" and "Snipp, Snapp, and Snurr". These were stories about Swedish triplets. I loved the library.  Recently my sister sent me some of these Swedish books from the old library and I did find some new ones for my grandchildren in a little Swedish shop in the Napa Valley. I loved words and reading.  A favorite magazine that came for us in the mail was "Children's Activities" and I really liked going through the magazine and doing as much as I could by myself.

Besides having Church in our home we also went to the Congregational Church and Christmas Eve at the church was always a happy memory to me. We would dress up and go to a sacrament type meeting, come home and open some presents, then go to bed and anxiously wait for Santa to come. We also attended Bible School in the summer. Dad sang in the choir and had a beautiful singing voice.

Janet in First Grade

In one picture of me in the first grade at Lincoln School I am wearing a wool plaid dress. I remember the dress well. I also had the wool plaid skirts I wore with blouses and a sweater. We did not throw them in the wash but hung them after school to wear again and again. The same dress was usually worn two days in a row and we never wore pants to school. We did wear snow pants though and they had to be taken off and hung up along with our coat and the scarf for our head, the mittens, and the scarves for our face. Getting dressed for school and then lunch and playground and home again was no easy thing in the winter. Our mother did not drive and we only had one car, so we walked to school.

My first big trip was with the Neely's to their home in Williston.  I was a little home sick but the biggest problem was the oatmeal.  I didn't like cooked cereal but if I did eat any there could not be any lumps.  Unfortunately there was lumps and I kept gagging as I tried to eat it.  I was an adult before I even tried oatmeal again.

Beds for Seven Dwarf doll house

Before I was old enough to go to school I would play with my Snow White and Seven Dwarfs paper dolls. I would place them all over the living room and play school with them. The Seven Dwarfs were always my favorite and I currently am finishing a doll house for them and this Christmas my sister gave me a new set of stand up dolls to replace the ones I lost.  I even made beds and a kitchen table for them.  Granddaughter Kelsi loved playing with them this last winter.  Now if I could just find an old piano or have someone carve me one.  Great granddaughter Kate had great fun playing with my doll house last summer, so it isn't just for old time memories for me.

I really wanted a Shirley Temple doll for Christmas. And Mom had bought me one. However, my Dad, not realizing the importance of that particular doll, had sold it one evening at the store (some man traveling through was desperately in need of a doll to take home) thinking Mom could buy me another before Christmas. She had kept them at the store so we would not find them, as we always snooped before Christmas. Alas she could not find another Shirley Temple doll and so another doll was substituted. This began three impressions about life which always stayed with me. 1-You do not always get what you want 2-Christmas can be disappointing  3-If you really want something, you have to get it for yourself.

Mother's friend Bertha had no children of her own. She was loud and funny and we all liked her very much. She told me if I came to live with her for awhile she would get me a Shirley Temple doll. I don’t remember discussing this with my mother but I am sure I did. I packed a little suitcase and my brother Dick carried it for me as we walked about a block to Bertha’s house. It was getting dark so it must have been after supper. As we stopped in front of the house and looked up the stairs, there lighted in the window, was Bud. I can still see him as if it were yesterday. He was sitting in his chair reading his paper. He was big and loud as was Bertha, but he was also somewhat scary to me. I was frozen, I could not go up those stairs. Dick tried to encourage me but I would not move. Instead, I turned and sadly walked back home and never did get my Shirley Temple doll. It wasn't until I was married, had my children raised, and was working in the mortgage business that I was able to fulfill that fantasy and purchase, not one, but seven Shirley Temple dolls.  

Shirley Temple Dolls Acquired in 1980's

It seemed we went to the Saturday matinee at the Uptown Theater weekly. Snow White and Shirley Temple movies were my favorite, but I also liked Will Rogers, Roy Rogers, The Lone Ranger and Gene Autry. There were lots of cowboy shows.

We lived a long way from the swimming pool on the North Side  but Mom let us walk there. She never did learn how to drive. I evidently must have known how to swim because she trusted that I would be safe with my older brothers and sisters even though I was under 7 years old. Perhaps she walked with us--I am not sure, but I have a memory of losing my panties out of my towel one time so I did not have dry underwear after swimming. Funny the memories that stick with you.

We had a good trick when we would walk into town and go to the store where Dad worked. We would wait until Dad was waiting on someone and then go up and ask him for a nickel or dime. I can still see that smile on his face as he looked at his customer and then looked at us and reached into his pocket. I don't recall him ever telling us to never to do that again. The department store seemed very large with the shoe department in the back right side and the men's department in the front right side. That was where I would usually corner Dad when he was helping someone with a suit or pants.

We would all be expected to help with inventory at the end of the year. Every thing in every box had to be counted as well as all the separate merchandise. We could also help with the various labeling and stacking of merchandise in the back room. This was all prior to the time we were old enough to be a clerk and sell the merchandise. Everyone eventually got a chance to do that and was expected to. I never liked to sell, but I liked the office work or working in the back room.

Dave, Marilyn, Janet, Jeanne in Front, Dad, Carole, Mom and Dick in Rear

Another happy memory from my early childhood was the Elks Christmas Party for all the children in town. Some of the talented children would sing or dance or recite poems. Then as we left each of us was given a paper sack of candy with an orange in it. Oranges were a real treasure to us as they were very scarce I think. Also inside the sack was hard colorful ribbon candy and chocolate drops with different flavored filling. They were my favorite.  I actually found some at the Dollar Store a few years ago.  They brought back sweet memories and tasted just as I remembered.