Shared Memories

  “As we came out of the woods on the hills and trail southwest from Richmond one day in the fall of 1857 and looked across the valley of the Crow River, where Paynesville has since been built, it seemed to me that I had never seen a finer sight, nor a better looking country.”

First Settlers - Paynesville, Minnesota - 1857

“1868 - you would certainly do better at farming here then out east. I have got me a farm of 170 acres - 160 prairie land and 10 woodland. The woodland is some of the best in this part of the state. The prairie is excellent. Not hardly a stone on it. I am going to have the Indians that live here make me a pair of moccasins. They make them for a dollar a pair.

1870 - The first 12 months that I was here I earned $240. Out of that sum I saved $200 and paid it towards getting a farm. It cost me only $40 for clothes, shoes, and spending money during the year. Wheat was worth $1 a bushel last year, this year only 50 cents. We have a fairly good amount of snow here. It is about straddle deep. The coldest weather has been about 36 degrees below zero. The coldest since I have been here was 50 below.

1873 - Potatoes this year are all frozen. They won’t last us through the winter. Now we will have to go without or eat them frozen. If you want some good hunting, come out here next fall. You will find hunting the likes you have never seen before.”

 My grandfather Albert Bugbee arrived in Paynesville in about 1861. He farmed, taught school and was active in the town - on the city boards and started a city band. My grandmother, Janet Haines Bugbee, came to Paynesville in a covered wagon from Illinois. The Gazebo Park was part of my Grandfather Bugbee’s farm - he donated the land for the park to the city. My grandmother cooked food for the railroad workers when there was a race to see which line would get to go through Paynesville 

“My father Cliff Gesme worked in the 1st National bank which is now an antiques store.”

Nancy Gesme Ellis

I remember the fun time we had at Dicks’s (yes that’s right not Dick’s) Restaurant. I also remember being sent to the superintendent’s office when we skipped school and instead

went to the Belgrade school. 

 I am grateful for the kindness shown to me by Sarah Tucker when I worked at Tuck’s Café. We worked hard for 10 cents an hour. It was Depression time and hardly anyone ever tipped but I still managed to make $96 one summer. Mrs. Tucker allowed me to go to the basketball games to be a cheerleader and after the games I would hurry back to the café to wait on tables. On Saturday nights I could take time off to play the organ at church 

My mother Thea Nelson’s dad, Thomas Nelson took her to high school by horse drawn cart across the frozen lake wearing a fur hide blanket. She was the first in her family to finish high school and went on to Teachers College in St. Cloud. 

My husband’s grandmother emigrated from Norway in 1867 by sailboat. Her parents settled in Grantsburg, Wisconsin for one year. Then they decided to move to Monongalia County (later Kandiyohi) in Minnesota. She, as an 11 year old girl herded a cow and calf from Wisconsin to Minnesota on foot.  

 I remember that in my early years the roads were closed

most of the winter for motorized vehicles. The neighbors

and my dad would take turns going to town with the horses

and sled. One of the neighbors would take all of the eggs and

cream for about three households. The cream would be left

at the creamery and the cans would be filled up with

buttermilk which would make good slop for the hogs.

Whoever went to town would also bring the mail home for all

three families as well as essentials like sugar, flour and other

groceries 

  My grandmother lived in Paynesville when I was a child

growing up in Eden Valley. My parents allowed me to buy a

train ticket at the Eden Valley Depot and ride the train to

Paynesville. I think the price for the train ride for a child

was under 15 cents. I remember how frightening it was to

stand on the platform and watch that huge engine come

slowly toward me. But I loved it when the engine passed and

I could get on the train, give my ticket to the conductor, and

ride the rails to Paynesville to my grandmother’s house. My

parents would come to Paynesville to pick me up in the

evening, and enjoyed supper and visiting family before

returning to Eden Valley 

When Carl, Lizzie, Emmett, my mother Dahlia and Elsie

were little at Easter time, Grandma cooked onion skins in

water to make a beautiful yellow dye to color Easter eggs.

She also opened a jar of beet pickles and used the juice to

make red eggs for their Easter basket. She told me her

mother did this for them in Pommern, N. Germany when she

was little 

I remember when the Highway 55 would run on Mill Street

and the Greyhound busses would travel on it. That changed

in about 1950. Kindergarten first started in 1947 with classes

for 3 hours a day for 3 months. Children had to take their

own chairs and blankets. There were no lunches served at

school; children would run home for noon lunch. In 1940

there were no apartments for rent and no motels in town.

Homes with rooms on the second floor were rented out. They

would rent 3 small rooms with no kitchen sink, (used a wash

basin for dishes) and a bathroom shared with the landlord

for $10 per month 

Every year it was our tradition to come to Paynesville for

Christmas Eve. After the candlelight service at Paynesville

Lutheran, we would be off to Don and Allene Anderson’s

house for the traditional fare of Swedish Potato Sausage,

Grandma Sig Sandwiches and the like. We would stay up,

literally into the wee hours of the morning opening

Christmas gifts, singing around the piano or Allene playing

the organ and listening to Bing Crosby in the background.

Each and every Saturday when we were little, Mom would

make cookies. She mostly made three kinds: sugar,

chocolate chip or oatmeal raisin. The sugar cookies were fun

to do because one of us rolled them into balls and dipped

them in sugar and one got to squish them with the glass to

make the nice imprint on them. As we got older and

Grandpa Robbin moved into the Good Sam a couple doors

down, he would come and help with cookies especially at

Christmas time. Now that I have four kids of my own, they

all like to help cook and bake.  

My grandfather Christ Kingsriter was the general contractor

and builder of the Salem Church and Grace Church in

Paynesville. We believe that he was trained in Germany and

came to the U.S. as a young adult with his father, mother and

siblings. The legend goes that during his career he built

many farm buildings including large hip-roof barns on which

his signature was to place a star-shaped window high up on

the end of each barn. Every so often someone tells me that

they have found a signature and a date in the foundation of a

building showing that Christ and his crew were the builders.

My father Frank Pratt was a bricklayer for a construction

company and we had to move several times while I was

growing up. Dad assisted in building the Holiness Methodist

Church and parsonage on Augusta Ave. The material for the

buildings was reclaimed from a defunct pickle plant near the

location of the Paynesville Motor and Transfer today. The

church was in operation for nearly 80 years. Frank was the

pastor of the church in the 40s and again in the middle 50s.

My sister Jennie was pastor in the 60s and I was the pastor in

the 70s and 80s.  

I remember attending the Brown School along with my

brother Samuel. It was called the Brown School because Mr.

Ted Brown donated the land. Only one teacher taught all the

students, which means the teacher had to be quite

knowledgeable and versatile to teach a first grader as well as

an eighth grader and keep all age groups under control.

Somehow it was done and each one passed their grades, even

some going on to high school. After the school was closed in

the 60s it sat empty and forlorn beside County Road 34 for

many years. Now this school building has been moved to the

Historical Society property close to the museum and is open

for tours every summer. Life has been put back into the

little one-room Brown School 

Although I grew up in the twin cities, I would visit my

relatives in Paynesville often. The first time my parents went

on a vacation without me, I stayed for over a week at a very

young age with “Grandma & Hutzie” (Emma Buss & Hulda

Bouma) as well as my uncle and aunt, Don & Allene

Anderson. When my parents came to pick me up, the first

thing I said was, “Do I have to go home?” I was never ready

to leave Paynesville! Michelle (Buss) Johnson

Edward Pratt came to Paynesville area in 1894. He bought

40 acres of land from the Soo Line Railroad and began

farming about ¾ mile off of the old Eden Valley Road. This

farm land can be found 4 miles east of Paynesville on the

road we know today as County Road 34. He and his wife

Annie built and operated the Hillcrest Resort on the East side

of Lake Koronis. Their sons Frank and Sam (my father and

uncle) helped on the farm until they established the

Paynesville Brick Company on the Eden Valley Road. The

“Brick Yard” also called “Pratt Brothers” did very well. A

lot of Pratt Brother’s brick was used in building the corner

from Sheri’s Studio to the Koronis Theater. “Pratt Bros”

was stamped on the side of some brick while still soft, before

they were fired. These can still be seen in the theater wall

behind the Paynesville Press.  

I grew up on a small farm (Heart of the Woods) south west of

Paynesville near Lake Koronis. We always had a large

garden and canned many vegetables for the winter months.

My folks had a few cows and also some chickens. They sold

surplus vegetables to the grocery stores. I picked lots of

strawberries and raspberries that they sold to the store for 10

cents a quart. I would work in the mornings and then they

let us go swimming in the afternoon. Mother sewed all our

clothes. We would get one pair of shoes in the fall to start

school but went bare footed in the summertime.

When I was a young girl I ‘took care of kids’ to make extra

money. I usually got 10 cents for any number of hours;

usually for only 1 child. Once a doctor who was staying at

the lake came into my Dad’s store and asked if he knew

anybody who could baby-sit. He came to the right place since

there were 5 of us girls! I got $1.00 that evening. The kids

slept the whole time and I got to play the portable radio

which was a very new things. When I was in high school, my

job was to distribute hand bills for the Big Store all over

town which had a population of about 1700 at that time. My

friend Leatrice Olson and I each received 50 cents. My dad

also paid me 50 cents a week for sweeping the floor and

filling bobbins at his shop. It was enough for to see a few

movies (16 cents), eat an ice cream cone (5 cents) and drink

root beer (5 cents). 

I lived with my parents, Nell & Frank Bullard on a small

farm about 6 miles from Paynesville. Our farm was 2 miles

from Mary Jean Behr Hahn and on the other side of our

farm was the Bruntlett family and across the road from them

were the Gazins. I was 12 years old when we left our darling

farm to move to California in 1947. I attended District 18

country school and loved it dearly. The teacher was Mrs.

Rose Fay. My mother belonged to the “Good Cheer Club”

with other neighbors in the area.  

I remember the ‘biggest’ year of my life. It was 1955. I had

just gotten out of the Army, got married and then saw an ad

in the Paynesville Press about starting a milk route. I got the

job but at first I had no customers; neither homes nor stores.

For the first 2 weeks, I didn’t even have a truck. I ended up

delivering milk door to door for more than 42 years. At one

time I delivered to every cottage on Lake Koronis. Lots of

times people asked me to fix things like the washing machine

when I stopped to deliver milk. When our children were

born, I would take my wife to the hospital and then keep

delivering milk, checking back at the hospital every ½ hour

or so 

When I was growing up in the 50’s and 60’s there was a lot of

vitality in Paynesville. I think the sense of community had to

do with stores being open on Saturday nights. Three drug

stores, shoe shop, clothing stores, hardware stores, 5 and Dime,

and grocery stores were open downtown and the streets

would be lined with cars. People would do their shopping and

visit with other people they met on the streets. They would

just sit in their cars and watch to see who might walk by and

call out to those they knew. In summer, a band would play in

a portable band stand on Main Street. You could buy ice

cream at the soda fountains of the two drug stores, but in

summer there was also a snack wagon parked where Bloom

stands (formerly Bast’s Gas Station). I remember distinctly

my first frosted mug of root beer from the new and S&S Root

Beer Stand. It was delivered to our car window on a tray by

a girl attendant and the mug was so cold I could hardly hold

onto it.  

I grew up on a small farm (Heart of the Woods) south west of

Paynesville near Lake Koronis. We always had a large

garden and canned many vegetables for the winter months.

My folks had a few cows. In the mid 1930’s when I started school, the winters got

pretty cold. I remember my dad built a homemade bus of

hard board to fit on top of a sleigh. Mother would put a

brick or two in the oven to get warm. By the time we left for

school these bricks were nice and hot. They were wrapped in

an old blanket and laid behind the driver’s seat for me and

my youngest friend to stand on.  and also some chickens. They sold

surplus vegetables to the grocery stores. I picked lots of

strawberries and raspberries that they sold to the store for 10

cents a quart. I would work in the mornings and then they

let us go swimming in the afternoon. Mother sewed all our

clothes. We would get one pair of shoes in the fall to start

school but went bare footed in the summertime.