January 1910, 16th--31st

BEFORE the Jan 16-31 entries start:
(above)- Double Wedding of Paulsen sisters Hannah & Lillian --
will be one year later, 1-18-1911. <> See entry for Jan. 25, below. I could not get the photo to 'paste' where it should go, so here it is way up here!


MaryOP's expenses for the month of January 1910, from the back of the diary:



ODD -- the following image is of JAN. 31st ! --very out of order. I've tried 20+ times to cut-and-paste it at the end, to no avail. So we'll just need to live with it up here. As is.

(See entries 21, 27, below)..."Halley's Comet" ... 1834, 1910, 1986......>>>

Remember, you can enlarge any photo or diary page by clicking on it with your cursor.

Then to return >BACK< to the diary or back to original image size, just tap your cursor-arrow on the Left-facing arrow found on the upper left-hand corner of the Screen; that'll "take you Back." (Some of us know about this and some of us don't -- that's just fine.)

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January 16th, 1910:

( the man 'Shake' burnt up?! I recall the name from a previous year's diary... )

"Geo. & Annie" = George, MaryOP's 10th-born, and his wife Annie (Nelson) -- she's a cousin of Will's and Henry's spouses. She is also a sister of Ed Nelson, the husband-to-be of George's sister, Lillie Paulsen. Quite complex knots with these Paulsens & Nelsons! Below is 'Geo and Annie' when married in March of 1908. (She has two arms but one is fashionably tucked behind her back.)



'Henry's Pictures' were by Jorgensen Studio in Cando, the wedding pics taken a month previous-- Dec.1, 1909. Of those we saw one with the Jan. 12th entry in the previous posting. ... And MaryOP speaks of her loneliness, that only her God can keep her from dying. A widow; many of her children are marrying off "wherever they are" --though many are farming and living in nearby townships, this was a hard, long and lonely life for her. She would muster herself through for another 30 years after this diary.

MaryOP owned several properties, including storefront shops, and a farm in Starkweather (aptly named, ya?) a town not far east of Cando. I think that 'Amunsen' was a renter there; either he owes her rent money or she needs make a maintenance improvement on such a place. "Father help!" she writes. MaryOP as a savvy business woman who ably supplemented her farming income with these ownings and investments.

'Halley's Comet' (see image toward top of this post) orbits the Earth every 76 years --and it was a very big thing in 1910. Above she notes that it was visable in western N.Dakota (e.g., Minot); in two days they'll be able to see it in Cando /eastern ND. The previous sighting was 1834-35 -- 19 yrs before she was born. Imagine that 1910 sky view, pre-movies/ TV!

[Since then Halley's appeared in 1986 -- next in 2062.]

"Sourwater" = sewer water. MaryOP paid $1.00 for that service.. See 'Cash Out' list near the top of this screen.

Evan Jones came visiting, and the next year he would marry Hannah Paulsen in a double wedding with her sister Lillie, who would marry Edwin Nelson -- ya, another of the four Nelson relatives who married MaryOP's kids. Ed is bro of Annie, wife of George Paulsen.

At the TOP of this screen is a photo of that double wedding, Jan 18, 1911, a year minus a few days since this point in the diary when he came visiting. On the left, Evan & Hannah (Paulsen) Jones; on the right, Edwin & Lillie (Paulsen) Nelson. The gals' dresses, hair ribbons, flowers certainly match, as do the guys' attire. We haven't a 1911 diary [unless YOU know of it? or a photocopy thereof ? ] so we just have to see this photo now -- of a year to the week after this entry (above) about Evan Jones. It's just too cool to pass by. I'll show it again when MaryOP writes that Ed has come to visit Lill ...

Dirty and Stinky jobs that day for MaryOP !! The furnace needed emptying, scrubbing & cleaning, and maybe 'blacking' -- Then picking over the apples and potatoes to get out the stinky ones -- yuck.

['rotten potatoes' is a BAD smell.]

MaryOP was shrewd and a personal 'Paulsen Bank & Loan Officer' for her offspring. Most all of them --many of whom lived on land not far from her--got loans of money from their Mom especially to purchase a farm or land or to build a home, thus they were large totals including some hefty interest rates. In the back of each diary she'd record their name, loan amounts, the purpose, their payments and the date they paid up she would cross out the transaction as Paid. She also sometimes hired them to harvest her fields, pick rocks and some other work as the grown children might need some extra funds, and as MaryOP had work needing doing.

Lillie with a sore foot stayed home from the sleighriding, but it must have been festive for the others, in a downright balmy 9 degrees ABOVE zero! Gladys Powell has been MaryOP's friend for a few years-- a fellow widow if I remember correctly.

{ Find the Monday, Jan. 31 page a third from top of this screen! Go figure!}

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A Reader contribution re: Jan.12 in previous posting-- by Ralph Rasmussen (80 this year) in ND. Thanks, Ralph! He recalls there being an "Axel" who lived near all these Paulsen folk 'round about Egeland. Axel Hanson was his name; so there it is. Also, I noticed today in her back-of-book entries that she mentions an 'Alex Nelson' as who she sends money to for seed wheat, etc. on her Starkweather farm. (Maybe there were two Axels -- as in a car.)

Nelson Readers -- any Axel in your family group? I wouldn't be surprised!

If interested in continuing: look for the February entries on this website on about Feb. 1. I will send out a notice of it via e-mail when it is posted, with reminder of the web link.

These two chunks of January's diary will be archived then.

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----------------------------- Marsha Paulsen Peters

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