December 9th, 2021

  

 

Albert Nelson posed for John Hovorka at the Hovorka mailbox.

Albert Nelson and His Snowmobile 

As remembered by his son, Harry A. Nelson, of Huss Township, Roseau County, Minnesota.

   Albert Nelson of Strathcona was a rural mail carrier in Deer, Huss, and Poplar Grove Townships from 1921-1944. The eastern border of his 30-mile mail route was the section line between Poplar Grove and Palmville. At the juncture of his return route Albert would stop to visit or argue politics with the highly opinionated and radical Hovorkas, T.V. and his son John.

   John (who later would publish his personal views of the state of the world from his homestead in Palmville via The Northwest Radical, and become the godfather, of sorts, of The Raven and The Palmville Press/MRWP), photographed Albert in front of the Hovorka home as was seen on the front page of The Raven, Volume 3 Issue 1, February 1996 S.L.O.D. June 1996.

   At that time Albert used a 1931 Model A snowmobile, a custom designed automobile with tracks in the back and skis on the front, to traverse his mail route in the early days of winter mail delivery in northwest Minnesota. https://www.hagerty.com/media/automotive-history/rare-1926-ford-model-t-snowmobile-has-the-white-stuff/

   Albert Nelson was born in 1891 in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin to Anton K. and Christine Nelson, both immigrants from Norway. In 1918 Albert married Ann Margret Larson, who was born in 1889. Albert and Ann came to Roseau County in 1904 and homesteaded the northwest quarter of Section 29 in Huss Township. They had four children: Harry Nelson of Huss Township; Irene (Mrs. Irene Clow, of Aztec, New Mexico; Mildred (Mrs. James Carrier of Middle River; and Evelyn Voecks of Thief River Falls.

   Albert and Ann cleared their land and farmed. In the winter Albert cut pulpwood to buy groceries and hauled the loads into Strathcona with horses. In 1921 Albert began delivering mail. He used a 1917 Model T in the summer when the roads were passable and used three teams of horses, each team on different parts of the route, in the wintertime when there were no roads on much of the route.

   Albert’s days began at 8:00 am and ended well after dark in those early days of his mail carrying career. He would drive the old team into Strathcona, where Hans Lerum was the postmaster, to sort mail. Albert used a horse drawn caboose, an enclosed bobsled, those winter days. Albert would place a red-hot chunk of coal from his woodstove into a small heater near his feet in the caboose, the heat from the coal lasting all day.

A horse drawn caboose, an enclosed bobsled

   Albert changed teams at Leonard Modal’s place in Section 3 Poplar Grove, and continue on his way with fresh horses. After a big storm Albert would have his son Harry go with him on his route to help shovel or push when the situation required it. When I asked Harry if Albert ever used skis or walked his mail route, Harry said his dad never walked it, but he remembered walking the route past Bernat’s and west to Hodiks many times where his dad would pick him up.

   Harry rode with Albert almost daily on his mail route, but even so had to stop and think about the exact route of their delivery area. Not so when asked the names of the horses that served them almost daily those many years: Dick, Fly, Prince, Lady, Kate, and Susie; one white, two black, one buckskin, one bay and one iron-gray.

   After about five or six years Albert bought his first ‘snowmobile’, a 1927 Model T Ford. It had tracks powered by the back wheels and retractable skis on the front steering axle. When travelling on sections of dry road the skis could be retracted and the front tires used instead. Harry said his dad bought the car with the tracks and skis on it, it was nothing that his dad had built himself.

   In 1930 Ann died at the age of 41. Albert was left with the care of Harry and his three sisters, but Albert was used to caring for others as he helped raise his two half-brothers to adulthood, and cared for his father, Anton, who also lived with Ann and Albert, until he died.

   Albert also sometimes delivered groceries to his mail patrons as a special favor to them; Harry said he was ‘just being a good neighbor.’

   Road conditions varied through the year and Albert knew them all. Some of the roads in the later years were ditched and had culverts, others were just dirt or mud trails. One stretch of road east of Cordell Wiskow’s  and by Clifford Bjerk’s was a corduroy road built of logs laid side-by-side and lashed together over swampy ground.

   Despite the improvement the Model T snowmobile brought to winter mail delivery over the caboose  and team, horses still proved their worth by pulling vehicles free whenever they were stuck in mud or snow. Even when the horses were belly deep in snow they had the power to pull a car free. Harry remembered, “Johnny Raichl pulled us out many times with his beautiful sorel team.”

   One of Harry’s jobs was to replace the chain links whenever they became too worn to use. He also doubled as mechanic a time or two when Albert broke down along the route as was the case in such severe conditions. However, the snowmobile worked surprisingly well over the snow in those days when the winter roads weren’t graded and it was up to you to break your own trail.

   Albert had broke down east of Raichl’s with the ‘31 Model A snowmobile because one of the gears had stripped. Harry’s Uncle Anneus drove Harry and Strathcona mechanic, Elmer “Bags” Norland, out to Raichl’s in the ‘31 Model A with balloon tires. This car would later become the winter mail car as its airplane flotation tires went over the snow even better than skis and tracks.

   Harry built a makeshift windbreak from old binder canvas and dug it in around the tracks of the snowmobile as Bags removed the rear wheel and hub to get into the gears. Harry thought it may have been a common problem as the Strathcona garage had the gear on-hand and the snowmobile was repaired in a short time.

   Albert drove the mail route almost to his dying day. Harry remembered his dad’s last day on the route was when he  pulled into Joe Gaarde’s yard so weak from the growing effects of cancer that Joe had to turn the snowmobile around for him to head back on his way. Albert died on April 11, 1944.

   Harry’s cousin, Alfred Hamburg, took over the route after Albert’s death. He bought the ‘31 Model A and put balloon tires on it. An old photo Harry had, showed Alfred, and Birdene Thompson of Poplar Grove, standing in front of the car with its 40-48-inch tires and lofty ground clearance, but due to space constraints in ‘The Raven’  25-years ago, we could not use it.
 
   Curtis Johnson of Palmville took a Johnny Hovorka negative we had acquired and had printed to Birdene Thompson, of Poplar Grove, who identified Albert as the mailman standing by Johnny Hovorka’s mailbox, and said his son Harry lived near Strathcona. Harry and his wife Doris, were more than happy to relate information about Albert and his mail route.

   The constraints of space in a small ‘gazette’ such as The Raven once was, did not allow the use of all the photos and information that one person’s life or career deserves. However, to put a name and brief biography to an otherwise unknown face in an old forgotten photograph is to perhaps, if anything, bring life to old memories once again. 

Thanks to all -- SR/Wannaskawriter: https://palmvilletownshipmn.blogspot.com/