Christmas Sunday School Memories

Shared by Lori Wood Goertzen:

This photo was a Christmas gift from my favorite Sunday school teacher, Clara Loer. 

Left to right: Debbie Dykhuis, Danny Hodgson, Marilyn Loge, Anita Calkins and myself.

This was taken on the front steps of the old St. Vincent Evangelical Free Church.

Humboldt-St. Vincent Elevator Association: End of an Era

This week, it was announced that the Humboldt-St. Vincent Elevator Association was being dissolved and thus the closing of the elevator in Humboldt, St. Vincent's elevator having closed some years before.¹ 

St. Vincent Junction, with St. Vincent Elevator in the background (1948)

Upon hearing the news, Keith Finney, who had began his long career at the Humboldt elevator, recalled:  

Some of you may remember Silas Mathews who lived south of Humboldt. One summer afternoon in 1973, Silas and I were sitting on the railing going up the south driveway. It was a very quiet day. When we were visiting, a tandem truck pulled into the elevator with a load of grain. I unloaded the truck and returned to visit with Silas. For those who are younger, there were not that many tandem trucks before this time. Silas was kind of amazed at the size of the truck. I could tell he was in deep thought when I sat down on the railing to resume our visit. He then said, "You know Keith, with all of these big tractors and big trucks, farmers will soon be hauling all their grain to Crookston. There won't be many small farmers like today. They won't need this elevator any longer." 

That conversation with Silas never slipped my mind. I cherished every conversation I had with Silas. He passed away a couple years later...

In neighboring Emerson, a resident shared, "In the Emerson area in winter time, if you couldn’t see the St Vincent elevator, it was too stormy to be on the road!" 

_________________ 

1 - The St. Vincent elevator was demolished on May 22, 2007...

Fort Pembina Airport

When Pembina decided to throw an “after threshing celebration” on September 27, 1919, Lt. Vernon Omlie of Grafton was booked to “...give a number of airplane flights."  

Pembina would figure prominently in the history of aviation in Pembina County. Twelve years after Omlie’s 1919 flights, officials from United States and Canada “joined hands with chiefs of the Northwest Airways, Inc. in dedicating Fort Pembina Airport as the first international airport in the world.” ¹ Northwest began making regular flights out of Pembina for a number of years (until the airport was sold to the Whelan family in 1945...) 

- From Saga of Pembina County:  150 Years, by Jim Benjaminson ©2020

Fort Pembina Airport, was mentioned in Appendix C of the 1935 issue of the Journal of Air Law & Commerce Vol. 6 Issue 1, as an ''airport of entry" along the Canadian border. 

Fort Pembina Airport, municipal. AIRPORT OF ENTRY. One mile S. of Pembina on State Highway No. 81. Latitude 48° 57'; longitude 97° 15'. Alt. 790 feet. Square, 2,640 by 2,640 feet, clay, level, artificial drainage. FORT PEMBINA AIRPORT embedded in field, N.W.A. on hangar roof. Hangar and trees to E.; pole line to E. , obstruction lighted. Facilities for servicing aircraft, day only. Medium powered radio range, KCDN, identifying signal “PB” ( .--. -... ) operating frequency 242 kc. 

- Airport and Landing Fields in the United States, Bureau of Air Commerce (January 1, 1938)

Trivia: Buell Edwin Blake, who enlisted in the U.S. Navy in May 1937 right after graduating from high school. "He had a tattoo saying USN 1937-41...He was a Radioman² 3rd class at that time [during WWII]. Later went on to be an Air Traffic Controller in Pembina," said his son, Gary Blake.  

[Buell would meet his future wife during this time - Jeanne Short, daughter of Gail & Eliza Short of Short's Cafe...]

In Journal of Air Law & Commerce (Vol. 10, Issue 2 - 1939), Pembina was listed as a site that needed an established "...pilot-balloon station; and to Install Weather Bureau meteorological personnel."

¹: Despite official Northwest Airlines history saying it wasn't until 1928...

²: Why did airliners of old require radio operators? 

One answer has touched on a major reason - Morse code operations. 

In the earliest days of aeronautical radio communications, the airborne equipment and procedures were patterned after the very well-adapted and successful maritime radio system. 

The main differences were that the equipment usually was lower-powered and light-weight. 

This state-of-affairs extended through both WWI and the 1920s, so radio-equipped aircraft used primarily MF radiotelegraphy handled by a radio operator just like the ships. 

But the rapid evolution of radio in the early 1930s changed all this. 

Small and lightweight radiotelephony receivers and transmitters using the new HF frequency range became available, and were installed even in small and medium-sized aircraft.

St. Vincent Grain Warehouses & Elevators

On Adams Avenue, in St. Vincent, Minnesota, W.J.S. Traill co-owned a frame grain warehouse with the firm of G.S. Barnes & Co. (The St. Paul Daily Globe, June 14, 1879)

Another grain company that had an elevator in St. Vincent in 1879 - listed in that year's Business Directory - was the Red Wing Mill Co.  

Also, the Red River Valley Elevator Co., and the Pembina Elevator Co. had grain warehouses in St. Vincent in the 1880s.

In 1917, the Co-operative Manager & Farmer wrote about St. Vincent, Minnesota:  "A 65% dividend was declared at the annual meeting of the Farmers' Elevator Company.  The Manager was given a bonus amounting to $180.  About $2,000 was placed in the sinking fund."

1888 St. Vincent map (west end), showing grain elevator on riverbank

The next year, in 1918, incorporation articles were filed for the new St. Vincent Elevator Company, with capital stock of $50,000; the incorporators were William N. Gamble, William Ash, W.E. Ford, John Duff, and Otto Thorson.  

"The St. Vincent Elevator Company, a new farmers' organization, of St. Vincent Township, has bought the elevator and mill business of the St. Anthony & Dakota Elevator Company, which also includes the coal sheds, two dwellings, and two coal sheds at Sultan, the first station east of here on the Soo Line.

"The elevator, in addition to handling grain, will handle  lumber and building material, also coal and seeds.  Mr. Harry Ward Davis is the new manager."

It is evident from the news article at left, together with the other information earlier in this post, that the local farmers eventually realized they had to organize their own elevator to get the best prices they could for their grain.  Their legacy is still going strong over a century later, with the Humboldt-St. Vincent Elevator Association...