Thursday March 25, 2021 A Blast From The Past

 

 

Larry and the moose he didn't shoot circa 1980s

    I received a mailer the other day on the cover of which was written: 

“WannaskaWriter, Wannaska, Minnesota, 56761 Dean Davidson 8mm movies with WWs family.”

    Curious, I read the handwritten note that accompanied the DVD. It was from Dean’s son, in reference to an old photograph of him I had in my collection and had sent him a week or two earlier, just reaching out to friends and family during this time of Covid. The son responded:

    “I remember that moose. It came up behind the deer stand I was sitting in. I heard something coming in the brush behind me. Slowly I turned around and there he was staring me down. A group of Indians took him later, on Raymond’s land.[Note: This is Red Lake Reservation land now.] This DVD contains clips of you and your family from Dad’s 8mm movies that could be transferred. I don’t know if you have ever seen them, [but] if you have it’s been close to 60 years . . .”

[Note: I couldn't open the DVD with any video management software I have, the way it's been modified, so I just took stilled images on the monitor with my digital camera. The images that follow are poor representations.]

    Larry’s dad, Dean (1937-2019), was a cousin of mine who was born and raised on this farm along Mikinaak Creek. He went to school at Palmville District 44 West, one-room school, a stone’s throw from his home, until the eighth grade. After graduating from Roseau High School, he left Roseau County for Des Moines, Iowa, where we lived. My dad helped him get a job at a dairy where several of my family worked. 

     Dean’s new job enabled him to buy a good many things for his family ‘up home’ in Wannaska, and for himself, one such item being an 8mm movie camera with which he used to take probably hundreds of movies, like the few Larry sent us.

    What a hoot! I’m four or five years old, so that makes it about 1956 or so. I was obviously an obnoxious little shit. None of my older three sisters are married; and apparently are still living at home in the house I grew up in, (but doesn’t exist anymore), and they’re all busy outdoors.


    Ann, my oldest sister now 91, was maybe 26, and Ginger, the second oldest, now deceased, was 24, are washing Dad’s dark gray 1951 Chevy sedan parked half-in and half-out of the single stall garage. Ann is wearing an astonishingly skimpy, bare-midriff halter top and shorts. I have never seen her so brazen!

Ann/1955

 

   

Ann Marie and Ginger circa 1955

     It's obvious Dean was filming everybody with his new-found toy and used it to great advantage in these early days of home movie making. 

 

I remember thinking his movies were ‘way too short, but ‘way too short meant when the film reel had to be changed out and replaced with another, opening and closing film canisters, as others of the audience busied themselves getting comfortable, or heading off to the kitchen, or bathroom, in the interim. A person greatly anticipated seeing the movies but dreaded the long wait times between reels. 

     Ninety percent of the movies I had never seen before. What a trip out of the blue! I laughed -- and admittedly got teary-eyed a bit seeing my mother and dad at ages younger than I am now. I hurriedly called my youngest sister Sandra and told her about all these mysterious old pictures someone sent me of her when she was about 15 or 16  years old.

 

Sandra, my youngest sister eleven years older than me, would’ve been about 16, here wears what she described as “a bandana shirt that was popular back then.” She’s playing with a little Cocker Spaniel puppy that I remember was named “Cookie.” Sandra was the most photographed of the sisters, and was who Dean particularly teased the most.

  

Sandra in her bandana shirt

 

Jumpin' for joy

 

Me and Ginger

 

Aunt Irene and Ginger act out

 

 

Ginger and Aunt Irene just fun

 

 

    "WOW! No wonder you won that Des Moines City Beauty contest!” I remember seeing the photo of Sandra in her RN uniform, smoothing a bed, at Lutheran Hospital. I don’t think she entered the contest as much as someone nominated her for the award. But, judging from her activities in this movie, there were definitely sides to her I never knew about -- and likely the folks either as happens in a lot of families. (Wink, wink; nod, nod.) 

 

Sandra and Dean Red Harley Sportster

 

    Dean purchased two Harleys, over time, the first one looked like a red Sportster; the second one was a green full-dressed model, neither of which the girls were supposed to go on with Dean -- but, as Sandra admitted she did, and almost caught hell for it when she let it slip out in front of Mom, by accident. 

    She had even went flying with Dean, who had gotten his license at some juncture, and never told the folks about it until years later when she was out of the house and married. So, she was obviously a scallywag in the kindest of terms. 

    There was a segment in the movie where she is out at Ann Marie’s farm near Dallas Center and holding a dead squirrel by the tail and a rifle cradled in her arm. She said Dean had lent her the rifle, and after she thought about it, recalled she had shot that squirrel! I was/am truly flabbergasted! Here I’ve always thought I was the only hunter in the family!

    We all knew Ginger was a character; she took after Aunt Irene, Dean’s mother, that way. Very fun-loving, you’d never dare either of them to do anything because they’d likely do it. I think one fed off the one aother’s energies.

    

Dean on Harley circa 1955

  I remember feeling on top of the world when Dean took me to elementary school once or twice, on his Harley; it was just down the street a couple blocks. I thought I was ‘pretty cool’ getting off that motorcycle. There’s no doubt Ma knew about it, but it's funny she didn’t insist he tie me on the thing.

    I know had ever seen these movies before, except one I recognized because I was there when Dean brought our Grandma Palm from Roseau, and our Great Aunt Ida Eiken (Grandma’s sister) from Wannaska, to Des Moines as a surprise. Irene might have been along, but I’m not sure. 

    

Mom, Ann, Janelle, and Grandma Palm

 

 

Mom and her first grandchild, Janelle Baldner

 

 Dad was in cahoots with Dean in setting up the big surprise. He had Mom get out of the car at the front door of the house, instead of the back. She was confused and angry about it, then walked in through the front porch and opened the living room door, that was usually open, at once seeing Dean filming her from the far side of the dining room with his movie camera with its huge light bar illuminating everything. 

    Mom was wondering what in hell was going on, when Grandma Palm, sitting on the couch right inside the door, said something to her in Norwegian. Mom whirled around and JUST SQUEALED, when she saw her mother sitting on the couch behind her -- but could’ve just as well reacted oppositely and whacked the old gal with her purse. Funny, she didn’t have a heart attack then and there. They were laughing and crying at the same time, it was such a surprise for her!

Dean was good like that.

At the end of the movie, Dean stood on a rock, with a bow and arrow along a running stream that I think was here on the farm, and the stream, Mikinaak Creek. Dean had a spool of fishing line wound around a spool on the front of the bow; the line tied to the arrow, when he brought the bow up and shot a fish swimming by, then reeled it in by hand. The last image was him with two large oval-shaped beaver pelts on stretchers, he presumably trapped here too.

Dean Davidson shooting fish with a bow and arrow along Mikinaak Creek circa 1955

Dean really loved this place.

 

"Careful Dad, you know what can become of a little smooch like that. It's sitting beside you,"             said Sandra