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Florence Marie Granstrand Effinger |
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Florence Marie Granstrand Effinger |
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Lived in Belgrade, Minnesota, with my mother for two weeks, then went to Sauk Centre to live with my oldest sister, Annie. Three weeks after we got there, Annie was taken ill and after six weeks a girl, Mabel, was born. While at my sister's, I kept house for four men, two of Clem Worland's brother's, my husband, two children of Annie and Clem's, Annie and I in a six room house. I did all washing on washboard as those days we did not know of such a thing as a washing machine and all the house work as my sister was sick! My Frank worked in the woods, and did all the odd jobs he could get until the summer of 1897.
In July of 1897 we hired out to a farmer and stayed there until all farm work was done, about three months. We went back to Sauk Centre with the whole sum of $56.00 to set up housekeeping. We put one month's rent on a house, bought food, a table and chairs and a bed. Annie and Clem gave us a cook stove that they paid $1.50 for and baked bread and got along until March of 1898 on what little Dad could make on odd jobs and playing for parties and dances.
In March of 1898 we moved to Belgrade again as John Effinger, Dad's brother, was to build a saloon with living quarters upstairs. We moved upstairs of my mother's for two months, then moved again to an upstairs rooms as my mother wanted her upstairs rooms for someone else. We lived in Belgrade all summer and until November 1, 1898.
Dad got a job buying grain for Osborne MacMiIIan Elevator Co., and we moved to South Haven, Minnesota, November 1, 1898. The first two months we were there we boarded at Wright's, the only hotel in town, and I worked at keeping hotel while they went on a honeymoon. Then we rented an apartment of two rooms, one up and one down, where Earl was born, January 16, 1899, exactly two years and almost two months after we were married! Mrs. Kimberly came and delivered him. We had been out to Will Kite's until after six p.m. We walked into town and about 8 o'clock we went for another walk and got back about 9:30 p.m. We went to bed and about 1:30 a.m. I awoke and found something was to happen so Dad had to go after Mrs. Kimberly, a midwife. Earl was born about 2:30 a.m. The next day, Theresa, Dad's sister, came to help with housework and keep us together. Every Friday I had to make potato pancakes for clerk in store. Emil Mauer liked potato pancakes so he brought in butter and I had to make potato pancakes.
We lived in South Haven, Minnesota, until first of September, 1899. Then Dad was sent to Lintonville, Minnesota, now Regal, on Soo Line Railroad to Minneapolis as elevator attendant. We were there for one year. Then Dad was sent to Alborn near Valley City, North Dakota and, as there was no house to rent where he was to work, we had to rent rooms at Valley City and Dad went back and forth to work on a bicycle. Earl was going on two years old. We only stayed there two months until grain was all in and the elevator company laid Dad off and we had to find some other place (Belgrade) to live. We had an auction on our furniture and went back to Belgrade in November 1900 and got three rooms above some friends of ours and there Clemens was born December 21, 1900, about three weeks before Earl's second birthday.
At Christmas time, 1900, Kate, Dad's oldest sister, and her family came to spend a month so when Clem was a little over a month old we went to visit Dad's brother, John, and his family in South Haven, Minn. He had a saloon and when we got there Kate was sick with pneumonia so Kate Schomisch stayed there for a while with Anthony, her youngest. The next day her husband and their three other children, Dad and our two youngsters and myself left for Kimberly, Wisconsin, where Schomisch's lived in hopes that Dad could find work. I kept house for them until Kate Schomisch got home with Tony.
Dad got a job in the paper mill, but, after finding us a place to live, was only there about six months. He could not take all the dust and dirt and had to look for another place to work so we moved to Neevah, Wisconsin. We were not there very long when the shop closed for lack of business and we left for Thief River Falls, Minn.
On our way we visited his parents and my mother for a couple of weeks then went on to Thief River Falls. Dad worked for Chris Porter in the draying business for a while and Leon was born September 9, 1902. Then Dad went into partnership with Mr. MuIley (?) in a pool hall and billiard parlor. We lived in Thief River Falls nearly sixteen years. (and while there we lived in six different places.)
Marie was born two years after Leon, July 3, 1904, near park where we lived then in a three room house. We had a fold-a-way bed for the boys that we could put the legs under and shove it under our bed in the day time. My sister, Jennie, was going to come over with Elra and Kenneth Porter, age of Leon, to help me as we could not get anyone else, but Elra took down with typhoid fever so no go, she had to stay home with him, then, in some way, we did get hold of a young girl who wanted a place to work but, oh boy, you should have seen her. While ironing, she would have a chair along side of her with one foot up on that, so I got up when Marie was four days old and between Earl and I we got the dishes washed and meals made and Dad did the washing after I got it ready. We only kept the maid one day and got along fine. As it happened, our Good Lord gave me health and strength to keep going.
After living in three different houses, Dad took a notion to buy a house on St. Paul Avenue. It had only two and a half rooms in it so he had to get busy and build. He raised the upstairs then built one more room which was only large enough for a bed. Not even a chair could be in it. The downstairs one I used for a sewing room. Then after that he added a dining room, which we also used for a kitchen until he could add on a little more. Also had a cellar, which he made of cement, and a cistern. Then, some time after, he added one more bedroom down on side of living room and one room upstairs, so we had four bedrooms. Then, some time later, he added two more rooms -- kitchen and laundry room, one more cistern under new kitchen and we also had a pump for drinking water. When it was finished we had two pumps, one at each side of the sink, so we sure had some house and a big porch in front all screened in! When we left there we had a nine room house with a garage in back of the lot and in summer a garden with "tomatoes, cucumbers, potatoes and all", as Dennis LeSage, our next door neighbor, used to say. All this time Dad worked every half day or nite at the pool hall so he sure was kept busy.
Two years after Marie was born Francis came along June 16, 1906; Elva, April 14, 1908; Neoma, January 23, 1910; Lawrence, October 14, 1911; Paul, October 15, 1913; Veronica, September 30, 1915. When Veronica was one and a half years old, March 1917, we moved from Thief River Falls to Stillwater.
Dad worked for the State Prison on the road selling binders or harvesters and twine. Two months after we were there we had to move to South Stillwater or Bayport, as the owner of the house we were in wanted it for himself.
When we declared war and the Prison started an ammunition factory, Earl, Clem and Dad got a job there and we lived in South Stillwater until Christmas of 1917. On August 2, 1917, Robert was born and we moved to Stillwater again while the three men folks worked in the ammunition factory. Then Earl joined the Marines Corps and was sent to a little island south of Florida, after being at Parris Island.