Curling Memories

Curling stone (or rock)
used in St. Vincent rink
[Courtesy:  Matt Cleem]

The curling rock (or stone) at left was recently shared on the St. Vincent Town Reunion Facebook page.  It brought out many memories from people who had grown up in and around St. Vincent, and had a connection to the St. Vincent Curling Rink...

Cleo Bee (Lang) Jones - I recall going to the St.Vincent curling rink with my uncle Laurence Turner when I was pretty young...

Trish Short Lewis - I was in the rink only a few times, saw a few older people curling.  I don't know if they ever had a warming house portion of the rink, but when I was there, it was always freezing on the bleachers in the front area, so I'd usually beat a fast path back to Grandma's house a block away...

Phil "Jack" Gooselaw - This we called a curling "rock" and may be one of the ones we used during the late 50's at the St. Vincent curling rink. My dad Manuel, Uncle Lewis Gooselaw, Dave Gooselaw and I had a curling team the last couple winters I was there prior to my graduation from high school (1960) and going into the Navy. As an aside, I was in the Navy for 2 weeks when I rcvd news that Dad had had a heart attack and passed away while throwing one of these rocks in a game (Feb. 1960)...

Delphine (Beaudette) Mundorf - Our Grandpa (Trish) use to curl. His team made it in the winning bracket and they came to Bemidji one year. I was so proud to watch my Grandpa curling. So exciting. I was quite young when Grandpa curled in Bemidji. I think they won and went on to state but not sure about that. Just know it was so exciting to watch him out there on the rink. I don't even remember for sure if he was the stone thrower or if he was one of the sweepers. But I think he threw the stone. I might have been around 12 then so would have been around 1950.

Judy (Turner) Ziesman - I remember when your dad passed away. I was pretty little, but I remember standing outside your house and talking to Denise and Debbie while everyone was in the house. Back then they would have the viewing at the house. I don't know how long after our family bought and moved into your house. My mom and dad always talked highly of Manuel [Gooselaw]. Sadly a few years later my dad passed away also. I think my dad was at the rink when your dad had his heart attack. I spent a lot of time at the rink.  I had my first lesson on that rink, they made it look so easy....little did I know!

Keith Finney - I remember the first time I curled. Herb Easter had a conflict so he could not curl one night. He gave me his shoes, broom and gloves and sent me to the rink. Almost put the rock through the end first time I delivered a rock. Herb forgot to give me instructions. :)

Dorothy (Giffen) Barber - I will never forget that night. Don was curling and saw Manuel when he threw the rock and slumped on the ice. He came home and told me about it. It was such a sad time.

Jake Rempel from Halbstadt, Manitoba shared: The Emerson Curling Club used to borrow the Rocks from St Vincent when they still had bonspiels in the shating rink in Emerson (right after New Year's). Lawrence Calder liked to tell the story of crossing the Border and as it happened an American from farther South was at the Customs and asked what they were? Curling Rocks. "What is Curling" It’s a game – you throw them 160 ft and see who can get them closest to the centre to win the game ! "Wow ! I would like to see the people that throw them!"

Betty (Short) Thorsvig had fond memories of hanging out in the rink; Jamie (Rustad) Meagher thinks her father also curled there.

Incorporated TWICE

1881 Charter heading...

ST. VINCENT Township, organized March 19, 1880, is opposite Pembina, N.Dak. Its name had been earlier given, before 1860, to a post of fur traders here, in honor of the renowned St. Vincent de Paul, founder of missions and hospitals in Paris...The city in sections 2 and 11, located on the site of an XY Fur Company trading post, was incorporated as a village on May 23, 1857, and again on March 8, 1881; it had a station of the Great Northern Railway in section 2, and at St. Vincent Junction in section 6; its post office began in 1878. 

- Minnesota Place Names: A Geographical Encyclopedia, by Ward Upham

A Glimpse Inside

Simone Cameron baked homemade buns and
bread for the St. Vincent School children ...

A shot of a class descending the staircase at
the end of the day, at the St. Vincent School...

Hill Farms II

Threshing at the Walter Hill Farm in Northcote (1900);  this was
the year my grandmother began working in the farm's dairy.
[Click on photo to see large version]

J.J. Hill was a busy man with a wide variety of interests.  His business savvy was renowned, which brought him notoriety and admiration from a wide variety of people.  My grandmother and mother talked about him with tones of reverence when recounting his heavy influence on the region in which we lived.

Settlers in our little corner of northwestern Minnesota often found  stepping stones of employment thanks to Mr. Hill.  Elizabeth Fitzgerald, my grandmother, was one of them.  She wasn't able to have any schooling past third grade.  With 10 siblings at that time (eventually there would be 13), she was needed at home after that; eventually, in 1900, she found work on the Hill's Humboldt farm working in the dairy, among other responsibilities.  Such young women who did a variety of tasks were commonly called 'hired girls'.

Hill's interest in farming was tied directly to his building of the railroads.  Development of the surrounding land was their key to success.  Settlement was encouraged, but it was also necessary to supply motivation for settlers to come.  The land itself was rich with potential, but Hill was smart enough to know that he had to lead by example.  He started farms that were practical demonstrations of how it "could be done".  One of them was the Humboldt farm, its genesis in 1881, that became a bonanza farm, eventually splitting off 3,000 acres to create the Northcote division in 1910 (although it was part of the Humboldt farm prior to then...)

The Northcote division was created for his son, Walter, in hopes that it would give him focus.  The article below announces the completion of the mansion, as my grandmother called it.

WALTER HILL MANAGING 45,000-ACRE FARM 

Walter Jerome Hill, around the
time he took over the farm . . .

October 10, 1913 - Walter J. Hill, son of James J. Hill, has just completed a $50,000 residence on the 45,000-acre Hill farm in Hampden township, about seven miles west of Lancaster, between Hallock and Humboldt, in the extreme northwestern part of Minnesota.

Mr. Hill is now erecting a cow-barn 204 feet long and about 140 feet wide to hold 1,000 head of stock. The foundation pillars and floors are of reinforced concrete. The walls are of brick facing and double tile lining. The roof will be metal, supported on steel girders. The building will be equipped with a good ventilating system and with the most up-to-date devices in caring for stock. Adjoining this building will be two large silos and a feed house. In addition to these buildings, Mr. Hill has under construction at the present time an up-to-date blacksmith shop, cattle corral, and a complete hot and cold water system to all the buildings.

He is not putting in a vast sum of money in building for the fun of it. With him it is a business proposition. He is no idle guesser, but has spent some time in keen observation and cold-blooded figuring. He would not be a member of the Hill family if he didn't do this. He has it figured out that the big money for Kittson county farmers in the present as well as for the future lies in raising stock, making this a leading feature of the farming business.

It would do our Iowa, Illinois and Nebraska farmers and renters of high-priced land considerable good to see Mr. Hill's alfalfa, clover, timothy and fodder corn crop this year. It is absolutely necessary to raise these fodder crops to make stock raising a paying industry. This cannot be done in the dry, arid countries, and if the farmers of highpriced land can make money raising these crops to feed stock the farmers of Kittson county will get rich in a few years.

From Commercial West, Volume 24