4. may 2023 Raymond Leroy Palm 1911-2002

    A Fall To Grace

"We all have witnessed this positive attitude and humble patience of this quiet man." --Janet Strandlie

      On July 3, 1932, my younger brother Clifford, Helmfred Johnson, and I were sitting around at the Johnson place with nothing to do. Anyway, Helmfred started up a tree and I after him. He got up as high as he could go and I was going to go to another tree that was close. I leaned over to the other tree and the branch broke and down I went. It was about 18 ft up.

    I landed on the ground and they helped me walk a bit over to an old Model T and took me to Thief River Falls to the doctor. I knew I was hurt but not how bad. I stayed at the hospital and the next morning I felt like I was paralyzed. The doctor took an X-ray.

     After three or four days I went with Dad to Minneapolis by train. I couldn’t move my legs or pass my water. My arm and a couple ribs were broken; I was on a stretcher on the train. We left Thief River at night and got to the cities the next morning. At the University of Minnesota I had surgery to take a blood clot off of the spine, but it didn’t help any. Dad went home after a week; he stayed in a room nearby. 

    I was there three weeks and got the permanent catheter. They cast the arm and the left wrist; I had broken the right arm years before, cranking Uncle Edwin’s old Maxwell. I was in the hospital 3 weeks. Dad got a ride back down to Minneapolis with Knute Lee’s cattle truck. They couldn't do more for me at the U and so I went home by train with Dad; I sat up in the coach. We went to Greenbush to the hospital the last part of July; I stayed in the hospital there over winter. The doctor and his nurse/wife there pretty much took care of me by themselves. I just laid in bed or sat upright in a chair, during all that period.

    In the spring of next year, everyone thought I should try a chiropractor and made an appointment with a doctor in Crookston. We had such a poor car that Elmer Benson drove Martin and Dad and me there one morning, the first part of May. I had an extensive examination, during which they took several pictures. After looking they decided they wouldn’t try anything because the bones were getting soft. The doctor said I had six weeks to six months to live.

    They told us some patients had lived up to 12 years this way, but said I shouldn’t expect to live that long. It didn’t really bother me. I thought I’d live as long as I could, whatever will be, will be, and all that. As it was, I outlived the doctor who said that.

    When we came home from Crookston that night we went straight home. They didn't take me back to the Greenbush Hospital.

    After I had been home awhile, Dad found out about a used wheelchair near Greenbush, so he got it but it had no cushion. Pretty soon I got sores. Well, I had some from the hospital too. Two inch by two inch open sores. You could see the muscle and where it had been draining; sores were on both hip bones, on my back and my butt, and on my heels. Mother and Dad did everything they knew and used what they had, and finally got them healed up. I still have the scars, but haven’t had any to speak of since. It wasn’t easy in the Great Depression; it was hard for Grandma but she was a good nurse.

    I was at home in 1937 when Dad got killed. I’d fixed a few guns and done some whittling on gunstocks. I’d made a stock on Dad’s rifle. Anyway, Ed Strandberg came out to sell a washing machine. He stayed all afternoon and looked at the guns. He finally sold a machine we couldn’t afford, but boy was Ma happy! I was too.

Ed Strandberg needed a stock on a 30-40 Krag

 

    Ed needed a stock on his 30-40 Krag and asked me if I would make him one. Well, I didn’t have much else to do! So I said I’d try, which I did. He was so happy with it, he took it to the Roseau County Fair and displayed it there. He and his brother Willie [Roseau County Treasurer], who had polio, and [John] Burke [Register of Deeds] thought maybe I could do other handwork and maybe watch repair. They came out to the farm and inquired about my interest in it. I said I could try as I always liked to work on cars and tractors.

    They made me a little table and brought me a few tools and a few broken watches no one else would fix. I started on it and picked it up pretty good and then kept working on those old junkers and fixed quite a few. Then through a rehabilitation program, E.O. Anderson [the jeweler] came out to the farm about once a week for three months and taught me. I had some books I studied too.

    In 1949 or 1950, I took a test for the Minnesota Watchmaker’s Board in Minneapolis. I had to send two kinds of watches to them. They broke them up, i.e., broke the stems, bent the wheels and other things that I was supposed to fix and send back, which I did, plus a couple test sheets with 20 technical questions to fill out. I passed the test, so they sent me my license. I had a regular shop on the farm. 

    My brothers, Clinton and Ervin took over the farm after Dad died; I helped them with repairs and advice, as I could. People came from all over the county with watches and guns to repair, mostly by word-of-mouth. No advertising! In between, three business men from Roseau got me a set of used tools they had found in South Dakota: a watchmaker’s bench and tools to get along with, for fifty dollars; John Regelstad went there and got it. The Roseau men would come out once in awhile to check on me!

   I got a lot of mail order work. When the boys hauled cream into Wannaska, they picked up our mail from the post office. I'd often get up to 15-20 packages every month. This went on until we left the farm.

       In 1935, I went back to the university again. They wanted me to have a check-up and see if there was any improvement. So in September, Dad, me, and Martin, (Martin drove, as he had the only decent car) stayed the night at Martin's sister Mable’s home. The next morning I went to the hospital and they went back uphome. I was there about a week, but there was nothing more they could do, so Dad came to get me on the train. All I got was another sore on my heel. I’ve got scars on my heels from when they cut them open and drained them trying to heal them up.

       I had a lot of infection in the bladder and kidneys. I got a ten day chill. I’d sweat and then I’d freeze and then sweat. Irene went to Dr. Berge and got some capsules. Boy, were they the best thing! I sweat and sweat but then it was over. I never knew what it was, but they were good. Later the sulfur drugs kept the infection down; the newer drugs prolonged my life. Lots of times I had chills and I was sick but it would go over. That has been up until the last years. Then in 1979,  I got so sick on Thanksgiving Day, that I went to the hospital in Roseau and ended up having surgery for kidney stones in Grand Forks.

Janet wrote: This story is thoroughly amazing and the miracle of his life and well-being is totally unique. The good humor and patience that he has maintained is the greatest example to anyone who has known him and his greatest gift of inheritance is that we all have witnessed this positive attitude and humble patience of this quiet man and grown from it.

Raymond and I in 2001 is one-of-the-last images of Raymond and depicts the debilitating effect of arthritis in both his hands; hands that had once enabled him to literally craft a relatively independent life for himself for seventy-one years, after his accident.