A House in Noyes

There is a house in Noyes (I think it is still there...) that a good friend and her family used to live in. They weren't the first family to live there, nor probably the last. But this story isn't about the residents; it's about the house itself.

The house was two full storeys plus a full attic with dormers, large enough to serve as another bedroom or a study. It was spacious and well laid out. It was a shock when I found out it was a prefabricated home...and that it was made by Sears!

Prefabricated homes have never been widely popular due to many reasons, but this example made a positive impression on me. I spent many days there, riding my horse from St. Vincent over to Noyes to visit my friend during summer days in 1975/1976.

Gamble Letter #39

St. Vincent, Minn.
August 24, 1896

Dear Maggie,

I suppose you think I have forgotten you altogether. It is such a long time since you wrote. I would have written sooner only I have been at the summer training school and I was waiting till I came home. I am going to teach this fall. I have a school for six months just 2 1/2 miles from home. I will come home every night, or stay at Lizzie's on rainy nights. We have a new bicycle, I will go to school on it, we do not wear bloomers yet. The summer has been so short we have not had a spare minute. There is scarcely any crop at all around here. We will have very little wheat and our oats is not worth cutting. I suppose you would see in the papers about the hail storm up here, it cut down 40 acres of our best wheat, some people have not a stalk left standing and what was not struck with hail is

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along themselves. Sammie and Wille are running the binders. Alick has been very sick this summer, he is going to Colorado, just as soon as he threshes. Janie and Jack have bought a farm they are going to move out, the first snow I came near forgetting another grand event. Janie has a little boy, he was christened yesterday, his name is William Austin, I forget the date he was born some time before the 4th of July. That is the only way I have of remembering events just by some time like the 4th. We got quite a lot of cranberries and strawberries but there will not be any plums. I think I have scribbled about enough for this time. I have a dreadful pen. I will have more time for writing when I start to teach. Now I am trying to do every thing at once, cook and write and aint and make fancy work for the fair. Have

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try and make this letter out and excuse writing and mistakes. I am getting the dinner yours as ever,

Alice Gamble