This year is the 50th anniversary of "the greatest public works project in history", the Interstate Highway System, of which I-29 goes right past St. Vincent/Pembina.
Mom for one thing knew everyone whose name I mentioned and said she could just see the Gamble farm in her mind. It appears that the people in the picture correspond to the names as listed. For one thing Jean Gamble and Mom are in the right places with the names. She identified Eileen Twamley and Fred Stranger and they too were in the right places as per the names listed below the photo. So I am inclinded to believe the names and photos of each are in the correct order from left to right row by row.
She did however make a few changes in that the one listed as Jean Scott her name isn't Jean but Jane. Brock Perry isn't Brock but Brooks. As soon as she said Brooks Perry I remembered her talking about him over the years. Brooks Perry's dad [Gale Perry] was the St. Vincent Postmaster. Norton DeFrances' Dad [Roy DeFrance] was editor and owner of the St. Vincent Herald [later named the St. Vincent New Era...] Grandpa and several other men use to gather in front of the Herald every day and gossip with each other.
Mom's class started out with 18 students and had they stayed together would have been the largest class to graduate St. Vincent. I earlier [wrote] that the class transferred to Hallock but I was wrong the class transferred to Pembina thus why they had to pay tuition. Going from Minn. to N.D. Grandpa and Grandma Fitzpatrick, the Smith family, and the Strangers couldn't afford that tuition so those kids weren't going to finish school. One morning Mom came downstairs to find Grandma crying. When she asked her why, Grandma who only had a 3rd grade education told Mom because if she would have had the opportunity to graduate she would have done so and Mom was throwing that chance away. Mom said if it meant that much she would go back and graduate. She contacted Fred Stranger and John and Allen Smith and asked them if they would go back to school. They all agreed so they met at the school the next morning at 9am and walked into Professor Vick's class. Mom said Professor Vick was so happy to see them he cried. He told them all at the end of the year that if any of them wanted to further their education he would pay for their college. According to Mom Fred Stranger and the Smith boys did go on to college on Professor Vicks' help. Mom went on to Nurses training which was free so she needed no help. In fact when Mom went to Nurses training it was a working school as well as classes so she not only did not have to pay to become a nurse she got paid $12 a month for nursing.
Others of the DeFrances family (not in the picture) were Gladys amd Marjorie*. She also talked about Mae Gamble who Mom knew well but also not in the picture as she was in a higher class. She knew every name I mentioned but before she could remember much her mind would cloud over again and then I would show her the picture once again to see if she could see it better so as to identify people and she then would tell me yet another story.
My mother was born in 1914, attended school and church [in St. Vincent.] Her mother, Lillie Maud Griffith Gamble died when my mom was around 14 years old. At some point after that, my grandfather moved from the farm in St. Vincent to Hallock where they lived. I think he lost the farm and took a job with the railroad.
When I was growing up, my mother would sometimes mischieviously refer to my father as "Flash", or "Flash Gordon". Upon questioning them about this, I learned it was a nickname my Dad had picked up many years ago as a young man. At that time, Flash Gordon was a popular movie serial, as well as a newspaper comic strip, one of the 'funnies' as my Dad would say. I recently learned that an area native was closely linked to Dad's moniker.
The map* to the left here shows railroad lines into the St. Vincent area. I never thought too much about why the St. Vincent Junction was called that, other than assuming it was a nickname referring to the junction of the two highways, one branching off to the town of St. Vincent. I was mistaken, however; it was actually left over from the early days of the railroad in reference to the line going north to the border, and the junction off of it branching west into St. Vincent (and once planned - but never completed - to go across the river into Pembina...)...Thomas HEARD was born about 1864. He died 14 Aug 1885 in St. Vincent, Minnesota.
...He had at least two brothers Adolf Bereznicki born in 1870 died in St. Paul, MN July 26, 1913. Adolf came into the US via Canada in May of 1895 through St. Vincent, MN.
...James Wesley born 18 Jul 1881, St. Vincent, Minnesota died 25 Apr 1961, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
...Several mentions of Sylvesters, Balderston, and Ashes from St. Vincent
...Several interesting references to the "St. Vincent line", meaning the railroad line built north to St. Vincent...
Andy Filer has many passions. One of his passions is taking photos of out-of-the-way (and some not-so) places. 
I wanted to leave my small town to be independent. But I've realized that needing other people isn't dependency, it's community. Being part of a community is realistic, useful and good. Unlike people in larger places, small-town residents know that when "somebody has to pay," that somebody is likely themselves.The above quote is from an essay written by Aubrey Streit, from a town called Tipton, Kansas - a town a lot like St. Vincent.
In that case, I will say that your house used to be much more lovely than it is now, or I should say the last time I saw it in 1998 (maybe it has improved since then...) There was a stained glass windown in the front parlor room, and a frosted glass window in the back porch inside door. There were hardwood floors, and outside there was a lot of classic Victorian gingerboard along the roof peaks. A small winding staircase led to the upstairs. In the kitchen there were built-in tilt-outward cabinet 'drawers' for putting in large sacks of flour. The front porch used to be where my grandfather had a small bed and would take naps in the summer afternoons. Through the porch was the front room, and off of it was a bathroom/sewing room. The front room had a buffet and china hutch, an old oak round table and chairs, a stove with a kettle on it with a rocking chair by it, a wall clock, and a small table with a radio on it. In the back porch my grandma kept her laundry supplies and wringer washer, and a slop bucket for peelings, etc., what people today call a compost. She would use it on her garden. The house always had a smell to it, a pleasant but unique smell, I think from all the cooking. She made everything from scratch, including baked bread. I spent many days with her there, sipping tea, eating brown sugar on toast, poached eggs on toast, listening to her gossip with her friends, help her make lazy daisy cake, hang clothes, put together carpentry projects in her sheds that are no longer there, that used to be in the backyard on the east side of the property line, one end being an outhouse, the rest her tool sheds, storage, etc. She built a homemade wheelbarrow for herself out of wood and an old bike wheel, and let me help her make a smaller version for myself. Her self-sufficiency always impressed me, and she was fun to be around. As she got even older and diabetes took her strength and her leg and she was in a wheelchair, on some very special nights when living with us in our living room when we were alone, she taught me cats-in-the-cradle with string, transferring it from her hand to mine, making mistakes sometimes as we tried to backtrack and find our way and laughing ourselves silly. I have never forgotten that night, nor the times I helped her get dressed, or watched my Mom help her go to the bathroom, or seeing her in the nursing home before she died. She wasn't the first person I knew who died, but she was the first person I really KNEW who died, and whose funeral I attended. I cried so hard, and missed her so much, and knew I was going to not only miss her but wished I had had more time to know her as a person and ask all those questions you don't think of until later...until too late...
Once upon a time, curling was a big thing in St. Vincent.
My grandfather, Al Fitzpatrick, was a player and supporter of the local curling club.
The rink was located kitty-corner from my grandparents' home uptown. It was also right by the town pump*, which you can see in this photograph.
I did a bit of research on curling, and found out that around 1880, the same time period where there was a lot of homesteading in our region, that 'curling fever' swept (pun intended) across Canada and parts of the United States. Curling clubs sprung up all over. Many homesteaders to St. Vincent were from Prince Edward Island, which had a strong curling tradition. I'm sure that's a large part of why the rink was built.
Emerson, which is right across the border from St. Vincent, continues to have a thriving curling club. In fact, some of the best curlers in the world have come out of Manitoba (an attorney from Winnipeg made an amazing play some calling it the best play they've ever seen, at the end of a match not long ago...)
I just found out that the Mens' and Womens' U.S Olympic Curling Team is based out of Bemidji, Minnesota. They're right now at the 2006 Winter Olympics playing the best in the world.
It's interesting to read how curling was (and still is) a large part of communities, keeping neighbors close and giving them something positive to do during the long, cold, dark days and nights of a northern winter...
* My grandma showed me how to prime the pump, and then how to lift the arm up and down to get the water going; There were times when the water in the cisterns would run low, and she'd send me to fetch water down the street...
