23. mars 2023 Stories of The Louis Palms Part 1

 

Family of Willie and Annie Palm. Raymond in doorway. From Raymond's left CW: Ervin, Clifford and Delores; Jack, Martin and Irene; Annie; unknown woman; Clinton; Dean.

    Forty years ago, in February of 1983, Janet Davidson (Strandlie), of Thief River Falls, Minnesota acted as a caregiver for a week for my uncle, the late Raymond Palm, of Roseau, Minnesota, who was a paraplegic as a result of a tree-climbing accident in 1932. Raymond, a jeweler and gunsmith, had an adjoining living space and shop in a house (on Center Street) in which he lived with his sister, Irene, and her husband John. Janet helped Raymond while they were away on a vacation. Raymond ‘walked on’ in 2002, at age 91, after 71 years in a wheelchair.

    I sit here in Raymond’s old wooden wheelchair on a Saturday morning, talking to Raymond in his bed. This is a good time to catch him to get the information-- pick his brain -- so to speak. I can’t believe how he can rattle off these dates and remember the year that everything has happened. I am up here staying with him while [Irene and John] are vacationing in sunny Hawaii. Steve is here too. Jack and the kids are coming for the weekend tonight. Raymond reminds me that is the oldest Palm left now (1983); a cousin Adolph Dahlstrom died yesterday, but Raymond is now the oldest Palm! This is hopefully a synopsis of the Palm’s life story, as told to me by Raymond. Here we go---

Janet writes: “These are Raymond’s words, (with edits by WW) written as fast as possible as he wove the tales and brought up story after story. He would laugh so hard at once & then sometimes shed a tear! This was not done in one sitting, but I think over that one week in 1983. I think he really enjoyed it. I hope you do too.”

(Raymond Palm was my mother's oldest brother. (Violet Palm Reynolds). As I'm somewhat knowledgeable about our family history, I've edited spellings, date of deaths, and clarification on chronological events as I deemed necessary throughout this original document. ) WW/SR

February 26, 1983

Stories of The Louis Palms as told by Raymond Palm

    Being born in 1911, Raymond doesn’t remember Grandpa Louis Palm (1855-1913), but he did know his Grandma Ingeborg (Ingegerd) (Anderson) Palm (1856-1932). Louis and Ingeborg were both born in Varmland, Sweden, (married in 1878) and came to America in 1882. She was well and living on the old Palm Place along the Roseau River (a cedar log home that she and Louis built after their arrival in 1895) where Levi stayed, that is now by the Frank & Shirley (Palm) Cwikla farm.
 

    "Ingeborg was a jolly old Swede, heavy, looked a lot like Jenny Nordstrom now. Levi and [his brother] Joe were living there when she died in 1932. Louis and Ingeborg had 12 kids by 1903: Mary, Minnie, Willie, Sam, David, Andrew, Petrus, Levi, Ida Joseph, Oscar and Hannah. 

Petrus, Andrew, Sam, and David Palm sons of Louis and Ingeborg

    “Old Louis Palm once caught his little sons chewing tobacco so he took a big wad and boiled it, making a form of strong tea and made them drink it! They all got sick as dogs, but it evidently didn’t cure them, as they all chewed as they got older ...” 

    "Willie’s sister Ida and one of her younger brothers, probably Oscar, were sent out by Louis to go get the cows for milking. On the way, they saw up ahead a bear! So they got scared and started running for home. But then they stopped and realized if they came home without the cows they’d have to face Pa and that would be worse than facing the bear! So back they went, skirting around the bear and brought the cows back home safely. They were just small children at this time. 

    Raymond’s mother, Annie (Berg) Palm’s folks, Amund (Bergh/Berg) and Karolina/Karina (Hoiland) Berg were born in Houston County, Minnesota: Amund in 1860, Karina in 1863. Raymond didn’t know when Amund and Karina were married, only that they moved up to Casperson, Minnesota in 1907. (Casperson was then between Skime and Wannaska.) They farmed a few years. Karina was not well in her last years, frail. It was said that Amund was a kind of mean man -- tough on his wife and kids, as many of the pioneers were. 

    The following story is an example how Amund was treated by his own father: “Amund was herding cows as a boy. He made a fire and it got away from him, burning up some hay in a field. When his dad found out, he took the boy’s hand and put it in the woodstove on live coals. Amund carried the scars all his life, but it didn’t cure him. He grew to have a penchant for starting fires that did damage across the townships, becoming  known as a ‘fire bug,’ the rest of his life.  

    Amund had five children: one son, Edwin (1897-1941) and four daughters, Ella, Amy, Alice, and Annie. After Karina died in 1921, Amund and Edwin moved in with Wilhelm/Willie and Annie Palm. He had lost his farm in the 1930s depression as many others did. Amund and Edwin helped with the daily chores. Amund died there in 1941.

Willie, Raymond, Helfred Johnson, Edwin Berg 1930 or 31

    That takes care of what was remembered of that generation, now Willie and Annie. Wilhelm aka Willie Palm (1884-1937) and Annie Berg Palm (1887-1969). 

    "Annie worked out as a hired girl in a hotel-restaurant in McIntosh, when her family lived near Gary, Minnesota. She was about 20 years old when they moved to Casperson. Willie came to Roseau County in 1895 from Alvarado in Polk County, Minnesota with Louis and a couple of his younger brothers, looking for land that moreso resembled the forests of Sweden than the desolate prairie lands of the Red River Valley. 

    "Willie and Annie were married in 1907 by old man Torfin (Iver) Justice of the Peace (Audrey Palm’s grandfather). They moved to a small log house where Willie had homesteaded just west of his home along Mikinaak Creek. In 1908, their boy ‘Dewey’ was born but died in a few days as he was born without an anal opening. No doctor, no undertaker, he was buried in a homemade box in the Palmville Cemetery. 

   " In 1909, Violet (Steve’s mother) was born on May 17. In 1910, on New Year’s Eve, they went to Grandpa Palm’s where the family was gathered. They came home in a horse and sleigh to find the house in flames, burned almost to the ground. One corner yet remained where Willie happened to have his rifle, which he was able to save (most likely a Winchester 30-30). They had nothing left!!

    "They then hauled in an old shack, they got from Orla (Ora) Larson, on a sled, that they lived in for about three years. (This Ola or Ora is the old ‘Ola Pluggin’[Ula Ploog-en] that Clifford tells about. He was a cobbler and may have gotten this name because his specialty was using oak plugs instead of nails in making shoes because the oak plugs didn’t rust!)

    Raymond was born in this shack in 1911. "Willie had 160 acres, a homestead quarter, most of it in woods. He worked at clearing his land for fields. He and other men went out to North Dakota and worked on threshing crews. Later he and his brother Andrew bought a steam engine and went to North Dakota doing custom threshing from 1924-1926, selling out his share to Andrew in ‘26. 

    "Clifford was born in 1915 after they had moved into their new house. And quite a house it was for then: a full two stories with a basement and attic. 

    'Willie built the log house with help of a cousin of Annie’s, a Henry Berg from Spring Grove, who stayed with them a half year building it. Henry took a homestead nearby, but worked several years with Willie, until the house was completed. 

    ""Irene was born in 1917. Ervin in 1921, and Clinton in 1924. All the kids went to school at Palmville District 44 West, a mile south of their home, and graduated from eighth grade there. None went further.

    “Another time, Sam was in trouble as usual. The other brothers ganged up on him and tied him to a log and threw it in the river. Of course, as he struggled, the log turned to where Sam was on the bottom. They let him float downstream awhile before they rescued him again. 

    “One time Petrus told how Sam got drunk at a dance, so the brothers tied him up and left him in the corner of the hall to sober up until the next day. (A hall was a public township  building.)

    Petrus got sand in his eye when he was four or five years old and a grain stuck to his eye and couldn’t be removed. A doctor put some strong solution to clean it, and ‘the cure’ left Pete blind for life in that eye. He also lost some little fingers of one of his hands in a saw mill accident. 

    "Pete was the last living ‘old Palm’ who died in 1981 at age 89. He always said, with his stammer, that he was born 400 years after Columbus discovered America! (1892)

 

Part 2     Next week