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fatal when found in filthy localities. “These common and visible forms of filth are seen in the untidiness of living and sleeping rooms, in the filthy condition of clothing and persons, in decaying garbage in cellars, in the faulty conditions of cess-pools and privy-vaults.”8 Although this warning placed immense pressure on the housekeeping skills of a family, at least a mother and father could exercise control over these conditions. But the bulletin gave further warnings about the dangerous invisible forms found in drinking water, soil, and odorous gases in drains and sewers. This insidious unseen virus that “is apt to attach itself to clothing, bedding, furniture and be retained for a long time in the walls of the rooms” required that homes receive all the “sunlight possible and a liberal supply of fresh air.”9 Keeping a poorly ventilated sod home in high sanitary conditions was impossible and perhaps prompted the Estbys to build their frame home and outbuildings on the homestead.10

Although doctor’s experiences showed that even the very neatest families living in commodious homes could suffer as much as those in small squalid hovels, the general perception prevailed that poor housekeeping contributed to a family’s tragedy. This added another burden, usually borne by the mother of a home. This opinion also heaped guilt onto the deep grief of losing a child. The Estby family managed to avoid this tragedy that struck some Minnesota communities with as many as eighty to ninety deaths during epidemic stages. But they inevitably carried the anxiety created by these epidemics.

Another burden that dwelled inside each homesteader involved the Estbys directly. If contagious disease epidemics caused an unseen fear for Minnesota farm families, wild prairie fires caused a visible and tangible terror. Fires demanded constant vigilance if farmers hoped to save their homes, barns, grain piles, stock, and livelihood from swift obliteration. But unlike the invisible menace from diphtheria, pioneers knew they could take steps to protect their property by plowing fire breaks and scanning the skies daily for any sign of smoke.

With even a mild wind, fire was treacherous because one never knew where it might start up. And with a bad wind, prairie fires swept everything before it. When sparks flew into the hay, often everything on the farm could be lost. If a fire threatened a homestead, everyone big enough to help fought the fire. Women often took some old clothing, like a woolen coat dipped in water, and wiped the ground with it, dragging it along the blaze.

In one terror-filled afternoon, Helga fought a fire that came within feet of their home.11 The Estbys saw signs of the fire raging across the prairie; by the time the suffocating smoke neared their home, the roar and crackle of flames threw sparks high in the air, terrifying their livestock and young children. As she needed to help fight the fire, Helga could not comfort their screaming little ones. They managed to save their house and barn—many neighbors were not so lucky and lost their wheat stacks. Worse yet, a farm husband and wife were badly burned from fighting the fire.12

After the frightening fire, one final threat convinced Helga they needed to move their growing family off the Minnesota homestead. Sudden and unpredictable cyclones and tornadoes created devastating damage to life and property in Minnesota and pioneers barely had time to flee into the dugouts that every farm needed. In 1885, a tornado hit the Canby area particularly hard.

(following pages) Helga and Ole, around 1887, with six of their children shortly before selling their prairie homestead in Canby, Minnesota, and moving to Spokane Falls, Washington Territory.

Courtesy Portch/Bahr Family Photograph Collection. Detail of this photograph on this page.

The Estbys felt the same fear as their neighbors felt on “Black Friday,” the name given to a frightening storm on June 19, 1885. Near sundown, Helga looked on the horizon and saw a dark cloud roll in from the west. Within minutes, it began to rain in torrents