My love affair with Ekalaka

I have a love affair with Ekalaka and Carter County. Compared with my entire life I didn’t spend much time there but it is embedded way down deep in my soul. Every time that I go there it is brought back to the forefront of my mind again. What is it about the area that affects me that way?

I think that first of all, it is the area itself. We lived in several places near Ekalaka and I really liked all of them. I think that my favorite was what we called the Opechee Park place. Jesse LaBree referred to it once as the Kinsey place. We lived there when I was about 4 in 1942. A number of things happened to me there. Once I found three ticks on my little sister’s belly button and a passing man helped us get them off. I suppose that the most noteworthy thing that happened was when my two older sisters and I took a horse to the spring to drink and I scraped my temple on a jagged branch and ripped it open. Another passing person took us the seven miles to town where Dr. Sandy taped me up. Mother always said that I should have had stitches. This place is the first place where I learned to milk cows. Yes, at age four.

Anyway we lived in several other places and then moved to Ekalaka in 1944. The first place that we lived was a house by the cemetery and the dairy. We spend several good years there. I experienced the 1948-1949 blizzard there and several others as well. We had a lot of fun playing in the snow. I remember one time when a huge drift covered the back yard from one end to the other. After it hardened up we dug and tunneled on that drift for a long while until it finally collapsed. We lived next to who I lovingly refer to as Old Man Taylor. I used to do chores for him and he would tell us stories of his childhood in southern Minnesota. One time on Easter April 6th it snowed and I walked in fresh snow up to my chest to go over and do the chores for him. Later he moved to an apartment in town and I kept up my friendship with him. In later years when I was back there I looked at that house and I couldn’t believe that we lived in such a small house.

The next house in Ekalaka was what we called the Odis Harkins house because that is who Dad bought it from. I loved that house and the area around it. We had 152 acres. I used to explore the hills and forest behind this house sometimes by myself and sometimes with others. I can’t believe that my parents let me do that. I continued to milk cows everywhere that I lived. I remember once when I played ball with some boys in town until it was almost too late. I had to get home and find the cows. If I hurried to one spot I could see the whole property except for one area in the forest. I did so and saw them nowhere. I was relieved when I went back to the house and there was a low shed that I had missed in my hurry.

The people that I experienced there were probably the main reason that I loved Ekalaka so much. I could go on and on about my teachers and fellow students. I started first grade in Ekalaka in 1944 and went all the way through high school there. I always did well in school so it was a real joy to me. There were also a number of people around town who I liked very much. Of course, my grandma and grandpa who lived down on Boxelder near Belltower were wonderful to me as well.

I could go on and on about my friends and experiences there but will cut it off for now.