Bold Spirit - Linda Hunt [21]
Beyond their home and fields grew magnificent ponderosa pine forests to wander through, a mountain to lift your eyes and spirit each day, and a mild climate that brought an early spring and a dry summer. The family gathered wildflowers and created bouquets of Indian paintbrush, ladyslippers, bluebells, trilliums, and wild roses to grace their polished handcrafted furnishings. On snowbound wintry evenings, Helga enjoyed crocheting delicate lace for tablecloths, an art she learned as a child in Christiana.
Less protective as a mother now, Helga allowed the older children to take trips to the nearby town of Rockford, a six-mile walk that Olaf especially liked to do.13 The entire family enjoyed visiting the town’s general mercantile store where barrels of apples, prunes, apricots, and a showcase full of candy appealed to the children. Hardware supplies, barrels of molasses, and coal oil, as well as the bank in the back of the store, drew in the adults. Helga bought fabrics to sew the children’s clothes and enjoyed conversations with local women. Sometimes the family joined the crowd at the train depot waiting for mail delivery, always a favorite event in the city. The trains brought memories of their own adventures riding across the continent from Minnesota.
They shopped at George B. Hurd and Company’s General Store, which was kept well stocked for farm family’s needs.
Courtesy Frances E. Hurd Collection.
The Estbys still traveled to Spokane for cultural events. “They had lots of operas and things that would come,” recalled daughter Ida. “But that was too expensive for our family because one couldn’t go unless we all went.” They especially enjoyed seeing live musical performances of the Jessie Shirley Company and theater performances. However, these excursions were extremely rare.14 Just the train fare for a family of eleven could be prohibitive. Each year though, they did take advantage of the special one-cent-a-mile railway excursion rates aimed to bring surrounding citizens into Spokane to enjoy the annual parades and Fourth-of-July Food Fair. Enticing displays of sun-ripened pears, peaches, cherries, giant squash and potatoes, red-cheeked apples, and wheat and sunflowers encouraged settlers like the Estbys to develop their farms, offering proof of what good earth and hard work could produce.
When the Estbys bought their land in 1892, Ole built their comfortable home and planned to continue making his primary earnings as a carpenter, not as a farmer. He expected to hire out in Rockford, help nearby farmers build barns and outbuildings, or ride the train to work in Spokane. While they built up the farm to meet their family needs, Helga occasionally hired out as a seamstress to augment their incomes.
However, just one year after Ole built their new home, national events shattered the Estby’s assumptions about America’s ongoing prosperity and their personal ability to keep their farm.
6 FINANCIAL FEARS AND A FAMILY DEATH
The children could not understand how the signing of a piece of paper could change everything, but it did … Moor (their mother) was very different. She went around as if she were carrying a burden.
—A. RAAEN, GRASS OF THE EARTH
During 1893, Helga traveled away from the family twice, perhaps to help her mother in Wisconsin after her stepfather’s death. During these months of her absence, the children wrote affectionate letters to their mother, using their recently learned English.1 A long letter from Ida, now twelve, dated February 9, 1893, let her mother know of important family events. Ida’s reference to Christy indicates the likelihood of an earlier connection.
Dear Mother
I will write a few lines to you and tell you that we are all and Will (now 10 months old) is good he can stand alone by the wall and he crawls all over the floor and puts every thing in his mouth I will tell you that my shoes fit me nicely. Henry felt bad because he did not get any shoes. Papa bought some overhols for