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| Elsie and Ron |
The Snowstorm of 1939 and Living at Maple Grove
Written by Elsie Koski Waterman
The winter of 1939 was quite an interesting one for our family. Somehow my family had decided to lease a gas station on the corner of Highway 41—at a crossroad that led to Dukes in one direction and McFarland in the other. It was called Maple Grove. My brother, Ron, was 3 years old, and we lived in one large room on one side of the gas station. There was another room on the other side which my mother used as a kitchen. There was a kerosene stove in there so she cooked her food there but served it in the room on the other side where there was a table and chairs.
This was far from an improvement over the three-room house we had lived in. It did not have electricity, which meant my mother had to wash her clothes with a washboard and a hand ringer! In fact, I used to be called upon to rinse clothes out in the creek nearby…especially my brother’s diapers!
Written by Elsie Koski Waterman
The winter of 1939 was quite an interesting one for our family. Somehow my family had decided to lease a gas station on the corner of Highway 41—at a crossroad that led to Dukes in one direction and McFarland in the other. It was called Maple Grove. My brother, Ron, was 3 years old, and we lived in one large room on one side of the gas station. There was another room on the other side which my mother used as a kitchen. There was a kerosene stove in there so she cooked her food there but served it in the room on the other side where there was a table and chairs.
This was far from an improvement over the three-room house we had lived in. It did not have electricity, which meant my mother had to wash her clothes with a washboard and a hand ringer! In fact, I used to be called upon to rinse clothes out in the creek nearby…especially my brother’s diapers!
Sometime during that winter, we had one of the biggest snowstorms of the era. The roads were blocked for several days, the plows could not get through. We ended up with houseguests in our humble quarters for about 3 days. Alice Krueger, her mother, and her brother had been stranded on the road to McFarland and walked to our gas station. Alice was a good friend of my parents. In fact, she had stood up at their wedding with my Uncle Victor. My parents had not seen her for quite awhile and had a wonderful chance to visit. We had sort of a small store in the gas station so we had a supply of canned goods. A few times, someone would come on skis to pick up some canned goods. However, I’m sure we didn’t sell much gasoline that week!
During the storm, the roof on the big room started to leak so my father had to set up some ingenious funnels with paths to keep the water from coming on our beds. Also, he had to go outside every few hours to shovel off the windows. I’m sure he tried to keep the roof from accumulating with snow also—to prevent some leakage, which we were experiencing. We all slept in the big room somehow. Having company during the storm made the time go by faster as we waited for it to pass.
My mother seemed to enjoy the gas station—being with the public and pumping gasoline (and I do mean “pumping” as each time you used it, you had to pump the tank full again by hand for the next customer). I think my father had another job at the same time.
I’m not sure why we left the gas station after a year was up, but perhaps our sales weren’t too great. I’m sure the winter storm and then the paving of Highway 41 that took place one of the summers there caused some of the traffic to be cut down.
My mother always tried to make some “pin money.” I remember that the “scrubbing of the school” was another way in which women could make some money. They would have to “bid” on it, and sometimes it was considered to be a political thing as to who would get the bid. I’m sure the opportunity to earn $5 was a big thing in those days.
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