Goosefest
October 21, 2019 — Kenmare has identified with geese for decades; their school mascot is a snow goose, and their sports teams are called the Honkers.
The town’s goose appreciation is at its zenith this week as the city celebrates its 15th Annual Goosefest. As the self-proclaimed Goose Capital of North Dakota, the city hosts this 7-day hunting festival every October during the peak migration of snow geese.
North Dakota, located in the Central Flyway, is known as the “duck factory” of the United States, with 63 wildlife refuges – more than any other state. Three of those refuges are within 30 miles of Kenmare – Des Lacs, Upper Souris, and Lostwood – making the region a yearly stopover for not only ducks, but also about 400,000 snow geese as they migrate south from their Canadian nesting grounds. The region also offers wildlife enthusiasts swans, cranes, eagles, hawks, songbirds and shore birds.
For hunters, though, the big draw is snow geese, as well as the yearly flocks of between 25- and 30,000 Canadian geese. The refuges provide sanctuary and roosting areas, and grain left on the ground after harvesting provides the incentive for these birds to stop and stay awhile.
There are also large numbers of Hungarian partridge, sharptail grouse, and ringneck pheasants in the grasslands, so hunters have a number of different options they can exercise over the week.
Kenmare’s Goosefest has become more and more popular over the years; many farmers allow free hunting on their land, and some families pick up a little spending money by renting out rooms to visitors. Hunters take part in contests as well as free feeds at local bars, musical entertainment, presentations by national shot-shell dealers, a wildlife art show, family activities, and prizes for bagging the biggest birds.
Then there’s the Goose Hunter’s Hall of Fame induction, which won widespread recognition when Minnesota Vikings’ coach, Bud Grant – a yearly participant – was inducted in 1990. Grant said, “Snow geese are the ultimate challenge. They’re smarter and warier, and, of course, they’re protected on the refuges, so you have to be smart enough to get them off. And you can’t find nicer people than here.”
Another attraction in Kenmare is its city square featuring an authentic Dutch windmill. The mill was built by a Danish immigrant, Christian Jensen, who homesteaded north of town in 1898. Farmers from miles around hauled their grain to Jensen’s farm, and over time, the demand got so high that the mill was operated around the clock. With mill stones forty inches across, ten inches thick and weighing 1800 pounds apiece, the windmill turned out up to 200 sacks of flour a day.
The mill was last used during World War I, and soon after, all that was left of the giant wind wheel was its shaft. Fortunately, Kenmare’s Association of Commerce rescued the mill and moved it to its present location, where it was restored to working condition. The land under it was then deeded to the State Historical Society to ensure its future.
Now, whether it’s more fun to look up at the windmill or watch honkers overhead is pretty much up in the air (groan); but if Kenmare has been in your travel plans, this is the week to do it. by Merry Helm
A Day In The Life
October 22, 2019 — Around North Dakota, this date in history saw a wide variety of events – some typical and some not so typical.
Back in 1879, the Great Northern Railway finally arrived in East Grand Forks. Later that same winter, the first train crossed the Red River into Grand Forks, ready to make its virgin journey into northern Dakota.
Eleven years later, in 1890, North Dakota Agricultural College (now NDSU) held its first faculty meeting after opening its doors the previous week. Dr. H. E. Stockbridge was the first president, and there were eight instructors to teach the school’s five students in quarters rented from Fargo College.
Sixty-four years later, on this date, NDSU held a dedication ceremony for their new $400,000 home economics building.
Five safecrackers robbed the Second National Bank in Sawyer in 1906, making off with $4,665. They got away but were captured by a Ward County posse two days later near Max. All five pled guilty of 3rd degree robbery and were imprisoned at Bismarck.
Six years later, in 1912, this date marked the incorporation of New Rockford, the seat of Eddy County, as a city. Two year later, New Rockford made a bid to become the state capital, but Bismarck retained that honor.
Forty years ago, today, republican Mark Andrews won a special eastern North Dakota district congressional election to complete the unexpired term of the late Rep. Hjalmer Nygaard, and on October 22nd, 1962, President Kennedy announced that the U.S. was initiating a blockade around Cuba, which quickly developed into the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Cold War was in full swing, and missile silos were sprouting throughout the state.
It is this date in the year 1920 that holds the widest variety of news. For example, a black snake, six feet long and six inches around – in other words, not from around here – was killed near Cooperstown, with no explanation of how it got there.
In Minot, a radish weighing six and a half pounds, won the prize for being the largest in the state. On a more tragic note, Minot farmer, Arthur Dorcey, shot himself on the same day after his crop failed. While trying to wrestle the gun away from him, his wife was shot in the hand.
Meanwhile, a midnight fire destroyed nine buildings in Nome, with an estimated loss of $25,000, and near Arnold, a prairie fire was sweeping over the countryside. Two cars, trying to dodge the flames through heavy smoke, collided and one was demolished.
Also on this day, a Wahpeton bachelor went to Chicago to pick up a mail-order bride who claimed to be “wealthy, fair and 20.” Instead, a widow with nine children greeted him. He kept his end of the bargain, but the honeymoon, unfortunately, didn’t rise to his expectations.
And in Mandan, John Lee of Fargo broke the fivemile auto racing record of 7 minutes 52 seconds on a local half-mile track. Driving an Elgin, Lee’s time was 7 minutes, 14 seconds – not bad for 1920. by Merry Helm
Winnie Ruth Judd
October 23, 2019 — On this date in 1932, Winnie Ruth Judd surrendered to police in Los Angeles after the remains of two women, one from North Dakota, were found in her traveling trunks.
In 1931, White Earth native 24-year-old Hedvig “Sammy” Samuelson, was suffering from TB, so she quit her teaching job in Alaska to move to Phoenix with her best friend, Anne LeRoi. They befriended 26 year-old Winnie Ruth Judd, who was also fighting TB.
Winnie was married, but she had taken up with a married, arrogant hipster, Jack Halloway; the girls dubbed him “Happy Jack.” The three young women often had parties with Jack, who brought along some of his married business associates, as well as crates of bootlegged booze. Winnie knew that Jack also visited Anne and Sammy on the side and, in the fall of 1931, the girls’ triangle was becoming imperfect when Winnie introduced Jack to one Lucille Moore, a woman who could give him tips on where to hunt in the White Mountains.
The following night, Winnie was visiting Anne and Sammy when an argument started over Jack being introduced to Lucille; Anne knew Lucille had syphilis and therefore could endanger Jack’s life. Name-calling led to threats of telling Winnie’s absent husband that she was sleeping around. Things escalated and Sammy allegedly brought out a Colt .25. There was a struggle, and moments later, Anne and Sammy were dead, and Winnie had been shot through the hand.
Winnie wanted to go to the police, but Jack promised to fix everything and found a packing trunk for transporting the two dead girls out into the desert. But the following day, Jack called Winnie and said he had decided it would be better for her to take the trunk to Los Angeles, where a friend of his would dispose of it. He promised to reserve a train ticket for her and hung up.
The trunk turned out to be too heavy for rail freight, so Winnie was forced to divide the contents. It was then that she found that one of the bodies had been dismembered; but she carried out her task according to Jack’s wishes. When Winnie’s train pulled into L.A., the contact didn’t show. Alarmed, Winnie called Jack, but his housekeeper said he was, and would remain, unreachable.
Meanwhile, a baggage-checker noticed Winnie’s two lone trunks remained on the flatbed. They had a foul odor, and he suspected hunters of smuggling venison past rail customs. When he noticed a dark fluid dripping from the corners, he told his boss about it.
Shortly before noon, Winnie showed up in a car and presented a claim ticket for her trunks. The boss came out and asked about the contents and asked her to open them. Winnie made an excuse about having to get the keys from her husband, went back to the car and took off.
The baggage handlers called LAPD, and the hunt was on. In the ladies’ restroom, they found two bags containing surgery instruments, a Colt .25 pistol, a box of ammunition, a bread knife and an assortment of cosmetics – all belonging to passenger Winnie Ruth Judd from Phoenix.
Newspapers dubbed Winnie the Trunk Murderess and offered rewards for her capture. Five days later, she was found hiding in a funeral parlor. Winnie told of a scuffle, of Sammy attacking her with a pistol, of a bullet piercing her hand, of Anne clubbing her with an ironing board. A doctor’s examination revealed 147 gashes and bruises that indicated that Winnie had fought for her life.
When the story hit the papers, the public was shocked that instead of the snarling mad-woman they expected, they saw a beautiful, 5’2”, 100 pound waif with pretty blue eyes, dark sandy hair, and a hand so badly wounded it had developed gangrene. Along with her weakness from TB, she was hardly a likely candidate for the brutal crime.
Interestingly, Jack attended Winnie’s trial back in Phoenix, giving her snide smiles and sneers. And when Anne LeRoi’s diary suddenly surfaced, with intimate details of the girls’ liaisons with Jack’s elite married friends, prosecutors hush-hushed it, and it never made it to the courtroom.
Many believed it was Jack who committed the murders, and Winnie was taking the fall. America sympathized, but she was found guilty after a sloppy trial in which the prosecution alleged that Winnie shot her friends while they slept, butchered them, shot a hole through her hand and went home to sleep peacefully.
She was sentenced to hang. There was an appeal, and Winnie was re-sentenced to life in a psychiatric hospital. Jack showed up to gloat there, as well, until the staff barred him from the hospital. Winnie managed to escape seven times until, in 1969, her parole board decided to let her out for good.
And Sammy? Her remains were brought back to North Dakota and buried near the family farm in White Earth. by Merry Helm
Butte St. Paul
October 24, 2019 — On this date in 1935, about 50 acres surrounding Butte St. Paul, near Dunseith, was deeded to the state as an historic site. Back in the winter of 1850, a bitter winter storm hit the area, and to thank God for deliverance, Father George Belcourt erected a wooden cross at the top of the butte.
In the previous two years, Father Belcourt had sided with the mixed-blood Metis against the Hudson Bay Company over import duties; the company drove him away, so the priest went to Montreal to seek help and money to continue his work among the Metis.
The Great American Trails website states, “Butte St. Paul is one of the must-see sites on North Dakota’s Turtle Mountain Scenic Byway... one of the highest points in the Turtle Mountains, offering spectacular views...” by Merry Helm
1918 Flu Epidemic
October 25, 2019 — Following one of the most deadly flu pandemics in history, a 1919 October article in the Towner newspaper carried an article theorizing that the outbreak had probably stemmed from lack of embalming of black plague victims in the Middle Ages.
The 1918 outbreak of influenza was devastating, killing 20 to 30 million people. As with the plague in the Middle Ages, people grasped at straws, trying to understand where the disease came from and why it was so potent. The country had certainly seen flu epidemics before, but unlike previous strains, the 1918 variety didn’t settle for typical high-risk individuals, such as the elderly and those in weakened conditions. On the contrary, the 1918 flu was killing mainly healthy robust men and women in their 20s and 30s.
The “sanitary scientist” featured in the Towner newspaper article theorized that World War I soldiers, who had dug miles and miles of trenches across central Europe, had unwittingly unearthed tainted remains of plague victims. Since embalming and disinfecting were unknown to Europeans during the Middle Ages, he postulated that the germs were still viable and waiting to be released into the air. With so much earth blown apart by ammunition blasts, the theory of the unleashed human remains seemed as valid as any other of the time.
Other reports pinpoint the start of the disease as being the morning of March 11, 1918, at Camp Funston in Kansas when Albert Mitchell, a company cook, came down with a low-grade fever, mild sore throat, slight headache, and muscle aches. By noon, 107 soldiers were sick. Within two days, 522 people were sick. Many became critically ill with severe pneumonia.
Then reports started coming in from other military bases around the country. Thousands of sailors off the East Coast were sick, and within a week, the disease was hitting more isolated places. Sixty percent of the population of Nome, Alaska, died.
Whatever the cause, it was clearly airborne, and within seven days, every state in the Union had been infected. Then it spread across the Atlantic. By April, French troops and civilians were infected. By mid-April, it showed up in the Far East. By May, the virus had spread throughout Africa and South America.
In North Dakota, schools and colleges closed their doors for a month or more during the worst part of the epidemic. A 1918 editorial in the North Dakota Agricultural College newspaper encouraged students to cheer up, because after more than a month of no studies or social functions, they were once again able to open the school; meanwhile UND was still closed because of the epidemic.
One story from those times is of Matt Barlett, who homesteaded with his brother, Allison, near Minot in 1908. All went well until the winter of 1918-1919, when the epidemic hit. Allison died, and Matt was taken to a hospital. He sent a message to relatives in Wisconsin asking for help taking care of the ranch and stock. Two volunteered, Charlie and George Bartlett; but both became ill as soon they arrived. Charlie started for home, but was taken off the train at Eau Claire, Wisconsin, where he died. George was nursed by a neighbor and recovered. Matt also recovered, but ended up giving up his ranch.
Fortunately, the 1918 flu peaked within two to three weeks after showing up, leaving as quickly as it arrived. And thankfully, the 1918 strain ran its course that year and has never resurfaced. by Merry Helm
“Dakota Datebook” is a radio series from Prairie Public in partnership with the State Historical Society of North Dakota and with funding from the North Dakota Humanities Council. See all the Dakota Datebooks at prairiepublic.org , subscribe to the “Dakota Datebook” podcast, or buy the Dakota Datebook book at shopprairiepublic.org.